Book excerpt: In 1869, the American diet was a dreary affair. Kitchen staples included bread, potatoes, other root vegetables, and meat. Tomatoes-then called "love apples"-were an exotic fruit. A young 25-year-old Henry J. Heinz helped to change all of that. He established his company based on a single premise: quality. He demonstrated this commitment by bottling his first product, grated horseradish, in clear glass jars to showcase its purity. From his hometown near Pittsburgh, Heinz sparked a revolution. A colorful marketing genius, he was a foresighted entrepreneur whose peripatetic travels birthed the global H. J. Heinz Company, which today is the most international of all United States-based food companies. H. J. Heinz Company contains vintage images from the archives of one of America's first industrial photography studios. It captures memorable and creative marketing from the "57 Varieties" to today and features photography of many current initiatives in Heinz's main businesses of ketchup and sauces, meals and snacks, and infant foods. It is a glimpse at one of America's best loved companies and a study in how to "do the common thing uncommonly well."