Serendipity in the Kitchen and Beyond - 30 untold food stories

Serendipity in the Kitchen and Beyond 30 untold food stories D E S I G N E D A N D E D I T E D B Y N E T TA S Z A B O

178

B lond

Cho c olate

NAME

IMPRINT Serendipity in the Kitchen and Beyond 30 Untold Food Stories First edition, 2016 Designed and edited by Netta Szabo

ISBN: 978-3-89955-543-1

Authors

Made in Belgium

John Irving, Ian McEwan, J.D. Salinger, Millay, Edna St. Vincent, Iris Murdock

I’d like to thank the following for their expert advice and support: Saskia, Steven, Gabor,

Photography

Phoebe, fellow classmates and everyone with

Martin Parr, Netta Szabo, Zack Arias,

whom I have ever talked about the making of

Anna Delany, iO Tillett Wright

this book.

Serendipity in the Kitchen and Beyond 30 untold food stories

D E S I G N E D A N D E D I T E D B Y N E T TA S Z A B O

0 — I N T RO

I — T H E FA I RY TALE S

Barbecue ! 1 2 1 8 ! Cheese

c ontents 

Roquefort ! 2 2 2 6 ! Coffee I I — T H E B LU RRY M Y T H S

Yoghurt ! 3 2 3 6 ! Wine Beer ! 4 0 4 4 ! Tea Raisins ! 4 8 5 2 ! Brandy Champagne ! 5 6 6 0 ! Eton Mess

I I I — T H E T RU E LE G E N DS

Sandwich ! 6 7 7 3 ! Worcestershire Sauce Potato Chips ! 7 9 8 5 ! Coca-Cola Tarte Tatin ! 9 1 9 7 ! Corn Flakes

Popsicles ! 1 1 5 1 2 1 ! Caesar Salad Frozen Food ! 1 2 7 1 3 3 ! Liquorice Allsorts Cheese Puffs ! 1 3 9 1 4 5 ! Chocolate Chip Cookie Nachos ! 1 5 1 1 5 7 ! Hawaiian Pizza Blonde Chocolate ! 1 6 3

c ontents

Crepes Suzette 103 1 0 9 ! Ice Cream Cone

From the first cheese to a new type of “blond” chocolate, an awful lot of what we put on our tables was created by accident rather than design.

Intro

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Fluky Foods Preface by Lizzie Enfield I recently invented a cocoa citrus tea. It was the surprisingly pleasant result of an airborne Jaffa cake, launched by my daughter, landing in my teacup. Terrible table manners, I know, but the result was a zingy chocolatey orange flavoured brew. I have yet to patent it or even entice anyone else to try it, yet I cling to the belief that I may be on to something.

After all, some of the greatest dishes came about by accident.

The latest serendipitous food to reach us is BLOND CHOCOLATE, as distinct from white, milk or dark. Produced by French chocolate maker Valrhona, the creation of this accidental chocolate has the flavour of a Joanne Harris novel.

“Early one spring morning 8 years ago,” it goes, “at Valrhona’s Ecole du Grand Chocolat, Frédéric Bau put some white chocolate in a bain marie, for a pastry demonstration. But he forgot about it until 10 hours later when the chocolate

Some of the greatest dishes came about by accident...

had turned a honey and butterscotchy shade of blond, smelled of toasted shortbread and had a unique creamy, sugary, slightly salty taste.”

Eight years on chocolate “engineers” have finally found a way to reproduce the chocolate on a bigger scale and it’s now available to buy in bar and bean shapes from Fortnum and Mason, Harvey Nichols as well as some places online.

If its appeal is universal and the new product stands the test of time it will enter the annals alongside other accidental foodstuffs, which range from staples such as CHEESE to more exotic and unusual concoctions like Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce, chocolate chip cookies and cereals.

Mankind first tasted the former when an Arab nomad decided to transport milk in a container made from an animal’s stom-

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ach, complete with the curdling enzyme rennet. When lunchtime arrived he was surprised to find the liquid was now a solid, but ate it anyway and liked what he ate.

WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE arose after a failed attempt by John Lea and William Perrins to recreate a much-loved Indian sauce for Lord Marcus Sandy, a former governor of Bengal, who on returning to England went to them with a description of the flavour he was pining for. What they came up with was too powerful, but rather than throwing the sauce away they stashed it in their basement for two years. It aged and changed, improving radically in the process and proving a hit with their customers.

A fit of pique led chef George Crum to the invention of POTATO CHIPS. A customer at his Saratoga Springs restaurant complained this French fries were too thick. Crum sliced potatoes as thin as he could and deep-fried them until they were

...the greater part of cooking is trial and error or absent-mindedness.

hard, then sent them out to the It was being overworked that led Stéphanie TATIN to leave apples, intended for a pie, cooking for so long that they caramelized, leading to the signature dish of the eponymous hotel she ran with her sister. The list of accidental foodstuffs goes on. It includes choc-chip cookies, tofu, beer, cornflakes, iceberg lettuce, and ice cream cones. Once you start asking questions an awful lot of what we put on our tables was created by accident rather than design.

Many a chef will tell you the greater part of cooking is trial and error or absent-mindedness. All signature dishes require a bit of experimentation with ingredients and flavours, and every family seems to have its own peculiar culinary treats, concocted as a result of mistakes or improvisations.

My grandmother used to served mashed potatoes with a fried egg on top. On one occasion she picked up a Marmite-smeared fork to mash the spuds. The resulting blend of Marmity mashed potatoes which we dubbed “Marmotegg” became a family favourite and is something I still crave on a cold winter evening.

WHAT ARE YOURS?

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I ntro

complainer, who loved them.

Surprisingly, food plays a significant role in a lot of fairy tales and fables.

But did you hear about the stories like how barbeque was discovered? They are another kind of tales.

The fairy tales

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T H E S E D U C T I V E SCE N T

Barbecue Contrary to mythology, barbecue was not an American invention.

Barbecue is older than homo sapiens and anthropologists even think that it was mastery of fire that permanently altered our evolutionary path and it is this primeval link that makes us still love cooking over flame.

125 000 YE ARS AGO

The legend “The story of barbecue is the story of America. Settlers arrive on great unspoiled continent. Discover wondrous riches. Set them on fire and eat them.”—Vince Staten, Real Barbecue Contrary to mythology, barbecue was not an American invention. Barbecue is older than homo sapiens and anthropologists even think that it was mastery of fire that permanently altered our evolutionary path and it is this primeval link that makes us still love cooking over flame.

Nobody knows for sure, but here’s how I think it happened: A tribe of these proto-humans were padding warily through the warm ashes of a forest fire following their noses to a particularly seductive scent. When they stumbled upon the charred carcass of a wild boar they squatted and poked their hands into its side. They sniffed their fragrant fingers, then licked the

B arbe c ue

greasy digits. The magical blend of warm pro-

The magical blend of warm protein, molten fat, and unctuous collagen in roasted meat is a narcotic elixir and it addicted them on first bite.

tein, molten fat, and unctuous collagen in roasted meat is a narcotic elixir and it addicted them on first bite. They became focused, obsessed with tugging and scraping the bones clean, moaning, and shaking their heads. The sensuous aromas made their nostrils smile and the fulsome flavors caused their mouths to weep. Before long mortals were making sacrifices and burnt offerings to their gods, certain the immortals would like to try their heavenly recipes.

Cooking makes it easier for animals to extract energy from food. That meant that there were more calories available for larger brains, which of course was an evolutionary advantage.

It also took much much less time to eat, leaving time to hunt, socialize and form tribes and communities, and procreate.

Evolution favored traits that enhanced the ability of these early homonids to hunt and eat cooked meat: Smaller hips and flatter feet for running speed, better hand articulation, communication skills, and smaller jaws. Eventually they learned to domesticate dogs to help with the hunt, and then they learned to herd and husband the animals that tasted best. The family circle and tribal structure evolved so that men became hunters and women became cooks.

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Ancient bonfire cooking In 2007 Israeli scientists at University of Haifa uncovered evidence that early humans living in the area around Carmel, about 200,000 years ago were serious about barbecue. From bone and tool evidence, these early hunters preferred large mature animals and cuts of meat that had plenty of flesh on them. They left heads and hooves in the field. Three of their favorites were an ancestor of cattle, deer, and boars. From burn marks around the joints and scrape marks on the bones, there is evidence that these cave dwellers knew how to cook.

Early barbecue cooking implements will likely never be found because they were probably made of wood. The first meats were probably just tossed into a wood infereno.

They quickly learned that the food tasted better if the food was held above or to the side of the fire. According to barbecue historian Dr. Howard L. Taylor, the first cooking implements over the fire.

Eventually they built racks of green sticks to hold the food above the flames, and learned that the temperature was easier to regulate and the flavor better if the if they let the logs burn down to coals before the meat was put in place.

Early rotisserie Spit roasting is common around the world and for many years was the major barbecue cooking method. Baking an animal, vegetables, or bread in a hot pit in the ground was also an early development. Wooden frames were later used to hold meat over the fire, but they often held the meat well above the fire to keep the wood from burning, which resulted in the meat cooking slowly and absorbing smoke. The gridiron [similar to a grate on a modern grill] was developed soon after the Iron Age started, which led to grilling as we know it. Iliad, Book IX, Lines 205–235 and The Odyssey, Book III, lines 460–468 mention spits and five-pronged forks used to roast meat, basted with salt and wine at outdoor feasts in ancient Greece. Such feasts at the end of a battle or long march were common throughout history.”

It is estimated to be from sometime between the 4th and 6th century BCE.

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T he fairy tales

were almost certainly “a wooden fork or spit to hold the meat

Bon Appetit magazine blithely informs its readers that the word comes from an

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extinct tribe in Guyana who enjoyed cheerfully spitroasting captured enemies.

T he fairy tales

T H E S H I PPE D M I LK

Cheese Contrary to mythology, barbecue was not an American invention.

Barbecue is older than homo sapiens and anthropologists even think that it was mastery of fire that permanently altered our evolutionary path and it is this primeval link that makes us still love cooking over flame.

2000 B.C.

The history of cheese predates recorded history The origin of cheese is assumed to lie in the practice of transporting milk in bladders made of ruminants’ stomachs, with their inherent supply of rennet. There is no conclusive evidence indicating where cheese-making originated, either in Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, or Sahara. Cheese-making had spread within Europe at the earliest level of Hellenic mythand, according to Pliny the Elder, had become a sophisticated enterprise by the time ancient Rome came into being,when valued foreign cheeses were transported to Rome to satisfy the tastes of the social elite.

Ancient evidences According to ancient records passed down through the centuries, the making of cheese dates back more than 4,000 years.

No one really knows who made the first cheese. According to an ancient legend, it was made accidentally by an Arabian Cheese

merchant who put his supply of milk into a pouch made from a sheep’s stomach, as he set out on a day’s journey across the desert. The rennet in the lining of the pouch, combined with the heat of the sun, caused the milk to separate into curd and whey.

That night he found that the whey satisfied his thirst, and the cheese (curd) had a delightful flavor which satisfied his hunger.

Travelers from Asia are believed to have brought the art of cheesemaking to Europe. In fact, cheese was made in many parts of the Roman Empire when it was at its height.

The Romans, in turn, introduced cheesemaking to England.

During the Middle Ages-from the decline of the Roman Empire until the discovery of America-cheese was made and improved by the monks in the monasteries of Europe. For example, Gorgonzola was made in the Po Valley in Italy in 879 A.D., and Italy became the cheesemaking center of Europe during the 10th Century. Roquefort was also mentioned in the ancient records of the monastery at Conques, France as early as 1070.

Cheese conquers America Cheesemaking continued to flourish in Europe and became an established food. In fact, the Pilgrims included cheese in the Mayflower’s supplies when they made their voyage to America

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in 1620. The making of cheese quickly spread in the New World, but until the 19th century it remained a local farm industry.

It wasn’t until 1851 that the first cheese factory in the United States was built by Jesse Williams in Oneida County, New York.

As population across the United States continued to grow dramatically, the demand for cheese increased and the industry gradually moved westward, centering on the rich farm lands of Wisconsin. In 1845, a band of Swiss immigrants settled in Green County, Wisconsin and started the manufacturing of foreign cheese in America. Most Wisconsin farmers began to believe that their future survival was tied to cheese and their first factory was a Limburger plant which opened in 1868.

The birth of the wholesale cheese industry The wholesale cheese industry was thus born and showed phenomenal growth during the latter half of the 1800s. were reported to have made 216 million pounds of cheese that year valued at $17 million. This represented almost 90 percent of total cheese production that year. By the turn of the century, farm production of cheese had become insignificant. The 1904 census reported only factory output, which totaled over 317 million pounds. As cheese demand continued to grow and spread rapidly, manufactured and processed cheese production increased dramatically. Total natural cheese production grew from 418 million pounds in 1920 to 2.2 billion pounds by 1970. Rising demand for cheese throughout the 1970s and 1980s brought total natural cheese production to more than 6 billion pounds by the beginning of the 1990s. Processed cheese also experienced a surge in consumer demand with annual production exceeding 2 billion pounds a year by the beginning of the 1990s.

Currently, more than one-third of all milk produced each year in the U.S. is used to manufacture cheese. Recent increases in the overall demand for farm milk have in large part been due to the continued growth of the cheese industry. As consumer appetites for all types of cheese continue to expand, so will the industry.

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T he fairy tales

By 1880 there were 3,923 dairy factories nationwide which

T H E S TO RY O F T H E S H E E PH E RD E R

Roquefort Appreciating blue cheeses takes time, and it certainly isn’t everyone’s favorite. But some of us just can’t get enough of the mold.

How did this obsession start?

FRANCE 2000 YE ARS AGO

The French tradition Someone once told me a joke about the French and cheese.

“Put a plate of smelly cheese in the middle of the table and everyone will pull back, scrunching up their noses and saying, ‘eww.’

Except for the Frenchmen. He will lean in and say ‘ah…’”

Appreciating blue cheeses takes time, and it certainly isn’t everyone’s favorite. But some of us just can’t get enough of the mold. How did this obsession start?

Origin Let’s start by breaking down the term: “blue cheese.”

Blue cheese is in fact a general classification of cheeses—from

R o q uefort

But how did people start eating this pungent cheese decorated with green mold

cow, sheep or goat milk—that have cultures of the mold Penicillium in them. Yup, the same stuff that’s in the antibiotic Penicillin. Because it’s a general term for a variety of individual cheeses, we can’t talk about the spe-

cific history of blue cheese, but one of the most well known blue cheeses is Roquefort, and because of its story, it is an excellent place to start.

Roquefort is actually one of the oldest known cheeses, being praised as far back as 79 A.D. It is said that it was the favorite cheese of Charlemagne, and that he himself called it le fromage des rois et des papes—the cheese of kings and popes.

Legend has it that a young sheepherder eating a lunch of ewe’s milk curds and bread left his lunch in a cave while he left for more interesting pursuits; in this case pursuing a lovely maiden.

When he returned to the cave months later, he found his cheese moldy, yet delicious.

