Aaron L. Brody

Aaron Leo Brody (August 23, 1930 – July 26, 2021) was an American food scientist, who developed new technologies in food processing and packaging. He created the first frozen fish sticks in the 1950s. Later, Brody served as an adjunct professor at the University of Georgia. Aaron Leo Brody was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the elder of two children to Nathan Brozozek and Lillian Gorman, Jewish immigrants from Poland. Upon entry into America through Ellis Island, his father's name was Americanized to Brody. Aaron attended Solomon-Lewenburgh Junior High School and then Boston English School in 1947. Brody entered Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1947, and earned a B.S. in Food Technology in 1951. He became an illustrator with contributions to the school newspaper where most of his work was pen on paper of sports figures. He was drafted into the Korean War and served from 1952 to 1954. He was based at Fort Pickett in Blackstone, Virginia where he was a newspaper correspondent reporting on the personal stories of wounded soldiers returning from the War. After completing his military commitment, he entered the graduate program of the Food Packaging Department at MIT where he earned a Ph.D. in 1957. Brody studied under Bernard E. Proctor, an American food scientist involved in early research of food irradiation, and the MIT Food Technology Department Chair. Brody's "Masticatory Properties of Foods by the Strain Gage Denture Tenderometer", was one of the many contributions he made to the world of food technology. The invention was featured in Life (magazine) on October 29, 1956, and included a full page of pictures of the machine which was shown chewing a piece of mozzarella cheese. The device is on display at the MIT Museum. The mechanism allowed food manufacturers to control qualities in process and design future food products with specific properties. He later earned an M.B.A. from Northeastern University in 1970.