Minnesota Experience

(easy listening music) Hello, I'm Betty Crocker. (film whirring) I'm Betty Crocker (laughing) (upbeat music) I grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming, which everybody goes, Cheyenne, I didn't know there were black people in Cheyenne, anyway, (laughing) I grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming, my father was a chef, my mother had an associate degree in Food Service so we were foodies. When I was 14 I got my first Betty Crocker's Cook Book and I saw the pictures of the women, the home economists, working in the test kitchens and I said, that's what I wanna do, I wanna be Betty Crocker. And this was in the 50s you understand. My mother said to me, you don't see any black folks in those pictures do you? She said, well if you're in love with the food industry you should go and get a degree in dietetics. I went and got the degree in dietetics at the University of Northern Colorado. I got a call from General Mills and they said, we might have an opening in the Betty Crocker kitchens. I said, uh, really, that's my dream job (laughing) I've always wanted to be Betty Crocker. So I went up and interviewed for the job and, they hired me on the spot. So that was the beginning of my career with General Mills. It was 1968 and I started working the Betty Crocker kitchens as a home economist. I went through my training and learned the Betty Crocker way and I worked on many products during my tenure at General Mills. My first assignment was on Hamburger Helper. So I was helpful in the development of that product and it was a huge success. We had the tours in the beginning. I loved having the tours there except for the fact that we were not behind glass, our kitchens were open. So all these tourist were coming through there and they didn't believe that we were the real test kitchen home economists. They thought we were just actresses and the real test work went on someplace else. I remember one time I boiled over some molasses on the stove and of course there's flames and smoke and the tours are standing there laughing their heads off. I loved doing the work in the kitchens and I loved working with the scientists over at the research lab. We would write package directions and so we were very careful in writing package directions especially after the time somebody sued us. And the reason they sued us was because our directions said to heat a can of sweetened condensed milk, well some person didn't open it and pour it in the pan before they did that, they just put the can of milk in a pan and on the stove and it exploded. So they, uh, anyway. And one time we were writing directions for the piecrust bits and we said in the directions you had to prick the piecrust, you can't use the word prick on a package direction, and I'm like, oh no, no, no. Eventually I met Ken, Ken Davis and he had this restaurant in Edina and he called me up one day out of the blue, somebody had recommended me to him 'cause he needed somebody to make a formula for his barbecue sauce 'cause everybody liked his barbecue sauce but they didn't have a recipe. He said I want you to come look at my barbecue sauce, and I was like, hmmm, guys have asked me to come look at their phonograph records and their etchings, whatever that might be, and stuff like that, but they never invited me to look at their barbecue sauce before. So I went. We made batches of barbecue sauce, batches, and we finally got one that he thought was as close to his grandmother's recipe as he could remember. And then he had a hard decision to make because I had the secret recipe. So he had two choices. He could either kill me or marry me (laughing). Three years later we were married and he left the restaurant business and started his barbecue sauce business. And I gave General Mills my notice and I went to work for Ken Davis Products. Some company came to me shortly after Ken's death and said to me, I don't understand why a little lady like you would want to run a company. And I, and I thought about that, and I thought, this guy has got to be put in his place. So I said to him, because I can, and I did (laughing). I ran it until, until 2010, when I sold the company. I think the Betty Crocker persona is a person who knows what she's doing, loves to cook, is kind of maternal and friendly and will listen to your problems. And I wanted to be that kind of a person and so I thought, I'm Betty Crocker (laughing).