I know there are many products on the market that carry the name of the first one of its kind...Kleenex, Ketchup etc. thanks Bill, I edited my typo

I'm interested in products that have the name of their inventor...eg. it is thought by some that the sandwich got its name from the Earl of Sandwich. This now seems to have been discounted but you get the jist.

Caesarian section seems to be one. Legend has it that Caesar was the first to be born by this method, et voila it now carries his name.

Does anybody have any others?

I don't know what the Poloroid company made, before it made instant photo cameras, but they were alway Poloriod Land Cameras after Land (first name?) the man who invented the process.

Land's full name: Edwin Herbert Land. He invented the light polarizing filter.

As I boy, I was disppointed to discover there was no Polaroid underwater camera.

no Polaroid underwater camera. Still true? IP?

Jacuzzi - the man who invented the bubbling jets bath!He has a lot to answer for!

HERSHEY bars.

Lea & Perrin Worcestershire sauce (ok, two guys)

Nathan's hot dogs (yum!)

Coleman's mustard, Cain's sweet pickle relish

I'm gonna' go have my dinner now.

WHat and nothing from Heinz? no pickles, relish, ketchup or beans?

but rather than family brands, i though we were looking for someone who lent their name to a product.. Singer--which for years was sewing machines.

Teddy bears; Baby Ruth candy bars; Franklin stove; stetson hat; Listerine
Condom (inventor: the earl of condom, the knighted personal physician of the pleasure-loving King Charles II of England)

Cracker Jack ("Jack" being a slangy equivalent of "John Doe")

More to come by edit, I hope.

BTW: Kleenex was not named for a person. During WWII, cotton being in short supply, the Kimberly Clark company developed a synthetic absorbant material (called Cellucotton; used in surgical dressings and gas masks). When the war ended they cast about for commercial applications to which their stockpiled material and productive plant could be turned. The first successful application was Kleenex (promoted as a disposable towel for cleaning off make-up; it was the customers who discovered the current usage); a later one was Kotex.

Dear belMarduk: I wonder if "Ketchum" is a typo for "Ketchup". The history of ketchup is interesting enough that below there is a URL about it. The first Kleenex appeared over seventy years ago, and I still remember what a blessing it was not to have to use sandpaper muslin on my abraded proboscis any more.
There is a URL to history of Cesarean Section, which says Julius was not born this way, but passed a law about it. You have to scroll down a ways.

http://www.i5ive.com/article.cfm/5676/42844

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/cesarean/cesarean_2.html

Bill, kecap in Indonesian or Malay doesn't mean the red stuff you might dunk your french fries into, that's saus tomat. Kecap is what we could call soy sauce, and comes in two flavours asam (sour or savoury) and manis (sweet).

Bingley

Dear Bingley: people just can't resist changing things. The people in Rhode Island even put tomatoes into chowder. There ought to be a law......Incidentally, as recently as the;youth of one of my grandfathers, tomatoes were thought unsafe to eat.

I was told that "Manhattan" clam chowder made with tomato instead of cream - as is New England clam chowder - is because some religions' dietary laws forbid mixing fish and milk.
I am open to correction. Anyone?
*Not a food thread, rather an effort to learn.

some religions' dietary laws forbid mixing fish and milk.

Fish and milk? Mammal meat and milk I've heard of but not fish and milk. Lox and cream cheese anyone?

Ketchup isn't always the ubiquitous tomato type. I have seen several recipes for walnut ketchup, which seems to be something like chutney, which would make it like what Bingley alluded to.

What immediately came to my mind is graham flour, which is used to make graham crackers. This is a type of whole-meal flour, supposedly more healthy, invented in the late 19th century by a physician named Graham.

Then there are automobiles: Ford, Chevrolet, Studebaker, Dodge, Kaiser, Henry J (this and the preceding being named for the same person), Frazier, Oldsmobile and Reo (for Ransom E. Olds), Benz, Duesenberg, Citroen, Panhard, Morris, Rolls-Royce, etc. etc., as well as Harley-Davidson.

