The Real Life Chef Boyardee
An Urban Legend Says He Was Not Real. He was.
An urban legend circulating for years states that Chef Boyardee was not a real person.
The name Hector Boiardi may not be familiar to many people. Hector Boiardi's smiling face adorns canned pasta and various other products worldwide. Most people are more likely to know his face as belonging to that of Chef Boyardee. Rumors have circulated for years that Chef Boyadeee was not was not a real person. It may disappoint the people spreading the Urban legends about him, but the people who have enjoyed ravioli in canned format will find it comforting to know to know a real person was behind the creation of these products.
Chef Boyardee Moves to the United States
Hector Boiardi was born in Italy in 1898 and moved to New York in 1914 and started to work at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. In 1924, the family moved to Cleveland where Hector Boiardi worked as a chef at the Hotel Winton. A few years after the move to Cleveland, Hector Boiardi would oepn his own restuarant The Italian Immigrant may have doubted whether or not he would be successful with his cooking while working in New York, but according to the Cleveland Museum of Art, his dinners became known throughout the Midwest.
After Hector Boiardi opened his own restaurant in Cleveland, demand for take home samples of his sauce became so great that he had to start putting his homemade sauce in milk bottles in the loft of his Cleveland apartment to hand out to his restaurants customers in his restaurant. It is probably because of this experience that Hector Boiardi began to experiment with canned pasta. Being proud of his Italian heritage, he wanted Americans to pronounce his name properly which is why it appears phonetically in English on the cans.
Chef Boyardee Moves to Pennsylvania
Although the Cleveland Museum of Art mentions his importance as a local resident, his importance to a small town in North Central Pennsylvania is far greater. Hector Boiardi's canned pasta business continued to thrive during he great depression. In 1938, the Chef Boyardee headquarters and main factory would move to its present location in Milton, Pennsylvania. From this small industrial town, Hector Boiardi maintained tight control of his ingredients and used the basement of the factory that sits alongside the Susquehanna River to grow mushrooms.
American Home Foods then Conagra
The Chef Boyardee company experienced a boost during World War II. The United States government looking for easier ways to feed people serving in the swelling ranks of the armed forces turned to the Italian immigrant to make canned pasta for the military. The company would eventually be sold to American Home Foods, although Hector Boiardi would remain active until his death in 1985. In the 1990s, the company was sold to its current owner, Conagra.
His descendants still live in the mansion that their famous ancestor's success allowed them and one road in the town that owed so much to the Italian immigrant was named in his honor.
Sources:
“The Real Chef Boyardee.” Robert L. Wolke. April 12, 2006. The Washinton Post. Washington, D.C.
“Chef Boyardee.” Famous Cleveland Resident. Cleveland Museum of Art.
“Whassa Matter? You No Like Da Name-A?”
