Duncan Hines

by Louis Hatchett

  After displaying for the press the number of wristwatches he had strapped to his arms, he pulled out of his trouser pocket a new timepiece, a wristwatch he had bought in Switzerland that was made of glass on both sides and displayed a dozen wheels silently clicking away but bringing him the time. “Took two men three months to make this,” he said. “Cost a bit, but it saves me money. I’m so dad-blamed busy winding these watches up I don’t have time to buy drinks for some blamed redhead.”

  The conversation returned to food. Comparing the cuisine on the French and English ocean liners, Hines said that the “French spend so much time making it look pretty. On the English boats the food is very good, but they don’t doll it up so.” He parted with one last critique of France’s food. “Over there the vegetables are swimming in sauce and you can’t taste the flavor of the vegetables. Next time I go, I’m going to take me a little boat to put the sauce in.”687

  When all but one reporter had left, the moment Hines had been waiting for had finally arrived: his first meal in America after having been away from its cuisine for eight solid weeks. And Duncan Hines knew exactly what he wanted. He went to a nearby restaurant, sat down at a table, and consumed a hearty, robust meal of ham and eggs. It was the perfect way to end his trip.688 Said Hines, with a wink, “I’d almost forgotten how good they can be!”689

  20

  WE DEDICATE THIS BOX…

  In 1955 the Duncan Hines Institute published two volumes. The first was Duncan Hines’ Dessert Book, a collection of Hines’s favorite after-dinner recipes; it was followed later in the year by the ever-so-slightly autobiographical Duncan Hines’ Food Odyssey.690 The Dessert Book was a standard paperback book. As was Adventures in Good Cooking, the Dessert Book was compiled from recipes submitted by restaurants and Hines’s many friends and family members. As was the case with the older book, blank areas were filled with household hints, suggestions, admonitions, and an assortment of Duncan Hines homilies. The book contained a total of 555 recipes, which made it a comprehensive range of sugary confections guaranteed to satisfy anyone with a craving for something sweet to eat.691 The book was distributed through Pocket Books, a mass-market paperback publisher, and an initial print-run of 250,000 copies was ordered, thus enabling it to reach “a much broader cross section of the country” than Adventures in Good Cooking ever had. The volume is still a treasured volume in the libraries of hundreds of cooks.692

  Later that year Duncan Hines’ Food Odyssey hit bookstore shelves. Originally titled There’s No Accounting For Tastes, it was touted as an autobiography; but with the exception of the first two chapters, there was little autobiography in it. A more appropriate title should have been Duncan Hines’ Travelogue, the book, an entertaining read, was essentially a tour of the many restaurants Hines had visited over the years, accompanied by a short discussion of his recent activities with the Duncan Hines Institute.693

  On 9 May 1955, at the 14th Annual Duncan Hines Family Dinner in Chicago, attended by approximately 300 members of his restaurant and lodging listings,694 Hines predicted, presciently, that “by 1975 the average homemaker will spend an average of only 15 minutes a day [preparing food] in the home compared to the 90 minutes she spends today.” 695 But he spent most of his time speaking at great length of his recent travels. He told the crowd that, earlier in the year, he and Clara had covered 10,000 miles in their automobile in three months. As they were driving through Texas, he said, they stopped in Beaumont. As was the case more often than not, it was not long before a newspaper reporter showed up. When Hines mentioned that he was on his way to Mexico, he was asked if he was carrying a pistol.

  “NO!” Hines said, adding that he “would not know how to use one.” Within twenty-four hours Beaumont’s citizens presented him with a Stetson hat instead of a gun so he would not seem out of place upon his arrival. Hines liked the hat so much that he wore it during the entire time he was in the country and said that because of it, he had no trouble with the Mexican natives or anyone else.