Whether that’s true or not, we can only imagine the first person that looked at a molding cheese and thought the themselves, “sure, I’ll try that.” But good thing they did.

Popularity Roquefort is, not surprisingly, one of France’s most popular cheeses, and it has eve been said to help guard against heart disease. Yet another reason to get on the Parisian diet.

It is still produced in caves, and in France you can even visit

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those caves. To highlight it’s importance to French cheese culture, Roquefort was the first cheese to receive a Appellation d’Origine Controlée, a French certification that protects various regional products and their production. Champagne for example is regulated under the Appellation d’Origine Controlée as well, any sparkling wine that isn’t from the Champagne region isn’t champagne, and on the off chance that you’re ever eating a cheese labeled Roquefort that isn’t from the region of Aveyron it’s not actually real Roquefort.

Other blue cheese fans But not everyone is a Roquefort fan. For other blue cheese lovers there’s Gorgonzola, Cambazola, Bleu d’Auvergne, Stilton, and several others. In the U.S., however, many people have grown accustomed the the generic, industrialized form of blue cheese, but if you’re a real cheese connoisseur you’ll know that it’s A good blue cheese variety should be creamy and moist, the more pungent the better. Crumblier varieties will be stronger – hello Roquefort—with that distinctive “bite.” If you’re a novice to the blue cheese family, this might not be the place to start. Kick things off with

Find a plate, serve up a few varieties and have a tasting to find your favorite. And don’t let the mold scare you.

Gorgonzola or a Danish Blue instead to get yourself initiated.

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T he fairy tales

important to choose the good stuff.

T H E B LE S S E D B E A N

Coffee Aida sits in her Sunshine flat on a plastic stool at a tiny wooden table with a fake grass mat at her feet.

It’s a world away from her Ethiopian birthplace but the traditional coffee ceremony she performs is filled with meaning and memories— anecdotes from her grandmother and ritual learned as a young girl.

T he fairy tales

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ETHIOPIA 1 5 TH C E N T U RY

The Ethiopian coffee ceremony The coffee ceremony, in that birthplace of the coffee bean, is a three–hour social event, sometimes performed several times a day by the senior women in an Ethiopian household for their families and neighbours.

Guests are invited for buna (coffee) and a low stool and table are set up for the person performing the ceremony. Green beans are first washed, then roasted over an open flame until they are dark and aromatic. They are ground by hand and brewed in an earthenware pot over the flame. When the coffee is ready, the grounds are left to settle and the strong, dark liquid is offered with sugar, or in some tribes, salt. Incense is burned during the ritual and the eldest guest is offered the first drink.

Coffee

The ceremony is a social event,

Legend traces the discovery of coffee back to the third century and an Ethiopian goat herd who noticed his goats had abnormally high levels of energy after eating the red cherries that grew wild on shrubs in the mountains.

during which the groups of mostly women spin cotton, sew and talk.

Guests are blessed and bad spirits are banished. Traditionally, guests may have just one cup of coffee, or stay for three; they cannot drink two. Time and patience are paramount.

In Sunshine, Aida uses a portable gas stove and a small electric grinder— concessions to modern life, she says.

But her insistence that guests are fed, either traditional bread injera, or popcorn, and her refusal to allow the ceremony to be performed on an elevated surface for photographic purposes,

illustrate her reverence for convention.

The plastic mat is another concession: in Ethiopia a small ceremonial carpet would be spread out and the floor would be strewn with fresh grass (goosgwaze) to mark the sacred space for the ritual.

Aida performs the ceremony with care, shaking the beans vigorously to ensure the roast is dark and even. As the beans heat they crackle and their strong aroma fills the air. She burns handfuls of powdered incense and a thick, sweet smoke saturates the small room.

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“When the coffee is roasted, the guest smells the coffee and is then given a blessing - we wish for you good things, money, happiness or health,” Aida says. The coffee she serves is indeed like something from another world. It’s strong and dark, yet fruity and smoky—and almost instantly uplifting. “The incense we use is from the dried sap of a tree. There are two kinds of incense, one is used in church and this one is used in the home. It takes the odours and the bad spirits from the walls.”

Aida is 25 and has lived in Australia for seven years. She came from Tigray in the north of Ethiopia with her father. “Girls begin to learn the ceremony when they are aged eight or nine but they must be 15-16 before they are allowed to drink the coffee and older when they are allowed to do it. I have never seen a man doing it.”

At Overboard Designs, a homewares and design studio in Sorrento, Abdhl Hussen breaks that tradition here in Australia and performs the ceremony on Sunday afternoons. He was taught Hussen, who has his own store in Footscray, also sells his Ethiopian jewellery at Overboard Designs. Studio owner Bill McNamara says the coffee ceremony, which has been running for about a month, has attracted many customers and added some “culture and flavour to the place.”

The legend of the goat herd Legend traces the discovery of coffee back to the third century and an Ethiopian goat herd who noticed his goats had abnormally high levels of energy after eating the red cherries that grew wild on shrubs in the mountains. He shared his knowledge with the local monks who used the berries to stay awake during long hours of prayer. Through trade, the original Ethiopian coffee plants were gradually spread around the world.

Arabica today Today, Arabica coffee accounts for about 70 percent of Ethiopia’s annual income. It is farmed in small villages or in forests and is named after the region in which it is grown: Djimma in the northwest; Limu from the south-west; and Sidamo, Yirgachefe and Harar from the south to the east, respectively.

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T he fairy tales

the ceremony by his mother as a boy.

In this chapter you will read about stories like the beer, champagne and other food and beverages which were born in rather blurry circumstances.

The blurry myths

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F OO D O F T H E GO DS

Yogurt In ancient Indian records, the combination of yogurt and honey is called “the food of the gods”. Persian traditions hold that “Abraham owed his fecundity and longevity to the regular ingestion of yogurt.”

C E N T R A L- A S I A 6000 B.C.

The biological explanation Analysis of the L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus genome indicates that the bacterium may have originated on the surface of a plant. Milk may have become spontaneously and unintentionally exposed to it through contact with plants, or bacteria may have been transferred from the udder of domestic milk-producing animals.

Ancient traditions In ancient Indian records, the combination of yogurt and honey is called “the food of the gods”. Persian traditions hold that “Abraham owed his fecundity and longevity to the regular ingestion of yogurt.”

Y ogurt

The cuisine of ancient

Some accounts suggest that Indian emperor Akbar’s cooks would flavor yogurt with mustard seeds and cinnamon.

Greece included a dairy product known as oxygala (οξύγαλα) which is believed to have been a form of yogurt.

Galen (AD 129 – c. 200/c. 216) mentioned that oxygala was consumed with honey, similar

to the way thickened Greek yogurt is eaten today.

The oldest writings mentioning yogurt are attributed to Pliny the Elder, who remarked that certain “barbarous nations” knew how “to thicken the milk into a substance with an agreeable acidity”. The use of yogurt by medieval Turks is recorded in the books Diwan Lughat al-Turk by Mahmud Kashgari and Kutadgu Bilig by Yusuf Has Hajib written in the 11th century. Both texts mention the word “yogurt” in different sections and describe its use by nomadic Turks The earliest yogurts were probably spontaneously fermented by wild bacteria in goat skin bags.

Some accounts suggest that Indian emperor Akbar’s cooks would flavor yogurt with mustard seeds and cinnamon. Another early account of a European encounter with yogurt occurs in French clinical history: Francis I suffered from a severe diarrhea which no French doctor could cure. His ally Suleiman the Magnificent sent a doctor, who allegedly cured the patient with yogurt. Being grateful, the French king spread around the information about the food which had cured him.

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Modern uses Until the 1900s, yogurt was a staple in diets of people in the Russian Empire (and especially Central Asia and the Caucasus), Western Asia, South Eastern Europe/Balkans, Central Europe, and India. Stamen Grigorov (1878–1945), a Bulgarian student of medicine in Geneva, first examined the microflora of the Bulgarian yogurt. In 1905, he described it as consisting of a spherical and a rod-like lactic acid-producing bacteria. In 1907, the rod-like bacterium was called Bacillus bulgaricus (now Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus). The Russian Nobel laureate and biologist Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov (also known as Élie Metchnikoff), from the Institut Pasteur in Paris, was influenced

by Grigorov’s work and hypothesized that regular consumption of yogurt was responsible for the unusually long lifespans of Bulgarian peasants. Believing Lactobacillus to be essential for good health, Mechnikov worked to popularize yogurt as a food-

Industrialization Isaac Carasso industrialized the production of yogurt. In 1919, Carasso, who was from Ottoman Salonika, started a small yogurt business in Barcelona, Spain, and named the business Danone (“little Daniel”) after his son. The brand later expanded to the United States under an Americanized version of the name: Dannon. Yogurt with added fruit jam was patented in 1933 by the Radlická Mlékárna dairy in Prague.

Yogurt was introduced to the United States in the first decade of the twentieth century, influenced by Élie Metchnikoff’s The Prolongation of Life; Optimistic Studies (1908); it was available in tablet form for those with digestive intolerance and for home culturing. It was popularized by John Harvey Kellogg at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, where it was used both orally and in enemas, and later by Armenian immigrants Sarkis and Rose Colombosian, who started “Colombo and Sons Creamery” in Andover, Massachusetts in 1929. Colombo Yogurt was originally delivered around New England in a horse-drawn wagon inscribed with the Armenian word “madzoon” which was later changed to “yogurt”, the Turkish name of the product, as Turkish was the lingua franca between immigrants.

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T he blurry myths

stuff throughout Europe.

LE T U S A DO RE A N D D RI N K

Wine CImbibing the liquid of fermented fruit may have had its start in medicinal traditions.

ARMENIA AND GREECE 41 0 0 B .C.

W ine

From the Bible One path of wine history could follow the developments and science of grape growing and wine production; another might separately trace the spread of wine commerce through civilization, but there would be many crossovers and detours between them. However the time line is followed, clearly wine and history have greatly influenced one another.

Fossil vines, 60-million-years-old, are the earliest scientific evidence of grapes. The earliest written account of viniculture is in the Old Testament of the Bible which tells us that Noah planted a vineyard and made wine. As cultivated fermentable crops, honey and grain are older than grapes, although neither mead nor beer has had anywhere near the social impact of wine over recorded time.

Middle Eastern origins An ancient Persian fable credits a lady of the court with the discovery of wine. This Princess, having lost favor with the King, attempted to poison herself by eating some table grapes that had “spoiled” in a jar. She became intoxicated and giddy and fell asleep. When she awoke, she found the stresses that had made her life intolerable had dispersed.

Returning to the source of her relief, her subsequent conduct changed so remarkably that she regained the King’s favor. He shared his daughter’s discovery with his court and decreed an increase in the production of “spoiled” grapes …

Certainly wine, as a natural phase of grape spoilage, was “discovered” by accident, unlike beer and bread, which are human inventions. It is established that wine drinking had started by about 4000 BC and possibly as early as 6000 BC. The first efforts at grape cultivation can be traced to the area that forms the “Fertile Crescent”, around the Caspian Sea and in Mesopotamia, including portions of present-day Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Turkey.

Excavations from tombs in ancient Egypt prove that wine was in use there by 3100 BC. Priests and royalty enjoyed wine, while beer was drunk by the workers. The Egyptians recognized differences in wine quality and developed the 38

first arbors and pruning methods. Archeologists have uncovered many sites with sunken jars, so the effects of temperature on stored wine were probably known.

World’s Oldest Wine Bottle Unearthed during excavation for building a house in a vineyard near the town of Speyer, Germany, it was inside one of two Roman stone sarcophaguses that were dug up. The bottle dates from approximately 325 A.D. and was found in 1867.

The greenish-yellow glass amphora has handles formed in the shape of dolphins. One of several bottles discovered, it is the only one with the contents still preserved.

The ancient liquid has much silty sediment. About twothirds of the contents are a thicker, hazy mixture. This is most probably olive oil, which the Romans commonly used to “float” atop wine to preserve it from oxidation. Cork closures, although known to exist at the time, were quite uncommon. Their oil method of preservation was apparently effective enough to keep the wine from evaporation.

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T he blurry myths

Greco-Roman Contributions Wine came to Europe with the spread of the Greek civilization around 1600 BC. Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad both contain excellent and detailed descriptions of wine. Wine was an important article of Greek commerce and Greek doctors, including Hippocrates, were among the first to prescribe it. The Greeks also learned to add herbs and spices to mask spoilage.

Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad both The foundation and strength of contain excellent and detailed viniculture in Western Europe are primarily due, however, to the influ- descriptions of wine. ence of the Romans. Starting about 1000 BC, the Romans made major contributions in classifying grape varieties and colors, observing and charting ripening characteristics, identifying diseases and recognizing soil-type preferences. They became skilled at pruning and increasing yields through irrigation and fertilization techniques.

A N CI E N T B RE W

Beer Like so many discoveries, the creating of most fermented liquors probably came about by accident.

T he blurry myths

4000–3500 B.C.

About the origin of alcoholic beverages “Like so many discoveries, the creating of most fermented liquors probably came about by accident. As certain types of sweet fruit, and also honey, will ferment on their own accord, it was inevitable that any attempts to collect such fermentable substances in containers would on more than one occasion encourage alcohol formation …Certainly the fermented drinks of the Old and New Worlds represent independent discoveries, and it could well be that the development of rice beverages in eastern Asia was quite unconnected with that of the varied cereal and wine concoctions in the European area.”—Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples, Don Brothwell and

Patricia Brothwell, expanded edition [Johns Hopkins University Press:Baltimore MD] 1998 (p. 164–165)

Ancient brew & recipe ingredient too “No one has yet managed to date the origins of beer with any precision, and it is probably an impossible task. Indeed, there B eer

are scholars who have theorized that a taste for ale prompted the beginning of agriculture, in which case humans have been

Like so many discoveries, the creating of most fermented liquors probably came about by accident.

brewing for some 10,000 years … Most archaeological evidence, however, suggests that fermentation was being used in one manner or another by around 4000 to 3500 B.C. Some of this evidence—from an ancient Mesopotamian trading outpost called

Godin Tepe in present-day Iran—indicates that barley was being fermented at that location around 3500 B.C. We know that not much later the Sumerians were … making beer … At approximately the same time, people of the ancient Nubian culture to the south of Egypt were also fermenting a crude, ale-like beverage known as bousa.”

“The brewing of beer may well have occurred soon after the production of cereal crops, and no doubt for a long time beer was home-produced and in the hands of the housewives responsible for preparing the ‘gruel’ or bread. Malting the grain is the first step in beer-brewing, but malting—that is, allowing the grains to germinate —was initially carried out to make the

42

grains more palatable. After malting, besides being mixed into a nourishing gruel, the grains could also be dried, milled and baked into a more easily preserved kind of bread. Thus, the first production of beer may be reasonably considered as an accidental discovery resulting from the malting of grain for other purposes. When cereals came to be more often baked into bread and less often turned into gruel, malting was not so necessary and became part of the brewer’s trade only. By the third millennium BC, Mesopotamia was already well versed in beer-brewing and old Sumerian texts mention eight barley beers, eight emmer beers and three mixed beers. Aromatic plants were added to the beer to improve the flavour and to assist in its preservation, and extra honey, cereals and malt gave varying added strengths. Up to the millennium, the grains were de-husked, but husked grains then began to be brewed and beer was drunk through the drinking-tubes to be seen in several relief carvtoo it originally went hand in hand with baking … As early as the Pyramid Age five kinds of beer were noted … Indeed, it is considered that the ancient brewers probably made stronger beer than we now know, owing to the wild yeast which caused the fermentation that produced a greater alcohol content … Beer, to the Greeks and Romans, was a barbarian drink … The North European peoples of those days such as the Celts and the Germans did not yet know the wine-grape and the art of viticulture, so after the introduction of cereal agriculture their drink remained beer for a very long time.”

