Prefer Stove Top stuffing over homemade? Give thanks to Purdue alumna
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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The 1953 home economics Purdue graduate, the late Ruth Siems, is credited with inventing Stove Top stuffing, a modern day staple in Thanksgiving and every-day meals alike.
Siems worked on developing Stove Top while working at General Foods during a time when there was a high demand in the U.S. for convenient, non-perishable food.
Stove Top stuffing hit the shelves in 1971 with its secret ingredient being its "dimensions of the bread crumbs," according to Purdue's release. General Foods patented this bread crumb recipe in 1975, causing Siems to be listed among the first inventors of Stove Top stuffing, along with Anthony Capossela Jr., John Halligan and C. Robert Wyss.
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Siems grew up in Evansville, Ind., and studied home economics at Purdue. She worked for General Foods for about 35 years, working on multiple food inventions throughout the course of her career, many of which are cataloged at part of the Gertrude Sunderlin Papers, who was an early foods and nutrition professor at Purdue.
“It wasn’t her idea,” Michael Snyder, Siems’ brother-in-law, told the Los Angeles Times at the time of her death in 2005. “The marketing people came to her and said, ‘We’d like to invent instant stuffing for poultry,’ and she did it. It wasn’t easy, either. It took a long time to get it right before they marketed it.”
The product may have been a hit, but Siems didn't stop working for General Foods, Synder told the Times, focusing on "frozen pizzas and things of that sort and market testing.”
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Kraft Foods now owns Stove Top stuffing, which sells around 60 million boxes per year, a company currently worth over $8.3 billion.
Siems passed away in 2005 in Newburgh, Ind., according to her obituary in The New York Times.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Purdue alumna invented Stove Top stuffing for General Foods