  While they were traveling through Mexico, he said that he and Clara had to watch what they put in their mouths. “In Mexico,” he said, “we ate no unpeeled fruit and no uncooked vegetables, thus no illness.” They encountered few unsatisfactory edibles during the course of his trip. On two occasions, however, they slipped up. At one forgotten spot on the map, they attempted to eat some frijoles—or Mexican beans. Said Hines, “I like beans, but what I was served had been pulverized and apparently mixed with axle grease, so I ate none. One taste was enough.” Another time, in Metamoras, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, he and Clara were invited by a friend to try Mexican quail at the Cucaracha Cafe, the name meaning Cockroach. When he saw it, Hines roared with laughter. “What a name for a restaurant!” Of the meal itself, he said that “the quail turned out to be our common blackbird. The breast was black as pitch.” After their meal, he and Clara made no plans to return to the Cucaracha Cafe; being served blackbird had quenched their curiosity. Later, when they saw a billboard advertising the delights to be consumed at the Striped Skunk Restaurant, they did not even bother to stop—or slow down; they figured that, after consuming “Mexican quail,” there was no telling what “regional favorite” that questionable restaurant would dump onto their dinner plates.696

  Hines was a creature of habit. Although he enjoyed traveling, he did not like to upset his daily routines, and he could become quite annoyed if he could not fit his quotidian rituals into his schedule. One ritual he insisted on was going to bed at nine o’clock. When attending a dinner party while in the company of others and nearing the hour when his body demanded rest, he had several stratagems for getting to bed when he wished. One of these was to wear two or three different wristwatches on his arm, the alarm for each set a few seconds apart. Therefore, when he was seated at the dinner table and the hour was growing late, it was not unusual for one of his wristwatches to suddenly blast into action, making loud, disruptive, easily heard noises. When, moments later, another of his timepieces shattered the evening’s congenial atmosphere, those in his party knew that he had something better to do.

  On one occasion, while he was a guest on a radio program, Hines decided he did not care for the line of questioning. Therefore, as he spoke, he surreptitiously reached into his coat pocket full of watches. Suddenly, one of the wristwatch alarms began emitting an annoying, irritating sound. While the radio technicians turned numerous dials and flipped an army of switches in an effort to keep the cacophony off the air, Hines furiously turned the timepiece over and over in his hands and shook it as he pretended not to know how to turn it off. Within a few seconds his spot on the show was cut short and, as he had hoped, he was quickly dismissed by the show’s host.697

  Sales of Duncan Hines products continued to soar. Not only was Hines-Park, Inc. involved in marketing quality foodstuffs, it was also carving out a niche for itself in the food appliance arena; by the end of 1955 it had licensed over fifty kitchen items brandishing the Duncan Hines name, “from cooking ranges to a Duncan Hines coffee-maker.”698 In September 1955, speaking before the southern district of the Advertising Federation of America in Alabama, Roy Park reported that gross “sales of Duncan Hines foods at the retail level amount[ed] to about $50,000,000 a year,” and proudly stated there were now over ninety licensed food manufacturers in the program “with advertising appropriations totaling approximately $3,000,000 annually.”699 He also told them about a year-old enterprise his company had inaugurated, the Duncan Hines Signet Club. Park described this as “a travel and credit service,…with some 50,000 members whose credit cards [were] honored by 2,300 Duncan Hines-recommended eating, lodging and vacation places in Canada, Mexico and points of interest in the Caribbean,” as well as in the United States. Members could essentially “eat at the best restaurants” in America and “pay for their meals at the end of the month.”700 Hines liked the idea and wished something like it had been available fifty years earlier.701

  As the end of 195
5 rolled around, Duncan Hines had quite a bit to be proud of. Twenty years had passed since he had mailed that unique 1935 Christmas card to keep others from pestering him. As he dropped his cards in the mailbox, he had no idea what he was setting into motion. He had never wanted to be famous, let alone a public icon—although he certainly did not mind the adulation and attention he had since received. Initially, he had only wanted to give the public a publication they could use so they would stop irritating him with questions. Twenty years later his name was revered, respected and better known than most Americans. Over 100 million products bearing his name were now sold throughout the world. Sometimes, being irritated paid off.702

  On 7 May 1956, at the annual Duncan Hines Family Dinner in the Grand Ball Room of Chicago’s Sheraton Hotel, Hines remarked on his role in raising restaurant and lodging standards when he said, “You know, I have been called a crusader by some of my good friends in the press, radio and television. They are referring to my crusade for good food, good service and good accommodations. If what I have been doing is called a crusade, then I will continue to be a crusader.” He would continue his crusade, he said. But just around the corner was an accolade that proved to be the ultimate honor, one that vaulted his fame far beyond that which he had already achieved and continues to this day.703

  Three months later, on 17 August 1956 the Duncan Hines Institute and Hines-Park Foods announced their merger with the Procter & Gamble Company, a large corporation based in Cincinnati, Ohio, whose main product lines at the time were “soaps, detergents, drug products and shortenings.”704 Some months earlier, P&G had decided to expand its line of grocery products, specifically flour-based mixes, and chose to purchase Nebraska Consolidated Mills, which manufactured the Duncan Hines cake mix products. J. Allan Mactier, president of Nebraska Consolidated, announced that the corporate giant’s direct purchase of his company included all research and production facilities, and that capital funds created by the sale would be used to continue the company’s bakery flour and mixed-feed divisions.705 Simultaneously, Procter and Gamble also announced it had acquired not only exclusive rights to use Duncan Hines’s name but also, through an exchange of stock for an undisclosed price, both the Duncan Hines Institute and Hines-Park Foods, which Roy Park would continue operating from Ithaca as its president.706 As part of the deal, Park became one of Procter & Gamble’s vice-presidents, no doubt to protect his interests. The acquisition also included an agreement that P&G would not harm or hamper the smaller company’s guidebook and credit card business.707 Explaining his company’s friendly acquisition, Procter and Gamble executive vice-president, Howard J. Morgens, said that “since housewives are showing an increasing interest in buying shortening already mixed with flour, sugar, and other ingredients, it seems quite logical for Procter and Gamble to extend its interest to prepared mix products.”708 Morgens added that the company was gratified by “Hines’ confidence in the ability of Procter & Gamble to protect and extend the reputation of high quality foods which is associated with his name.”709 And P&G had big plans for that name; by the end of 1956 the corporate giant had introduced twelve mixes in their new line of Duncan Hines baking products: flapjack, buttermilk pancake, blueberry muffin, hot roll, yellow cake, spice and coffee cake, sponge cake, marble cake, white cake, angel food cake, burnt sugar cake, and fudge brownie.710

  Although his organization was now a subsidiary of another company, Park continued working in Ithaca at the Duncan Hines Institute as if nothing had happened, overseeing, protecting and sanctioning all food products associated with the Duncan Hines name.711 Publication of the guidebooks and the cookbook continued; at the end of 1956 Adventures in Good Eating was in its 49th printing; Lodging for a Night was in its 39th; Adventures in Good Cooking was about to be published for the 26th time; and Duncan Hines Vacation Guide was about to see its 11th revision.712

  After Roy Park took control of his partner’s book business, there was little left for Hines’s employees to do; by the middle of 1954 they had found employment elsewhere. Only Sara Meeks was retained for her services, which mainly consisted of watching the office. Now that the sign business was being administered in Ithaca, she did not even have that to occupy her hours. Once Park took over, said Meeks, “there was nothing to do there except Mr. Hines’ personal correspondence. And that’s why I got to stay on, because he liked the way I did his letters, I guess.” Hines and Clara, she said, still “traveled a lot…. Sometimes for two or three weeks. But he wanted someone to be in that office in case a visitor would stop by, and to take care of the mail, and answer the phone. And that was my job. It was very boring for a while, because I was there by myself all day.” Although there was little to do, she dutifully came to work each day about eight in the morning and stayed until five that afternoon because, she said, “I was afraid he would call and check on me.” Hines subscribed to various newspapers and a host of magazines. Taking advantage of her paid indolence, she sat at her desk and read.

