Duncan Hines (March 26, 1880 – March 15, 1959) was an American author and food critic known for his restaurant ratings for travelers. He is best known today for the brand of food products that bears his name.
Early life, family and education
Hines was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, the son of a former Confederate soldier. His mother died when he was four years old, and he was raised by his grandmother.[1]
Hines worked as a traveling salesman for a Chicago printer, and he had eaten many meals on the road across the United States by 1935 when he was 55. At this time, there was no American interstate highway system and only a few chain restaurants, except in large populated areas. Therefore, travelers depended on local restaurants.
Hines and his wife Florence began assembling a list for friends of several hundred good restaurants around the country. The list became popular and he began selling the paperback bookAdventures in Good Eating (1935), highlighting restaurants and their featured dishes that Hines had personally enjoyed in locations across the United States.[3][4]
One such listing in the 1939 edition read:
Corbin, KY.Sanders Court and Café 41 — Jct. with 25, 25 E. ½ Mi. N. of Corbin. Open all year except Xmas. A very good place to stop en route to Cumberland Falls and the Great Smokies. Continuous 24-hour service. Sizzling steaks, fried chicken, country ham, hot biscuits. L. 50¢ to $1; D., 60¢ to $1
The book proved so successful that Hines added another which recommended lodging.[5][6]
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Hines wrote the newspaper food columnAdventures in Good Eating at Home, which appeared in newspapers across the US three times a week on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. The column featured restaurant recipes adapted for home cooks that he had collected during his nationwide travels.[7][8]
Entrepreneurial career
In 1952, Duncan Hines introduced Duncan Hines bread through the Durkee's Bakery Company of Homer, New York. Principals Michael C. Antil Sr., Albert Durkee, and Lena Durkee were the bakery proprietors. This was Duncan Hines' first foray into baked goods.
By 1953, Hines sold the right to use his name and the title of his book to Roy H. Park to form Hines-Park Foods, which licensed the name to a number of food-related businesses.[3][4] The cake mix license was sold to Nebraska Consolidated Mills in Omaha, Nebraska, which developed and sold the first Duncan Hines cake mixes.
In 1957, Nebraska Consolidated Mills sold the cake mix business to the U.S. consumer products company Procter & Gamble. The company expanded the business to the national market and added a series of related products.
Also in 1957, Hines appeared as a guest challenger on the TV panel show To Tell the Truth.
Hines died of lung cancer at his home in Bowling Green on March 15, 1959, at the age of 78.[9] He was buried in Fairview Cemetery in Bowling Green, at the same series of Hines family plots as Thomas Hines.
Legacy
Duncan Hines logo
The Duncan Hines brand is now owned by Conagra Brands, the current name for Nebraska Consolidated Mills, which was the original owner of the brand. Conagra reacquired the brand through its acquisition, in 2018, of Pinnacle Foods which bought it from Procter & Gamble in 1997.
Hines is widely honored in his hometown of Bowling Green, and a portion of U.S. Route 31W north of the city was named the Duncan Hines Highway after his death.[10] A museum exhibit at Western Kentucky University's Kentucky Museum in Bowling Green showcases Duncan Hines.[11]
Publications
Hines, Duncan (1935). Adventures in Good Eating. Chicago: Adventures in Good Eating, Inc.
Hines, Duncan (1938). Lodging for a Night. Chicago: Adventures in Good Eating, Inc. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
Hines, Duncan (1955). Duncan Hines' Food Odyssey. Thomas Y. Crowell Company.
Hines, Duncan (2014). Hatchett, Louis (ed.). The Duncan Hines Dessert Book. Foreword by Jane Stern and Michael Stern (Reprint ed.). The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN978-0865548107.
^Duncan Hines (1940). "Lodging for a night" (3rd ed.). Adventures in Good Eating Inc, Bowling Green, Ky, Telephone 1219. Archived from the original on September 26, 2022. Retrieved March 30, 2012. (archive.org)