Beer as an ingredient in food The yeasty connection between beer and bread/cereal grains (batter!) is as old as human agriculture. Beer as an ingredient in cookery is a specialty of northern European countries, most notably Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and Great Britain. Beer is most often employed as a rising agent, steaming medium, thinning ingredient, and flavoring additive.

Some of the more famous beer/food recipes are carbonnades flamandes, beer soup, fondue, batter encrusted cheese, beer batter, and Welsh rabbit. Beer Waffles are included in A Belgian Cookbook by Juliette Elkorn.

43

T he blurry myths

ings … Brewing followed much the same pattern in Egypt, where

SACRE D LE AV E S

Tea The history of tea is long and complex, spreading across multiple cultures over the span of thousands of years. Tea likely originated in southwest China during the Shang dynasty as a medicinal drink.

CHINA 2737 B.C.

The practice of drinking tea An early credible record of tea drinking dates to the 3rd century AD, in a medical text written by Hua Tuo. Tea was first introduced to Portuguese priests and merchants in China during the 16th century. Drinking tea became popular in Britain during the 17th century. The British introduced tea production, as well as tea consumption, to India, in order to compete with the Chinese monopoly on tea.

Legend of an emperor In one popular Chinese legend, Shennong, the legendary Emperor of China and inventor of agriculture and Chinese medicine was drinking a bowl of just boiled water due to a decree that his subjects must boil water before drinking it some time around 2737 B.C. when a few leaves were blown from a nearby tree into his water, changing the color. The emperor took a sip of the brew and was pleasantly surprised by its flavor and restorative properties. A variant of the legend tells that the T ea

emperor tested the medical properties of various herbs on himself, some of them poisonous, and found tea to work as an antidote. Shennong is also mentioned in Lu Yu’s famous early work on the subject, The Classic of Tea. A similar Chinese legend goes that the god of agriculture would chew the leaves, stems, and roots of various plants to discover medicinal herbs. If he consumed a poisonous plant, he would chew tea leaves to counteract the poison.

Shennong (Chinese: 神农), whose name means the Divine Farmer—and who is considered as the ancient Chinese Father of Agriculture, is honored with the discovery of tea. According to legend, one fall afternoon, Shennong decided to take a rest under a Camellia tree and boiled some water to drink. Dried leaves from the tree above floated down into the pot of boiling water and infused with the water, creating a pot of tea, marking the first ever infusion of the tea leaf. Intrigued by the delightful fragrance, Shennong took a sip and found it refreshing.

Since Shennong’s discovery, tea has been grown and enjoyed throughout the world.

In the beginning, tea was used in ritual offerings. Then, tea leaves were eaten as a vegetable, or used in medicine. Until the

46

Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago, tea was a new drink.

During the Sui Dynasty (581-618), tea was used for its medicinal qualities. In the fourth and fifth centuries, rice, salt, spices, ginger and orange peel, among other ingredients, were added to tea. In the Tang Dynasty (618-907), tea drinking became an art form and a drink enjoyed by all social classes.

Tea became a popular drink in Buddhist monasteries after the caffeine proved to keep the monks awake during long hours of meditation. For this reason, many monasteries cultivated vast tea fields. Lu Yu (Chinese: çž˝), author of The Book of Tea, was an orphan brought up and

...when a few leaves were blown from a nearby tree into his water, changing the color.

educated in a monastery. It is likely that his experience growing up surrounded by tea inspired his book written during the Tang Dynasty. In The Book of Tea, Lu tea, tea drinking customs, the best water for tea brewing and different classifications of tea.

Whipped powdered tea became fashionable during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), but disappeared completely from Chinese culture after the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), when many other aspects of Song culture were erased during foreign rule. Chinese people later became accustomed to drinking steeped tea from leaves after the Yuan Dynasty and continue to drink it this way.

A rather gruesome legend dates back to the Tang Dynasty. In the legend, Bodhidharma, the founder of Chan Buddhism, accidentally fell asleep after meditating in front of a wall for nine years. He woke up in such disgust at his weakness that he cut off his own eyelids. They fell to the ground and took root, growing into tea bushes. Sometimes, another version of the story is told with Gautama Buddha in place of Bodhidharma.

Scholars however believe that tea drinking likely originated in the southwest of China, and that the Chinese words for tea themselves may have been originally derived from the AustroAsiatic languages of the people who originally inhabited that area.[15] Whether or not these legends have any basis in fact, tea has played a significant role in Asian culture for centuries as a staple beverage, a curative, and a status symbol.

47

T he blurry myths

Yu recorded a detailed account of ways to cultivate and prepare

A CLU S T E R O F G R APE S

Raisins The first raisins were probably grapes that had dried naturally on the vine. People have been picking grapes for more than three thousand years and laying them out in the sun to dry. This process is still the same today although some raisins are oven dried.

MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS OF EUROPE 2000 B.C.

Raisins in Ancient times The word raisin is from the Latin word racemus which means a cluster of grapes or berries.

History indicates that raisins were discovered for the first time by accident when they were found in the dried form on vines as early as 2000 BC. Wall paintings from ancient times show that dried fruits were consumed and used as decorations in the Mediterranean regions of Europe. Historians tell us the ancient Phoenicians and Armenians took the first steps in perfecting viticulture, the process of grape growing and selection.

Between 120–900 BC, the Phoenicians started colonial vineyards in the areas of Malaga and Valencia (Spain), and in Corinth (Greece). About this same time, the Armenians founded their vineyards in Persia (Turkey, Iran, Iraq). These bountiful growing areas had the perfect climate for making raisins and were also close to Greece and Rome, the first markets for raisins. Muscat raisins, oversized with seeds and a fruity full flavor, were the R aisins

primary crop in Malaga and Valencia. Currants, tiny seedless, tangy raisins were planted in Corinth, Greece, where historians believe they got their name.

The Phoenicians and Armenians then began to trade raisins with the Greeks and the Romans who consumed them in large quantities. As the popularity of the raisins grew, so did their value. They were given as prizes in sporting events, used as barter to trade, and used as a cure for what ails you. Ancient physicians prescribed raisins as potions that could cure everything from mushroom poisoning to old age. Emperor Augustus feasted on small birds stuffed with raisins. Even Hannibal had raisins in his troops’ rations when he crossed the Alps.

11th Century For all their popularity, though, raisins were not exported to the rest of Europe. Shipping methods were too poor to maintain the quality of the raisins for long travel. All of that changed in the 11th century. Knights returning from the crusades brought raisins back to Europe with them. They had sampled the dried fruit during their travels through the Mediterranean and Persia.

When the knights went home and began to crave raisins, a huge demand was created. Fortunately, packing and shipping

50

techniques had improved enough for raisins to be sent all over Northern Europe.

14th-16th Century By the middle of the 14th century, currants and raisins were an important part of English cuisine. In 1374, prices in England skyrocketed to two pence and three farthings per pounds, which was very expensive at that time.

After a period of time, viticulture spread to France and Germany. Even the English tried to grow currants in the 16th century – but realized their climate was too cold for drying raisins.

Grapes and raisins had become an important part of European cuisine by the time European nations started to colonize the Americas. In Spain, where viticulture had been perfected, grapes were being used to make products such as dry natural that when the conquistadors colonized Mexico, wine and raisins were soon to follow.

18th Century – The Birth of California Raisin Country Spain’s Queen Isabella sent missionaries to Mexico to teach natives about religion. While they were preaching and teaching, missionaries also passed on their knowledge of viticulture.

They used grapes for sacramental wines and also grew Muscat grapes for raisins.

By the 18th century, the Franciscan fathers had settled as far north as present-day Sonoma, California. But, when Spain turned power over to the colonial government of Mexico in 1834, the mission system began its decline.

Viticulture – and its strong influence on California agriculture – was one of the mission’s enduring legacies.

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The ancient Phoenicians and Armenians took the first steps in perfecting viticulture, the process of grape growing and selection.

T he blurry myths

table wine, sweet dessert wines and Muscat raisins. It was only

D I S T I LLE D GO LD

Brandy The origins of brandy were clearly tied to the development of distillation. While the process was known in classical times, it wasn’t used for significant beverage production up until the 15th century.

1 5 TH C E N T U RY

Initial use Initially wine was distilled as a preservation method and as a way to make it easier for merchants to transport. It is also thought that wine was originally distilled to lessen the tax which was assessed by volume. The intent was to add the water removed by distillation back to the brandy shortly before consumption. It was discovered that after having been stored in wooden casks, the resulting product had improved over the original distilled spirit. In addition to removing water, the distillation process led to the formation and decomposition of numerous aromatic compounds, fundamentally altering the composition of the distillate from its source. Non-volatile substances such as pigments, sugars, and salts remained behind in the still. As a result, the taste of the distillate was often quite unlike that of the original source.

The new method B randy

As described in the 1728 edition of Cyclopaedia, the following method was used to distill brandy: A cucurbit was filled half full of the liquor from which brandy was to be drawn and then raised with a little fire until about one sixth part was distilled, or until that which falls into the receiver was entirely flammable. This liquor, distilled only once, was called spirit of wine or brandy. Purified by another distillation (or several more), this was then called spirit of wine rectified. The second distillation was made in balneo mariae and in a glass cucurbit, and the liquor was distilled to about one half the quantity. This was further rectified—as long as the operator thought necessary—to produce brandy.

To shorten these several distillations, which were long and troublesome, a chemical instrument was invented that reduced them to a single distillation. To test the purity of the rectified spirit of wine, a portion was ignited. If the entire contents were consumed by a fire without leaving any impurities behind, then the liquor was good. Another, better test involved putting a little gunpowder in the bottom of the spirit. If the gunpowder could ignite after the spirit was consumed by fire, then the liquor was good.

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Modern production As most brandies have been distilled from grapes, the regions of the world producing excellent brandies have roughly paralleled those areas producing grapes for viniculture. At the end of the 19th century, the western European markets, including by extension their overseas empires, were dominated by French and Spanish brandies and eastern Europe was dominated by brandies from the Black Sea region, including Bulgaria, the Crimea, and Georgia. In 1880, David Saradjishvili founded his Cognac Factory in Tbilisi, Georgia, a crossroads for Turkish, Central Asian, and Persian trade routes and a part of the Russian Empire at the time. Armenian and Georgian brandies, called cognacs in the era, were considered some of the best in the world and often beat their French competitors at the International Expositions in Paris and Brussels in the of the Romanov Court in St. Petersburg were regarded as the largest collections of cognacs and wines in the world with much of it from the Transcaucasus region of Georgia. During the October Revolution of 1917, upon

It is also thought that wine was originally distilled to lessen the tax which was assessed by volume. The intent was to add the water removed by distillation back to the brandy shortly before consumption.

the storming of the Winter Palace, the Bolshevik Revolution actually paused for a week or so as the participants gorged on the substantial stores of cognac and wines. The Russian market was always a huge brandy-consuming region in which home-grown varieties were common but much of it was imported. The patterns of bottles followed that of the western European norm. Throughout the Soviet era, the production of brandy was a source of pride for the communist regime as they continued to produce some excellent varieties, especially the most famous Jubilee Brandies of 1967, 1977, and 1987. Remaining bottles of these productions are highly sought after, not simply for their quality, but for their historical significance.

55

T he blurry myths

early 1900s. The storehouses

D RI N K I N G T H E S TARS

Champagne The history of Champagne has seen the wine evolve from being a pale, pinkish still wine to the sparkling wine now associated with the region.

E P A R N A Y, C H A M P A G N E , FR ANCE, 1693

In ancient times The Romans were the first to plant vineyards in this area of northeast France, with the region being cultivated by at least the 5th century, possibly earlier. When Hugh Capet was crowned King of France in 987 at the cathedral of Reims, located in the heart of the region, he started a tradition that brought successive monarchs to the region—with the local wine being on prominent display at the coronation banquets. The early wine of the Champagne region was a pale, pinkish wine made from Pinot noir.

The Champenois were envious of the reputation of the wines made from their Burgundian neighbours to the south and sought to produce wines of equal acclaim. However the northerly climate of the region gave the Champenois a unique set of challenges in making red wine. At the far extremes of sustainable viticulture, the grapes would struggle to ripen fully and

Champagne

often would have bracing levels of acidity and low sugar levels.

The wines were lighter bodied and thinner than the Burgundies.

Furthermore, the cold winter temperatures prematurely halted fermentation in the cellars, leaving dormant yeast cells that would awaken in the warmth of spring and start fermenting again. One of the byproducts of fermentation is the release of carbon dioxide gas, which, if the wine is bottled, is trapped inside the wine, causing intense pressure.

Come quickly!

I am drinking the stars!

The pressure inside the weak, early French wine bottles often caused the bottles to explode, creating havoc in the cellars. If the bottle survived, the wine was found to contain bubbles,

something that the early Champenois were horrified to see, considering it a fault. As late as the 17th century, Champenois wine makers, most notably the Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon (1638–1715), were still trying to rid their wines of the bubbles.

Dom Peringnon and his stars When Bendictine monk Dom Perignon was making wine and couldn’t rid it of bubbles, he tasted his accidental creation and exclaimed, “Come quickly! I am drinking the stars!”

Thus, according to legend, was champagne invented in 1693.

At the age of 19 Dom Perignon entered the Benedictine

58

order at the Abbey of Hautvillers near the town of Epernay, within Champagne, France. There, he served as cellar master, responsible for overseeing the abbey’s extensive wine production, aging, and storage. Perignon was tasked with ridding the abbey’s sparkling wine of bubbles, a common problem winemakers of the time experienced due to refermentation. Perignon’s failure—he was unable to de-bubble the wine—became the toast of celebrants’ throughout history when Perignon tasted his botched “wine,” on 4 August 1693 and reportedly exclaimed to his fellow monks, “Come quickly! I am drinking the stars!”

Champagne gets its fame While the Champenois and their French clients preferred their Champagne to be pale and still, the British were developing a taste for the unique bubbly wine. The sparkling version of the wealthy and royal. Following the death of Louis XIV of France in 1715, the court of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans made the sparkling version of Champagne a favorite among the French nobility. More Champenois wine makers attempted to make their wines sparkle deliberately, but didn’t know enough about how to control the process or how to make wine bottles strong enough to withstand the pressure.

