Toasty Pink 4/365

Day # 4 May 27, 2009

Pink is making toast today since today is the anniversary of the Pop-Up toaster. And here is some random and useless information about bread and the electric Pop-Up toaster!

Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented the bread slicer, which he started working on in 1912. At first, Rohwedder came up with the idea of a device that held the slices together with hat pins (not a success). In 1928, he designed a machine that sliced and wrapped the bread to prevent the sliced bread from going stale. Pre-sliced bread was popularized by Wonder Bread in 1930, helping to spread the toaster's popularity further. Toasting bread began as a method of prolonging the life of bread. It was very common activity in Roman times, 'tostum' is the Latin word for scorching or burning. The first electric toaster was invented in 1893 in Great Britain by Crompton and Co (UK) and re-invented in 1909 in the United States. It only toasted one side of the bread at a time and it required a person to stand by and turn it off manually when the toast looked done. Charles Strite invented the modern timer, pop-up toaster in 1919.