Clevelanders love their food, and the proof is in the pudding (or rather, mustard). Here are four innovative foods, practices and brands that were started right in our backyard.
Bertmans Original Ballpark Mustard
The unofficial condiment of Clevelanders, this tan, spicy mustard was created in 1925 by Joseph Bertman, a Polish immigrant who came to Cleveland as a child. While there is some debate on when and where the secret-recipe mustard was first served — Cleveland Municipal Stadium in 1932 or League Park in 1938 — it was only sold in gallons until the early ’70s, but now can be found in 9- and 16-ounce containers in supermarkets across Northeast Ohio.
Premade Burger Patties
Grill masters across the country have an ice cream scoop to thank for changing how we look at burgers. Nineteen-year-old Sam Stein, who worked as a coffee salesman, was struck with an idea in 1926. He wanted to help chefs save time in the kitchen and created the premade burger patty using an ice cream scoop. The balls of meat were then flattened into patties and separated with wax paper. While there’s a bit of uncertainty over whether Stein was the very first to create these, it certainly innovated meat manufacturing in Cleveland and beyond.
Peppermint Life Savers
Confectioner Clarence Crane created peppermint Life Savers after noticing sales of chocolate dwindled in the summer. While peppermints were popular during the 1900s for helping with stomach ailments, Crane got the idea to punch a hole in the middle of his mints after seeing how a pharmacist used a hand-cranked machine to make small, round pills. Life Savers’ small size and cardboard tube carrier appealed to customers, who could easily carry the mints in their pockets.
Old-Fashioned Rolled Oats
Using medieval milling techniques, Ferdinand Schumacher manufactured oatmeal on a mass scale for the first time in 1822. Schumacher’s largest mill went on to sell 360,000 pounds of oatmeal each day to customers who used it as a meat substitute. Eventually his company, German Mills American Oatmeal Co., joined with the six other largest oatmeal companies in the United States to form the Quaker Oats Co. in 1901. Today, the company is owned by PepsiCo.
Click here to learn more about 30 of Cleveland’s great inventions and innovators.
