>>12379195>The plump, jolly “Sir Chef Boyardee” you see on every can is actually modeled after a real person—Ettore Boiardi (pronounced “Boy-AR-dee”), an Italian immigrant who came to the U.S. in the early 20th century.>Ettore Boiardi’s backgroundBorn in 1897 in Piacenza, Italy, Boiardi trained in some of Italy’s finest kitchens before moving to America in 1917. He honed his craft at New York’s Plaza Hotel and then managed the kitchen at Cleveland’s Hotel Pennsylvania.
>From chef to brandIn 1928, he opened his own restaurant in Cleveland, serving house-made pasta sauce so popular that customers begged to buy it by the jar. By 1938 he was mass-producing it under the brand name “Chef Boy-ar-dee,” an anglicized phonetic spelling of his surname.
>The mascot’s likenessThe smiling, moustachioed chef on the label is a cartoon portrait of Ettore himself—complete with his signature toque and double chin. Over time, he’s been whimsically dubbed “Sir Chef Boyardee,” but the drawing has always been intended as a friendly nod to the man who built the empire.
>So whenever you tuck into a bowl of beef ravioli or spaghetti & meatballs from that red-and-white can, you’re essentially shaking forks with the spirit of Ettore Boiardi himself.