PASSION BEHIND THE PRODUCT
*
companies fostering personal & global well-being
Laura’s Gourmet Granola If you’re tired of granola that’s more candy than health food, chef and entrepreneur Laura Briscoe’s offerings are just what you’ve been looking for.
10
health food. Along with widespread popularity came the addition of sugary fruits, fatty nuts, and multiple sweet ingredients that rendered granola more a candy treat than a healthy breakfast option.
Reinventing Granola Which brings us to Laura Briscoe, who left the tech industry to follow her passion for cooking, and became a successful private chef. One day, as she recounts, “I found myself experimenting with a
granola recipe that could deliver the taste I’d loved during college but without all the fat, dairy, and sugar.” Several months and many versions later, she felt she had finally found the perfect recipe. How did she know? “As a culinary instructor, I always told my students they would know something was seasoned well when they immediately wanted to take another bite.” While she’d only intended to make the treat for family and friends, the response was so positive that she
• JANUARY 2022
BN0122_D_PassionBTP_JS.indd 10
11/19/21 5:21 PM
Photo: Pornchai Mittongtare; Prop Styling: Robin Turk; Food Styling: Claire Stancer
Shopping for granola? Prepare to be utterly overwhelmed by a bewildering profusion of cartons, sacks, and containers encompassing an extensive panoply of flavors and ingredients. And let’s not even get started on the dizzying stacked rows of granola bars on the shelves. “Creating a product that It was not always thus, of course. Once makes people feel good— upon a time, there that’s what chefs was only “granula,” do,” says Laura the first-ever cold Briscoe, founder of Laura’s Gourbreakfast product. met Granola. “We Invented by health create recipes, a reformer James dish, or a meal Caleb Jackson in that plays a role 1853, it promised in a wonderful moment.” much more than simply good nutrition. According to Mr. Jackson, it was a “pure” food that would help make you calm, give you better Christian values, and even reduce carnal desire—a lot to ask of a breakfast cereal, however healthy it might be. The idea was stolen by another health reformer, John Harvey Kellogg (yes, that Kellogg), and under the slightly altered name “granola” was soon off and running. By the time the hippie ’60s rolled around, granola had become a darling of the counterculture, inspiring the slightly derisive moniker “granola-head.” And that’s when an unfortunate transformation began in this traditional
Photo: “Fresh by Suzie” Suzie Barber
BY NEIL ZEVNIK
