About Me
Hello, I'm Hector Boiardi , better known as "Chef Boyardee" an Italian-born chef who became famous for my eponymous franchise of food products.I was born at Piacenza. My cooking skill became notable when I opened my first restaurant, Il Giardino d'Italia, in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1940s. Patrons asked for multiple servings of my spaghetti sauce, which I would give to the customers in old milk bottles. Demand grew, so much so, in fact, that I had to employ the use of a tiny factory to keep up with orders. It was at this time that I set my sights on selling my product nationally, first priding my spaghetti products on being inexpensive and thus a good meal choice to serve to the entire family. The factory was moved to Milton, Pennsylvania where I had close control of all of the ingredients placed into my products. I even grew mushrooms in the basement of the factory to be used in in creations. I am quite proud of my Italian heritage. I soldmy products under Chef Boy-Ar-Dee allowing my American customers to pronounce my name perfectly.Later, I sold my brand to American Home foods (later international home foods) and helped them make new italian food products for the American food Market. ConAgra acquired International Home Foods in 2000 and continues to use my likeliness on Chef Boyardee brand products.In the last two decades, rumors have abounded that I was not a real person, but merely a fictional icon created to sell foodstuffs. This stems from the fact that I was less active toward my death; I appeared in many of my company's televison commercials for my brand in the 1950's and 1960's.One of the jingles associated with my products was "Good cookin', that's Chef Boy-Ar-Dee."My company refused to all the sitcome Sienfield to use my brand nameBeef-a-Roni" in a famous 1996 episode ("The Rye") in which Kramer feeds the product to a horse, causing flatulence. Instead, the product was called "Beef-a-Reeno."
