Posted 6/10/2007 10:45:00 PM by Douglas

America mourns the loss of a true great. Rest in peace, Edwin Traisman:

Edwin Traisman, a food scientist who helped standardize McDonald’s French fries and develop Cheez Whiz for Kraft Foods, as well as researching the risks of E. coli bacteria, died Tuesday in Madison, Wis. He was 91 and lived in Monona, Wis.

As stipulated in his will, his ashes were scattered over a bowl of limp broccoli. But seriously folks, this is the American dream:

Mr. Traisman was manager of dairy research for Kraft in 1957 when he noticed long lines at a new drive-in restaurant called McDonald’s in Des Plaines, Ill. Within a year, he left his job at Kraft and opened the first of four McDonald’s restaurants that he would eventually own, three in Madison and one in Monona.

Soon after, Mr. Traisman’s research expertise came to the attention of Ray Kroc, the president of the McDonald’s chain, which had 200 restaurants.

Mr. Traisman and another food scientist, Ken Strong, were asked by Mr. Kroc to find a way to supply all the restaurants with peeled and cut potatoes that would hold their taste, color and crispness no matter the season. The solution was to quick fry the slices for up to a minute at 300 degrees to remove some of the moisture and then freeze them.

By 1972, frozen fries were being shipped to the 2,272 McDonald’s restaurants. Today, the company supplies frozen fries to 31,000 restaurants worldwide.

So maybe he didn't discover DNA or a process to refine Aluminum from bauxite ore (but you don't know the names of those guys, either), but what does it say about your work to know you can't walk into a grocery store on the continent and not find your invention? As far as legacies go, sure, it's not a cure for cancer, but what have you done with your life that's going to get your obit in The Times??