Imponderables Read online

  Actually, Wendy's has a historical case. Although fast-food historians disagree, many credit Louie’s Lunch, in New Haven, Connecticut, as serving the first hamburger in America. Louie's Lunch did (and does) make a square hamburger. Several of the United States’ most venerable hamburger chains, such as White Castle and Little Tavern, also sell square hamburgers.

  Wendy's square hamburger, however, was born far more out of marketing necessities than historical accuracy. Wendy's mission, if it was to be successful, was to differentiate its product from McDonald's. But how could it be heard when Wendy's couldn't possibly buy enough advertising time to drown out McDonald's messages?

  One method to gain attention was to create a square hamburger. Clearly, a marketing advantage that Wendy's has always had over McDonald's is the relative size of its burgers. Wendy's strategy, from the start, was to focus the consumer's attention on the Wendy's patty. As Denny Lynch, vice-president of corporate communications, explains, “We think a square hamburger enhances the value perception when a customer sees the meat extending over the bun.”

  Of course, McDonald's also makes a quarter-pounder (which is Wendy's smallest sized burger), but Wendy's quarter-pounder looks bigger. McDonald's bun is larger in diameter and its patties are circular, both reasons why they don't re-create Wendy's slopover effect. Equally important, Wendy's cooking methods ensure that its hamburgers do not shrink as much as McDonald's. Every time a Wendy's hamburger is turned on the grill, the patty is pressed. The goal is for the hamburger to leave the grill with the same dimensions with which it was placed, raw, onto the grill. By pressing the hamburger at every turn, the patty might end up less thick, but it remains large in area. This pressing technique is much easier to perfect with a square hamburger than a circular one, where a circle could easily turn into an oblong or worse.

  Another way in which Wendy's focuses consumers’ attention on its patty is by using less condiment on its sandwiches. Even though Wendy's condiment selection is wider than McDonald's, if you order a quarter-pounder with “the works” at both places, you will notice the condiments more at McDonald's. Wendy's wants you, subliminally, to think that McDonald's has something to hide with its higher bun- and condiment-to-meat ratio. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with having proportionately more bread or catsup on a sandwich, except that customers often feel that they haven't gotten value from such a hamburger.

  When Wendy's hit upon the “old-fashioned” slogan, it didn't refer to the squareness of the hamburgers as much as the fact that at Wendy's the customer always was supplied a custom-made sandwich, with choice of condiments, and a sandwich of a size more reminiscent of home than a fast-food restaurant. Although customers might not even consciously notice it, Wendy's felt it important to serve more costly onion rings rather than McDonald's diced or reconstituted onions. Wendy's offered mayonnaise as well as catsup and mustard, another subliminal signal that Wendy's is more generous, homey, and old-fashioned than McDonald's.

  In the intensely competitive world of fast food, every decision is rationalized by extensive research. Once in a while, even in this day and age, somebody stumbles onto a successful strategy. The most important reason Wendy's hamburger is square, notwithstanding the discussion above, is that it was and is a terrific gimmick, one that differentiated Wendy's instantly from McDonald's and its clones. That the square hamburger was compatible with Wendy's eventually more sophisticated marketing efforts was a bonus, but most of all, the square hamburger got Wendy's noticed and created as much brand awareness and word of mouth as any advertising campaign. As Wendy's employees are fond of saying, “We don't believe in cutting corners!”

  Why do most men part their hair on the left?

  The most obvious answer to this Imponderable is that most men are right-handed, and it is easier for a right-handed person combing his hair to sweep his hand from left to right than vice versa.

  The only problem with this solution is that most women are right-handed as well and a far smaller percentage of women part their hair on the left. We talked to several hair stylists, all of whom indicated that they were trained to place parts according to how the hair of the client naturally falls. Usually, this means that the hair is parted from the crown (the top part of the head) toward the lower regions of the scalp.

  It would follow, then, that the crown of men's hair tends to be located on the left side of the head, except that Imponderables could not find any evidence to support this contention, either from cosmetologists or medical consultants. Have generations of fathers simply imposed their hair style on their sons? Do men have crowns more on the left side more frequently than women? As hair styles change, will there ever be a parting of the ways? The definitive answer remains elusive.

  Why, despite the television and radio announcers' assurance that “for the next sixty seconds, we will be conducting a test of the emergency broadcasting system,” does the test take less than sixty seconds?

  The main reason is that nobody particularly gives a darn how long the EBS test takes. Almost all of the 9000 plus radio and television stations in the United States are voluntary members of the Emergency Broadcasting System, which is managed by the federal government. A few of the stations, with strong signals, are CPCS stations (Common Program Central Stations). In event of war or natural disaster, secondary stations monitor the CPCS station in their region in order to receive instructions about how to proceed in case of a disaster.

  EBS stations are required to test that annoying tone once a week, and they do so faithfully. Actually, what you hear is the combination of two different frequency tones, joined together to assure that the sound is, let us be kind, noticeable. The choice and time of day of the test are random. The important thing to remember about EBS tests is that not much is being checked that you can't hear. The Federal Communications Commission and the Civil Defense Department are probably not monitoring the test. The EBS test is more like flipping on the air conditioner during the winter just to make sure it will work next summer.

