Unlike Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines was a real person and an early food influencer as well. Born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in 1880, Duncan and his brother Porter spent their summers with their maternal grandparents on a farm, where his love of good food began. His mother had died of pneumonia when he was 4, and he relied on his connections to family all his life, sending a Christmas card to them with the names of great restaurants he found while he was a traveling salesman. That card evolved into collecting recipes from these restaurants, and then became cookbooks and travel books.
His nephew, Hugh Hines Jr., of Danville, Kentucky, recalls those recipes because his mother, Geraldine Hines, was the one who tested Uncle Duncan’s recipes. “My mother would cook them, and the family would gather around and say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ He had a briefcase of recipes he’d acquired by the time he got back home. His favorites were country ham and yeast rolls.”