  When she took Hines’s dictation and typed his correspondence, most of it consisted of personal matters he conducted with his many friends, including restaurant owners whose establishments he had recommended, as well as some of his former dinner detectives.713 By the mid-1950s Hines’s daily mail had declined a bit, down to 140 letters a day.714 Perhaps the biggest daily chore she performed was sorting and collecting all letters pertaining to business now transacted in Ithaca. When Hines was home, he opened his own mail. If he could not answer a letter, said Meeks, and “didn’t know what to do with it, or if it was anything that needed a reply, he’d say ‘send this to Roy Park,’ and we would have big envelopes going out to Roy Park” daily. Another of her duties was to plan his trips. This was fairly easy to plot out, because if the couple had nothing important scheduled, they seldom traveled more than 150 miles a day. If she needed anything while they were gone, John Henry Foster, the black custodian and groundskeeper, who lived in the little house on the property, was there to help. Foster also cut the grass, kept the property looking neat, and did all the odd jobs that required regular attention. If Meeks needed Foster to run an errand for her, which was a rare occasion, she would ring a farm bell to signal him to come into the office. Every now and then travelers would see the huge Duncan Hines sign in the front yard and stop by for a visit. “Oh, they would get so excited,” she remembered. “They would come in and look around the office. He had a lot of pictures of himself and a lot of awards, and they just thought it was wonderful.” After several months of genuine boredom, Meeks informed the Hines that she wanted to quit. They persuaded her to stay a while longer. A while longer turned out to be a few more years.715

  Little evidence remains of Hines’s daily activities after the Procter and Gamble purchase. When he was not traveling, he spent his leisure time at home with his nieces and nephews. They would drop by to see if he would entertain them, because they knew his real love was entertaining others, and he was never short of ideas, particularly when he wanted to play cards.716 He was also full of mischievous stories. Hines liked to tell everyone that each morning he would wake up and eat two breakfasts. The first breakfast consisted of a cup of coffee, a task he was better off preparing for himself anyway, considering how finicky he was about how it should taste. When he had finished consuming a cup or two, it was his habit, he said, to shuffle the chairs, dishes, pans and any other objects at his disposal until Clara woke up and fixed him his second breakfast, which usually consisted of another cup of coffee, orange juice, and corn flakes topped with a large dollop of vanilla ice cream.717

  The full array of Duncan Hines cake mixes did not appear on grocery shelves until very late in 1957. Procter and Gamble spent the last few months of 1956 and practically all of 1957 giving their new products little improvements—a result of the most intensive consumer testing program in the company’s 120-year-old history.718 More than 40,500 blind taste tests were conducted nationwide. This massive testing led the company to expand the size of its baking mix laboratories and
test kitchens. The company examined and analyzed every aspect of its mixes. Nothing was left to chance. As for packaging the final product, P&G engaged the services of one of the best-known experts in the area of industrial food package design. Before the new packages were put on grocery shelves, P&G executives knew—because of their exhaustive research—exactly what psychological buttons to press to make housewives ignore their competitors and purchase their new products. The biggest factor executives were counting on, though, was the famous signature logo. Because Duncan Hines’s famous smiling face and logo were emblazoned across the top of each package, automatically conveying to many a guarantee of quality, no one was too worried about its success.719

  In July 1957 a columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal caught up with Hines as he was about to embark on a trip to Alaska. Hines looked forward to his excursion. Alaska, he joked, would be a spot on the earth where he would not be recognized and where people would not be asking him out to eat, forcing him to put on his Sunday clothes for the occasion. While his books had collectively sold around two million copies in 21 years, Hines said, “I’ve never made a cent off the books…. The money I make comes from other sources.” One of those sources now came in the form of hefty royalties from Procter and Gamble for using his name. Although his cut only came to a fraction of one cent for 24 packages, there was something that those who thought he got a raw deal failed to consider. As he pointed out, his critics did not take into account that every “20 minutes some 20,000 packages” of those cake mixes were being purchased. After a while, he said, that added up. The income he received from that venture alone was more than ample to make his semi-retirement a comfortable one.720