
10-07-2007, 02:54 AM
posted to rec.food.historic
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Merrell-Soule Company?
enoavid wrote:
"Jean B." wrote in news:5ffrlmF3asuegU1
@mid.individual.net:
I am starting to catalog my cookbooks and recipe booklets on
librarything. I was just doing an entry for a Merrell-Soule
Booklet and wonder if any of you have any information on them.
They were located in Syracuse, New York, and products
mentioned in the booklet are None Such Mince Meat, Klim
Powdered Milk, Powdered Lemon Juice and Corn Syrup (they were
calling it powdered lemon juice, but a picture of the can
shows it is also corn syrup)
The undated booklet contains a few interesting ideas, if you
like mincemeat: mincemeat ice cream (hmm, I wonder whether
one can just add some to softened vanilla ice cream),
mincemeat baked custard, and mincemeat sandwich filling (1 pkg
[size unknown] cream cheese, 3 Tbsps mincemeat, and enough
mayo to produce a creamy consistency--use on whole wheat, nut,
or brown bread).
Oh! Using different search parameters, I found the following
bit of a January 30, 1928 article in Time:
"Milk, Mincemeat, Fruit Juice. The Borden business began in
1857 with Gail Borden's discovery of a method of condensing
milk. The Borden Company is the present result. In 1927 it was
the largest manufacturer of evaporated and condensed milk and
the largest distributor of fluid milk and cream in the U. S.
It also sold butter, eggs, malted milk, caramels. Recently it
acquired ice cream factories. Added to Borden products by
merger last week were dried whole milk (Klim and Parlac),
dried skimmed milk (Merrell-Soule and Breadlac) mincemeat
(None Such), dried orange and lemon juices—all products
prepared by the Merrell-Soule Co., which has as subsidiaries
the Merrell-Soule Co. of England and Canadian Milk Products
Co. Ltd. Merrell-Soule is to dried milk what Borden is to
condensed —originator and largest producer."
That answers the question I had about the mincemeat. I wonder
when the Merrell-Soule name stopped being used?
This site discussed industry in Syracuse:
http://syracusethenandnow.org/Histor...racuseBoom.htm
and says: Mincemeat
G. Lewis Merrell and Oscar F. Soule, who started a company to can
vegetables in 1868, later discovered a way to make low-moisture,
marketable mincemeat from dry ingredients. Merrell-Soule Co.'s "None
Such" brand mincemeat became a national success. The company later
produced powdered milk, too.
In 1904, Merrell-Soule built a five-story plant in Franklin Square. By
the 1920s, the company had 26 factories and employed 900 people, about
half of whom worked in Syracuse. Borden Inc. bought the company in 1928.
There was a factory in Fayetteville, some postcard photos:
http://www.fayettevillefreelibrary.o..._Business.html
And Ebay has some ads for various products, mentioning Frewsburg. The
latest date, on a cursory glance, was 1931.
This page: http://www.oldandsold.com/articles11...ntrol-13.shtml
describes the Merrell-Soule process for drying milk.
According to this site:
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/compa...n-Inc-Company-
History.html
Borden restructured in 1995 and divested itself of the dairy business,
and it looks like "Klim" is still being produced and sold, by Nestle, who
picked it up, along with Cremora, in 1998:
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/compa...e;-SA-Company-
History.html
None Such mincemeat is still around, too:
http://www.eaglenonesuch.com/
(no ice cream recipe, tho'!)
Interesting diversion on a hot evening!
d.
Cool! (Hmm, interesting comment given YOUR sign-off.) I
could have done more research myself, so I apologize for
having you do it--and I thank you. You got farther than I did.
I was kind-of surprised to see that None Such was a M-S
product, since I have only seen booklets for it that came out
after Borden's acquisition of it.
--
Jean B.
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