A Word On Food: Wonder Bread
Shokupan for the 50's?
I drove on through the cloudy, rainy afternoon. A traffic light stopped us and my eyes then saw birds circling in a directionless way in the sky like ashes over a campfire, spinning and drifting in a way that seemed as spontaneous as comets or shooting stars sparking to heaven knows where. I pulled into a parking lot as quickly as I could get the car to slow and swerve into it. There was a rustic, hand-drawn sign with one word on it, “Barbecue”. That word has stopped me in my tracks many times in my flavor-seeking, wandering life. We got out of the car. The smokers and grills were old. The big man tending them was old but strong looking too. The word “legit” popped like a light bulb into my head. We stood behind a line of folks in the gravel waiting our turn. Soon we had a plate with ribs, beans and a stack of Wonder Bread. We found a picnic table in the shade of single tree and felt lucky. I gently eased a rib off the rack and gave it to my wife, Janet. And then I got one for myself. We eyed the Wonder Bread. We grew up eating it. But something happened in our early adult years that taught us to turn up our noses at white bread. I wondered if the barbecue folks who clearly didn’t mind spending the better part of a night and day cooking ribs and brisket might not be off base about this bread on the paper plates before us.
“Wonder Bread was originally produced by the Taggart Baking Company of Indianapolis, Indiana, and debuted on May 21, 1921, after a promotion with ads that only stated, “a Wonder was coming!” . The brand was named by the vice president for merchandising development one Mr. Elmer Cline. Elmer was inspired by the International Balloon Races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Cline was filled with awe by the scene of hundreds of balloons creating a kaleidoscope of color resulting in the iconic red, yellow and blue balloons featured on the Wonder Bread bags.
We grew up in the 1950’s and 60’s. The homogenization of our foodstuffs was in full swing by then. Modern families were looking for convenience. Wonder Bread was filling, cheap and one of the first breads to be sold ‘pre-sliced’. This was met with suspicion and concern at first. “Wouldn’t it be likely to dry and out and become stale”? But the chemists had taken over a lot of the aspects of baking and all manner of food preparation by then. We were already trusting ‘Swanson’s’ TV dinners and Campbell Kids ‘enriched’ soups by that time. The bread box that lived in our home near the fridge had a loaf of Wonder Bread in it constantly, that is until we too began to float on the shifting tides back to more ‘whole grained’ living.
When we got home with some ribs still to be enjoyed for another time I started to toss the Wonder Bread in the trash. Then I stopped myself and left it in a plastic bag on the counter. And I’ll be damned if I could not help myself from having a slice over the next few nights after a long shift of cooking fancy food for others. Tastes change.
I’m Norman Van Aken and that’s my Word on Food ©.
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© 2025 Norman Van Aken
Good morning Chef,
My recollection of Wonder Bread was my father’s BBQ sauce recipe he would make with sopping up tastes with the Wonder Bread. Other wise only Moms ruggedly wholesome whole bran wheat flours homemade bread was allowed in our house. I remember tasting the Wonder for the first time in first grade as Frank was making his sauce. I distinctly recall the yin / yang of flours texture, the body and crust unique to each bread, how impossible tasting the BBQ sauce would be to understanding what maybe seasoning errors without the bland of the Wonder backdrop relief!
It was a seminal moment for me. I realized the importance of negative backdrop relief I applied to mathematics, and art when using watercolors, not only what might’ve been happening in seasoning. I learned to use a spoon to inspect visually the concentration of the spices suspended in the BBQ sauce if the requisite Wonder Bread was unavailable or only Moms whole wheat in stock. We kept Thomas’s English Muffins to toast for the weekends, but completely unacceptable for BBQ’s tasting substitute.
Thank you for reminding me how many unlocked memories we have stored away!
The second date I ever had with my future wife we went on a camping trip on the Peace River and I asked her to bring bread. I was thinking a baguette of some sort, something high falutin'. She brought Wonder Bread. It was delicious. So we got married. And have somehow plowed through 48 years. Perhaps we should eat Wonder Bread on our anniversary.