Sliced Bread insofar asmuch pre-packaged, pre-sliced, pre-cut bread, has only existed in this form since 1928. The question therefore is what was the greatest thing in 1927, since many other things claim to be the best thing since sliced bread.
I think that the key to this lies with a fellow called Yankee Doodle. The chap was obviously certifiable since no-one in their right mind would call a feather placed precariously in one's headware Macaroni which is of course machine made dry pasta. Though it was Thomas Jefferson who is credited with introducing the first macaroni machine in the United States, in 1789, when he returned home after serving as ambassador to France.
Macaroni is in fact spaghetti that has been moulded into a different shape by Marconi. For moulding the spaghetti into a macaroni shape, the Morse alphabet was developed.
In this alphabet, there are essentially only two shapes, a dot-shape and a hyphen-shape.
These are referred to as:
Tubetti: Dot
Penne Linguini: Dash
The first tests of this system were made by Giguilemi Macaroni atop Signal Hill in the Dominion of Newfoundland and served with the finest of old cheddar.
As macaroni in dots is too small to be edible, simplified morse alphabets only know the hyphen and have got rid of the dots. Where the traditional marconists kept alternating dee's and dah's whilst moulding the spaghetti in more subtle shapes, modern ones sound far more monotonous.
This may be why the original Macaroni system of radio telegraphy has been supplanted by TV Dinners.
Since the TV Dinner is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and Macaroni is the greatest thing before sliced bread, the only remaining question is what's so great about sliced bread in the first place?
I'm afraid I don't know that.
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