Barbie doll; peach melba; melba toast; frisbee; bloomers; derby; bakelite. Bunsen burner?
hooker (if same can be considered a product rather than a service)
leotard ("19th century French trapeze artist Jules Leotard. In the clinging costume that became his trademark, Leotard enjoyed a large female following. And he advised men [to] 'put on a more natural garb, which does not hide your best features.'"

Dr. Bill, as you requested: my source for most of this is Charles Panati, Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things. You may well enjoy the and other similar Panati works. (As to the particular item you questioned, Panati say his explanation is "according to legend".)

I don't know about Barbie, Ken. And according to the terms set out by BelM in her original post, melba toast and peach melba don't qualify -- neither were invented by Nellie Melba, they were named for her, as was the case with Chicken Tetrazzini, Spaghetti Caruso, Tournedos Rossini et al. However, Sauce Béchamel would qualify.

See your point, byb. Was unsure if the first post required the "person" to be the "inventor" (contrast post's text with its header), but decided (see my prior header) we'd come up with more if we allowed the broader view.

My info is that the Barbie doll was named after Barbie Handler, whose parents (Elliot and Ruth) had founded Mattel toy. It was Ruth who designed that doll (the first "full figure" doll, in 1958, after noting that her daughter noting that her daughter ignored the typical cherub-type doll and preferred more shapely teenage paper dolls.

[sigh] This is what happens when food gets mentioned.

Bob, what exactly do you mean by chutney? What I know as chutney (which I've never seen here by the way except in Indian restaurants, and there's only about half a dozen of those in Jakarta) is completely different from kecap .

Bingley

If you go to the town of Ashcutney,
It is no use to ask them for chutney.
You may beg, plead and wheeze
And get down on your knees;
It will do you no good -- they ain't gutney.

But in the spirit of never posing a problem without offering a solution:
reply: In the village emporium of Woodstock,
Of chutney they keep quite a good stock.
They're more given to gluttony
Than the folk of Ashcutney,
Who neither of liquors nor foods talk.

Bob will have to pull out his book of regualions, and definations, but most cookbooks define chutney as a condiment, made of fruits, vinegar, spice and sugar. I have made pear ginger chutney, with more spice and sugar, and other chutneys with more vinegar and spice. they are usually lumpy, with solid pieces of fruit. american ketchup started as a chutney, that became sweeter and milder, and creamer with time. it, like many a word, has strayed far from its roots, so that it is almost unrecognizable. but it is fruit (tomato) with vinegar (not too much,) spice (even less) and sugar (way to much!)

car frames are still called a chaise. Chaise has been a word in english since 1701 or so.. do you think some one from the 1700's would recognize the object as being the same? i am sure there are better examples, too. -- it not so much a food thread, as a measurement of the way a word can be different things to different people.

required the "person" to be the "inventor"

Of course, she confused matters by mentioning Cæserian section as an example. Even if Julie *was the first, he could hardly be considered the inventor.

Without which no good action flick is complete.

of troy, that's more or less what I would recognise as chutney as well. Mango chutney is particularly popular in Britain. Kecap is more like maple syrup in appearance and is added to sauces, soups, and so on.

Bingley

Not certain if this qualifies, bel, but in woodworking one is constantly hazarded by pieces of wood that can get out of control in a powered saw environment. Many of us use a heavy mesh between us and the saw to cut down on injury. Due to the eight lines above and the six lines below the waist they are referred to as Shakespearian saw-nets. I buy mine in Lisbon.

yes-- of course you are right Max-- that word (chassis) disappeared from the dictionary this morning.. and now that you have posted, it has reluctantly reappeared -- to chastise me.. mea culpa..

my head, never quite screwed on straight, has been left behind several times in the past week or two.. i must get back in the habit of keeping it with me.. the thing i ever mind losing is my mind.. fortunately i never misplaced it for long..

