“It all starts with an idea,” he said, “It then gets translated, technically, into a product. Clausi remembered the eye-catching little shapes his mother used when she made their family meals in Bensonhurst and wondered if an alphabet-based cereal could be developed. Cereals back in the 1950s mainly came in flakes or small grains, with Cheerios and their classic circular form the only brand to come in a unique shape. And, voila, Jell-O Instant Pudding became a huge hit.Ĭlausi was then called to work in Post Cereals, the cereal division of General Foods, which lagged far behind Kellogg’s. Looking to craft an “instant” pudding product, Clausi eventually realized that a starch-based product was not the way to go, that a milk-based gel was the solution. The first big problem Clausi was assigned was the pudding problem - making a dessert that kids and families loved, but one that took hours of cooking and stirring, followed by a long cool-down. But he found the science of food was where he wanted to earn his living and make his mark - taking on “the challenge and fun of developing new products for the marketplace.” Clausi was eventually accepted into medical school - Johns Hopkins and New York Medical College. He went to work at General Foods when a revolution in food science was taking place, as new applications of chemistry, science and refrigeration in the world of nutrition were remaking the American kitchen. Clausi wondered at the time, “Why does a food company want a chemist?” He soon found out. While waiting to get into med school, his father showed him a classified advertisement in a magazine from General Foods seeking junior chemists. Navy during World War II and was aboard a destroyer in the Pacific headed for the planned invasion of Japan before the conflict ended in August 1945. After graduating, he served as a petty officer in the U.S. The Greenwich centenarian developed a love of good pasta from his mother, who went by the Americanized name of Jenny, especially since his father, also named Al, insisted that it was to be served at the start of every dinner - “you had to have a plate of pasta before you had the main meal.” Clausi can recall his mother drying homemade pasta, in many shapes and sizes, on the bed sheets of their home in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn.Īt Brooklyn College, Clausi studied premedicine and chemistry, intending to become a doctor. “My mother was a good cook, and my father was a good eater,” Clausi recalled, and like many Italian households, there were always good aromas coming from the kitchen.
His story began in Brooklyn, N.Y., 100 years ago, as the son of immigrants from the province of Calabria in southern Italy.
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