In the 19th century these obstacles were overcome, and the modern Champagne wine industry took form. Advances by the house of Veuve Clicquot in the development of the méthode champenoise made production of sparkling wine on a large scale profitable, and this period saw the founding of many of today’s famous Champagne houses, including Krug (1843), Pommery (1858) and Bollinger (1829). The fortunes of the Champenois and the popularity of Champagne grew until a series of setbacks in the early 20th century. Phylloxera appeared, vineyard growers rioted in 1910–11, the Russian and American markets were lost because of the Russian Revolution and Prohibition, and two World Wars made the vineyards of Champagne a battlefield.

The modern era, however, has seen a resurgence of the popularity of Champagne, a wine associated with both luxury and celebration, with sales quadrupling since 1950.

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T he blurry myths

Champagne continued to grow in popularity, especially among

T H E H U N G RY L AB R ADO R

Eton Mess Eton mess is a traditional English dessert consisting of a mixture of strawberries or bananas, pieces of meringue, and cream, which is traditionally served at Eton College’s annual cricket game against the pupils of Harrow School.

UK, E TON COLL AGE 1934

Messy history Eton mess is a traditional English dessert consisting of a mixture of strawberries or bananas, pieces of meringue, and cream, which is traditionally served at Eton College’s annual cricket game against the pupils of Harrow School. The dish has been known by this name since the 19th century.According to Recipes from the Dairy (1995) by Robin Weir, who spoke to Eton College’s librarian, Eton mess was served in the 1930s in the school’s “sock shop” (tuck shop), and was originally made with either strawberries or bananas mixed with ice-cream or cream.

Meringue was a later addition, and may have been an innovation

by Michael Smith, the author of Fine English Cookery (1973). An Eton mess can be made with many other types of summer fruit, but strawberries are regarded as more traditional. A similar dessert is the Lancing mess (which uses bananas), served throughout the year at Lancing College in West Sussex, England.

E ton M ess

Etimology The word mess may refer to the appearance of the dish, or may be used in the sense of “a quantity of food”, particularly “a prepared dish of soft food” or “a mixture of ingredients cooked or eaten together.”

A funnier version An apocryphal story has it that the first “mess” was caused by an excitable Labrador, sitting on a picnic basket on the way to the event. The school’s historical anecdotes say that a mixture, using either strawberries or bananas, was certainly served in the school’s tuck shop, during the 1930’s. The term “mess” may refer to the appearance of the dish. (Some say that “mess” refers to any type of soft food mixed together). Whatever the case, this light, sweet, treat is a prize winning dish at any event.

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63

T he blurry myths

An apocryphal story has it that the first mess was caused by an excitable Labrador, sitting on a picnic basket on the way to the event. The school’s historical anecdotes say that a mixture, using either strawberries or bananas, was certainly served in the school’s tuck shop, during the 1930’s. Whatever the case, this light, sweet, treat is a prize winning dish at any event.

And there are the stories of which we know all the details. Or don't we?

E AT I N G D

The true legends

3

San

The mode after Lord S circumstan original us

E AT I N G D U RI N G A CARD GA M E

JOHN MONTAGU 4TH EARL OF SANDWICH PC, FRS (13 November 1718 – 30 April 1792) was a British statesman who succeeded his grandfather Edward Montagu, 3rd Earl of Sandwich as the Earl of Sandwich in 1729, at the age of ten. During his life, he held various military and political offices, including Postmaster General, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Secretary of State for the Northern Department, but is perhaps best known for the claim that he was the eponymous inventor of the sandwich.

The modern sandwich is named after Lord Sandwich, but the exact circumstances of its invention and original use are still the subject of debate. A rumour in a contemporaneous travel book called Tour to London by Pierre-Jean Grosley formed the popular myth that bread and meat sustained Lord Sandwich at the gambling table.

Lord Sandwich was a very conversant gambler, the story goes, and he did not take the time to have a meal during his long hours playing at the card table.

Sandwich

The modern sandwich is named after Lord Sandwich, but the exact circumstances of its invention and original use are still the subject of debate.

SANDWICH, KENT

1762 E!N

A rumour in a contemporaneous travel book called Tour to London by Pierre-Jean Grosley formed the popular myth that bread and meat sustained Lord Sandwich at the gambling table.

[21] Lord Sandwich was a very conversant gambler, the story goes, and he did not take the time to have a meal during his long hours playing at the card table. Consequently, he would ask his servants to bring him slices of meat between two slices of bread, a habit well known among his gambling friends. Other people, according to this account, began to order “the same as Sandwich!”, and thus the “sandwich” was born. The sober alternative to this account is provided by Sandwich’s biographer N. A. M. Rodger, who suggests that Sandwich’s commitments to the navy, to politics, and to the arts mean that the first sandwich was more likely to have been consumed at his work desk.

The Earl of Sandwich and the Origin of the Sandwich The origin of the word ‘sandwich’ for an item of food may have S andwi c h

originated from a story about John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich. He didn’t really ‘invent’ the sandwich but he may have made it popular.

It is said that in approx. 1762, he asked for meat to be served between slices of bread, to avoid interrupting a gambling game.

This story may have been rumour or adverse propoganda, put about by his rivals.

But soon people may have started ordering “the same as Sandwich”, and the name stuck.

Confusing Titles Hereditary English titles can be confusing. The family of the Earls of Sandwich has no real connection to the town itself, only the title. The 1st Earl, Edward Montagu, originally intended to take the title of the Earl of Portsmouth - this may have been changed as a compliment to the town of Sandwich, because the fleet he was commanding in 1660 was lying off Sandwich, before it sailed to bring back Charles II to England.

We could be eating a ‘Portsmouth’ It is generally thought here, that the word ‘sandwich’ as an item of food, has no connection with the town, only with John

70

Montagu, who happened to have the title, a ‘sandwich’ could just as easily have been called a ‘portsmouth’ if the 1st Earl, Edward Montagu, had not changed his mind over his title.

The Sandwich Isles Captain James Cook also named the Sandwich Isles (Hawaii) after the 4th Earl, who was his financial sponsor.

The first Sandwiches The 1st Century B.C. Jewish Rabbi Hillel the Elder is reported to have started the Passover tradition of putting lamb, mixed nuts and herbs between two pieces of unleavened bread. In the Middle Ages, people used thick slices of stale bread called ‘trenchers’ to double as plates on which they placed cooked meats and vegetables, a kind of ‘open sandwich’, although they probably did not eat the stale bread. The Dutch also have a long or other delicious fillings & toppings.

The 2000 years old Sandwich The first recorded mention of Sandwich was around 664 AD but there was probably some kind of settlement in Roman times as the site is very close to Richborough Roman Fort (Rutupiae).

T he T rue L egends

tradition of serving bread & butter with meat or fish (broodjes)

Worce S

The name of the town is, most likely, Saxon in origin, approximately meaning sandy place, or the place on the sand. The word sandwich as an item of food came into being centuries later…

71

Soon people may have started ordering the same as Sandwich, and the name stuck.

The story o Worcestersh early 1800s, in Returning h Bengal, Lord the area, w a reci

LE A& PE RRI N S

WILLIAM HENRY PERRINS (1793 – 1867) was a drug-store chemist who formed a partnership in 1823 with John Wheeley Lea. They went on to create the Lea& Perrins brand of Worcestershire sauce. He lived in Lansdowne Crescent in the parish of Claines, and is buried in St John, Baptist Churchyard, Claines.

JOHN WHEELEY LEA (1791 – 1874) was an English sauce manufacturer. Born on a farm with three brothers and four sisters, Lea wanted to be a chemist from a young child. In 1823 he partnered with William Henry Perrins, opening a drug store in Worcester.

The two are known for creating the Lea & Perrins brand of Worcestershire sauce.

Worcestershire Sauce The story of Lea & Perrins® famous Worcestershire Sauce begins in the early 1800s, in the county of Worcester.

Returning home from his travels in Bengal, Lord Sandys, a nobleman of the area, was eager to duplicate a recipe he’d acquired.

WORCESTER

1835 E!N

The beginnings On Lord Sandys’ request, two chemists—John Lea and William Perrins—made up the first batch of the sauce.

Lea and Perrins were not impressed with their initial results.

The pair found the taste unpalatable, and simply left the jars in their cellar to gather dust. A few years later, they stumbled across them and decided to taste the contents again. To their delight, the aging process had turned it into a delicious, savory sauce.

W or c estershire

S au c e

Soon Mr. Lea and Mr. Perrins began bottling their special

Imported in 1839 by New York buinessman John Duncan, Lea & Perrins® is the oldest commercially bottled condiment in the U.S.

blend of vinegars and seasonings. Without any kind of advertising, in just a few short years, it was known and coveted in kitchens throughout Europe.

In 1839, John Duncan, a New York entrepreneur, ordered a small quantity of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce. In the space of a few short years Duncan was importing large shipments to keep up with demand. Lea & Perrins was the only commercially bottled condiment in the U.S., and Americans loved it right away. Almost 170 years later, Lea &

Perrins sauce remains a favorite in households across the U.S.

The secret to their succes To this day, the recipe remains a closely guarded secret and only a privileged few know the exact ingredients. To protect the sauce from other imitators, the famous Lea & Perrins® signature was put on the label of the bottle, as it appears today. Lea & Perrins remains true to the spirit of the original recipe, combining the finest ingredients from around the world and aging them to perfection to produce a richer, smoother flavor unmatched for over 175 years.

Loved worldwide Lea & Perrins® sauce is now available in over 75 countries worldwide. In the UK, it is used to make the ultimate cheese on toast. In Spain, it’s used in salads. In Hong Kong, Lea & Perrins is a favored dipping sauce, stir-fry sauce and beef marinade. Lea & Perrins might be served with refried beans in El Salvador, and in Canada and the USA, it’s known as the “Burger Booster®.”

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TIMELINE 1835

1904

In the county of Worcester,

John Duncan & Sons, in

Lea & Perrins Worcestershire

Lord Sandys commissions

America. At this time, Lea &

Sauce has been awarded

two chemists, John Lea &

Perrins Worcestershire Sauce

the highly prized Royal

William Perrins, to repli-

was the only commercially

Warrant from Her Majesty

cate a delicious sauce he had

bottled condiment in the

The Queen—a mark regarded

acquired during his travels

US. 14,500 bottles of Lea &

as a sign of excellence and

in the Far East. The first

Perrins Worcestershire Sauce

quality.

batch of the sauce, to every-

were produced and sold

one’s surprise, tasted quite

every year.

harsh and unpleasant. Being

T H E T I RE O

1921 The Bloody Mary was born

described as ‘unpalatable, red

1849

at “Harry’s New York Bar”

hot firewater’!

Americans loved it right

in Paris, when the barman mixed vodka with tomato

Duncan was importing large

juice and a splash of Lea

While cleaning out the cellar,

shipments to keep up with

& Perrins Worcestershire

Lea & Perrins stumbled upon

US demand. Records show

Sauce.

the jars of sauce, opened one,

that 106 dozen bottles in

and gave it one last taste. To

three sizes of Lea & Perrins

1958

their delight they found the

Worcestershire Sauce was

A new bottle stopper

aging process had turned it

purchased.

invented, replacing the glass

into a delicious, savory sauce.

stopper & inner cork seal.

1850

This was the first major

1837

To address damage caused by

packaging change in 125

Lea & Perrins began bottling

rough seas, bottles imported

years!

their special blend of vine-

to the US were individually

gars & seasonings. Without

wrapped

any kind of advertising, in

1985 Lea & Perrins Worcestershire

just a few short years, it was

1875

Sauce switches from clear to

known & coveted in kitchens

Due to overwhelming

amber colored bottles

throughout Europe

demand for Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce in

2012

1840

the US, John Duncan & Sons

Lea & Perrins releases

John Duncan, a New York

began importing the sauce in

Marinade In-A-Bag. It’s an

entrepreneur, introduces Lea

large casks and bottling it in

easier way to deliver all of the

& Perrins Worcestershire

the US.

flavor with none of the mess…

Sauce at his grocery store,

77

T he T rue L egends

away & in a few short years,

1836

Po C

The earliest kn is in William K The Cook’s Orac and the United potato chips in th Mary Randolph’s and in N.K.M. Le both of which

T H E T I RE O F A N U N H APPY G U E S T

GEORGE SPECK (also called George Crum; c. 1824–1914) was a man of mixed ancestry, including St. Regis (Akwesasne) Mohawk Indian, African-American, and possibly German. He worked as a hunter, guide, and cook in the Adirondacks, who became renowned for his culinary skills after being hired at Moon’s Lake House on Saratoga Lake, near Saratoga Springs, New York.

Speck’s specialities included wild game, especially venison and duck, and he often experimented in the kitchen. During the 1850s, while working at Moon’s Lake House in the midst of a dinner rush, Speck tried slicing the potatoes extra thin and dropping it into the deep hot fat of the frying pan. Thus was born the potato chip.

Potato Chips The earliest known recipe for potato chips is in William Kitchiner’s 1822 cookbook The Cook’s Oracle, a bestseller in England and the United States. Early recipes for potato chips in the United States are found in Mary Randolph’s Virginia House-Wife (1824), and in N.K.M. Lee’s Cook’s Own Book (1832), both of which explicitly cite Kitchiner.

S A R AT O G A SPRINGS, NY

1853 U!S! A

The legend Nonetheless, a legend associates the creation of potato chips with Saratoga Springs, New York, decades later.

The earliest known recipe for potato chips is in William Kitchiner’s 1822 cookbook The Cook’s Oracle, a bestseller in England and the United States; its recipe for “Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings” reads “peel large potatoes, slice them about a quarter of an inch thick, or cut them in shavings round and round, as you would peel a lemon; dry them well in a clean cloth, and fry them in lard or dripping.”

Early recipes for potato chips in the United States are found in Mary Randolph’s Virginia House-Wife (1824), and in N.K.M. Lee’s Cook’s Own Book (1832), both of which explicitly cite Kitchiner.

Nonetheless, a legend associates the creation of potato chips with Saratoga Springs, New York, decades later. The prevailing story of the origin of the potato chip starts in Saratoga Springs,

P otato

Chips

New York, a historically affluent and resort community. It was 1853, eight years before the beginning of the Civil War. Known for its mineral springs and their supposed rejuvenation properties, Saratoga Springs had just started becoming a tourist destination with help of the railroad that cut through the town.

Resorts, inns, restaurants, and spas had begun to crop up along the shores of Saratoga Lake. Moon’s Lake House, owned

by Cary Moon, was one of the finest of those restaurants.

Vacationers and wealthy summer home owners visited the restaurant often. At the restaurant, two people shared the cooking responsibilities, Catherine “Aunt Kate” Weeks and her brother (or brother-in-law, depending on who’s telling the story), George Crum.

George Crum and ‘Aunt Kate’ was born George Speck, his mother was Native American and his father was a free AfricanAmerican making a living as a horse jockey. When George was a young man, he adopted his father’s horse racing name – Crum.

After an earlier career as a trapper and hunting guide, he made his way to Saratoga Springs, where he began cooking and, by all accounts, seemed to get pretty good at it. So good, in fact, he was hired by Cary Moon to work at his restaurant.

