# a piece of culinary history that i didnt know about -the baking powder war

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-piece-of-culinary-history-that-i-didnt-know-about-the-baking-powder-war/825586>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [December 5, 2018, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-piece-of-culinary-history-that-i-didnt-know-about-the-baking-powder-war/825586 "2018-12-05T05:10:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2018, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-piece-of-culinary-history-that-i-didnt-know-about-the-baking-powder-war/825586/21 "2018-12-05T21:01:14Z")

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I wonder what the profit margin was on baking powder? Being that they could hire a team of young women to go sell the stuff door-to-door complete with cooking demonstrations.

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**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2018, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-piece-of-culinary-history-that-i-didnt-know-about-the-baking-powder-war/825586/22 "2018-12-05T22:42:56Z")

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**JJ** , this is how they were _really_ making their money. 😉

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2018, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-piece-of-culinary-history-that-i-didnt-know-about-the-baking-powder-war/825586/23 "2018-12-05T23:07:26Z")

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Sure, people were baking more back then, but not all baking would use baking powder. Some baking would be yeast-leavened, and some would have used baking soda with some other acid in the recipe, rather than soda and acid pre-combined into baking powder.

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**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2018, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-piece-of-culinary-history-that-i-didnt-know-about-the-baking-powder-war/825586/24 "2018-12-08T04:41:14Z")

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> [@ZipperJJ](#):
>
> I wonder what the profit margin was on baking powder? Being that they could hire a team of young women to go sell the stuff door-to-door complete with cooking demonstrations.

Introduction of baking powder coincided with development of industrial production methods. So the cost fell dramatically, and there was a lot of margin for efficient producers.

And baking powder made kitchen baking dramatically easier. So people were prepared to pay full price.

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