When George Ortolano would leave for work each day he could rightfully say that he was off to see the wizard. He could even go one step further and say that he was off to make the wizard. Ortolano, who died at 86 in 2002, was a craftsman who never got the publicity he deserved. […]
* July 4th was on a Thursday in 1776 so it would have been a busy day for fishermen who were preparing to bring their catches to the markets in Catholic New Orleans for the next day’s meatless Friday. *Louisiana’s Spanish governor, Luis de Unzaga, was secretly helping the American cause by arranging for five tons […]
Catch a show. Take a class. Laugh out loud. Get everything you need to know about the theatre industry and the performing arts in New Orleans at http://www.neworleansmagazine.com/onstage Check it out now!
On the morning of Friday, July 6, 2007 I spotted the bulb which seemedas though it was staring back at me from beneath a leaf. This was a moment that had been a long time coming but would not have come at all were it not for the wacky way our world has been scrambled […]
Here is a question to ask candidates in the race for Bill Jefferson’s Second Congressional District: If a Democrat is elected president, will you urge that Jim Letten be retained as U.S. Attorney? Those who serve as U.S. Attorney do so at the pleasure of existing presidents. Letten, a Republican whose appointment was made official […]
Granted, this is not the most pressing issue facing the legislature, but still alive (though barely) is the proposal to name the Sazerac as the state’s official cocktail. Early in the session the idea ran into flak from mostly upstate lawmakers who saw evil in giving sanction to an alcoholic drink. (Curiously, wine is mentioned […]
Through July 31. “Roger Brown: Southern Exposure;” Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Information, 539-9600, www.ogdenmuseum.org. June 4, 7. YLC Wednesday at the Square; Lafayette Square. Information, 427-5429, wednesdayatthesquare.com. June 5-12, 21-24, 30. New Orleans Zephyrs Home Games; Zephyr Field. Information, 734-5155, www.neworleans.zephyrs.milb.com June 6-8,13-15, 20-22. Cabaret; Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre. Information, 522-9958, www.lepetittheatre.com. […]
Wayne Baquet Longtime local restaurateur; owner of L’il Dizzy’s Café on Esplanade Avenue and Poydras StreetSimilarities: My son has my tenaciousness, my character and my desire to succeed in everything I do. He’s got it in him. He’s tough. In business, you have to be tough.We love cars – he’s worse than I am, he […]
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A sexist short-course in sexual hormones has estrogen as the hormone of beauty and sensitivity and testosterone as the hormone of aggression and war. Research published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences fuels this debate and moves the playing field from war zones and sports arenas to the financial trading […]
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Here is a question to ask candidates in the race for Bill Jefferson’s Second Congressional District: If a Democrat is elected president, will you urge that Jim Letten be retained as U.S. Attorney? Those who serve as U.S. Attorney do so at the pleasure of existing presidents. Letten, a Republican whose appointment was made official […]
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When George Ortolano would leave for work each day he could rightfully say that he was off to see the wizard. He could even go one step further and say that he was off to make the wizard. Ortolano, who died at 86 in 2002, was a craftsman who never got the publicity he deserved. He created a machine that triggered a native industry. At the risk of some generalization, he's the guy who invented the snowball machine.
His creation, the Ortolano Sno-Wizard, was not the only ice crusher on the market. But it was the one used at most local snowball stands. In New Orleans snowballs are a serious business and routine ice machines won't do. A New Orleans snowball differs from the miserable snow cones sold at traveling carnivals and in other more deprived localities in that the ice is finer - a true snowy blend. In 1937, Ortolano created the first Sno-Wizard and began using it to sell snowballs at his grocery on the corner of Magazine and Delachaise streets. His machine was a rectangular box with a door in the front for loading the ice, which would be pushed toward the grinders inside by a crank at the back. The original Sno-Wizard had a wooden cabinet. Its successors have been made of stainless steel. The machines got their wiz from a cutterhead which featured a triple-headed beveled blade that rapidly scraped the ice into a powder.
"There was no machine on the market that could do the job mine was doing," Ortolano once told me. "Mine could shoot the snow right into the cup. In ten seconds it could fill a 16-ounce cup." Like the impact Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin had on farming, the Sno-Wizard changed snowballs from a sweet shop knickknack to the object of a proliferation of neighborhood businesses. "Before I made the machine," Ortolano explained, "people couldn't go to all that expense because the amount of snowballs they could make with one of the old obsolete machines wouldn't pay them to go into it. But with my machine, a person can push enough snowballs to make a profitable business. The machines have revolutionized the snowball business. It made snowballs a business. It brought it to the front."
It also transformed Ortolano's store into what became a full-time snowball provisions business as well as the factory for Sno-Wizards. Marketed in excess of $1000, a Sno-Wizard was the critical investment for would-be snowball entrepreneurs.
Uptown New Orleans would become the epicenter for Snowball evolution. On the corner of Tchoupitoulas and Bourdeaux streets, not far from where Ortolano's business once stood, is a renowned snowball stand with a one of a kind invention, Ernest Hansen's Sno-Bliz machine. He and his wife Mary served snowballs made from his machine for nearly 60 years. Unlike Ortolano's invention, Hansen's is barrel shaped. And while Ortolano mass marketed his machine, Hansen's was exclusive to his shop, as were wife Mary's self-made syrups. Since the couple's death in 2005, the machine, and the business, have stayed in the hands of family members. For those snowball stands denied their own in-house craftsmen, however, the Sno-Wizard would be the answer. With that, and splashes of commercially made syrup, small-time investors could be in business.
"Ortolano is a true craftsman," a snowball vendor once told me. "If someone wants him to just slap a sharpening job on a machine, he's not going to do it. Each machine and each set of blades that he puts in, he's going to try to make as good as any other set. That's how proud of his work he is."
It is a proud inventor indeed who is able to turn ice into gold.
Let us know what you think. Any comments about this article? Write to errol@renpubllc.com. For the subject line use SNOWBALL MEN. All responses are subject to being published, as edited, in this newsletter. Please include your name and location.
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