Frozen in time: Birdseye unveiled a revolutionary idea nearly 88 years ago

On March 6, 1930, the newspaper in Springfield, Massachusetts, ran an ad claiming "The Most Revolutionary Idea in the History of Food Will Be Revealed in Springfield Today."

The ad probably was guilty of exaggeration -- but not by much. For that day was the day Clarence Birdseye formally introduced his brand of frozen foods to the world at Davidson's Market, and in the process, according to his biographer, Mark Kurlansky, literally changed our civilization by creating a whole new industry and rendering the term "fresh frozen" far less oxymoronic than it initially might appear.

Frozen Berries with Hot White Chocolate, the perfect Valentines Day recipe, which does not merely permit the use of frozen food, but insists on it, so that unthawed berries can contrast pleasantly with hot chocolate sauce.Tom Harte

You have only to stroll through the frozen-food section of any major American supermarket to realize what an impact Birdseye's invention has had. Today frozen food is a worldwide enterprise worth nearly $250 billion. No wonder you can find almost anything in the freezer cases of a well-stocked grocery store. The pizza section alone usually offers more variety than you'd find in a pizzeria in Naples, Italy.

All of this is due primarily to the efforts of Mr. Birdseye, a true foodie before there was even a term for it, and, though others might try to claim it, clearly earn him the title, "The Father of Frozen Food."

By figuring out how to effectively put peas, and ultimately all kinds of other foods, on ice, Clarence Birdseye created the frozen food industry and changed culinary life forever.Tom Harte

Yet, Birdseye, of course, did not invent freezing. Though it is true, for debatable reasons, that humankind was far quicker to harness fire and heat than ice and cold, people have been freezing food, inadvertently or on purpose, for centuries, even millennia. The Chinese, for example, were doing it as early as 1000 B.C.

In modern times, even as far back as the Civil War, people have tried to turn frozen food into a profitable enterprise. But before Birdseye, the problem was frozen food simply was not very good. The freezing techniques in use produced such low quality results that frozen food was even banned in the New York state prison system. (Thus, when Birdseye first brought out his line of frozen foods he used the term "frosted" instead of "frozen.")

Still frosty from the freezer case, a package of frozen peas, every bit as good, if not better than, fresh ones, thanks to the pioneering efforts of Clarence Birdseye, the Father of Frozen Foods.Tom Harte ~ photos@semissourian.com

Birdseye realized the problems usually stemmed from slow freezing, which allowed large ice crystals to form which in turn damaged the cell structure of the food in question and abetted loss of nutrients. He recalled his time living in Labrador in northeastern Canada where he observed how the native Inuit would freeze fish immediately and speedily by burying it in a barrel of snow and leaving it outdoors. When it was thawed months later it tasted fresh. He, thus, realized that fast, or what we now call "flash," freezing was the secret. And the rest, as they say, is history.

You might think this time of year, when it's warmth we seek, is not a good time to be thinking about things frozen. But it is, because freezing makes foods with a limited growing season accessible year round, and the truth is, in many cases frozen foods are just as good as their fresh counterparts.

Partly this is because some things, notably fruits and vegetables, languish during the shipping process so that by the time they reach the grocer's shelves they are no longer at their peak. Foods selected for freezing, on the other hand, are at their best. Take, for example, peas. A case can be made that frozen ones are actually better than fresh.

Thanks to Clarence Birdseye, sub-zero no longer has to mean sub-standard.

Frozen Berries with Hot White Chocolate

Perfect for Valentine's Day, this recipe, adapted from Ina Garten, is remarkable not because it uses a frozen ingredient. Rather, it necessitates freezing as an integral preparation step. The berries are served unthawed, creating a pleasant contrast to the hot sauce poured over them.

• 10 ounces chopped white chocolate
• 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons vanilla
• 2 pounds frozen mixed berries without strawberries

Combine chocolate, cream, and vanilla and microwave until chocolate melts. Whisk mixture until smooth. Arrange berries on individual serving plates (not bowls) and let sit for five minutes. Ladle chocolate sauce over berries and serve. As a variation, you can, as Nigella Lawson suggests, substitute limoncello for the vanilla and splash a little more of the liqueur over the berries prior to saucing them.