Let’s get this review out there, right away: I wanted to scrape my tongue free from the residue of this vile paste. When we tried a small taste, I wanted to spit, but International Guy looked betrayed, “This stuff used to come in packets with your frozen ‘egg rolls’ when you were a kid?” Now I’m sure he is thinking terrible things about what Americans will let their children have access to via their kid’s frozen snacks.
As a matter of fact, there is no more American story than that of the founder of the company that made the favorite frozen egg rolls of my youth: Jeno Paulucci. The Italian frozen food genius.
From his 1993 obituary in the Washington Post:
“His first great success was a company called Chun King,” Ford said during his dinner address. “What could be more American than a business built on a good Italian recipe for chop suey?”
Luigino Francesco Paulucci was born July 7, 1918, in Aurora, Minn. His father was an iron miner and his mother, Michelina, ran a grocery out of the family home. During Prohibition, his mother sold bootlegged wine and also ran an illegal bar. After selling Jeno’s to Pillsbury, he founded Luigino’s and started the Michelina’s brand of Italian foods, named for his mother.
Mr. Paulucci donated millions to charities, public projects and other philanthropic efforts. He often visited his ancestor’s northern Italian village, where he paid for new bells to be installed in a church.
“They’re the biggest damn things in the world,” Mr. Paulucci told The Post in 1978. “The people there are still mad at me. It’s impossible to sleep very late in the morning.”
Please read the full article at this link from the Washington post, it is truly an example of the possibilities America holds for its people.
Oh, and the goofy little egg rolls are still available- under the Michelina line at some stores! If you want a taste of your frozen food childhood, click the picture for a link that may just be a blast from your past.
branching out... on a limb 