Up to this point, based on the evidence at hand, we can be fairly certain all of this is true. But here’s where, perhaps, ele-

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ments of legend creep in. The story goes that it was about dinner time during Moon’s second summer season on the Lake.

A customer came in and ordered Moon’s Fried Potatoes, the

B I RT H O

well-known house specialty. Crum whipped up a batch and served it to the customer, who complained that the potatoes were cut much too thick. So, he sent the item back to be remade.

Crum, none too pleased that someone would insult his cooking, cut the potatoes paper-thin, dumped them in a vat of oil, let them cook so long that they became hard and crispy, and then

Coc

salted them heavily, thinking that these “fried potatoes” would now be inedible. When served the item, the customer took a bite…and then another…and then another, before proclaiming that the fried slices of potatoes were delicious. It became known as the “Saratoga Chip.” The potato chip was born.

As one could imagine, there are several versions of this story and all are disputed. First off, assuming the story is true, there interesting account was that it was simply a regular (albeit whiny) farmer, hungry from a long day out in the fields. The more famed tale is that the customer was shipping and railroad mogul, Cornelius Vanderbilt.

This part of the story was, at the very least, appropriated by the Snack Food Association in the late 1970s. The Snack Food Association, in partnership with Mary Lou Whitney, the wife of the great-great grandson of Cornelius

Crum whipped up a batch and served it to the customer, who complained that the potatoes were cut much too thick.

T he T rue L egends

is the question of who this customer actually was. The less

Vanderbilt, published an account (essentially as an advertisement) that mostly leaves Crum out of the origin story, partially crediting Vanderbilt with the invention. Says the ad, “The chef, to spite Vanderbilt, sliced his potatoes very thin, fried them to a crisp and salted them heavily.

Vanderbilt loved them and the potato chip was born.” It was this advertising campaign that firmly established in popular folklore how the potato chip was invented and who invented it. Later, Saratoga Springs historian Violet Dunn would claim that there was no evidence whatsoever that Vanderbilt was the customer, writing in a letter to the Snack Food Association.

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Living in Atlan sold a syrup extract he ca Wine Coca,” w for headaches

B I RT H O F A RE F RE S H I N G I D E A

JOHN PEMBERTON (July 8, 1831 – August 16, 1888) was an American pharmacist, and is best known for being the inventor of Coca-Cola.

In April 1865, while serving as a lieutenant colonel of the Confederate Army’s Third Georgia Cavalry Battalion, Georgia State Guard, Pemberton was wounded in the Battle of Columbus, Georgia. He sustained his injury from a saber with which he was slashed across his chest, and like many wounded veterans of many wars, he became addicted to the morphine used to ease the pain. In 1866, in Columbus, Georgia, he started working on painkillers that would serve as opium-free alternatives to morphine. His first was “Dr. Tuggle’s Compound Syrup of Globe Flower (Cephalanthus occidentalis).”

He next began experimenting with coca and coca wines, eventually creating his own version of Vin Mariani, containing kola nut and damiana, which he called Pemberton’s French Wine Coca.

Coca-Cola

Living in Atlanta in the 1880s, Pemberton sold a syrup made of wine and coca extract he called “Pemberton’s French Wine Coca,” which was touted at a cure for headaches and nervous disorders.

AT L A N TA

1885 U!S! A

How it was created: In 1885, Atlanta banned the sale of alcohol, so Pemberton created a purely coca-based version of the syrup to be mixed with carbonated water and drank as a soda.

The result was a perfect beverage for the temperance era— a “brain tonic” called Coca Cola.

The Story It was a prohibition law, enacted in Atlanta in 1886, that persuaded physician and chemist Dr. John Stith Pemberton to rename and rewrite the formula for his popular nerve tonic, stimulant and headache remedy, “Pemberton’s French Wine Coca,” sold at that time by most, if not all, of the city’s druggists.

So when the new Coca-Cola debuted later that year—still possessing “the valuable tonic and nerve stimulant properties of the coca plant and cola nuts,” yet sweetened with sugar instead of wine—Pemberton advertised it not only as a “delicious, exhila-

Co c a - Cola

rating, refreshing and invigorating” soda-fountain beverage but also as the ideal “temperance drink.”

Dr. John Stith Pemberton, a local pharmacist, produced the syrup for Coca-Cola®, and carried a jug of the new product down the street to Jacobs’ Pharmacy, where it was sampled, pronounced “excellent” and placed on sale for five cents a glass as a soda fountain drink. Carbonated water was teamed with the new syrup to produce a drink that was at once “Delicious and Refreshing,” .Dr. Pemberton’s partner and bookkeeper, Frank M. Robinson, suggested the name and penned the now famous trademark “Coca-Cola” in his unique script. The first newspaper ad for Coca-Cola soon appeared in The Atlanta Journal, inviting thirsty citizens to try “the new and popular soda fountain drink.” Hand-painted oilcloth signs reading “Coca-Cola” appeared on store awnings, with the suggestion “Drink” added to inform passersby that the new beverage was for soda fountain refreshment.

The Chronicle Of Coca-Cola: Birth of a Refreshing Idea The product that has given the world its best-known taste was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886. Dr. John Stith Pemberton, a local pharmacist, produced the syrup for Coca-

88

Cola, and carried a jug of the new product down the street to Jacobs’ Pharmacy, where it was sampled, pronounced “excellent” and placed on sale for five cents a glass as a soda fountain

A TA RT E D

drink. Carbonated water was teamed with the new syrup to produce a drink that was at once “Delicious and Refreshing,” a theme that continues to echo today wherever Coca-Cola is enjoyed.

Tart

Popularity Thinking that “the two Cs would look well in advertising,” Dr. Pemberton’s partner and bookkeeper, Frank M. Robinson, suggested the name and penned the now famous trademark “Coca-Cola” in his unique script. The first newspaper ad for Coca-Cola soon appeared in The Atlanta Journal, inviting thirsty citizens to try “the new and popular soda fountain drink.”

Hand-painted oilcloth signs reading “Coca-Cola” appeared on passersby that the new beverage was for soda fountain refreshment. During the first year, sales averaged a modest nine drinks per day.

Dr. Pemberton never realized the potential of the beverage he created. He gradually sold portions of his business to various partners and, just prior to his death in 1888, sold his remaining

T he T rue L egends

store awnings, with the suggestion “Drink” added to inform

interest in Coca-Cola to Asa G. Candler. An Atlantan with great business acumen, Mr. Candler proceeded to buy additional rights and acquire complete control.

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In 1866, in Columbus, Georgia, he started working on painkillers that would serve as opium-free alternatives to morphine.

Some of the be come from kitc case with the f fall dessert, es looking fo a

A TART E D E S D E M O I S E LLE S TAT I N

STEPHANIE TATIN (1838-1917) and CAROLINE TATIN (1847-1911) According to tradition it was Stéphanie Tatin who accidentally placed her apple tart in the oven upside down. Despite that seeming unsolvable problem Stéphanie Tatin, like any great chef when faced with disaster knew the show must go on. Stéphanie carried on and served the pie as a new creation. The guests loved the new recipe and Stéphanie Tatin had found a place for herself and her sister, and the Tarte Tatin, in the history of French cuisine.

The original recipe is protected by its own brotherhood and sisterhood: La Confrérie de Lichonneux de Tarte Tatin. This confrérie has lectures, street processions and competitions, all while dressed up in, would be, traditional costumes.

The costumes include floppy hats and cloaks, and the members of this confrérie award one another medals, other honors, and swear to protect the original recipe against all comers. Do not mess with the recipe of the Tarte Tatin or this confrérie will be on your case, you have been warned.

Tarte Tatin

Some of the best culinary creations have come from kitchen mistakes. Such is the case with the fabled tarte Tatin, an ideal fall dessert, especially for those who are looking for new ways to enjoy apple season.

N H O T E L TAT I N , L AMOT TE-B EUVRON

1885 F! R

Hotel Tatin This apple pastry was born in the early 1900s at the Hotel Tatin, a small establishment run by two sisters, Caroline and Stephanie, in the Loire Valley in France.

A nearby train station brought all sorts of visitors to the little hotel in the town of Lamotte-Beuvron. And some, like painter Claude Monet, went out of their way to spend Sunday afternoons enjoying leisurely lunches there.

The stories vary on how the tart came to be. Kathie Alex, a cooking instructor near Valbonne, said the dish was originally served in the pan, with crust on top. But one of the sisters dropped it one day. Not to disappoint guests, she scooped the disaster off the floor, served it crust-side down on a plate and anointed it tarte Tatin.

A check with the official tarte Tatin Web site (www.tarte-tatin.com), maintained by the city of Lamotte-Beuvron, offers a T arte T atin

second version. It suggests that Stephanie, who was in charge of food at the inn, wasn’t too bright. And one day she put the apples in the pan before the crust and proceeded to cook it thusly. Once ready, she inverted it and discovered the apples had caramelized quite beautifully, so she served it as if it were meant to be.

No matter which story is true, the tarte Tatin is delicious, so don’t be daunted by the lengthy instructions and multi-step process. It’s worth the effort at least once each apple season.

Birth and Popularity From the evidence that can be pieced together, it seems the Tarte Tatin was created in the 1880s. It quickly grew in popularity, and when Stéphanie (Fanny) and Caroline opened their hotel in 1894, the tarte already had a solid following.

The first printed mention appears in 1903, in the Bulletin de la Société Géographique du Cher [Bulletin of the Geographical Society of Cher, the Cher being an administrative district of Sologne, much like Iowa is part of the Midwest]. It narrates a two-day rail excursion around the region by its members, that makes you wish you were there: “From La Ferté [a small town 10 miles North of LamotteBeuvron], the face of the forest changes. Oak trees reappear, and mix pleasantly with pines, birches, and aspens. Chaumont-sur-

94

Tharonne is a pretty village with a big church and a beautiful steeple. On that day, townsfolk are celebrating, and throngs of merrymakers invade the train station. The valley until Lamotte-

B ROT H E

Beuvron is fairly rugged. We travel across the park of a former imperial estate, which has become an agricultural vocational school for troubled youth. And we finally get off in La Motte.

It is almost 8 p.m., and our stomachs are growling.

Fortunately, right across from the train station stands the Hotel Tatin, built and outfitted with all the modern comforts for the

Corn

enjoyment of Parisians who lease all the hunting estates around.

The staff has been awaiting us, and the dinner menu, once read, brings forth a swell of excitement: it is extraordinarily bountiful and almost worth sharing here for the illumination of future generations; the dinner is unquestionably superb, and topped off, at our insistence, by a warm apple tarte that is the specialty of the house, and might rightfully qualify for a patent … along the stoves. This incomparable treat, famous all over Sologne, is an invaluable asset to the economic geography of the region.

Since it is late in the winter, it is also the last tarte Tatin of the season for the hotel, which makes it taste like a slice of history!

Such a luxuriant meal could only end with a glass of champagne.

The excursion budget allowed for it, and this gave us the oppor-

T he T rue L egends

with official endorsement, for as long as Miss Fanny Tatin minds

tunity for some toasts, where we indulged, as is customary, in mutual accolades. If Sologne still had critics, the journey from Blois to La Motte on a gorgeous spring day, and a dinner at the Hotel Tatin would certainly silence them, and should restore their regard for this land once scorned, yet so appreciated.

Another contemporary account comes from the unpublished hand-written notes of Marie Souchon, a close friend of the sisters, who lived nearby. It gives us the first recorded recipe. Although undated, it likely reflects the author’s first-hand observations in the hotel kitchen: “Use a copper dish, without which one cannot make this delicious tarte. You will also need a coal-fired stove well stocked with embers. Rest your copper dish on top, and place embers over the lid of the dish since you will need equal heat from above and below to be successful.

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For people the flakes is the g But for the m forward to it will come as invented to st

B ROT H E RS A N D B RE AK FAS T

JOHN HARVEY KELLOGG, M.D. (February 26, 1852 – December 14, 1943) was an American medical doctor in Battle Creek, Michigan, who ran a sanitarium using holistic methods, with a particular focus on nutrition, enemas, and exercise. Kellogg was an advocate of vegetarianism for health and is best known for the invention of the breakfast cereal known as corn flakes with his brother, Will Keith Kellogg. He led in the establishment of the American Medical Missionary College. The College, founded in 1895, operated until 1910 when it merged with Illinois State University.

WILL KEITH KELLOGG (April 7, 1860 – October 6, 1951)

Corn Flakes

For people the world over, a bowl of corn flakes is the go-to breakfast of choice.

But for the majority of those who look forward to their morning bowl, it will come as a surprise that they were invented to stop people masturbating.

MICHIGAN

1894 U!S! A

The corn flakes legacy Corn flakes, or cornflakes, are a popular breakfast cereal made by toasting flakes of corn. The cereal was first created by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg in 1894 as a food that he thought would be healthy for the patients of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan where he was superintendent. The breakfast cereal proved popular among the patients and the Kellogg Company was set up to produce corn flakes for a wider public. A patent for the process was granted in 1896.

With corn flakes becoming popular in the wider community, other people, particularly a previous patient at the sanatorium, C. W. Post, started to make rival products. Various ingredients were added and different grains were used. Dr Kellogg continued to experiment and in 1928 started to manufacture Rice Krispies, another successful breakfast cereal. The trademark rooster that appears on the cereal packets and which first Corn F lakes

appeared in a television commercial may have been inspired by the Welsh word ceiliog, suggested by Kellogg’s Welsh friend Nansi Richards. Nowadays there are many generic brands of corn flakes produced by various manufacturers. As well as being used as a breakfast cereal, the crushed flakes can be substituted for bread crumbs in a recipe and can be incorporated into many cooked dishes.

History The accidental legacy of corn flakes goes back to the late 19th century, when a team of Seventh-day Adventists began to develop new food to adhere to the vegetarian diet recommended by the church. Members of the group experimented with a number of different grains, including wheat, oats, rice, barley, and corn. In 1894, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the superintendent of The Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan and an Adventist, used these recipes as part of a strict vegetarian regimen for his patients, which also included no alcohol, tobacco, or caffeine.

The diet he imposed consisted entirely of bland foods. A follower of Sylvester Graham, the inventor of graham crackers and graham bread, Kellogg believed that spicy or sweet foods would increase passions.

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This idea for corn flakes began by accident when Kellogg and his younger brother, Will Keith Kellogg, left some cooked wheat to sit while they attended to some pressing matters at the

S UZE T T E,

sanitarium. When they returned, they found that the wheat had gone stale, but being on a strict budget, so they decided to continue to process it by forcing it through rollers, hoping to obtain long sheets of the dough. To their surprise, what they found instead were flakes, which they toasted and served to their patients. This event occurred on August 8, 1894, and a patent for “Flaked Cereals and Process of Preparing Same” was filed on May 31, 1895, and issued on April 14, 1896. A newspaper advertisement for Kellogg's Toasted Corn Flakes in 1919.

