In 1935, a traveling salesman from Kentucky tucked an unusual gift into the Christmas cards he sent to friends and acquaintances: a list of 167 restaurants he considered worth visiting.
His name was Duncan Hines.
Today, Hines’ name is immediately associated with boxes of cake mix, brownie mix and frosting lining supermarket baking aisles. But the real Duncan Hines wasn’t a baker, and he didn’t become famous by developing a cake recipe.
He became famous by eating.
Born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in 1880, Hines eventually went to work as a traveling salesman for a Chicago printing company. The job put him on the road throughout the United States during an era when finding a reliable restaurant while traveling could be surprisingly difficult. There were no online reviews, of course, and restaurant sanitation standards could vary considerably from place to place.
So Hines began keeping notes.
According to the Library of Congress, he maintained a notebook of good, safe places to eat that he discovered during his business trips and vacations. Friends learned about his collection and began asking him for recommendations before taking trips of their own.
Hines eventually decided to share more widely.
In 1935, he included a list of 167 recommended restaurants with his Christmas cards. The response was so enthusiastic that the following year he published his first edition of “Adventures in Good Eating.”
The guide organized restaurants by state and town and included information useful to travelers, including locations, prices and the types of food served. It was a hit.
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Hines traveled extensively to evaluate restaurants, and his name became a mark of quality at a time when Americans were increasingly taking to the nation’s highways.
His recommendations weren’t simply about whether the food tasted good. Hines was particularly concerned with cleanliness and food safety, and his reputation became so powerful that restaurants proudly advertised when they had earned his approval.
By the end of the 1930s, Hines had become one of America’s best-known and most trusted dining authorities, according to research from Western Kentucky University. He expanded his publishing empire beyond restaurants, producing “Lodging for a Night” as well as other books about cooking and travel.
Then somebody realized that the Duncan Hines name might sell more than restaurant guides.
In 1949, Hines partnered with businessman Roy Park to form Hines-Park Foods. Rather than manufacturing everything themselves, the company licensed the trusted Duncan Hines name to food products that met its standards.
The Duncan Hines label initially appeared on ice cream, according to Western Kentucky University, before becoming closely associated with the product that would ultimately eclipse Hines’ restaurant guides in the public imagination: cake mix.
The strategy worked because consumers already knew the name.
Hines had spent years building a reputation as an authority who could be trusted to tell travelers where they would find quality food. Putting “Duncan Hines” on grocery-store products essentially transformed that personal seal of approval into a national food brand.
The line eventually grew to more than 200 products. In 1956, Procter & Gamble purchased Hines-Park Foods. Hines died three years later in 1959 at age 78.
Decades later, the restaurant guides that first made him famous have largely faded from popular memory, while his name remains plastered across baking aisles.
The irony is delicious: One of the most recognizable names in American baking belonged to a man who became famous not for making cakes, but for traveling around the country and telling everybody where to eat.
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