THEY ARE WHAT YOU EAT

You eat these products and drink a few of them, too. But how much do you know about the people they’re named for?

MRS. PAUL

In 1946, power plant worker Edward Piszek started selling deviled crab cakes in a local Philadelphia bar to earn money while the plant was on strike. “One Friday I prepared 172 and we only sold 50,” he recalled later. “There was a freezer in the back of the bar, so we threw them in there. It was either that or the trash can.” A week later the frozen crab cakes still tasted fine, so Piszek and a friend, John Paul, each chipped in $350 and started a frozen seafood business. Piszek’s mother pressured her son to name the company after her, but instead they named it Mrs. Paul’s Kitchens after John’s mom. Piszek bought out his partner in the 1950s, but he kept the Mrs. Paul’s name. In 1982, he sold the company to Campbell Soup for a reported $70 million.

EARL GREY

In his day Charles Grey, the second Earl Grey (1764–1845) was best known as the prime minister of Great Britain who ended slavery throughout the British Empire. Today, he’s better known for the gift he received when a British envoy saved the life of a Chinese government official. The grateful official sent Grey a diplomatic gift of black tea flavored by the oil of a citrus fruit known as bergamot. Grey liked the tea and started serving it in his home; when his supply ran low, he asked his London tea merchant, Twinings, to make more. Guests who enjoyed the prime minister’s tea and wanted some for themselves would go to Twinings and ask for “Earl Grey’s tea.” Today, it’s the most popular blend of tea in the world.

DR. LOUIS PERRIER

In 1902, Sir St. John Harmsworth, an English aristocrat, was seriously injured in an auto accident and went to Vergeze, a spa town in France, to recuperate. While there, a local doctor named Louis Perrier gave him some mineral water from Les Bouillens (“bubbling waters”), a natural spring he owned. Its supposed health-giving properties had been touted since the days of the Roman Empire; Harmsworth thought it would make an excellent mixer for whiskey for his friends back home. He bought the spring from Dr. Perrier, renamed it in his honor (who’d drink a mineral water called Harmsworth?), and started bottling it in green bottles shaped like the Indian clubs that Perrier had him swing for exercise. By the 1980s, Perrier was the world’s best-selling mineral water.

RUSSELL STOVER

An Iowa schoolteacher named Christian Nelson invented the world’s first chocolate-dipped ice cream bar in 1921. At a dinner party, someone suggested calling it Eskimo Pie. The person who came up with the name was Clara Stover, the wife of Nelson’s business partner, Russell Stover. The Nelsons and the Stovers made a fortune their first year in business, but after 15 months, others began to copy their idea, nearly forcing them out of business. The Stovers sold their share for $25,000 and moved to Denver, Colorado, where they started making and selling boxed chocolates out of their home. Today, Russell Stover Candies is the best-selling boxed chocolate brand in the United States.

DR. ANCEL KEYS

In 1941, the U.S. War Department asked Keys, a University of Minnesota physiologist, to develop a nonperishable, ready-to-eat meal that would be small enough to fit into a soldier’s pocket. Keys went to a local market and looked around for foods that would fit the bill. He came up with hard biscuits, dry sausages, hard candy, and chocolate bars; then he tested his 28-ounce, 3,200-calorie “meals” on six soldiers at a nearby army base. The soldiers rated it only “palatable” and “better than nothing,” but the food did relieve their hunger and gave the men enough energy to engage in combat. The army threw in chewing gum, toilet paper, and four cigarettes…and named the packets “K-rations” in honor of their creator.

The original Guinness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland, has a 6,000-year lease.