Dr. Kellogg introduced Kellogg Corn Flakes in hopes that it would reduce masturbation. In fact, Kellogg devoted much of his energy to discouraging sexual activity of any kind, and was an especially ardent critic of masturbation, which he believed emissions, impotence, epilepsy, insanity, and mental and physical debility” as well as “dimness of vision” and moral corruption.

A patent for the product was filed on May 31, 1895, and issued on April 14, 1896.

Popularity

T he T rue L egends

could cause “cancer of the womb, urinary diseases, nocturnal

Cr Su

The flakes of grain, which the Kelloggs called granose, were a very popular food among the patients. The brothers then experimented with other flakes from other grains. In 1906, Will Keith Kellogg, who served as the business manager of the sanitarium, decided to try to mass-market the new food. At his new company, Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, he added sugar to the flakes to make them more palatable to a mass audience, but this caused a rift between his brother and him. In 1907, his same company ran an ad campaign which offered a free box of cereal to any woman who winked at her grocer.To increase sales, in 1909, he added a special offer, the Funny Jungleland Moving Pictures Booklet, which was made available to anyone who bought two boxes of the cereal. This same premium was offered for 22 years. At the same time, Kellogg also began experimenting with new grain cereals to expand his product line. Rice Krispies, his next great hit, first went on sale in 1928.

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Our story open Café de Paris i 1895. Prince Edw Victoria and was a

S UZ E T T E, WO M A N O F M I S T E RY

HENRI CHARPENTIER (1880–1961) was once a well-known French chef who worked at the Savoy in London with Escoffier and at several other posh kitchens. His claim to fame was accidentally inventing, so he said, the orange liqueur-spiked dessert Crêpes Suzette while a young assistant in Monte Carlo. Later, he moved to the United States and eventually died in California. Before California, however, he had restaurants in New York and Chicago.

In New York, he worked at Delmonico’s but saved to open his own restaurant—Original Henri Restaurant & Bar—around 1906.

For the next three decades, he took a role in several New York restaurants and was a celebrity in his own right. His customers included luminaries, presidents, and foreign heads of state. In 1938, he closed shop and moved to Chicago where he opened Café de Paris. By 1945, he had moved on to Southern California. Eventually he opened a restaurant, of sorts, in Redondo Beach: a single table, in his own home, where the reservation list was so long, it might take a year to secure a seat.

Crepes Suzette Our story opens at a restaurant called the Café de Paris in Monte Carlo in the year 1895. Prince Edward of Wales, son of Queen Victoria and future king of England, was a regular patron.

MON TE CARLO

1895 F! R

Crepes

S uzette

Unexpectedly, the alcohol caught fire thus flambéing the sauce and serendipitously creating a new taste sensation.

The visit of the prince One day he and a party of other gentlemen and the daughter of one of the men arrived for lunch. Fifteen year old Henri Charpentier, an assistant waiter, got called upon to serve them.

One of the courses was crepes. The crepes were precooked in the kitchen but the dish was completed by heating them in a sauce made from orange peel, sugar, and a combination of liqueurs in a chaffing dish in front of the guests. Unexpectedly, the alcohol caught fire thus flambéing the sauce and serendipitously creating a new taste sensation. Edward and his guests were delighted and the Prince asked Charpentier what he planned to call his new creation. Charpentier offered “Crepes Princesse” but Edward, in honor of his guest’s young daughter asked if he would name them Crepes Suzette, and hence, a classic was born. Charpentier went on to become a world famous chef and publicized the story in his memoirs.

Other versions Charpentier’s tale is disputed by some and is not the only version of the origin of Crepes Suzette. A more risqué variation is that

106

Suzette was not the daughter of one of Edward’s guests but one of the prince’s paramours. It is also purported that a chef by the name of Monsieur Joseph invented the dish for a German

E ASY

actress, Suzanne “Suzette” Reichenhurg. Even this account has an alternative rendition. Apparently, there was a play running at the time in which a maid named Suzette was serving the other characters pancakes. Monsieur Joseph supplied the play with a daily allotment of pancakes. A final account alleges that Crepes Suzette was created by a chef named Jean Reboux for King Louis XV at the bequest of Princess Suzette de Carignan, who was supposedly enamored with the King. It seems we’ll never know whether Suzette was a little girl, a prince’s mistress, an actress, a character in a play, or a princess herself.

Etimology Crepe is the French word for pancake. Crepes differ from tradiin both sweet and savory dishes. Crepes can be topped or filled and rolled with fruit, meat, cheese, or vegetables. They are often accompanied by some kind of sauce and form the basis of an appetizer or main course. Crepes Suzette are sweet crepes accompanied by an orange flavored butter sauce, and flambéed with orange liqueur.

T he T rue L egends

tional pancakes in that they are lighter, thinner and are utilized

Ice C C

Crepes are trickier to make than traditional pancakes.

For pancakes, you basically just mix the batter and then simply plop dollops of it onto a hot griddle. Not so for crepes. Unlike pancake batter where some lumps are of no consequence, crepe batter must be smooth and more fluid, like the consistency of heavy cream. This is why some chefs use a blender. Next, wthe batter should be rested in the refrigerator for two hours.

This allows for the flour particles to expand in the liquid and facilitates the dissipation of air bubbles. Both of these processes create a lighter, thinner, and tender batter. If the batter thickens upon resting, add a little water until the desired consistency is achieved. The final point of departure from pancakes is the cooking vessel employed. Crepe batter is not ladled onto a griddle but into a crepe pan, a shallow, round frying pan specifically designed for making crepes. If you don’t have a crepe pan you may employ a non-stick eight inch skillet.

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For over a enjoying ice cr it’s a waffle con cone, what bet scoop of

E ASY TO - GO D E LI G H T

ITALO MARCHIONY On September 20, 1903, Italo Marchiony (1868-1954), an Italian immigrant living in New York, NY, filed a patent application for a “molding apparatus for forming ice-cream cups and the like.” U.S. Patent No. 746,971 was issued to him on December 15, 1903.

His patent drawings show a mold for shaping small cups, complete with tiny handles - not a cone.

His invention in his patent application is described as:

Ice Cream Cone

“This invention relates to molding apparatus, and particularly such molding apparatus as is used in the manufacture of ice-cream cups and the like.”

Marchiony always insisted that he had been making cones since 1896 where he sold his homemade ice cream (lemon ice) from a pushcart (hokey-pokey) on Wall Street in New York. He originally used liquor glasses to serve his ice cream in.

To reduce his overhead, caused by customers breaking or wanderng off with his serving glasses, he baked edible waffle. While the waffles were still warm, he folded them into the shape of a cup (with sloping sides and a flat bottom).

For over a century, we have been enjoying ice cream on a cone. Whether it’s a waffle cone, a sugar cone or a wafer cone, what better way to enjoy a double scoop of your favorite flavor?

N E W YO R K C I T Y

1903 U!S! A

Making Its Appearance The first ice cream cone was produced in 1896 by Italo Marchiony. Marchiony, who emigrated from Italy in the late 1800s, invented his ice cream cone in New York City. He was granted a patent in December 1903.

Although Marchiony is credited with the invention of the cone, a similar creation was independently introduced at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair by Ernest A. Hamwi, a Syrian concessionaire.

Hamwi was selling a crisp, waffle-like pastry—zalabis—in a booth right next to an ice cream vendor. Because of ice cream’s popularity, the vendor ran out of dishes. Hamwi saw an easy solution to the ice cream vendor’s problem: he quickly rolled one of his wafer-like waffles in the shape of a cone, or cornucopia, and gave it to the ice cream vendor. The cone cooled in a few seconds, the vendor put some ice cream in it, the customers

I c e Cream Cone

were happy and the cone was on its way to becoming the great American institution that it is today.

A Business is Born St. Louis, a foundry town, quickly capitalized on the cone’s success. Enterprising people invented special baking equipment for making the World’s Fair cornucopia cones.

Stephen Sullivan of Sullivan, Missouri, was one of the first known independent operators in the ice cream cone business. In 1906, Sullivan served ice cream cones (or cornucopias, as they were still called) at the Modern Woodmen of America Frisco Log Rolling in Sullivan, Missouri.

At the same time, Hamwi was busy with the Cornucopia Waffle Company. In 1910, he founded the Missouri Cone Company, later known as the Western Cone Company.

As the modern ice cream cone developed, two distinct types of cones emerged. The rolled cone was a waffle, baked in a round shape and rolled (first by hand, later mechanically) as soon as it came off the griddle. In a few seconds, it hardened in the form of a crisp cone. The second type of cone was molded either by pouring batter into a shell, inserting a core on which the cone was baked, and then removing the core; or pouring the batter into a mold, baking it and then splitting the mold so the cone could be removed with little difficulty.

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WINTE

113

Po T he T rue L egends

The first ice cream cone was produced in 1896

by Italo Marchiony.

Marchiony, who emigrated from Italy in the late 1800s, invented his ice cream cone in New York City. He was granted a patent in December 1903.

In England, Zealanders, the call them freeze they call them p delicious treat much-deserved

W I N T E R M O R N I N G M AG I C

FRANK EPPERSON (1894–1983) At the age of 11 he earned himself a niche in American folklore by putting a mixing stick in a glass filled with soda- water powder and water and leaving it on his back porch overnight. He found it frozen the next morning.

Posicles

In 1922, after Mr. Epperson established himself in the real estate trade, he introduced the Popsicle at a fireman’s ball. It was a sensation, and by 1924, he had patented “a handled, frozen confection or ice lollipop.”

He called it an “Epsicle.” He and his partners set up a royalty arrangement with the Popsicle Corporation, but Mr. Epperson sold his patent to Popsicle after 1929.

“I was flat and had to liquidate all my assets,” he recalled years later.

“I haven’t been the same since.”

In England, it’s an ice lolly. To New Zealanders, they’re icy poles and the Irish call them freeze pops. In the United States, they call them popsicles or ice pops and this delicious treat is currently undergoing a much-deserved resurgence in popularity.

OA K L A N D, CA

1905 U!S! A

The invention of a 11-years old boy However, frozen desserts were around long before that part of our story begins. Ancient Roman slaves were sent up into the mountains to retrieve blocks of ice for their masters, which were then crushed and served with fruit and spice syrups.

Marco Polo himself enjoyed sorbets and ices when he traveled to the Chinese court of Kublai Khan. And in the early history of the United States, Thomas Jefferson entertained many visitors to Monticello with iced sorbets and freezes.

Production Of course, none of these delicacies had a handle, an invention credited to young Frank Epperson. Frank was just a boy in 1905 in Oakland, California, when one night he accidentally left a glass – filled with water, powdered soda mix and a wooden stick for stirring – outside overnight. When young Frank found the glass in the morning, the soda mixture was frozen solid, so he P osi c les

ran the glass under hot water and removed the ice pop using the stick as a handle. Frank knew he had a great idea on his hands, and he kept making the pops for his friends, and when he became an adult he made them for his own children. In 1923, Epperson filed for a patent for his invention. Up until then, he had been calling the frozen treats “Eppsicles,” but his children insisted on calling them “Pop’s ‘sicles.” The latter name stuck and the Popsicle was born.

Success The frozen treat was an immediate success. In the early 1920s, an estimated 8,000 Popsicles were sold in one day at Brooklyn’s Coney Island amusement park. The first Popsicles sold for just five cents and came in seven flavors (including cherry, which is still the most popular Popsicle). Just a few years after the dessert debuted, the double-stick Popsicle was introduced. It was at the height of the Depression, and the single pop with two sticks allowed two hungry children to share a pop easily, for the same price as a single.

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Ancient Roman slaves were sent up into the mountains to retrieve blocks of ice for their masters, which were then crushed and served with fruit and spice syrups. Marco Polo himself enjoyed sorbets and ices when he traveled to the Chinese court of Kublai Khan.

Ce Sa

Caesar salad is and croutons cheese, lem Worcesters garlic,

LE F TOV E R D E LI G H T

CAESAR CARDINI (origionally, Cesare Cardini: *February 24, 1896 – November 3, 1956) was an Italian American restaurateur, chef, and hotel owner who, along with his brother Alex Cardini (c1899 – December 22, 1974), is credited with creating the Caesar salad.

C. Cardini was born as Cesare Cardini in Baveno, a comune on the shore of Lago Maggiore, and had seven siblings: Bonifacio, Aldo, Nereo, Alessandro, Carlotta, Caudencio and Maria.

While the sisters, Bonifacio and Aldo, stayed in Italy, the other three brothers emigrated to America; Nereo opened a small hotel near the casino in Santa Cruz, California;Alessandro and Caudencio eventually were in the restaurant business in Mexico City. Alessandro, who was called Alex in the USA, is reported to have been Caesar’s partner in Tijuana, Mexico. Cesare sailed as a steerage passenger on board the RMS Olympic which arrived at the Port of New York on May 1, 1913.

After inspection at Ellis Island, he boarded a train bound for Montreal.

Ceasar Salad Caesar salad is a salad of romaine lettuce and croutons dressed with parmesan cheese, lemon juice, olive oil, egg, Worcestershire sauce, anchovies, garlic, and black pepper.

TIJUANA

1924 M!E!X

Caesar salad is a salad of romaine lettuce and croutons dressed with parmesan cheese, lemon juice, olive oil, egg, Worcestershire sauce, anchovies, garlic, and black pepper.

It is often prepared tableside.

History The salad’s creation is generally attributed to restaurateur Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who operated restaurants in Mexico and the United States. Cardini was living in San Diego but also working in Tijuana where he avoided the restrictions of Prohibition. His daughter Rosa (1928–2003) recounted that her father invented the dish when a Fourth of July 1924 rush depleted the kitchen’s supplies. Cardini made do with what he had, adding the dramatic flair of the table-side tossing “by the chef.” A number of Cardini’s staff have said that they invented the dish.

Ceasar

S alad

Julia Child said that she had eaten a Caesar salad at Cardini’s restaurant when she was a child in the 1920s. The first documentation of Caesar salad dates to 1946, when the newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen wrote: The big food rage in Hollywood—the Caesar salad—will be introduced to New Yorkers by Gilmore’s Steak House. It’s an intricate concoction that takes ages to prepare and contains lots of garlic, raw or slightly coddled eggs, croutons, romaine, anchovies, parmeasan [sic] cheese, olive oil, vinegar and plenty of black pepper.

Recipe According to Rosa Cardini, the original Caesar salad (unlike his brother Alex’s Aviator’s salad) did not contain pieces of anchovy; the slight anchovy flavor comes from the Worcestershire sauce.

Cardini was opposed to using anchovies in his salad.

In the 1970s, Cardini’s daughter said that the original recipe included whole lettuce leaves, which were meant to be lifted by the stem and eaten with the fingers; coddled eggs; and Italian olive oil.

Bottled Caesar dressings are now produced and marketed by many companies.

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The trademark brands, “Cardini’s”, “Caesar Cardini’s” and “The Original Caesar Dressing” are all claimed to date to February 1950, though they were only registered decades

RA

later,[10] and more than a dozen varieties of bottled Cardini’s dressing are available today, with various ingredients.

Variations Many variations of the salad exist; for example, by topping a Caesar salad with grilled chicken, steak, or seafood. Certain Mexican restaurants may improvise on items such as substituting tortilla strips for croutons or Cotija cheese for the Parmesan.

