The Birth of Rice-A-Roni

The Kitchen Sisters Present

The Kitchen Sisters & Radiotopia

Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The worlds of a young Canadian immigrant, an Italian pasta-making family, and a 70-year-old survivor of the Armenian Genocide converge in this story of the San Francisco Treat.

A Canadian woman, Lois DeDomenico, marries an Italian immigrant, Tom DeDomenico, whose family founded Golden Grain Macaroni in San Francisco. Just after WWII, the newlyweds rent a room from an elderly Armenian woman, Pailadzo Captanian, who teaches the young, pregnant, 18-year-old Lois how to cook — including how to make yogurt, baklava, and pilaf.

During those hours in the kitchen, the old Armenian woman tells Lois the story of her life — her forced trek from Turkey to Syria, leaving her two young sons with a Greek family, her husband’s murder, the birth of her baby along the way (his name means “child of pain”), the story of the genocide. Mrs. Captanian shows Lois a book she wrote shortly after her experiences — one of the only eyewitness accounts written at the time. Most survivor accounts were published 30–40 years later. Hers was published in 1919 for the Paris Peace Talks, in hopes that it would help provide context for the establishment of an Armenian state.

Years after the DeDomenicos move away from Mrs. Captanian’s home, Tom’s brother is having dinner at the young couple’s house. He looks down at the pilaf Lois made and says, “This would be good in a box.” They name it Rice-A-Roni.

Transcript

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0:00.0	RadioTopia. Welcome to the Kitchen Sisters present.
0:04.0	We're The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson, and Nikki Silva.
0:09.0	Hi, this is Nikki of the Kitchen Sisters, and I just want to thank you for spending time with us this last year.
0:17.0	And I want to invite you to support our show and the Radiotopia Network that
0:22.5	makes it happen. A few episodes back, we did a piece about honesty boxes in Scotland, which I just love.
0:29.6	An honesty box is like a little magical thing that sits beside the road. And in them,
0:34.6	there's stuff to buy and you leave money. There's nobody going to check you.
0:39.3	The honor system, trust, we're all longing for it.
0:43.3	After that story aired, the photos and messages rolled in,
0:46.3	sharing images and stories of honesty boxes around the country.
0:51.3	Neighbors supporting neighbors, people supporting people they believe in.
0:55.7	And that's what we're asking you to do with Radiotopia. Radioopia is an incredible network,
1:01.0	an unusual network in the podcast world. It's a non-profit. Producers own their own work.
1:07.0	And it supports not just the Kitchen Sisters present, but a host of shows created by independent producers.
1:13.0	Shows like Song Exploder and Radio Diaries, Articles of Interests, the Memory Palace, and on and on, there are so many.
1:20.1	Check them all out at Radiotopia.fm.
1:24.2	Radiotopia works with us to find sponsors, helps us with marketing, dealing with the podcast technology,
1:30.3	and most importantly, Radiotopia has created a collaborative community of producers and listeners.
1:36.3	Some people might think that honesty boxes are from the past, from a different age, a simpler age, a more honest age.
1:43.3	But I would say they're a future
1:46.1	thing as well. If you want Radiotopia and shows like ours to exist and thrive, please donate
1:52.7	today at Radiotopia.fm slash donate. Thanks so much.
	...

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