This thread started out about products bearing names of persons creating them. So far nobody has alluded to the dozens and dozens of automobiles named after founders of the company. Or even models named after some famous person in the industry, such as Chevrolet, a French racing driver, who incidentally invented the rear vision mirror.

P.S. To my chagrin, URL about auto racing history says George Chevrolet was an American!

http://www.hickoksports.com/history/autorace03.shtml

What!, nobody's mentioned Thomas Crapper, the inventor of the flush toilet?! Or Otto Titsling, the inventor of the bra?

Or are these just urban legends anyway?

I believe Crapper is urban legend, but haven't tracked it down.

Titsling traces back to a mock history which also stressed the contributions of such other (hypothetical) luminarites as Hans Delving.

So far nobody has alluded to the dozens and dozens of automobiles named after founders of the company

But of course, BYB did.

Was there a Mr. Rolls and a Mr. Royce then BYB?

-----------------------------------------------

Yup, Caesar could hardly have been the inventor of the 'section' since he was allegedly the outcome of one. (Bill, I haven't checked out your post yet so if I'm off on this mea culpa)

-------------------------------------------------

See now, when you are unclear about what you want, the conversation inevitably turns to food again. Take careful note for future reference ladies. That little bit of wisdom should come in handy one of these days. Be precise! Cause the next time you suggest a little snack off he'll go to the kitchen.

Yup, Caesar could hardly have been the inventor of the 'section' since he was allegedly the outcome of one.

Well, whaddabout the salad, then?

By the way, I'm not altogether pleased with the Caesar dressing recipe I normally use; if any of you culinary masters have a fantabulous one and would like to send it by private, I'd be much obliged

The Thomas Crapper reference can be found in published sources, but they cite no sources. It appears to be a myth perpetrated by Flushed with Pride: The Short of Thomas Crapper, (1969) by Wallace Reyburn. Panati (who I cited above) writes: The book reads for long stretches as serious biography, but the accumulation of toilet humor puns, double entendres, and astonishing coincidences eventually reveals Wallace Reyburn's hoax." [examples omitted]

Again according to Panati, the Titzling account is another Reyburn creation. In Bust Up: The Uplifting Tale of Otto Titzling" (1971) Reyburn informs us that Otto Titzling, assisted by a Dane named Hans Delving, created a bra for Sweden's greatest female athlete, Lois Lung. Titzling later brought suit for patent infringement against a Frenchman, Philippe de Brassiere.

Reyburn's account has been accepted and cited in later references!

Can anyone find out if Reyburn is still alive? If so, we've got to get him on this board!

My apologies to BYB. I have been driven nuts by agonizingly slow changes from window to window, and missed his. Back in the twenties there were so many odd-ball car companies, that we had a game of sitting on the curb, watching the cars, and seeing who could be first to identify each car as it came into view. "My Moon!" "My Essex!" "My Peerless!" "My Pierce Arrow!" "My Franklin!" There were so many different ones each kid's score was fairly large.

For automobiles there's Austin, Aston-Martin, Bentley, Buick, Bugatti, Citroen, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Daimler, Delahaye, Delorean, Deusenberg, Delage, Dodge, Edsel, Ford, Hillman, Humber, Isotta, Kaiser, Lincoln, Marmon, Mercedes-Benz, Messerschmitt, Morris, Oldsmobile, Peugeot, Renault, Rolls-Royce, Stanley, Studebaker, Tucker, Willys, et al.

Then there's Armstrong-Whitworth, Avro (A.V. Roe) Beech, Bloch (later Dassault), Boeing, Bristol, Brewster, Cessna, Curtiss, Dornier, Douglas, Fokker, Ford, Hughes, Loughead (later Lockheed), McDonnell, MIG (Mikoyan and Guerevitch), Piaseki, Piper, Ryan, Sikorsky, Taylor, Tupolev, et al among aircraft.

Shall I go on to bicycles?

Singer--which for years was sewing machines.

Well, since Ted hasn't said anything to keep us in stitches, I guess I'll have to mention that it was Elias Howe who invented the first modern sewing machine. Howe he did it makes for a howeling good story. It's said he dreamed of needles with the holes in the wrong end. I guess he got it awl wrong.