Common ingredients in many recipes romaine or cos lettuce olive or vegetable oil fresh crushed garlic fresh-ground black pepper lemon or lime juice, fresh squeezed Worcestershire sauce raw or coddled egg yolks freshly grated Parmesan cheese freshly prepared croutons

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salt to taste

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One of the most common Caesar salad variations, shown here topped with grilled chicken There are limitless variations. However, some of the more common are: other varieties of lettuce grilled poultry (most often chicken), meat, shellfish, or fish capers Romano cheese anchovies bacon

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Of course, froz in climates tha food to freeze innovative fo including Eno and D

R A N DO M F O RT U N E

CLARENCE BIRDSEYE Scientist, Inventor (1886–1956) Clarence Birdseye was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 9, 1886. In 1925, he unveiled his invention, the “Quick Freeze Machine.” Four years later, he sold his company, the General Seafood Corporation, to General Foods, while staying on as a consultant.

By the time he died on October 7, 1956, in New York City, he held roughly 300 patents and frozen food had become a billion-dollar industry.

Inventor and businessman Clarence Birdseye was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 9, 1886. From a young age, he was interested in botany and zoology.

Birdseye enrolled at Amherst College with the goal of becoming a biologist. Unable to afford his tuition, circa 1910, Birdseye dropped out of school and took a job as a government field naturalist for the U.S. Biological Survey.

“I do not consider myself a remarkable person. I am just a guy with a very large bump of curiosity and a gambling instinct.”

Frozen Food Of course, frozen food has always existed in climates that were cold enough for the food to freeze. Many people developed innovative food-freezing techniques, including Enoch Piper, William Davis, and Daniel E. Somes.

LABRADOR, NF

1924 C! A !N

Natural food freezing (using winter frosts) had been in use by tribes in cold climates for centuries. By 1885 a small number of chicken and geese were being shipped from Russia to London in insulated cases using this technique. By March 1899, the "British Refrigeration and Allied Interests" reported that a food importing business, "Baerselman Bros", was shipping some 200,000 frozen geese and chickens per week from three Russian depots to New Star Wharf, Lower Shadwell, London over three or four winter months. This trade in frozen food was enabled by the introduction of Linde cold air freezing plants in three Russian depots and the London warehouse. The Shadwell warehouse stored the frozen goods until they were shipped to markets in London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. The techniques were later expanded into the meat packing industry.

Of course, frozen food has always existed in climates that were cold enough for the food to freeze. Many people developed

F rozen

F ood

innovative food-freezing techniques, including Enoch Piper, William Davis, and Daniel E. Somes. However, Clarence Birdseye is credited with inventing in 1924 the quick freezing method, which produces the type of frozen foods that we know today.

While working as a fur trader in Labrador, NF, Canada, Birdseye discovered that the fish that he and the local Inuit caught froze almost immediately after being pulled from the water. He was delighted to discover that the fish was just as delicious when thawed out months later. From this experience, he theorized that food must be frozen very quickly in order for it to retain its taste and texture.

Birdseye was right. Before quick-freezing came along, foods were frozen at a fairly slow rate. This caused large ice crystals to form, which ruptured the cell membranes of the food. When the food was defrosted, the ice crystals melted and water would leak out, taking with it the food’s flavor and texture.

Birdseye developed two methods for quick freezing foods, both of which employed the innovation of packaging the food beforehand.In the first technique, the package was held between two metal belts that were chilled to -40°F to -45°F using a calcium chloride solution.

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Frozen-food sales, by dollars, have lagged behind the rate of inflation the past four years, and sales by number of units have fallen.

Dollar sales of frozen juice, chicken and pizza all are down since 2009, according to marketresearch company Nielsen.

Liquorice alls allsorts) cons sugar candies confections are coconut, anise a 132

A CO LO U RF U L ACCI D E N T

CHARLIE THOMSON In 1899, Bassett's salesperson Charlie Thompson was discussing an order with a prospective customer. Then, completely by accident, his tray of samples was knocked onto the floor. They scattered everywhere, and while Thompson was desperately trying to pick them up, the buyer took an interest to the oddly shaped sweets, and placed an order there and then. Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts soon went into mass production. In 1992, Bassett's was taken over by Trebor. Therefore, they are now sold as Trebor Bassett, although the company is now Cadbury Trebor Bassett.

The factory where they are made is in Hillsborough, Sheffield.

Liquorice Allsorts Liquorice allsorts (also spelled licorice allsorts) consist of assorted liquorice sugar candies sold as a mixture. These confections are made of liquorice, sugar, coconut, aniseed jelly, fruit flavourings, and gelatine.

SHEFFIELD

1929 E!N

They were first produced in Sheffield, England, by Geo. Bassett&Co Ltd who had taken over Wilkinsons (Pontefract cakes, and licorice mushrooms, a confection with a licorice “stipe” and coconut-covered “cap”), Barratt’s (sherbet fountains/ L i q uori c e A llsorts

sweet cigarettes), and Trebor (mints) before themselves being taken over by the Cadbury’s consortium.

Clumsy seller behind licorice success For more than 50 years George Bassetts factory in Sheffield made many different types of candy. Then it happened that an incredible accident that change the candy history forever.

Since 1842 George had Bassett’s factory in Sheffield produced a growing number of candy varieties. Among the employees factory had a slightly goofy salesman, Charlie Thomson.

According to the factory own story Thomson was in 1899 on a visit to a difficult customer in Leicester who refused to buy a single one of those sweet products. The goofy Thomson lost his sales board with the entire range of liquorice and other sweets down on the counter. When the customer saw the colourful sight of mixed candy, he was so excited that he ordered a large delivery of the new goodies. Thomson hastened to call it “Bassett’s Liquorice Allsorts.” The name has been in use since then and the liquorice sweet is one long success story.

Bertie Bassett Bassett’s trademark is a little man made of sweets – he is called Bertie Bassett and had his debut in 1929.

Bertie Bassett has become a part of British popular culture.

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The character’s origins lie with advertising copywriter Frank Regan, who used the sweets and a number of pipe-cleaners to construct what was the original version of Bertie. One of the sweets in the modern day allsorts mix is a liquorice figure shaped like Bertie.

The Doctor Who television serial The Happiness Patrol featured a villain called the Kandy Man, who resembled 540_bertiebasset_02Bertie Bassett. Although an internal investigation concluded that the programme had not infringed on Bassett’s trademark, the BBC promised Bassett’s that the Kandy Man

For more than 50 years George Bassetts factory in Sheffield made many different types of candy. Then it happened that an incredible accident that change the candy history forever.

INSP

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would not appear again.

Mike Bassett Manager”, the figure of Bertie Bassett appears in a short scene on a newspaper with the headline “Bassett’s Allsorts”.

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In the 2001 satirical comedy film “Mike Bassett: England

The extent constitute an a up for debate treat was jus accidentally 137

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I N S PI RE D BY P O P CO R N

EDWARD WILSON AND/OR CLARENCE J. SCHWEBKE of the Flakall Corporation of Beloit, Wisconsin (a producer of flaked, partially cooked animal feed) deep-fried and salted the puffed corn produced by their machines, and later added cheese.

He applied for a patent in 1939 and the product, named Korn Kurls, was commercialized in 1946 by the Adams Corporation, formed by one of the founders of Flakall and his sons. Adams was later bought by Beatrice Foods.

Another account claims they were invented by the Elmer Candy Corporation of New Orleans, Louisiana some time during or prior to 1936, at which time the sales manager for Elmer's, Morel M. Elmer, Sr., decided to hold a contest in New Orleans to give this successful product a name. The winning name, "CheeWees", is still being used today by the manufacturing company, Elmer's Fine Foods.

Cheese Puffs The extent to which cheese puffs constitute an actual food item might be up for debate, but the popular orange treat was just a by-product that was accidentally discovered in the 1930’s.

B E L O I T, W I S C O N S I N

1930 U!S! A

Cheese Puffs Created by the Flakall Company, who used flaking machines to break down their livestock feed, the initial orange puff was a result of the moistened corn kernels that were used to prevent the machine from clogging. It was machine operator Edward Wilson who took the puffed pieces home and made a unique, seasoned treat, but the rest of the world got to taste the unique puff under the brand name they were first known as, Korn Kurls.

Cheese puffs were invented in the United States of America in the 1930s; there are two competing accounts. According to

Cheese P uffs

one account, Edward Wilson and/or Clarence

Food historians tell us the history of puffed foods is a legacy of “accidental discovery.”

J. Schwebke of the Flakall Corporation of Beloit, Wisconsin (a producer of flaked, partially cooked animal feed) deep-fried and salted the puffed corn produced by their machines, and later added cheese. He applied for a patent in 1939 and the product, named Korn Kurls, was commercialized in 1946 by the Adams

Corporation, formed by one of the founders of Flakall and his sons. Adams was later bought by Beatrice Foods.

Another account claims they were invented by the Elmer Candy Corporation of New Orleans, Louisiana some time during or prior to 1936, at which time the sales manager for Elmer’s, Morel M. Elmer, Sr., decided to hold a contest in New Orleans to give this successful product a name. The winning name, “CheeWees”, is still being used today by the manufacturing company, Elmer’s Fine Foods.

Cheez Puffs Food historians tell us the history of puffed foods is a legacy of “accidental discovery.” Ancient peoples placed maize too close to the fire and Puff! Popcorn happened. Puffed grain products (puffed wheat, puffed rice etc.) were scientifically studied and subsequently “invented” in the 19th century. The invention of cheese puffs (puffed corn coated with cheese flavoring) was 20th century combination of accident and science.

“The invention of the cheese curl (aka chese puff) was quite serendipitous. During the 1930s, the Flakall Company [Beloit

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Wisconsin] that produced corn-based feed for livestock sought a way to produce feed that did not contain sharp hulls and grain dust and eventually produced a machine that broke the grain

A FA B LE D H I

into small pieces by flaking it. The Flakall Company became successful manufacturers of flaked feed. One day as Edward Wilson was working as a flake operator at the Flakall Company, he noticed that worker poured moistened corn kernels into the machine to reduce clogging. He found that when the flaking machine ran continuously it made parts of it quite hot. The moistened cornmeal came out of the machine in puffy ribbons, hardened as it hit the air, and fell to the ground. Wilson took the ribbons home, added oil and flavor and made the first cheese curls. The company ran another flaker just for the production of Korn Kurls. By 1950, the Adams Corporation was mass-producing the Korn Kurl. There were dozens of small snack companies that followed the Adams Corporation and produced cheese curls, the most popular cheese snacks are produced by Frito-Lay altough they did not offer any such snacks until 1980.”

Inspired by popcorn “Following the lead of popcorn, manufacturers puffed other whole kernels. The most successful examples were in the

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with many devising their own special shape … Today, perhaps

Cho Chip

creation of puffed breakfast cereal, such as Rice Krispies. The process of extruding was invented by accident during the 1930s, Whip experimenting on animal feed, Edward Wilson noticed that moistened corn kernelsm when heated and forced through as “Extruder,” puffed up when they hit cool air. Wilson cooked them in deep fat, salted them, and ate them. Others liked them

The crea cookies wa Ruth Wakefie chocolate, so choco

as well. And the result was a commercial product called K orn Kurls, which disappeared during World War II due to restrictions on nonessential foods. After the war, Korn Kurls were reintroduced by the Adams Corporation and became popular during the 1950s. During the late 1940s, the Frito Company invented Chee-tos, which were marketed by Lay in 1948. This extruded snack is covered with an artificially colored powdered cheddar cheese. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, Chee-tos dominated the puffed snack market ...”

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A FAB LE D H I S TO RY F RO M TO LL H O U S E

RUTH GRAVES WAKEFIELD (June 17, 1903 – January 10, 1977) was the inventor of the Toll House Cookie, the first chocolate chip cookie, which she created c. 1938.

She was also a graduate and educator, a business owner, a chef, and an author.

Wakefield was educated at Framingham State Normal School Department of Household Arts in 1924. In 1928, she and her husband Kenneth Donald Wakefield (1897 – 1997) had a son, Kenneth Donald Wakefield Jr. In 1930, she and her husband bought a tourist lodge (the Toll House Inn) in the town of Whitman, Massachusetts in Plymouth County. Located about halfway between Boston and New Bedford, it was a place where passengers had historically paid a toll, changed horses and ate homeopened their business, they named the establishment the Toll House Inn. Ruth cooked and served all the food and soon gained local fame for her lobster dinners and desserts.

The restaurant had many visitors, including Massachusetts’ Senator John F. Kennedy. Her chocolate chip cookies soon became very popular. She invented chocolate chip cookies around 1938.

Chocolate Chip Cookie The creation of chocolate chip cookies was a complete accident.

Ruth Wakefield was all out of baker’s chocolate, so she used a semisweet chocolate bar instead.

WHITMAN, MA

193 8 U!S! A

Differing versions of discovery Ruth Wakefield stated that she deliberately invented the cookie. She said, “We had been serving a thin butterscotch nut cookie with ice cream. Everybody seemed to love it, but I was trying to give them something different. So I came up with Toll House cookie.”

A different version of events says that Wakefield is said to have been making chocolate cookies and on running out of regular baking chocolate, substituted broken pieces of semi-sweet chocolate from Nestlé thinking that they would melt and mix into the batter. They did not and the chocolate chip cookie was born.

A still different history of the cookie derives from George Boucher, who was at one time head chef at the Toll House Inn, Cho c olate Chip Cookie

and his daughter, Carol Cavanagh, who also worked there.

Contradicting Nestlé’s claim that Wakefield put chunks of chocolate into cookie dough hoping they would melt, the daughter stated that the owner, already an accomplished chef and author of a cookbook, knew enough about the properties of chocolate to realize it would not melt and mix into the batter while baking.

Boucher said that the vibrations from a large Hobart electric mixer dislodged bars of Nestlé’s chocolate stored on the shelf above the mixer which caused the chocolate to fall into the sugar cookie dough mixing below. He claims to have overcome Wakefield’s impulse to discard the dough as too badly ruined to waste effort baking them, leading to the discovery of the popular combination.[citation needed]

Nestlé marketing Every bag of Nestlé chocolate chips sold in North America has a variation (butter vs. margarine is now a stated option) of her original recipe printed on the back.[citation needed] During WWII, US soldiers from Massachusetts who were stationed overseas shared the cookies they received in care packages from back home with soldiers from other parts of the US. Soon, hundreds of soldiers were writing home asking their families to send them some Toll House cookies, and Wakefield was soon inundated with letters from around the world requesting her recipe. Thus began the nationwide craze for the

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During WWII, US soldiers from Massachusetts who were stationed overseas shared the cookies they received in care packages from back home with soldiers from other parts of the US. Soon, hundreds of soldiers were writing home asking their families to send them some Toll House cookies, and Wakefield was soon inundated with letters from around the world requesting her recipe.

