It's Wonder-ful: Wonder Bread gets new twist -- or squish -- as strudel dough

I remember well the first time I went to Paris, more than 30 years ago. What impressed me most was not the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre or even the petits fours at Stohrer's, the oldest patisserie in the city. No, it was the bread. Crusty, chewy and full of flavor, there was simply nothing like it available at home at the time.

Since then, American bakers have all but caught up with their counterparts in France where, despite laws banning machine-made bread, it is now perfectly possible to come across mediocre baguettes made from mass-produced dough.

Nowadays here in the United States so-called artisanal bread is everywhere, even in the supermarket. But as one who fully appreciates the virtues of artisanal bread and has even learned to bake it himself, I have to confess that there are times — say, when constructing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich — when for me nothing but soft, American white bread will do. That's because I grew up eating Wonder Bread.

Lots of people did. And they're still eating it. At more than 125 million loaves a year, Wonder is the best-selling brand of white bread in the country.

It all started in 1921 when the Taggart Baking Company of Indianapolis was getting ready to launch its new 1 1/2 pound loaf of bread. Elmer Cline, vice president for merchandising development at the bakery, was in charge of naming the product and developing the packaging.

Inspiration hit as Cline was attending the International Balloon Race at the Indianapolis Speedway. He became mesmerized by the hundreds of colorful balloons floating across the sky. Saying the sight had filled him with wonder, he immediately decided on the name for the new bread. Next he directed Sidney Peers, a commercial artist from a Chicago ad agency, to design the red, yellow and blue balloonlike logo, a version of which still adorns the bread's wrapper.

Only four years later the brand went national. Abetted by the claim that it built strong bodies eight ways (later that would be expanded to 12) and endorsed by Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob Smith, it wasn't long before Wonder Bread sales were rising like, well, a hot-air balloon.

Advertising notwithstanding, it is Otto Frederick Rohwedder who should get much of the credit for Wonder bread's success. He invented the bread slicing machine. It was initially used by a bakery in Chillicothe, Mo., but it was Wonder that first marketed sliced bread nationwide. That created a benchmark against which the greatness of every subsequent invention has been measured and earned Wonder Bread iconic status.

Wonderstrudel

This dish, in which slices of bread are rolled so thin they can stand in for strudel dough, takes advantage of what is arguably Wonder bread's chief attribute: its squishability. (You can squeeze an entire loaf into a ball about the size of your fist!) The recipe is adapted from the Wonder Bread Cookbook.

2 cups peeled, chopped pears

1/4 cup brandy

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

2/3 cup chopped toasted almonds

12 slices Wonder Bread

6 tablespoons melted butter

Combine pears and brandy and allow to stand for five minutes. Combine brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and almonds. Remove crusts from bread slices. Place two slices bread side by side and roll together until thin and stuck together to form a sheet. Repeat with remaining bread to make six sheets. Place one sheet in a lightly greased 11-by-7-inch baking pan and brush generously with melted butter. Sprinkle with 2-3 tablespoons of almond mixture. Repeat with two more sheets of bread. Top with half of pears. Cover with two more sheets of bread, spreading each with butter and sprinkling with almond mixture. Spoon remaining pears over top. Finish with remaining sheet of bread and brush with butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon and bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes until golden and pears are tender. Cool and slice, topping with whipped cream if desired.

Tom Harte's book, "Stirring Words," is available at local bookstores. A Harte Appetite airs Fridays 8:49 a.m. on KRCU, 90.9 FM. Contact Tom at semissourian.com or at the Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699.