Mantises were considered to have supernatural powers by early civilizations, including Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, and Assyria. A cultural trope popular in cartoons imagines the female mantis as a femme fatale. Mantises are among the insects most commonly kept as pets.
In 1803 his preserved foods (which came to include vegetables, fruit, meat, dairy and fish) were sent out for sea trials with the French navy. By 1804, his factory had begun to experiment with meat packed in tin cans, which he soldered shut and then observed for months for signs of swelling.
Many of the entities that make up US Foods have their roots in the 19th century: Monarch Foods was founded in 1853, John Sexton & Company began as a retail tea and coffee merchant in 1883, L.H. Parke Company began in 1889 and S.E. Rykoff & Co. was founded in 1911.