  Thus the stations are only concerned that they are able to create the desired two-tone frequency. If they are CPCS stations, they will have their own EBS generator to produce their tone; secondary stations, particularly radio stations, are likely to have prerecorded cartridges with an announcer's introduction and a silent tone. In any case, the duration of the tone itself is usually 20-30 seconds. The announcer's copy, which states that “For the next sixty seconds…” is lifted directly from a pamphlet issued by the federal government, but individual stations are not required to repeat it verbatim, and there is certainly no rule saying that the test must last exactly 60 seconds. The stations just know a compelling introduction when they hear one (and don't have to write their own), and have copied the sample text verbatim, even though they know the test takes more like 45 seconds than 60.

  Why does chicken always take longer to cook than the recipe specifies?

  The great chicken mystery was one of the toughest of Imponderables to unravel. Friends, with absolute unanimity, agreed that they invariably had to cook chicken longer than recipes suggested.

  So we turned to some professional chefs, who asked if we took the chicken directly out of the refrigerator before washing it and putting it into the oven. “Yes,”Imponderables replied. “Aha!” the chefs gloated. “Meat should be at room temperature or it will take longer than stated to cook.”

  We went back to the kitchen, let a whole chicken reach room temperature, and stuck it back in the oven. Now it cooked 33 percent slower than the recipe indicated, rather than 50 percent slower.

  Undaunted, Imponderables contacted Perdue chicken with our problem and were stunned by their response. Perdue distributes millions of recipes with its packages of chickens, and although it receives many comments about its recipes, Public Relations Coordinator Rita Morgan said, “I don't see a single reference to cooking time in recent years.” Ms. Morgan added that specified cooking times were meant to be approximate and that they allow ten to f
ifteen minutes discretionary time to alert cooks to begin checking for doneness. The Perdue Oven Stuffer Roaster comes with a pop-up thermometer, like some turkeys, to eliminate the guesswork in timing. The pop-up thermometer eliminates one obvious problem—mistiming because of an inaccurate oven thermostat.

  Could there be a difference between Perdue chickens and other chickens? Or was there a difference between Perdue chickens? Or was there a difference between Perdue chicken recipes and other recipes? Imponderables wrote to Holly Farms Poultry Industries, Inc., another giant among retail chicken suppliers in the United States, for some badly needed help.

  William M. Rusch, director of marketing for Holly Farms, was kind enough to reply and, almost certainly, provide the solution to this Imponderable:

  We would suggest variation in chicken size to be a possible answer. More specifically, ten years ago, the average broiler/fryer weighed approximately two and one-half pounds. Today, the average is well over three pounds, with a range from three to four plus pounds.

  Older cookbooks and recipes invariably called for or the writer had in mind a two and one-half-pound bird. Still today we see recipes published calling for two and one-half pound chickens and would guess there are many republished recipes where no weight is stated, but the original assumption was a two and one-half pound chicken.

  We went back to our cookbooks. Sure enough, they were all at least ten years old. Those books that did specify indicated a two and one half-pound broiler-fryer. Many recipes did not indicate the size of the bird.

  When we cook a turkey, we use its weight to calculate cooking time, and yet many of us, evidently, think all chickens are created equal. As Mr. Rusch added, a smaller bird might cook faster, but the heavier the chicken, the proportionately more meat and less bone per bird, so that it would probably take longer to cook 1980s chicken parts than their scrawnier, earlier counterparts.

  The “bigger bird theory” also explains why Perdue hasn't received complaints about its recipes. Its whole chickens range from about three pounds to over seven pounds for Oven Stuffer Roasters. But the recipes enclosed in packages are keyed to the size of that particular bird.

  Imponderables conducted one final test. We cooked a six-pound Perdue Oven Stuffer Roaster (brought first to room temperature, of course) according to the recipe on the package. It worked. Done on time. One more Imponderable unplucked.

  Why does unleaded gasoline cost more than leaded gas?

  Knocking occurs inside the piston chamber during the spark of the piston cylinder when there is uneven combustion. The octane rating that differentiates “premium” from “regular” is nothing more than the measurement of the anti-knock capability of a gasoline.

  Gasoline marketers had long added a tetraethyl lead (a.k.a. “lead”) compound to otherwise finished gasoline in order to boost its octane rating. Why lead? It's cheap, and a small amount raises significantly the octane level of gasoline. The only problem with lead is that it polluted the environment. Hello, unleaded gasoline.

  Use of unleaded gasoline should leave our air fresher, but at a cost. After the introduction of low-lead and unleaded gasoline, many customers were incensed that they were charged more for an ingredient being taken out of a product. This is one case, however, where the retailer actually is passing along higher costs to the consumer.

  In order to retain the same octane rating, oil companies were required to supply a better quality gasoline. Without the cheap, artificial assist of lead, and without an economical alternative to lead at hand, the industry was forced to fight knock the old-fashioned way—with a purer, more expensive product.