>Incidentally, as recently as the;youth of one of my grandfathers, tomatoes were thought unsafe to eat.

Talking to friends with elderly relatives here in Scotland that seemed to apply to almost all non root vegetables until fairly recently!
.... OK I've made it white, it's a foodie thingy, .... back to the land of the deep fried Mars Bar ... oh, maybe that is relevant, I can post that ...

Mars bars (they are different in the UK to the ones in the USA but that is another story) were named after Forrest Mars.

M&Ms too (we used to call them "Treats", unless they were a different company, possibly because we didn't have Hershey's chocolate here)
The first M was Mars, the second M stands for Bruce Murrie, who was the son of the president of Hershey, Mars’ biggest competitor. Mars put up 80% of the capital, Bruce Murrie 20%. The explanation for this unusual joint venture was that chocolate was rationed during WWII, but not for Hershey’s, which produced chocolate for the troops. By setting up in business in this way, M&Ms had a guaranteed source of chocolate. (Mars soon bought the younger Murrie out, but M&Ms continued to be made with Hershey’s chocolate through the 60s.)

http://www.goodbyemag.com/jul99/mars.html

I'm not altogether pleased with the Caesar dressing recipe I normally use

Keeping it within the statistical variance of the drift of this thread, have you tried ketchup?

I remember having read that Caesar's troops complained during the campaigns about having to eat too much meat, and not enough vegetables. I wonder what kind of salad Caesar offered them, and what besides olive oil for dressing.

Bill, I doubt very much that Caesar's troops ate salad. So far as I can ascertain, salads were invented in the middle ages as something to fill your gut and keep off the pangs of starvation whilst fasting; they were not viewed as providing any significant nourishment, hence OK to eat on a fast. This is mentioned in the Decameron, I believe (going from memory) in the story about Alibech & Rustico. Salads then consisted of field greens dressed with salt (only), which is where the word "salad" comes from.

I believe the Caesar salad was named for the proprietor of a New York restaurant or night club, but don't know who off hand. Helen - can you help here?

I had some vague recollection that Caesar salads were reputed to be of Mexican origin. The following link, which appears to be a discussion of words on a food site (imagine!), provides details.

http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US8/SPEC/foodfolk.html

Dear BYB: And do you mean to tell me that Caesar's troops did not have table cloths, napkins, plates, and silverware including salad forks? Of course the passage I referred to said only that they wanted vegetables, and I wondered what kinds would have been available to them on campaign.

I don't know of any info. from Roman times about what rations were handed out to troops, although I dare say there are some experts who do. We know that Caesar's troops were usually on the move, so my assumption is that they did what armies usually did then and for the next 1800+ years: live off the land. So I would suppose that in Belgia, they enjoyed endives (or the ancient equivalent), cabbage in Germania (maybe sauercrautum ?). After they invaded Britannia, perhaps they used the native crops and plants to create bufo in foramine and Ricardellus maculosus?

My Latin is nothing compared to my Spanish, and yet why am I sure that these dishes are the near famous figgy pudding and the dreaded spotted dick?

As a hyla, I can spot a ranid relative regardless of language: that bufo is a toad-in-a-hole.

Well, at least I was half right. Story of my life.

Hmmm - I could've sworn I tapped out a reply to this post today - but it's not present (well , at least I can't see it - apologies if I've done this twice then...)

In keeping with the original request:

pavlova
wellington boots
mackintosh
furphy (see last week's discussion)
macadamia nuts
macadam (oldsters' word used in Oz for a tar sealed / bitumised road. Attributed to Sir John MacAdam - the same guy the nuts are named after)

stales

>After they invaded Britannia ...

It's such a shame that they never made across to Las Vegas, they would have had such fun with the slot machines. I'm sure that they wouldn't have minded losing a few denarii.

still trickling in....

biro

stales

Isn't kechup a phonetic of the original (tomato) catsup?
Now....where do we go with that?

