‘No kitchen is complete without the big yellow box’

Editors at Southern Living magazine attest to the headline, and food writer Alexandra Emanuelli said: “Nothing beats a shelf-stable and versatile baking shortcut. Enter Bisquick.”

 

Yellow boxes of Bisquick have occupied America’s kitchen cupboard shelves for nearly 95 years. The iconic product was launched by General Mills in 1931, and it continues to be a popular choice for baking all sorts of tasty treats – enjoyed from morning to night.

 

Bisquick’s origin can be traced to a railway chef’s cozy, compartmentalized kitchen aboard a Southern Pacific Railroad passenger train that ran one evening in 1930 between Portland, Ore., and San Francisco.

Carl Smith, who was a salesman for General Mills, boarded after the dining car had closed. He asked the chef if it would be too much trouble to prepare an easy-to-make, light snack to ease his hunger?

The chef gladly obliged and, within a matter of minutes, served up a plate of piping-hot, mouth-watering biscuits. “How did you do that? Smith asked. The chef replied that his “secret recipe” was a simple batter made with flour, baking powder, salt and lard, which was stored in the ice box.

 

Once Smith returned to General Mills’ headquarters in Golden Valley, Minn., he shuttled a report about his “railroad biscuit experience” up the corporate ladder. Soon thereafter, the company’s lead chemist, Charlie Kress, was assigned to command a hush-hush project to create a version of the “magic dough” in the form of a “miracle mix” that didn’t need to be refrigerated.

Secrecy surrounded all testing operations; General Mills was concerned that other companies were in hot pursuit to market biscuit mixes.

Kress and his team had to work through the challenges to develop “a shelf-stable product that produced baked goods as good as (or better than) homemade.” This was accomplished by replacing the original lard-based shortening with hydrogenated oil, allowing the biscuit mix to be stored at room temperature without refrigeration.

The Bisquick story fails to identify the railroad chef who was never credited or compensated. We don’t know anything about what happened next for Smith or Kress…or who came up with the name of product, which obviously is a clever contraction of “biscuits quick.”

We do know that General Mills was first to reach the market. Bisquick became available on grocery store shelves in April of 1931…and almost immediately, boxes began flying off those shelves.

 

Promoted as an “all-purpose quick mix,” Bisquick was ideal for fluffy biscuits and more – including pancakes, waffles, quick breads, coffee cakes, nut breads, shortcakes, cobblers, scones, pies, quiche, muffins, fritters and dumplings. Bisquick was also an excellent choice for breading chicken fingers and other traditionally dredged and fried dishes like chicken fried steak.

 

In 1934, General Mills secured the services of child actress Shirley Temple, who was 6 years old at the time, to help peddle Bisquick. With her trademark of “56 curls in her hair and her dimpled cheeks,” Shirley Temple encouraged fellow kids to eat their Bisquick biscuits.

With every purchase of a large box of Bisquick, the company offered a complimentary, limited-edition, child-sized milk mug with Shirley Temple’s smiling face on it.

 

From the outset, General Mills promised that Bisquick “Makes Anybody a Perfect Biscuit Maker,” and the company has never wavered from that commitment.

Monti Lawson, owner of the Catalyst Collaborative Farm in Millerton, N.Y., said Bisquick has been an industry leader in maintaining open communications with consumers, which cultivated dedicated and loyal fans over the years and throughout the decades.

“All over the country, Bisquick was winning more hearts than any other ready-to-go food,” Lawson said.