Louis J Lee, a resident of Rochester, New York, was responsible for revolutionizing our relationship with cooked cereals. He discovered a common problem that he addressed in a patent document in 1963. The issue was that cooked cereal tends to become pasty on cooking and loses texture and flavor when it is heated for too long. In commercial restaurants, like cafeterias, a large batch of cooked cereal is usually prepared. However, after a few hours of keeping it on the steam table, the cereal becomes a congealed, gelatinous mass that is unappetizing and is usually discarded. Lee also defined "cooked cereals" as prepared foodstuffs of grain that require a short period of boiling in water to be edible.
Lee’s contribution to modern quick-cooking cereal was remarkable and straightforward from a chemist’s viewpoint. The Lee method involves cooking the cereal with an edible monoglyceride of the chemically saturated type, which makes it softer and more palatable. William C Baxter of Newtown, Connecticut looked at the problem of cereal-chewiness from a different aspect. In 1936, he discovered that shredded wheat combined with ice cream was exceptional when the cereal pieces are still somewhat crisp and not soggy. Baxter’s patent is also famous for a section in which he explains the optimal method of consuming shredded wheat biscuit with milk or cream. A thin milk makes the dish unappetizing and highly unsatisfactory, whereas heavy or medium cream, in combination with the biscuit, creates a desirable crisp-chewability.