As for chuney, I prefer Major Grey's Chutney. Wasn't there a real Major Grey ... a sorta' Brit version of Colonel Sanders ... who served in India and introduced bottled chutney into the commercial market in England ?
My Indian friend tells me there are many home recipes for chutney, varying with the region of India one is in.

And wasn't Caesar salad "invented" by Caesar Ritz the chef-hotelier? As were a bunch of othe dishes that are "a la Ritz?"

There! getting back to the named-for thread very neatly I thought!

Oops ...
And what about Ritz crackers. Argggh!

just keepin' the pot on the boil, folks!

As I was glancing at the obituaries this morning, a name struck me that belongs here: Zimmer or Zimmer frame, known to USns as a "walker" (portable support for the elderly or infirm). Which term, or what term, is used in the antipodes and places other than UK and US?

As a Canadian, I use the word "walker". (But I don't need one for myself, just yet.) Never heard Zimmer before, but that's what the Board is for!

Zimmer...that's what the Board is for!

mutual support? framing the innocent? holding up real life?

re: Zimmer...that's what the Board is for!

isn't zimmer the german for room(s)? (an inn keeper is a zimmerman, ja?) so i can get room and board here?

we do make everyone welcome, and we are open all hours of the day and night and goodness knows there is always food about!

To bring things back to center - guillotine.

Perhaps we should limit the products to exclude things that have their own designation but form a subset with a proper name - which would accept Macadam the paving material but disallow Macadamia nuts, since there are plenty of nuts of other sorts.

Lots of physical constants were named for people, too: ampere, ohm, volt, watt and such are so much part of the language that they don't even get capitalized any more, and many elements (especially the newer ones) have people's names too. But of course they aren't products, strictly speaking. Or even loosely.

And don't forget that a lot of names came from things, rather than the other way around. I G Farber, for example, likely has someone back in the past being a merchant working with colors, etc; Steins, Woods, Coopers, Millers, even Smiths all have names with identifiable origins. Though there's always the possibility that some names were assigned arbitrarily at immigration centers...

and then there is also Hobson's choice--and theories.. a suspect a favorite around here would be the Red Queen theory

and would we include a King's truss? (a type of truss used commonly for bridges, especially for bridges built by the "crown". so its not named for any particular king (as least none that i know of). (a former resident of Kingsbridge Road-- named for the colonial bridge on the same.)

Perhaps we should limit the products to exclude things that have their own designation but form a subset with a proper name - which would accept Macadam the paving material but disallow Macadamia nuts, since there are plenty of nuts of other sorts.

So "macadam paving"would be out and "Macadamias" in.

But of course they aren't products, strictly speaking. Or even loosely.

Strictly speaking, they *are products, but they are probably not commodities[?]

Oh Helen, I burst out laughing when I saw your post about Zimmer. It reminded me of one of the great film classics, the scene in the Peter Sellers movie where Clouseau comes into the inn and tells the innkeeper he wants a rühm. The innkeeper, after getting him to repeat this a couple times says, "Zimmer!" Clouseau checks his pocket dictionary and says, "Yes, you idiot, that's what I said : Rühm!!" This is followed by the immortal dialogue which begins, "Does your dog bite?"

Max has right. Zimmermann means carpenter; innkeeper is Gastwirt(in). Bei mienem Wörterbuch.

as noted elsewhere, many from other states and nations are assisting NY with the recovery.

this morning on the way to work, i saw a giant crane on truck heading downtown. the truck had the company name painted on the side panel.
All Erections and Cranes--
Thank you, Cleveland Ohio.. in more ways than one!

A Chicago company, very well connected politcally, specializes in excavating and grading the land for large real-estate projects. Their slogan, appearing on billboards, is:
Palumbo Brothers: We Make the Earth Move

BYB writes: "So far as I can ascertain, salads were invented in the middle ages as something to fill your gut and keep off the pangs of starvation whilst fasting; they were not viewed as providing any significant nourishment, hence OK to eat on a fast."