While nach Mexican-Amer not a typical though nachos they were creat

T H E M I S S I N G CH E F

IGNATIO ANAYA (c. 1894 – 1975) was a Mexican restaurateur believed to be the inventor of nachos. Anaya owned a restaurant called El Moderno in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas. Around 1943 he began serving fried tortilla chips topped with melted cheese and jalapeño peppers at the restaurant, calling them “Nacho’s Especiales”.

Nachos

While nachos are often served at Mexican-American restaurants, they’re not a typical Mexican dish. And even though nachos were invented in Mexico, they were created for an American palate.

PIEDRAS NEGRAS

1943 M!E!X

Ignacio Anaya: The Real Inventor Of Nachos While nachos are often served at Mexican-American restaurants, they’re not a typical Mexican dish. And even though nachos were invented in Mexico, they were created for an American palate. According to Josh Chetwynd, author of “How the Hot Dog Found its Bun,” nachos were the result of a little creative thinking—and a missing chef.

During World War II, wives of American military officers who lived at the Eagle Pass. Texas. base would often venture over the Rio Grande River to the nearby Mexican town of Piedras Negras. On one of these excursions, a group of women stopped at the Victory Club, a popular restaurant, for a bite to eat. And while happy to receive business, the maitre d’ who greeted the women, Ignacio Anaya, found himself in a bit of a predicament: He couldn’t locate the cook. Not wanting to turn away the patrons, he put on his chef’s hat. He looked around the kitchen and threw together what he had, which according to “The N a c hos

Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink” consisted of neat canapes of tortilla chips, cheese, and jalapeno peppers.”

Ignacio was often called Nacho for short, and the dish was named after him. Nachos continued to gain popularity for the next 20 years, but really took off thanks to a man by the name of Frank Liberto, who began to sell them as stadium food at Arlington Stadium (home of baseball’s Texas Rangers at the time). Liberto made one major tweak to Anaya’s nachos: Because real cheese didn’t have a great shelf life (and melting it would require an oven or broiler), Liberto devised a fast food form of Anaya’s masterpiece that was part cheese and part secret ingredients. The new sauce didn’t need to be heated and, when it came to shelf life, it could likely survive a nuclear blast.

And so the nacho was born, with a missing chef to thank for it.

The History of Nachos Revealed After several months of waiting, the veiled mystery of the true origin of the king of all food has been revealed!!! That is correct! The History Channel has finally replayed the history of fast food show they had on a while back. And this time I was ready. I taped the entire show and made notes on everything.

When it comes right to it, we have a few select people to thank

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for those tasty morsels we admire. Whether it be Ignacio Anaya, Frank Liberto, or Howard Cosell, all have made a huge impact on nachos acceptance to the mainstream! Here is an article that

A CRE E K-

tells the tale quite well: A fried tostado. Yellow cheese. A slice of jalapeno. So simple.

So delicious. So monumental. Back in 1943, Ignacio “Nacho” assembled the first he had no idea that 60 years later, this appetizer would have made his nickname a household word.

Haw P

At that time, the senior Anaya was working at a restaurant owned by Rudolfo De Los Santos, the Victory Club in Piedras Negras, Mexico, just across the border from Eagle Pass, says his son Ignacio Anaya Jr. of Eagle Pass. As Anaya Jr. recalls the story, Mamie Finan and a group of 10 to 12 officers’ wives, whose husbands were stationed at Fort Duncan Air Base, traveled across the border to eat at the find. the cook, he went into action. “My father was maitre d’ and he said ‘Let me go quick and fix something for you.’ He went into the kitchen, picked up tostados,’ grated some cheese on them – Wisconsin cheese, the round one – and put them under the Salamander (a broiling unit

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Victory Club. When the senior Anaya couldn’t

A fried tostado.

Yellow cheese.

A slice of jalapeno.

So simple.

So delicious.

So monumental.

Pizza has be Americans for it is, relatively our shores. M about 75 can rem ever saw, he the New Yor the dish to it

that quickly browns the top of foods). He pulled them out after a couple minutes, all melted, and put on a slice of jalapeno.” – The name of the snack, Anaya Jr. says, came from Finan, who called the plate of cheese- and chile-topped chips Nacho’s Especiales. The name was later shortened to simply “nachos.” Anaya Sr. went on to work at the Moderno, which is still in business today, as well as his own Nacho’s Restaurant in Piedras Negras. In 1960, Anaya Jr. looked into helping his father, who died in 1975, claim ownership of the nacho. “I talked to a lawyer in San Antonio. He said there’s not much you can do after 17 years. It’s in the public domain,” Anaya Jr. says. As a tribute to his father, Anaya Jr. serves as a judge for an annual nacho competition held in Piedras Niegras me second weekend each October. There, nachos are topped with everything from huitlacoche to caviar. But his favorite remains the original nachos like his father made.

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A CRE E K- CA N A D IA N I N V E N TO R

SAM PANOPOULOS Despite its name, Hawaiian pizza is not a Hawaiian invention; it is Canadian. The Village Voice, National Post, Toronto Sun, London Free Press and The Chatham Daily News have covered Sam Panopoulos' claim that he created the first Hawaiian pizza at the Satellite Restaurant in Chatham, Ontario, Canada in 1962. A co-owner of the Satellite Restaurant at that time—along with his brother, Nick Panopoulos, —Sam and his brother were business partners for approximately 50 years. The brothers would later build on the popularity of the Hawaiian Pizza and begin serving their next creation —the Hawaiian Burger.

Hawaiian Pizza Pizza has been a core food for North Americans for so long that we forget that it is, relatively speaking, a new dish on our shores. Most people over the age of about 75 can remember the first time they ever saw, heard of, or tasted pizza; the New York Times first introduced the dish to its readers back in 1944.

L O N D O N , O N TA R I O

1978 C! A !N

But Sam Panopoulos, 81, of London, Canada, a small city about halfway between Detroit and Toronto, can take it one step further. He can remember inventing what’s now one of the most popular pizzas in the world: the Hawaiian pizza.

The Hawaiian pizza doesn’t come from anywhere near Hawaii.

It comes from Ontario, and was concocted in 1962 in a restaurant serving typical midcentury food without any particular focus. Since its creation, it has become a divisive and fiercely debated entry in the pizza lexicon; a reader-created post on BuzzFeed even called it “the most insulting and offensive pizza in the world.”

H awaiian P izza

Melding canned pineapple and small squares of ham atop a

Panopoulos’ oven, and the ovens of the other pizza sellers in Detroit and Ontario, were nothing more than a standard apartment oven.

regular cheese pizza, the Hawaiian is a niche pizza. In North America, you would never buy it for an office party or to feed hungry friends at a bar, at least not without a thorough interrogation to find out each eater’s stance on the pie.

Pizza is a dish that is universally loved in the U.S. and Canada, but yet Hawaiian pizza is, very often, despised.

Sam Panopoulos left Greece on a boat bound for Canada in 1954. His first exposure to pizza

was in Naples, where the boat briefly stopped. Naples reigns as the worldwide birthplace of pizza, but even there, it’s a fairly recent creation. As the story goes, the cheese and tomato-laden version of the dish that we recognize today was first baked in 1889 to honor the Italian monarchs King Umberto and Princess Margherita, who were visiting the city. Enter the now-classic margherita pizza.

Panopoulos didn’t know anything about pizza’s history; he just knew that the pie he had during his brief foray into Naples was pretty tasty. When he got to Canada in 1954, he settled in the town of Chatham, an hour from the border with Michigan.

Panopoulos, who speaks with a thick Greek accent after 60 years in Ontario, achieved success early on, opening a restaurant called the Satellite in Chatham, which still stands (it’s now under different management).

“Pizza wasn’t known at all, actually,” says Panopoulos in a phone interview. “Even Toronto didn’t know anything about

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pizza in those days. The only place you could have pizza was in Detroit.”

Soon, pizza landed in Windsor, a Canadian city just across the

F O RG E T D

river from Detroit. However, thanks to the execution it wasn’t especially popular there. “I visited Windsor, and the pizza in those days was three things: dough, sauce, cheese, and mushroom, bacon, or pepperoni. That was it,” says Panopoulos. “You had no choices; you could get one of the three [toppings] or more of them together.”

Bl Cho

The mushrooms were canned, the dough was pre-made and bought in bulk. The ovens were small electric ovens, certainly not suitable by modern standards. A standard pizza oven today cooks at around 800 degrees Fahrenheit to achieve the charred crust we associate with good pizza. Panopoulos’ oven, and the ovens of the other pizza sellers in Detroit and Ontario, were nothing more than a standard apartment oven.

In the States and Detroit and all this, it wasn’t bad, but it was nothing special,” says Panopoulos.

Panopoulos’s diner cooked the sort of food that people ate in the 1960s: pancakes in the morning, burgers and fries for lunch, and liver and onions for dinner. But he was eager to try out any new dishes that might entice customers. At one point, he hired,

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“The pizza in Canada in those days was primitive, you know?

he says, an Asian cook and put him to work making American Chinese food. Later came pizza.

After watching how pizza cooks in Windsor were making their pies, he came home to Chatham and started experiment-

One early spr ago, at Valrh Chocolat, Fréd chocolate in a b to demonstrate chefs from

ing. The concept of pizza was totally foreign to his customers, and even to the general public. A 1962 recipe from the Toronto Star includes a recipe for “Spanish pizza,” a strange concoction of yellow rice and Vienna sausages piled on a dough made from biscuit mix.

There weren’t even pizza boxes for quite a few years; Panopoulos said that he used to cut circles out of cardboard boxes he got from a furniture seller next door, place the pizza on top, and wrap the whole thing in aluminum foil.

Without really knowing or caring much about any traditions regarding pizza, Panopoulos began throwing together combinations to see what worked. Some of his discoveries were simul-

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F O RG E T DARK, M I LK A N D W H I T E

FRÉDERIC BAU is one of those chefs who has mastered the ingredient of chocolate.

He is the head pastry chef and one of the founders of The Valrhona Chocolate School in France, his work sees him teach some of the best young pastry masters of this generation.

Blond Chocolate

Passionate about any type of chocolate Bau is know for applying the ingredient to both sweet and savory dishes - his book Cooking With Chocolate is revered as one of the best resources for learning to use chocolate in the kitchen.

Only a few names in world pastry transcend beyond borders and are acknowledged worldwide. Without any doubt, Frédéric Bau is one of those names. A global chef, or rather franco-global, as Bau himself describes Valrhona’s chocolate, the firm to which he has linked his own destiny in the last 25 years.

“Gourmandise raisonnée: it’s not a war against sugar of butter, but against excess.”

One early spring morning a few years ago, at Valrhona’s L’École du Grand Chocolat, Frédéric Bau put some Ivoire chocolate in a bain marie as he prepared to demonstrate a recipe in front of pastry chefs from around the world.

T A I N - L’ H E R M I T A G E

2004 F! R

Bain marie He used part of the chocolate for his recipe but, in a moment of absent-mindedness, completely forgot about the bain marie.

Ten hours later the white chocolate had become blond, a color he had never seen. The fragrance was extraordinary: it smelled of toasted Breton shortbread, caramelized milk and unrefined sugar and had a fresh-out-of-the-oven scent that was simply irresistible. He tasted it. To his pleasant surprise it was a pure delight, a treat that instantly took him back to his childhood, filled with happy memories. He closed his eyes and ecstatically savored that which had no name – he had just accidentally invented something new.

The next day, he tried to replicate his serendipitous accident.

He succeeded and was filled with glee. This blond chocolate was a revelation – its natural color looked like nothing he’d ever

B lond

Cho c olate

seen. He brought it to his manager and to the company engineers. They tasted it and immediately fell in love with it.But

Produced by French chocolate maker Valrhona, the creation of this accidental chocolate has the flavour of a Joanne Harris novel.

despite their best efforts, the recipe proved impossible to reproduce on a large scale.

However, the Valrhona engineers were determined.

Day after day, month after month, year after year, they worked with Frédéric Bau to replicate the unique, delicious flavor and the distinctive color of the blond chocolate and create a recipe that could be produced

on a large scale so that everyone could taste it.Again and again they had to start over, but they never wavered in their patience and precision. Fast forward. The engineers were still at it. They tested one process, then another, then invented yet another one.

Eight years later, they finally found the recipe. Inspired

by Frédéric Bau’s original recipe and perfected by Valrhona experts, the first blond chocolate has unique characteristics.

Dulcey is the fourth chocolate, opening up a new world to pastry chefs, chocolatiers and gourmets in gastronomy and the world over. First there was dark, milk and white – now, there is blond.

Characteristics A unique blond color that stands out. A Delicious Taste that is

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no too sweet with intense biscuity flavours and a pinch of salt.

A creamy texture. Sensory Profile: Dulcey is a smooth, creamy chocolate with a velvety and enveloping texture and a warm, blond colour. The first notes are buttery, toasty, and not too sweet, gradually giving way to the flavours with a pinch of salt.

Applications: The Ecloe du Grand Chocolat particularly recommends the following applications: Molding: An enhancement of the blond color, a pure flavour. Creamy patisserie ganache, bonbon ganache: A smooth texture, intense aromas, lightly sweetened flavour. Suggestions from Ecole du Grand Chocolat associations: Dulcey pairs particularly well with ingredients with gourmet notes (caramel, coffee, hazelnut), as well as yellow, mildly acidic fruits (mangos, bananas,apricots).

T he T rue L egends

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Produced by French chocolate maker Valrhona, the creation of this accidental chocolate has the flavour of a Joanne Harris novel.

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NOTES

Notes

N otes

169

NOTES

H OW DO ES YO U R COO K I N G S TO RY E N DS?

170

H OW DO ES YO U R COO K I N G S TO RY E N DS?

N otes

171

NOTES

H OW DO ES YO U R COO K I N G S TO RY E N DS?

172

H OW DO ES YO U R COO K I N G S TO RY E N DS?

N otes

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T H E A CC I D E N T A L F O O D B U C K E T L I S T

TIME

and

EXPERIENCE

PL ACE

NOTES

NAME OF FOOD

174

PHOTOS

N otes

175

1762

Beer 1693

Roquefort

Yogurt

Cheese Raisins

1835

Barbecue

1853

ca. 1500

2737 B.C.

100 B.C.

4100 B.C.

125 000 years ago

Wine

2000 B.C.

4000–3500 B.C.

6000 B. C.

TIMELINE

Worcestershire Sauce

Tea

Champagne

1 B.C. Chips

Brandy Coffee

Sandwich

1903

Ice Cream Cone Hawaiian Pizza

1930

Cheese Puffs Crepes Suzette Coca-Cola Tarte Tatin

1938

Ceasar Salad Frozen Food

1924

1885

1978

1895

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2004

1894

1943

1900

Nachos

1929

Corn Flakes

Blond Chocolate

1934

1905

Liquorice Allsorts

Eton Mess

The Fairy Tales The Blurry Myths

Popsicles The True Legends

TIMELINE

2000

178

B lond

Cho c olate

-C

hips - H

a

aiia

es - B e e

w a

n Co

n Pizz

-

r

Once you start asking questions, an awful lot of what we put on our tables was created by accident rather than design.

Ice

Cream