Source: Atlas Obscura
In 1901, Alexander P. Anderson toasted sealed test tubes of cornstarch and wheat flour in a 500-degree oven. He worked as a botanist at the New York Botanical Garden and was testing grain moisture content. Instead, he laid the groundwork for puffed cereal.
When he struck a tube with a hammer, the moisture in the starch (which hadn’t boiled in the sealed environment) immediately turned to steam, expanding the granules until they exploded out of the tube as the first batch of corn puffs. The inventor presented this discovery at the 1904 World’s Fair—this time, with a bit more fanfare. Using eight bronze tubes, he blasted puffed rice inside a giant cage. Quaker Oats began selling his puffed rice and by 1912, the company was publishing ads boasting that people were eating…
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