Finding The Father Of Frangos

Finally, an answer to the mystery: Who invented the Frango, the chocolate mint truffle that is one of the commercial icons of the Northwest?

West Seattle author Robert Spector has exhaustively researched the question and has translated that research into a just-published book, "The Legend of Frango Chocolate."

When last heard from some months ago, Spector was looking at several promising leads. Was it candymaker Ray Clarence Alden? Restaurateur Gil Ridean, sometimes called "the father of the Frango"? Or perhaps another candymaker, Joe Vinikow, grandfather of restaurateur Julia Miller of Julia's?

Spector concluded that, although all three had a hand in the Frango story, credit should go to Alden, a Seattle native who in the 1920s supervised the candy kitchen at Frederick & Nelson's department store.

The F&N kitchen made all sorts of hard candies and hand-dipped chocolates. Around 1928, Alden was asked to develop a chocolate mint truffle and, after uncounted trials, the Frango formula emerged.

(The Frango name, patented in 1918, originally was a frozen dessert - orange- or maple-flavored - served in Frederick's Tearoom. Spector theorizes the name came from the F and R of Frederick's, combined with the then popular dance, the tango.)

Spector credits Ridean, who headed the F&N food division, with promoting the candy. Ridean did so well the kitchen couldn't make Frangos fast enough. Ridean asked his friend Vinikow, who ran the Parisian Candy Co. on Washington Street, to help out.

Eventually F&N acquired Vinikow's factory, partly because it had a large sugar quota, a valuable commodity during World War II rationing.

The final episode in the book is the story of how the Bon Marche stepped in and bought the Frango license in 1992 when F&N closed and it looked as if Chicago-based Marshall Field might acquire sole rights.

One warning about Spector's book: It would be cruel and inhuman punishment to give it to anyone not near a Frango outlet.

Retreatment: Woe betide any board member who misses Allied Arts' board retreat Saturday morning. Director Alf Collins, who calls himself "the hired gun," warns that anyone calling with an excused absence "will be required to sit quietly at attention in the Allied Arts office and watch the entire (four-hour-long) proceedings on videotape."

Letter perfect: You've no doubt heard of SINKs (single income no kids) and DINKs (double income no kids). But have you encountered any DITCs? That designation surfaced in the Seattle Commons newsletter. Commons volunteer Nan Hawthorne describes her family as "what you would call DITCs - double income two cats."

Snow way: Does it say something about Latteland that, when skiers return to Crystal Mountain, they're going to discover one of the first ever ski-mounted espresso carts? What's next? Cup holders for ski poles?

Oregon territory: Did you catch the error in yesterday's Parade Magazine? The first item in Walter Scott's "Personality Parade" is a question from a reader who lives in good old "Seattle, Ore."

Age of Innocence: Vanity license spotted on a bright red Lotus sportscar with a mature driver: 394EVER.

Jean Godden's column appears Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the Local News section of The Times. Her phone is 464-8300.