And Oct 2, in The Wall Street Journal: "Don't count on many bonus bucks this year. That's the clear message from numerous companies in the automotive, airline...and other badly battered industries...Those salad days are over." [emph added]

Or are they just beginning?

I've never heard of 'salad days' apart from when some friends decide to go on a diet. Am I to assume by the quote Insel that it means 'good times' as in times where you are making good money.

How did this come about?

The use of "salad days" is fairly old, if I remember correctly. It was in use amongst the haut ton during the Regency period, and generally referred to those "carefree" years/months/weeks/days between coming out (being introduced to society) and getting married.

And, FWIW, here's a reference from Google:

http://www.boston.com/globe/columns/freeman/salad_days.htm

Sorry for the analysis, but you can all blame teresag. She started it ...

shakespeare: "my salad days, when I was green in experience".

or something of that sort. Haven't yet LIU.
Edit:: Ah, Jeez! I see it's in the above URL. Sorry.
Hey, why am I apologizing? No fair googling, CapK, until we've had the fun of picking our own brains!

No apology required IMHO. I merely wished to verify that the usage I believed I knew was correct and that it would have been used in the period I understood it to have been used in.

I don't remember ever hearing the expression used in conversation. These days it seems to be pretty much a literary term. I wanted to point out that that wasn't always the case.

I know of it only because, in college, my roommate's girlfriend had stumbled upon the phrase and loved it. She often referred her current age as "her salad days", meaning (to her) the days in which she intended to garner experience.

I never had the nerve to ask whether the salad was wilted.

and it was the name of a very successful, but light, musical theatre piece written by Dorothy Reynolds and Julian Slade in 1954.

"Maybe I'll wait till I'm too late,
But I shall have waited for one good reason.
Here in the sun, the sun, the sun,
I might be in love by the end of the season."

"We mustn't look back. No, we mustn't look back.
Whatever our memories are.
We mustn't say these were our happiest days,
But our happiest days so far."

I don't remember ever hearing the expression used in conversation. These days it seems to be pretty much a literary term.

I use it all the time. Meaning from about the ages 18 to 24.
I hear it, too. It is taken as meaning carefree days, before adult responsibilities became the ruling factor.
Nobody asks what I mean (and beieve me, my chums will ask) so I presume that the meaning is generally understood to be as mentioned above.

I think the replacement phrase for salad days these days is---"back in the day". I liked this phrase when I first heard it and use it a lot. Too much, some say.

Cracker Jack isn't named for anybody, inventor or otherwise.

Per Symbols of America, by Hal Morgan: Cracker Jack, the popcorn and peanut candy, was named from the slang term CrackerJack, for excellent, which had entered the language in 1896. The candy was first made by FW Rueckheim, a German immigrant in Chicago, who opened a popcorn stand in 1872. The business first sold CrackerJack at the Columbian Exposition in 1893. It was marketed in the Sears catalogue in 1902, and became part of song lyrics in Take Me Out to the Ballgame in 1908. The little boy in the sailor suit on the package was modeled on Rueckheim's grandson, Robert, and the dog after the boy's dog, Bingo. Robert died of pneumonia soon after the new box with him on it appeared in 1919.

Per Webster's: A "Cracker Jack" is a person who does something especially well. It is descended from "crackaJack," a rhymed compound from "crack" when used as an adjective for excellent.

Ann, thanks for reminding us of the origins of Crackerjack. I had heard it before and was glad to see it again. What a sad ending. It's sort of the reverse of a story about a dog and his master who died. I have read that there is a statue in Edinburgh of the dog, whose name I have forgotten (Robbie?) Perhaps Jo can enlighten us.

I remember the dog was a Scottie called Greyfriars Bobbie, who lived in Edinburgh. When his master died Greyfriars Bobbie spent the rest of his life lying on the grave except when he was making the rounds of local restaurants who fed him. I think this was in the 1880s but I'm not sure of the exact date.

Bingley