  Why are green olives packed in jars and ripe olives packed in cans?

  For most food packaging needs, paper provides the cheapest protection against crushing. Paper is light, easing shipping costs, but offers little protection against the elements. For marketing purposes, paper remains one of the easiest and cheapest materials on which to directly print trade names and logos.

  The tin can is the next cheapest package for mass production. Actually, 98.5 percent of a tin can is composed of sheet steel. There is only a thin coating of tin. Although the can better protects food from unsettling weather, it also covers up the product, requiring a printed label to reveal its contents.

  The glass container, tin's main competitor, is heavier and more expensive, but it allows the consumer to see the food within. For certain corrosive liquids, glass containers are imperative. Olives are one food whose packaging has been determined more by health and safety reasons than marketing considerations.

  Pick a fresh, unprocessed olive from a tree, pop it into your mouth, and you will be in for a most unpleasant taste sensation. Fresh olives are unpalatably bitter because of a glucoside that is neutralized by processing in the olives you buy in the stores. Most olives are grown for olive oil, with Spain and Italy together representing about one-half of the world market.

  Spain dominates the sale of green olives in the United States for two reasons. Olive farming is Spain's largest industry: it is so important to the economy that olive production is heavily subsidized by the Spanish government. Spain has such an overwhelming head start in the marketing of green olives, with its huge acreage of olive trees and price subsidization, that American manufacturers can't compete in pricing. The other reason that the California olive farmers don't try to compete with Spain is that they can sell all the ripe olives that they harvest. Business is good—why try to take on the Spanish green-olive industry?

  The same species of olives are used to make both green and ripe varieties, but the processing and packaging of the two are quite different. Green olives are picked just after they reach full size but before they have become fully ripe. At harvesting time, green olives have just begun to develop their color and haven't yet softened. As soon as possible after harvesting, fresh olives are placed in pickling vats. Olives contain a bitter alkaloid, oleuropein, which is removed by a lye solution. The lye solution is washed off the olives after permeating approximately two-thirds of the way toward the pit, thus allowing the olive to retain a hint of the distinctive bitter taste that fanciers enjoy.

  After the lye treatment, the flesh of the olive becomes alkaline. The olives are then soaked in a salty brine. The fermentation process is slow. The processing of a green olive takes about two months.

  Most imported green olives are packed by hand, which is why many brands feature fancy pyramid designs. The jars are then filled automatically with water or brine and then rinsed out automatically in order to eliminate sediment from forming on the inside of the glass. The jars are then refilled with brine and vacuum-sealed to retard growth of aerobic yeasts; some olive makers seal the jars at atmospheric pressure, usually without untoward results.

  Molds are the enemies of all foods that are pickled and fermented. Molds metabolize the acid developed in the fermentation process. Olives can usually last for several months without spoilage; only if longer storage periods require more protection from the elements do olives need to be canned. Since consumers now refrigerate olives after opening vacuum-sealed jars, there is no technical reason why green olives can't be packed in jars.

  Although glass jars are more expensive than tin cans, the Spanish olive industry has always favored them. Glass containers have less metal than tin cans to react with the food product itself, potentially affecting taste. Customers can see the olives decoratively arranged and, by sight, pick out pitted olives from those with pits, pimento from onion-stuffed. And although glass containers are more fragile than tin, they actually suffer less breakage in shipping than cans.

  Farmers have always looked for ways to take the bitterness out of olives. In ancient days, olives were pickled in salt or treated with wood ashes to remove bitterness. Ripe olives are popular because they don't retain the bitterness of green ones. Although they are not pickled as long as green olives, their processing is just as important in determining the taste of the final product.

  Black olives are not picked
when they have reached their peak of ripeness; when they are, they tend to wilt when processed. In order to give the finished product some texture, ripe olives are picked when the fruit is anywhere from a cherry-red to a straw-yellow, depending upon the species. Unpickled olives are extremely sensitive to bruising, so freshly harvested ripe olives are stored in brine until the pickling vats are available.

  As with green olives, the principal step in the pickling process is the elimination of the bitterness by exposure to lye solutions. The dilute sodium hydroxide used to process ripe olives not only makes the olives less bitter, but provides the fruit with its black color. If the lye applications are too intense or if the olives are canned at too high a pH value or washed at too low a pH value, the proper oxidation cannot take place and the desired color may not be attained.

  Another danger in the processing of ripe olives is their tendency to shrivel while being cured in brine at the end of the pickling process. To avoid saturation, the olives are passed over a needle board to puncture the skins so that they will take the brine internally in measured doses.

  At one time, brine was added by machine to fill cans already packed with ripe olives. Today, the cans are filled with extremely hot water and dry salt is added separately by an automatic dispenser.

  As early as 1900, farmers discovered that ripe olives could be canned and preserved by heating after pickling. At first, they experimented with heating olives to 212 degrees. Most of the time, it worked. But there was one occasional but very serious problem—botulism. Heating to 212 degrees proved inadequate to kill all the bacteria. This same problem, botulism, is why ripe olives are found in cans today.