The July 18, 1984, Taste cover featured a gigantic blueberry done up as a clock ("Time for blueberries" read the headline), and the section boasted 11 blueberry recipes -- including a blueberry jam pie formula favored by University of Minnesota President C. Peter Magrath; find it at www.startribune.com/tabletalk.
Other blueberry news included a profile of Maple Grove resident Elaine Jauman, the author of "Berried Treasures" and "More Berried Treasures," a collection of 600-plus berry recipes, and a story that looked into Minnesota's blueberry farm future, thanks to the university's Northblue, the state's first reliably productive blueberry plant.
The section's last page offered a peek into the work world of McDonald's corporate chef Rene Arend. "His latest triumph is Chicken McNuggets, bite-size pieces of boneless breast and thigh meat with a tempura coating," wrote Taste editor Ann Burckhardt, who noted that Arend came up with the idea after a single day in his Oak Brook, Ill., corporate kitchen. But the company, which was then feeding 17 million customers a day, required two years to smooth out the wrinkles of the manufacturing process.
Arend and his staff spent three months in developing the three McNugget sauces (the secret ingredient in the sweet-sour version was apricot concentrate), and the Luxembourg native found he had a runaway hit. "They gave McDonald's a first," Arend said.
To keep up with demand, the Golden Arches built three processing plants, where 600 people worked full time deboning chickens. "We sell the drums [drumsticks] and wings in the Far East," Arend said. "Freeze them and ship them. The other parts are used for soups. From chicken, nothing is lost."
Arend's next project: a prepackaged iceberg lettuce-cheddar-tomato salad, then being tested in Los Angeles. "What I would like to see is a variety of salads: fruit salad, chef's salad, Cobb salad," he said. "A salad bar without having a bar."
RICK NELSON
