Clarence Birdseye was well educated, successful and a risk taker — everything an inventor should be. But Mr. Birdseye’s brilliant idea, frozen food, had been tried before, with miserable results. Before anyone could appreciate his invention, he had to overcome their deep-seated prejudices.

A born naturalist, who paid his college tuition by providing snake food — frogs — to the Bronx Zoo, Mr. Birdseye sailed to Labrador in 1912 and spent the next three years trapping and trading fur. Later, he brought his wife and infant there, making him yearn all the more for fresh food during Labrador’s long, dark winters. Mr. Birdseye noticed that the Eskimos froze their fish quickly at temperatures of 40 degrees or more below zero. Amazingly, weeks later the fish, when thawed, still tasted pretty good.

Unfortunately for Mr. Birdseye, food purveyors had already given the public a taste of frozen meats and vegetables. The old method was to throw the food into cold storage, where it would freeze slowly, giving the ice crystals ample time to break down the cells of the food. When thawed, slow-frozen food turned into gray mush. Also, Americans had come to love canned goods, which were dependable and easy to ship and store. Grocers balked at installing new refrigerated cases to safeguard Mr. Birdseye’s novelty.

But he didn’t give up. He borrowed against his life-insurance policy to open his own frozen-food manufacturing operation. Struggling along on the verge of bankruptcy, Mr. Birdseye in 1929 sold the company to Postum (soon renamed General Foods). And with the marketing heft of General Foods behind it, the frozen-food brand Birds Eye began to show up in more grocery stores. Then, during World War II, tin was diverted to the war effort, and millions of Americans were forced to try frozen vegetables.

Mr. Birdseye died in 1956, a wealthy man who never stopped inventing.

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