It’s mint season in Northwest Indiana
Even though the prices of corn and soybeans have gone sky-high this growing season, there are still plenty of fragrant mint rows found in the fields near and around columnist Philip Potempa’s family farm in San Pierre.
I’ve often mentioned in my columns and cookbooks about the previous crop commodity in our farming community of Starke County is peppermint and spearmint oil.
Even though the price of corn and soybeans has gone sky-high this growing season, there’s still plenty of fragrant mint rows found in the fields near and around our family farm in San Pierre.
Wrigley’s and Colgate are just two of the large buyers for the late July and August harvested peppermint and spearmint, and our neighboring town North Judson annually celebrates our crop claim-to-fame with our community’s annual Mint Festival held Father’s Day Weekend each year.
Of course, Wrigley’s is famous for chewing gum and the clever advertising campaigns throughout the decades to push their flavorful products, especially the Doublemint brand of gum, always promoted with the promise of “double the flavor,” since the line launched in 1914.
The company’s advertising department devised the clever campaign using twins as the Doublemint brand ambassadors beginning in 1939, originally using illustrations of twins sporting identical smiles. In 1959, the Chicago-based company plucked a pair of aspiring actress/model twins from Hammond to step into the real-life role of playing the Doublemint Twins for TV commercials and personal appearances as well as the print advertisement campaigns. Soon, Joan and Jayne Knoerzer became Northwest Indiana notables at the age of 21 working for Windy City chewing gum titan Philip K. Wrigley.
As for how the two were selected from the list of other “seeing double” hopefuls, it didn’t hurt that they were the daughters of prominent socialite Jayne Boyd Knoerzer of Hammond, who died at age 90 in 1991, and was the daughter of powerful Chicago Alderman Charles Boyd, who held his office at the turn of the century from 1898 to 1902.
In their series of popular TV commercials, twins Joan and Jayne chirped the company slogan “Double your pleasure, double your fun, with double mint, double good, Doublemint Gum!” as they were captured frolicking in fun activities like tennis, biking and boating.
Looking to capture a younger and changing generation of gum-chewing consumers entering the purchasing power scene of the late 1960s, the Wrigley Company retired Joan and Jayne in favor of a new set of younger twins, Terrie and Jennie Frankel of Chicago, who turned 18 in 1968 and were willing to travel with the USO Tour to entertain troops at the height of the Vietnam War.
While judging this year’s “Cooking with Mint” contest last month at North Judson’s 44rd annual Mint Festival, none of the recipes including Doublemint gum as a key ingredient. Contest categories included desserts, main dishes, appetizers/side dishes, young cooks up to 12th grade and “men only.” As in most years while judging this competition, there was only one lone entry in the “men only” category.
The contest requires not only clever and imaginative recipes incorporating the mint theme, but also the key skill of deciding how “minty” the flavor should be for the recipes created so that the flavor and aroma remain distinct and inviting, but not overpowering. Among the winners was an inventive and delicious plum filled dessert dumpling served drizzled with an easy and flavorful mint syrup which earned award honors for Georgiana Morar of Knox. I’ve discovered her easy mint syrup is also wonderful to include in other entertaining opportunities to earn the attention of guests, from a few drops served in fresh ice tea to cocktail garnishes, and a refreshing topper for vanilla ice cream.
Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. He can be reached at pmpotempa@comhs.org or mail your questions: From the Farm, PO Box 68, San Pierre, Ind. 46374.
Easy Mint Syrup
Makes 16 servings
2 cups white granulated sugar, divided use
2 ½ cups water
8 teaspoons fresh lemon juice 4 small handfuls of fresh peppermint leaves
Directions:
1. Rinse mint leaves and add to a blender 1 cup of sugar and blend to combine. Add remaining sugar and blend a second time. Allow mixture to sit for 3 hours.
2. Add water and lemon juice to the mint and sugar mixture and stir and allow to sit another 3 hours.
3. In a large saucepan, boil the contents for 4 minutes and strain. Discard leaves. Boil syrup again for another 3 minutes and allow to cool. Store in refrigerator.