One NPR Listener's Summer Job with a Pop Culture Icon

Let’s face it, when you’re young, summer jobs blow. Who wants to skip an afternoon at the beach with their friends, for minimum wage in some crappy clothing store. But every once in a while, a gig comes along that allows for a brush with greatness.

Such was the case with one NPR’s All Things Considered listener, who spent two summers in the ‘70s during college with a true pop icon—one of America’s first great celebrity chefs. No, he didn’t make coc au van with Julia Child, or flirt with the ladies on the Galloping Gourmet. But he does have the distinction of spending ten weeks cooking up the Pillsbury Doughboy (and his lady love the Dough Girl).

Ed Via worked at Dayton Flexible Products, and there he estimates that he baked up almost a quarter of a million Poppin and Poppy Fresh each summer, 50 at a time. But as much as the giggling, glutenous pitchman, still prances through our childhood dreams of days gone by, Ed suffers from a twisted latex nightmare or two.

Hear how he describes his Poppin Fresh days: