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English muffins & crumpets
American muffins
Blueberry muffins
Researching the history of bread-related products is difficult because bread is THE universal food. Ancient peoples of all places discovered the combination of *cooked* (baked, fried, steamed, boiled, sun-dried) ground grain and water created simple, inexpensive, nourishing food. Muffins, cakes, crackers, biscuits, cookies, sticky buns & Twinkies are not inventions. They are evolutions. All of these are variations on the theme of what happens when flour & water mix with human ingenuity, technological advancement, local ingredients, immediate need and cultural expectations.
What the food historians have to say about the origin of muffins...
"Muffin...a term connected with moufflet, an old French word applied to bread, meaning
soft....The word muffin first appeared in print in the early 18th century, and recipes began to
be published in the middle of the 18th century. There has always been some confusion between
muffins, crumpets, and pikelets, both in recipes and in name. Muffin' usually meant a breadlike
product (sometimes simply made from whatever bread dough was available), as opposed to the
more pancake-like crumpets...Muffins were most popular during the 19th century, when muffin
men traversed the town streets at teatime, ringing their bells. In the 1840s the muffin-man's bell
was prohibited by Act of Parliament because many people objected to it, but the prohibition was
ineffective..."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999(p.
517)
"Muffin...In Great Britain, a muffin is a traditional light-textured roll, round and flat, which is
made with yeast dough. Muffins are usually enjoyed in the winter - split, toasted, buttered, and
served hot for tea, and sometimes with jam. In the Victorian era muffins were bought in the street
from sellers who carried trays of them on their heads, ringing a handbell to call their wares. In
North America muffins are entirely different. The raising (leavening) agent is baking powder and
the muffins are cooked in deep patty (muffin) tins. Cornmeal and bran are sometimes substituted
for some of the flour."
---Larousse Gastronomique, Jenifer Harvey Lang editor [Crown:New York] 1988 (p.
703)
"Muffin...a small yeast cake usually sweetened with a bit of sugar. In England muffins were once
called "tea cakes," while in America muffins are served primarily for breakfast or as an
accompaniment to dinner...The origins of the word are obscure, but possible it is from Low
German muffe [meaning] cake. The term was first printed in English in 1703, and Hannah
Glasse in her 1747 cookbook fives a recipe for making muffins. Mush muffins (called
slipperdowns in New England) were a Colonial muffin made with hominy on a hanging
griddle."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Freidman
Books:New York] 1999 (p. 211)
"Sometimes misnamed gems, muffins were baked in deeper pans and were not quite as breadlike
as gems. Muffins graduated from being cooked in a utensil called muffin rings to a special baking
pans. Muffin rings were hooplike accessories placed directly on a hot stove or the bottom of a
skillet. Batter was then poured into them. The rings did not prove to be as popular with muffin
consumers as molds of the same period. However, their demise as holders of raw muffin batter
was not in vain, for they remain a valuable kitchen accessory to make popular English muffins or
fried eggs. The muffin molds of the nineteenth century turned out to be an extremely deficient
product. The baked their contents thoroughly and very evenly..."
---The Old West Baking Book, Lon Walters (p. 34)
About English muffins
"English muffins" as American know them today are most closely connected with the ancient
Welsh tradition of cooking small round yeast cakes known as "bara" [bread] "maen" [stone] on
bakestones. "English muffins" were later cooked on griddles, as opposed to muffin tins. Related
food? crumpets & tea cakes.
The two best books on this topic are:
"The English muffin is round and made from a soft yeast-leavened dough enriched with milk and
butter. It is usually cooked on a griddle, which gives it a flat, golden-brown top and bottom, and a
white band around the waste and a light, spongy interior...This method appears as early as 1747
and was recommended by Hannah Glasse."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999
Mrs. Glasse's original recipe not called English muffins. She also includes instructions for proper
opening (warning NOT! to use a knife).
"To make Muffings and Oat-Cakes
To a Buschel of Hertfordshire white Flour, take a Pint and a half of good Ale-yeast, from pale Malt if you can get it, becuase it is whitest; let the Yeast lie in Water all night, the next Day pour off the Water clear, make two Gallons of Water just Milk warm, not to scald your Yeast, and two Ounces of Salt, mix your Water, Yeast and Salt well toghether for about a quarter of an Hour, then strain it, and mix up your Dough as light as possible, and let it lie in your Trough an Hour to rise, then with your Hand roll it, and pull it into little Pieces about as big as a large Walnut, roll them with your Hand like a Ball, lay them on your Table, and as fast as you do them lay a Piece of Flannel over them, and be sure to keep your Dough cover'd with Flannel; when you have rolled out all your Dough, begin to bake the first, and by that Time they will be spread out in the right Form; lay them on your Iron, as one Side begins to change Colour turn the other, and take great Care they don't burn, or be too much discolour'd; but that you will be a Judge off in two or three Makings. Take care the middle of the Iron is not too hot, as it will be, but then you may put a Brick-bat or two in the middle of the Fire to slacken the heat. The Thing you bake on must be made thus. Build a Place just as if you was going to set a Copper, and in the Stead of a Copper a Piece of Iron all over the Top fix'd in Form, just the frame as the Bottom of the Iron Pot, and make your Fire underneath with Coal as in a Copper; observe, Muffings are made in the same Way, only this, when you pull them to Pieces roll them in a good deal of Flour, and with a Rolling-pin roll them thin, cover them with a Piece of Flannel, and they will rise to a proper Thickness; and if you find them too big or too little, you must roll Dough accordingly, these must not be the least discoloured.And when you eat them, toast them with a Fork crisp on both Sides, then with your Hand pull them open, and they will be like a Honey-Comb; lay in as much Butter as you intend to use, then clap them together again, and set it by the Fire, when you think the Butter is melted turn them, that both Sides may be butter'd alike, but ton't touch them with a Knife, either to spread or cut them open, if you do they will be as heavy as Lead, only when they are quite butter'd and done, you may cut them across with a Knife."
---The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy, Hannah Glasse, facismile first edition 1747 [Prospect Books:Devon] 1995 (p. 151)
Did you know? Thomas Jefferson's muffin recipe would have produced "English muffins."
Thomas' brand English muffins were introduced to New York City in the late 19th century:
"Although tea muffins that were once popular in England resembled the American "English
muffin," there is no single muffin in Britain by this specific name...Most of the store-bought
varieties [of English muffin] derive from those made by the S. B. Thomas Company of New York,
whose founder, Samuel Bath Thomas, emigrated from England in 1875 with his mother's recipe
and began making muffins at his Ninth Avenue bakery in 1880. The name was first printed in
1925."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New
York] 1999 (p. 123)
Related foods? crumpets & scones.
"Crumpet...[Not known till late in 17th century], Wyclif has however 'crompid cake' as a rendering in laganum, which may be the antecedent of the name. [1382:Wyclif] A cake of a loaf, a crusted cake spreynde with oyle, a crompid cake...[1694:Westmacott] The make Cakes of it (Buck Wheat)...as they do oat-cakes, and call it Crumpit. Crumpet...A soft cake made of flour, beaten egg, milk, and barm or baking powder, mixed into batter, and baked on an iron plate...Now usually a soft, round, doughy cake made wtiht flour and yeast, cooked on a griddle or the like and usually eaten toasted with butter. [1769:Raffald] To make tea crumpets..." ---Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, volume IV (p. 83)
"The earliest published recipe for crumpets of the kind known now is from Elizabeth Raffald
(1769). Ayto...in an entertaining essay, discusses a possible 14th century ancestor, the crompid
cake, and the buckwheat griddle cakes (called crumpit) which appeared from the late 17th century
onwards. ...It seems clear enough that there is a connection with Welsh cremog (pancake) and
Breton Krampoch (buckwheat pancake)."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p.
230)
Elizabeth Raffald's recipe:
"To make tea crumpets Beat two eggs very well, put them to a quart of warm milk and water, and a large spoonful of barm: beat in as much fine flour as will make them rather thicker than a common batter pudding, then make your bakestone very hot, and rub it with a little butter wrapped in a clean linen cloth, then pour a large spoonful of batter upon your stone, and let it run to the size of a tea-saucer; turn it, and when you want to use them roast them very crisp, and butter them."
---The Experienced English Housekeeper, Elizabeth Raffald, [unabridged facsimile 1769 print with an introduction by Roy Shipperbottom [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1997
" The probable origin of the word crumpit is the Welsh "cremog," a pancake or fritter. For some
reason or other, probably because they are in some degree similar, and yet differing greatly, it is
customary to associate muffins wtih crumpets, it being a rare occurance for either to appear at the
table separately. Both are made of batter, both require re-cooking, and both are served hot and
well buttered; yet there is so marked a difference between the two in flavour and constitution that
most persons have a decided preference for one or the other.'"
---English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David [Penguin:New York] 1979 (p.
341).
[NOTE: this is book is considered an authority on this topic. If you need more information
(including historic recipes) ask your librarian to help you find a copy of it.]
Related foods? English muffins & pancakes.
ABOUT SCONES
The origin of scones is closely connected with the ancient Welsh tradition of cooking small round
yeast cakes known as "bara" [bread] "maen" [stone] on bakestones. These early leavened bread
products were later cooked on griddles. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the word
"scone" in print to 1513. This book suggests the history of the word is derived from Middle
Dutch (schoonbrot) or Middle German (schonbrot), meaning "fine bread." Scones that we know
today are leavened with modern baking powder/soda, both mid-19th century inventions. About baking powder. Scones are traditionally connected with
Scotland, Ireland and England.
"Scone. A large found cake made of wheat or barleymeal baked on a griddle; one of the four
quadrant-shaped pieces into which which a cake is often cut; more generally, a soft cake of barley
or oatmeal, or
wheat-flour, baked in single portions on a griddle or in an oven."
---The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition
"The scone comes from Scotland--the first known reference to it comes in a translation of the
Aeneid (1513) by the Scots poet Gavin Douglas: The flour sconnis war sett in, by and by,
wyth other mesis.' Made from fine white fout (echoing the possible source of their name, Dutch
schoonbroot, fine white bread'), sour milk or buttermilk, and a raising agent (since the
mid-nineteenth century, bicarbonate of soda), and baked on a griddle or in the oven, scones
originally
came in the form of flat cakes cut into four, producing portions that were either square or, if the
original cake were round, roughly triangular. Individually baked round scones are a later
development. The pronunciation of the word scone has never really settled down. Early
spellings suggest a short vowel, rhyming with swan, but the version with the diphthong, rhyming
with stone, is if anything commoner today."
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p.
304)
"Scone...What is certain is that the term is mainly a British one, and covers a wide range of small,
fairly plain
cakes. Leavened with baking powder, or bicarbonate of soda, and an acid ingredient such a sour
milk, they
are quickly made and best eaten hot with butter. Scone recipes are found in great variety up and
down the
British Isles but, together with the closely related bannock, are particularly a Scottish
specialty."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p.
704)
"The Scots are famous for the variety of scones (from the Gaelic, sgoon, and it should rhyme with
gone'): some of the most popular ones are [soda scones, wholemeal scones, rich white scones,
treacle scones, potato scones, ballater scones and drop scones.]"
---Traditional Scottish Cookery, Theodora Fitzgibbon [Fontana:Suffolk] 1980 (p.
231-5)
[NOTE: This book contains recipes for each of the scones listed above.]
[1874]
"Scones.
Put as much barley-meal as will be required into a bowl, add a pinch of salt, and stir in cold water to make a stiff paste. Roll this out into round cakes a quarter of an inch thick, and bake on a girdle. Split the cakes open, butter them well, and serve hot. A little butter may be rubbed into the meal if liked. Richer scones may be made by dissolving an ounce of fresh butter in a pint of hot milk, and stirring this into as much flour as will make a stiff dough. When it is not convenient to bake the scones on a girdle, a thick frying-pan may be used instead. Time to bake the scones, about four minutes."Scones, Soda.
Dissolve half a salt-spoonful of carbonate of soda and five ounces of fresh butter or lard in a quarter of a pint of warm water or milk: put ten ounces of four into a bowl, add a pinch of salt, and stir in the liquor to make a stiff dough. Roll this out into a round cake a quarter of an inch thick, mark this into eight portions, and bake on a girdle or a thick frying-pan. Split the scones, butter them will, and serve very hot. Time, to bake, fifteen to twenty minutes. Probable cost, 6d.
---Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery with Numerous Illustrations [Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co.:London] 1874 (p. 842)[1893]
"Scones--No.l 1
3/4 lb Flour, 1/2 pint Milk, 1 oz Butter, 2 teaspoonsful Baking Powder...Total cost 5d. Time--10 minutes. Rub the butter into the flour, stir in the baking powder, and make into a very light dough with the milk; turn on to a floured board, knead for a few minutes, roll out about half and inch thick. Cut into shapes, put onto a floured tin, and bake in a quick oven for about ten minutes. Serve either hot or cold."
---The Art of Living in Australia, Philip Muskett, 1893 (p. 393)
[NOTE: Scones No. 2 and 3 are variations along similar lines, the 3rd recipe includeing drippings, sour milk, & sugar.][1909]
"Scones
3 cups of flour, a pinch of salt, half a teaspoonful of soda, 1 heaped teaspoonful cream of tartar, 1 tablespoonful of butter, half a pint of milk. Put the flour, salt, cream of tartar, and soda into a bowl; rub the butter in with the tips of the fingers; make a well in the centre and our all the milk in at once. Turn out on to a slightly floured board and knead as lightly as possible; press out with the palm of the hand into a cake; brush over with yolk; cut into neat scones, and place on a hot tin in a hot oven for fifteen minutes. Roll in cloth till cold."
---The Schauer Cookery Book, Misses A. and M. Schauer [Edwards, Dunlop & Co. Ltd.:Brisbane] 1909 (p. 306-307)
[NOTE: This book also contains another recipe for Scones and more for Potato Scones, Brown Scones, Girdle Scones, Good Scones, Drop Scones, Oatmeal Scones.][1956]
"Scones
It is interesting to read in old-fashioned books recipes for scones containing no leavening agent. Most of them were rolled thin, handled quickly, balked on a hot girdle, and served at once. Flour, butter, salt, and cream are the ingredients for one recipe for another sago boiled im milk, salt, and flour. Others were made with barm or yeast. The lightest scones are those made with sour cream, sour milk, or buttermilk. Four 1 lb. flour and 1 teaspoon use: 3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soad and the same quantity of cream or tartar, with enough buttermilk to mix to a soft dough--or--Other additions to each pound of flour may be 1-2 oz. sugar, 2 oz. fat, 2 oz. fruit, 1-2 eggs may replace part of the liquid. The soda and cream of tartar should be free of lumps, and these and the flour should be sieved before mixing. Fat is rubbed in with the fingers. The dough should be soft and moist and must be mixed in a bowl, turned on to a floured board, kneaded very lightly, pressed out to the required thickness (generally about 3/4 inch), and then cut in triangles or circles. The scones should be cooked on a girdle or in the oven. Time 7-15 minutes."
---The Constance Spry Cookery Book, Constance Spry [Pan Books Ltd.:London] 1956 (p. 778)
[NOTE: This book also offers recipes for Girdle Scones, Old-Fashioned Plain Soda Scones, Drop Scones, Potato Scones, and Welsh Girdle Scones.]
RECOMMENDED READING
English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David
--chapter on crumpets and muffins (pps. 341-361)
Food and Drink in Britain From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Anne
Wilson
--chapter on bread, cakes and pastry (pps. 229-274).
Related foods? Crumpets, Irish soda bread & English muffins.
About American muffins
According to the Dictionary of American Regional English, Frederick G. Cassidy and Joan
Houston Hall, editors, muffins are defined thusly "A small cake; a cupcake." The first print
reference cited is "1879: Tyree, Housekeeping in Olde Virginia, 38, "Another recipe for
muffins...make the batter the consistency of pound cake, and bake in snow-ball cups as soon as
made." The
"Muffins...Women were making muffins well before the twentieth century...these varied mainly
according to the type of flour used-white, graham, rye, corn. Sometimes a handful of chopped
dates and/or raisins would be added, inch which case muffins became "Fruit Gems."...For the
most part, however, muffins remained basic-plain-until well into the twentieth Century. For years
we had a fairly set repertoire of muffins: bran, blueberry, corn, date, apple, oatmeal, and such.
Then in the 70s and 80s, muffin madness set in. Muffins exploded to three or four times their
normal size...."
American cookbooks confirm Mrs. Anderson's statement. Even into the early part of the 20th
century, muffin recipes are few and basic. In 1920s recipes for muffins became more prolific, but
were variations on the same basic theme of nuts, dried fruits and different flours (Graham, corn,
rice, potato, etc.). Muffins with meat (Ham-and-Bacon Muffins) and vegetables (Squash,
Pumpkin, or Sweet Potato Muffins) are also included. Mrs. Allen on Cooking, Menus,
Service,
Ida Bailey Allen [1929] lists 23 different muffin recipes. The 1946 edition of Irma Rombauer's
Joy of Cooking lists 19 different muffin recipes including directions for fresh fruit muffins
(blueberry, apple, cranberry). She also includes cheese muffins. Gregg Gillespie's 1001
Muffins
[1998] includes many standard recipes as well as some our colonial ancestors probably never
dreamed possible: chocolate carrot?
About blueberry muffins
"A favorite dish of the Native Americans during colonial times was Sautauthig (pronounced
saw¡-taw-teeg), a simple pudding made with dried, crushed blueberries, dried, cracked corn(or
samp), and water. Later, the settlers added milk, butter and sugar when they were available. The
Pilgrims loved Sautauthig and many historians believe that it was part of the first Thanksgiving
feast. In a letter to friends back in England, one colonist describes how Sauthauthig was prepared:
Food historians tell us prehistoric peoples most likely consumed fungi and mushrooms. These foods were
easy to forage and incorporate into meals. The Ancient Romans appreciated the taste and grew mushrooms.
Modern cultivation commenced around the 16th century. Truffles, from the Perigord region in France are
considered some of the most delicate and expensive specimens of this particular type of food.
Portobello and Cremini are relative newcomers.
Mushrooms are a subset of the larger plant world of fungus:
"Fungus in the scientific sense, means any group of simple plants which include mushrooms and similar
plants, yeasts, moulds, and the rusts which grow as parasites on crops. Unlike more advanced plants, fungi
lack chlorophyll and so can only grown as sprophytes (from dead plants or animals); or as parasites (on living
plants); or in a mycorrhizal relationship (symbiosis between fungi and the roots of trees)...The importance of
fungi for human food is not limited to those which are eaten as such, or are visible. Many which are
microorganisms play an important part in making or processing human food. Yeasts are an obvious example,
and are regarded as beneficent because of their role in, for example, the making of bread
dough...'Musrhooms', to use the term loosely as applying to edible fungi in general, are far better known as
food in the northern than in the southern hemisphere."
"Mushrooms and other large varieties of fungus have geen eaten since earliest times, as traces of puffballs
in the prehistoric lake dwellings of Switzerland, Germany, and Austria show; but not by everyone and not
everywhere. The rarest and finest mushrooms, such as the truffle and the oronge, were highly esteemed in
classical Greece and Rome, and have always been expensive...some mushrooms have been successfully
cultivated for a long time. In classical times both Greeks and Romans grew the small Agrocybe aegerita...on
slices of a poplar trunk. The Chinese and Japanese may have been growing chitake on rotting logs for even
longer. Modern European cultivation goes back to 1600, when the French agriculturist Olivier de Serres
suggested a method in his work Le Theatre d'agriculture des champs. In 1678 another Frenchman, the
botanist Marchant, demonstrated to the Academie des Sciences how mushrooms could be sown in a
controlled way by transplanting their mycelia (filaments whcih spread through the soil underneath them like
fine roots)."
"Fungi have been associated with humans since prehistoric times and must have been collected and eaten
along with other plants by hunter-gatherers prior to the deveolpment of agriculture...Although their prehistoric
use remains uncertain, they may have been employed as food, in the preparation of beverages, and as
medicine. There is, however, no specific evidence for the use of fungi prior to the Neolithic period, when fungi
consumption would have been associated with the drinking of mead (yeast-fermented diluted honey) and
yeast-fermented beer or wine, and, somewhat later, the eating of yeast-fermented (leavened) bread."
"Cave drawings and paintings tell us hardly anything about the plants the cavedwellers ate, and it is even rarer
to find them showing mushrooms, which does not mean that the latter never featured on prehistoric menus.
Residues identified prove that other vegetables were in fact eaten, even if few felt any urge to depict them on
cabe walls. Morever, if we look at the dietary customs of contemporary peoples who are still at the Paleolithic
or Neolithic stage of development, there is plenty of evidence of an interest in mushrooms both edible and
poisonous. The latter can be used for hunting, fishing, or indeed for homicial purposes...The ancient Egyptians
and Romans greatly enjoyed mushrooms...The Bible, although full of references to food of many kinds, never
mentions mushrooms, either in praise or otherwise..."
"The first evidence that mushrooms were used as human food in prehistoric Europe is the recent find of a
bowl of field mushrooms in a Bronze Age house near Nola in Italy. Mushrooms were gathered from the wild.
Classical Greek authors tend to treat them as famine food, on the level with acorns. By Romans, however,
they were so highly regarded that the Stoic writer Seneca gave up mushrooms (boleti) as unnecessary
luxuries---an approach to the vegetarianism and asceticism that he toyed with. Recipes are suggested by
Diphilus of Siphnos, in the third century BC, and in Apicius in the fourth century AD."
Why are they called "mushrooms?"
About mushrooms in America
"...it may seem surprosing that mushrooms entered the American culinary limelight only in the late nineteenth century. Until the
1890s, most mushroom recipes were for ketchups, sauces, and pickles, with occasional stewed mushooms or French-influenced dishes
named "champignons." Few Americans included mushrooms in kitchen gardens, which was undertandable given Hannah Glasse's rare and
unappetizing instructions for mushroom cultivation...mushroom gathering was fraught with danger, for no reliable American
guides distinguished between gustatory pleasure and peril. Typical is The Kentucky Housewife (1839) by Lettice Bryan, which
simply warns the cook to "be careful to select the esculent mushrooms, as some of them are very poisonous." Mushroom cultivation
began in seventeeth-century France...The techniques were perfected in the 1870s and spread abroad, just as French cookery became
fashionable in America. By the 1890s, a veritable fungus frenzy was sweeping America, bot as a fad food and as a scientific
curiousity. Mushrooming clubs, were forager swapped tips, spring up quickly. Meticulously illustrated literature educated
amateurs and professionals in identifying and cooking mushrooms...The first professional information on mushroom cultivation in
America was disseminated on a large scale in the 1890s, mainly through the efforts of William Falconer."
19th/early 20th century examples of American mushroom cookery are available online courtesy of Michigan State Univeristy's
Historic American Cookbook Project. Search mushroom in
recipe title or as ingredient.
ABOUT TRUFFLES
"Truffles...A number of fleshy subterranean fungi of the genus Tuber are called
truffles...Truffles are also among the oldest vegetables in the historical record."
"The original truffle is the underground fungus of the genus Tuber, prized by gastronomes of
several millennia for its ineffable perfume and its supposed aphrodesiac qualities. The Roman
gourmet Apicius gave seven recipes for preparing it, and Brillat-Savarin apostophised it as 'the
diamond in the art of cookery'. Until the nineteenth century truffles seem to have been
relatively abundant...but these days demand so far outstrips the supply that (like oysters) they
have passed beyond the reach of all but the very well-heeled."
"Truffles, althoug treated as a delicacy by both Greeks and Romans, were also somewhat of a
puzzle to them. Mushrooms they could in their own way understand as they had both stalks
and 'roots'. but truffles just appeared buried in the earth with no clue as to their origin.
According to Pliny the most prized truffles came from Africa; Juevenal, more precisely,
mentions Libya as the source of the best truffles, though Marital considered them to be still
second to boleti. It us to Apicius again that we must turn to see how truffles were eaten in
Ancient Rome. He recommends first scraping, then boiling, and afterards grilling them lightly
on skewers; after this they are to be returned to a pan for boiling, this time with liquamen,
carenum, pepper, wine and honey. When this sauce has thickened, he says, they can again be
grilled wrapped in a sausage skin, and then served as they are. In addition, Apicius gives three
sauces for serving with them and another recipe for cooking them. The Romans may not have
known much about the origins of truffles but they certainly had ideas about preparing them for
the table."
The French connection
"In France, the truffle of note
(and the most famous variety) is the Perigord (Tuber melanosporum), a truffle that is black
both inside and out, which Brillat-Savarin called a "black diamond.".."Mysterious" is a word
often used in writings on truffles. Truffles vary in size from that of a walnut to that of a
fist...are round shaped, and have a rough exterior."
What do truffles look like?
PORTOBELLO
"By the late 1800s...Italian growers also cultivated the common mushroom but prefering the brown-capped
variety, which are often called cremini mushrooms (or Italian brown) and have an earthy flavor that is fine
for soups and stews and for stuffing. The large and beefy Portabello (also Roma) is acutally a fully grown
cremini, with dense and meaty flesh that lends itself nicely to grilling or roasting. Originally, cremini
mushrooms were imported from Italy, but now they are cultivated in the United States."
"The name "portobello" began to be used in the 1980s as a brilliant marketing ploy to popularize an
unglamorous mushroom that, more often than not, had to be disposed of because growers couldn't sell
them."
"Portobellos are popping up on the nation's menus like mushrooms after a spring rain. From
soups and salads to sandwiches and entrees, the portobellos are everywhere.
"It's a phenomenon in the food business," says Wade Whitfield of the Mushroom Council, an
industry trade group in Roseville, Calif. "This thing has gone from nearly zero in 1993 to a
predicted 30 million pounds this year. It's a major item. It will be the largest specialty
mushroom." And chefs have found portobellos their own specialty.
Whitfield of the Mushroom Council said no one can put their finger on the precise development
of the portobello. "I've talked to several growers, and one said that he almost got fired once for
growing those things," Whitfield notes. "They are really culls. You didn't want them in the
mushroom bed. He would throw them away. There was no market. Growers would take them
home." Farges adds that most of the mushroom farmers, many in southeastern Pennsylvania,
were of Italian origin. They originally produced brown mushrooms, but the public clamored for
the white button variety because it was clean and pristine. In the 1960s and 1970s, with the back-to-earth movement, the growers again started producing the browns. "They are sometimes called
Romans, cremini or browns," Farges explains. "It has a much meatier flavor. It became a gourmet
item. By accident, they found that if you let it grow, it would grow into a portobello."
White mushrooms are still 90 percent of the supply, but portobellos have taken a bite of the
market in the past four years.
More growers are converting operations from white to portobellos in their mushroom houses,"
says Whitfield, adding that the move leads to a reduction in price. With the increased popularity,
however, comes a disagreement over the spelling of portobellos. Whitfield explains: "A great
deal of the growers are of Italian descent. I don't know who named it, but I understand portabella
means 'beautiful door.' With an instead of an 'a' in porto, it means 'beautiful port.'"
The Mushroom Council prefers portabella, says Whitfield, but that's open to dispute.
"To be honest, I've been here two and a half years, and portobellos were just coming on the
scene," he says. "We had five varieties, and portobellos became the sixth. I got to the sticky little
point of 'How do you spell it?' O's or A's? At the time I could identify six shippers who were
selling portobellos. I called all six of them, and asked, 'How do you spell portobello?' Four out of
six spelled it portabella."
Cremini
"The chubby cremino (if that is the singular; no one can be sure), properly encouraged by environmental conditions,
will metamorphose to a portly portobello (also portabella), a name as difficult to document as cremini. I asked
dozens who work with mushrooms, here and in Italy, about the name. The marketing director of a mushroom farm
told me, "It was named after Portobello Road in London, where they sell fashionable things, you know." An importer
said, "Until ten years ago, the mushroom was cappelaccio in Italy. Then it was renamed after a TV show called
Portobello because it sounds better." Another importer told me that "portobello is known only in northern Italy,
where it is called capellone." To one authority, capellone means "big hat." To the director of an Italian trade board
and a dictionary it means "hippie." Two northern Italian chefs had never heard of capellone or cappelaccio. The most
outlandish derivation came from an Italian distributor: "Well, you know that champignon comes from the word for
Champagne, and that a Champagne cork looks like a round port and that's how we get porto bello beautiful
port."
http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/kgk/2002/0402/kgk042602.html
Okra is an "Old World" vegetable. The exact place of origin is still matter of debate. Over the
centuries, many cultures have embraced okra and used it to create traditional dishes.
Mediterranean and African recipes combined with tomatoes (a new world fruit) were created
after the Columbian Exchange. Okra was introduced to the New World by African slaves. This vegetable is still a
favorite in the American south. General overview (with picture)
here.
"Okra is the edible seedpods of a tropical and subtropical plant of the hollyhock family...Africa is
the source of the name...which appears to be derived from or related to nkuruma, the word for
'okra' in the Twi language of West Africa. It is first recorded in English at the beginning of the
eighteenth century. The mucilaginous pods, like miniature pentagonal green bananas, are an
essential ingredient in, and thickener of, soups and stews in countries where they are
grown...Other names of the polynomial okra include in English speaking countries lady's
fingers, in India bhindi, and in the eastern Mediterranean and Arab countries bamies."
"Okra (Hibiscus esculentus)...and annual plant of tropical and subtropical regions which bears
pods which are eaten as a vegetable. It is the only member of the mallow family...to be used in
this way...Okra is generally regarded as native to Africa, and may have been first cultivated either
in the vicinity of Ethiopia or in W. Africa. It is not known when it spread from Ethiopia to N.
Africa, the E. Mediterranean, Arabia, and India. There is not trace of it in early Egyptian tombs,
but it was recorded as growing beside the Nile in the 13th century. Its westward migration to the
New World seems to have been a result of the traffic in slaves. Okra reached Brazil by 1658 and
Dutch Guiana by 1686. It may also have arrived in the south of the USA during the 17th century,
and was being grown as far north as Virginia and Philadelphia in the 18th century. The spread of
okra eastwards from India as slow. Its appearance in SE Asia may be assigned to the 19th
century, and it arrived in China soon therafter...Okra is only moderately popular in Europe...It is
used much more extensively in the Middle East and India, as a vegetable."
"A native of Africa (most likely tropical Africa), okra was used by the Egyptians, was known to
the Spanish Moors in the twelfth century A.D., and in the late seventeenth century was carried by
slaves to the Americas. According to legend, okra was introduced to in southeastern North
America by the "Cassette Girls"--25 young French women who landed at Mobile in 1704 in
search of husbands. They had with them okra that had been obtained from slaves in the West
Indies, and which they used to invent "gumbo," which is a soup or stew thickened with okra.
Okra has played a major role in the cuisines of ex-slave societies in the Americas, where it
continues to be popular. It is also cultivated in Africa and East and South Asia."
OKRA IN AMERICA
"Some of the new aliments were undeserved gifts from the slaves, who carried seeds of African plants with them to the
New World. The black-eye pea, so popular in the South today, was introduced in this fashion in 1674; there were others--okra and w
watermelon, for instance--but it is in the nature of things that we have no precise dates for their arrival."
"Okra...derived from the West African nkruma, as in use in America by the 1780s. Okra was
brought to America by African slaves, who used it in stews and soups and cut it up as a
vegetable. The most famous use for okra is in Louisiana gumbo."
"The word "okra" clearly derives from West African nkru ma, which indicates that the plant was brought to the
Americas through the slave trade directly from Africa or indirectly through the Carribean. Slaves grew okra in gardens on
southern plantations and introduced its cookery into mainstream America. The Swedish scientist Peter Kalm reported in his
Travels into North America (1748) that okra was growing in Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson, in his Notes on the
State of Virginia (1785), recorded that okra was cultivated there. Extensive directions for growing okra were
published in Robert Squibb's The Gardener's Calendar for South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina (1787).
The pod of the opkra is steamed, boiled, fried, pickled, and cooked in soups and stews, notably gumbo. The seeds are also
ground into meal for use in making bread oand oil. Southerners used ground okra seeds as a coffee substitute, especially
during the Civil War...The leaves and flower buds are also edible and are cooked as greens. The pods and the leaves are dried,
crushed into powder, and used for flavoring and thickening soups, including pepper pot, and stews. Although recipes for
okra appear in early American cookery manuscripts, Thomas Cooper's edition of the Domestic Encyclopedia (1821)
includes the first publsihed reicpe with okra as an ingredient. Mary Randolph's Virginia House-wife (1821) offers recipes
using okra...The word "gumbo" or "gombo" is another African name for okra. In New Orleans it was applied to both the
vegetable and the complex Creole stew made with it...Gumbos migrated quickly throughout America...Since the 1960s, okra has
entered the American culinary mainstream, although as many writers point out, it is an acquired taste. It is a
significant component of soul food and southern cookery in general."
"Gumbo, Gombo, Gumbs--This name for hibsicus esculentus comes from Angolan kingombo; okra, another popular name,
is through to come from West African nkru-ma (OED). The vegetable seems to have come to Virginia from black Africa, where it
had long been cultivated, by way of the West Indies: Sir Hans Sloane reported in 1707 that Ocra was flourishing in
Jamaica (OED), and Mrs. Randolph herself describes Gumbs (Gumbo in later editions) as a "West Indian Dish" (facsimile).
...Mrs. Randolph's Gumbs is simply buttered okra; her recipe for Ocra Soup...more nearly resembles later recipes
for gumbo, however."
Ms. Randolph's recipes:
"Ocra Soup
Additional early American okra recipes (search as recipe title and/or ingredient
here, courtesy of Michigan State University.
ABOUT OKRA STEW
"Yakhnat al-Bamiya (Okra stew)
Ancient treasure to modern health: few foods rival the economic, social, symbolic and practical impact of olive
oil on human history.
"Olive oil, the main product of the olive and an extremely important food product of the ancient
Mediterranean. Olive oil production involved three processes. The skin of the fruit must be first
broken and the flesh crushed, preferably without breaking the stone. The pulp must then be
pressed to release the oil. The oil must finally be separated from the watery amurca. Oil can be
extracted without the use of presses, but mechanisation must have been important in the
development of olive oil production. A beam press was in use in Ugarit (Syria) around 1500BC.
Crushing mills and oil presses were widespread throughout the Mediterranean in Hellenistic and
Roman times....Although olive oil is never a cheap product it is used generously in modern
Mediterranean cuisines, as it clearly was in ancient cookery also. It served serveral food
purposes. It was a medium for marinading meat and fish before cooking. It was a cooking
medium. It was used as a dressing both for cooked food when served, and for fresh green
vegetables; for this purpose it was sometimes used alone, sometimes mixed with vinegar and
aromatic herbs. Finally it was used in conserving. Olive oil is one of the best cooking oils, since,
apart from its unusual health benefits, it retains a good flavour and its boiling point is high. In
ancient times it had no competition from cheaper vegetable oils, while in ancient Mediterranean
cuisine animal fat was not used as a cooking medium. On the edges of the classical world olive oil
was less well know. Pharaonic Egypt imported olive oil from Palestine and Crete. By the twelfth
century BC olives were growing in Egypt, and Theophrastus confims that at the time of
Alexander's conquest in the fourth century olives were grown for oil in the Thebaid, but this had
been small-volume luxury production...As the principal vegetable oil of the ancient Mediterranean,
olive oil had many non-food uses. It was a fuel, especially for lamps. It was a soap or cosmetic,
used for rubbing the body...it was used for oiling clothes...Perfumed oils, used for burning as
unguents, were made with the addition of various spices and aromatics...Both pure oil and
perfumed oil were used in religious and social rituals."
"As pliny says at the beginning of his chapter on oil: 'There are two liquids especially agreeable to the human body, wine inside
and oil outside.' In countries without the olive the place of oil was generally taken first by animal fat. That must have
applied to ancient Italy before the introduction of the olive, but we have little direct evidence of this, for once
established, the olive became the universal provider...[Olives] appear to have originated in Syria and Palestine, whilst
aspiny variety may be indigenous to Crete. The olive industry must have played a vital role in Crete and much evidence
concerning it has come from that region. Its cultivation there goes back at least to 2500 BC. Olive stores of Late Minoan date have
been found and also seeds and an olive press at Palaikastro. A number of settling vats have also been brought to light, and the
methods for extracting oil must have been much the same as those still employed in modern Crete. This involves drenching the
olives with hot water prior to pressing them; the resulting liquid is oured into vats which allow th oil to come to the top, the
water being then drawn off thorugh a spout at the bottom. The significance of oil in early Crete becomes evident when one
considers the vast quantities of pithoi (pottery jars) in the storerooms of the palace at Knossos. Oil seems to have been
the king's treasure, and its export one of his major sources of revenue...There are also innumerable Biblical referneces to olives
and olive oil...Oil cultivation did not reach Italy until the sixth century BC and appears to have come via Greece, where
domestication took place considerably earlier. Once olive oil reached Italy, its value was quickly appreciated...and the Romans soon
set themselves to work producing fruit and oil of varying kinds and quantities...All the Roman writers on agriculture give
full instructions to be followed when extracting olive oil. The olives should preferably be fresh when pressed. The first pressing
resulted in the first quality oil, the two subsequent pressings of the pulp gave second quality and ordinary oil."
Olive harvest notes from Cato [2nd century BC:Rome]
Symbolism & mythology
"Olives and Olive Oil.
Wild olive trees are indigenous to the eastern Mediterranean where thy line the low coastal areas
of Greece and the surrounding islands. They're evergreen trees, and they've been cultivated int
he Mediterranean and the Middle East since Neolithic times. Olives occupy a prominent place in
mythology and custom, and the olive tree's branches and oil were used in much of the ancient
world to bestow kingship, consecrate holy objects, and onont people of honor and bodies of the
dead. The olive figures promenintly in the myths and customs of Greece, in particular, where it
served as a symbol of peace and of constancy; an emblem of achievement; and a sacred,
immortal, and divine fruit...The Greeks anointed the winners of the Olympian Games with olive oil
to honor Athena, the goddess of the olive tree. Anointment with olive oil was a sign of respect in
many lands in ancient times, and olive oil reputedly relieved tension and fatigue...Because the
olive had to suffer (to be pressed) in order to produce riches (oil), the Greeks made it a symbol of
victory over adversity. They also made it a symbol of regeneration and included it in immortality
myths. Olive trees appeared to be immortal. They were known to live for centuries..."
Olive oil in the New World
"The only oil regularly available to colonial Americans was olive oil. (Fats that remain liquid at room temperature are generally referred to as
oils.) Only in the most elite enclaves withing the Spanish colonies was this expensive import used for cooking. In the English and French settlements,
olive oil was reserved almost exclusively for salad dressing."
"Within fourteenth-century Spain, olive oil was exported from south to north...following the conquest of the New World, American demand continued to
stimulate Spain's olive oil industry. As the colonists began to make their own oil, however, the flow of Spanish olive oil across the Atlantic
diminished. In North America, Thomass Jefferson tried to grow olives at Monticello, but the cuttings he used would not take root...At about the
same time as this failed experiment in the east of the continent, olive cultivation was successfully launched in California by Spanish missionaries, and by the
beginning of the twentieth century, the western state had joined Provence in France and the Lucca district in Italy...as a produced of some of the
world's best olive oils."
"During the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the United States expanded, by conquest and by land purchase, into this large area [American
Southwest] with its predominently Hispanic population. The region's culinary heritage was rooted in part in the chilli-laced tamles and tortillas of the Aztecs and their
predecessors and in part in the culture of Iberia. Shipments of olive oil, hams, wine, and even saffron arrived regularly from Spain."
A brief history of California olive oil/California Olive Oil Council
We found an advertisement for Olive-Naise in Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book, Mrs.
Mary A. Wilson [J.B. Lippincott:Philadelphia] 1920. According to this source,
Olive-Naise was manufactured by the Schlorer Delicatessen Co., Philadelphia.
According to the records of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office Mrs. Schlorer's brand name is now owned by the Venice
Maid Company in Vineland, NJ.
USPTO RECORD HERE:
Word Mark MRS. SCHLORER'S Goods and Services IC 030. US 046. G & S:
Mayonnaise. FIRST USE: 19110600. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19110600
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 75495644 Filing
Date June 3, 1998 Current Filing Basis 1A Original Filing Basis 1A Published for
Opposition March 21, 2000 Registration Number 2356614 Registration Date June
13, 2000 Owner (REGISTRANT) VENICE MAID FOODS, INC.
CORPORATION NEW JERSEY 270 North Mill Road P.O. Box 1505 Vineland
NEW JERSEY 083601505 Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED
Attorney of Record JORDAN S WEINSTEIN Prior Registrations 1201339 Type
of Mark TRADEMARK Register PRINCIPAL-2(F) Other Data The name "MRS.
SCHLORER" does not identify a living individual. Live/Dead Indicator LIVE
Ads placed in historic newspapers suggest Olivenaise (and Pick-O-Naise) was a regional product, generally found in Pennsylania, central New York,
south New Jersey and West Virginia.
"One way to categorize this fruit of the genus Citrus is to distinguis bitter oranges...from sweet
oranges...The bitter orange (also known as Sevilla, sour orange...) is a native of Southeast Asia
and was cultivated in the Indus Valley some 6,000 years ago. The sweet orange...may also have
originated in Southeast Asia, although many believe it to be a native of southern China, as is
evidenced by its scientific name. Both fruits were slow to find their way to the Mediterranean
basin; the bitter orange eventually arrived with the Arabs around A.D. 1000, but the Western
advent of the sweet orange came more than 400 years later, perhaps with the help of Genoese
traders or Portuguese explorers. Sweet-orange trees were planted at Versailles in 1421, and later
(1521) in Lisbon. Meanwhile, in 1493, the second voyage of Christopher Columubus is said to
have carried sweet-orange seeds...to Hispaniola, and Spaniards stationed in Florida were
reportedly growing oranges there in 1565, the year St. Augustine was founded. A couple of
centuries later, the Franciscans began planting orange groves at their mission of San Diego in
California."
"The orange is one of the most important fuits of the world and one of the oldest cultivated.
Originating in the Orient, the fruit was cultivated in China as early as 2400 B.C. These were
"bitter oranges"...later brought to Spain, where they became known as the "Seville orange." The
"sweet orange"...also originated in China and was also brought to Spain, possibly by the Moors
in the eighth century. Christopher Columbus brought Canary Islands orange seeds to Hispaniola
in 1493, and plantings by the Spanish and Portuguese soon followed throughout the Caribbean,
Mexico, and South America. Some believe Ponce de Leon brought orange seeds to Florida, but
the first recorded evidence of the fruit on North American soil credits Hernando de Soto with
bringin the orange in 1539 to St. Augustine, Florida, where the trees flouished until Sir Francis
Drake sacked the city in 1586 and destroyed them. These grew back quickly, but commercial
plantings were of only minor importance for more than two centuries...In Florida only one
significant orange grower was to be found in the eighteenth century. His name was Jesse Fish...It
was not until the United States acquired Florida in 1821 that orange growing became a profitable
business for Americans...By the 1880s orange production was growing rapidly, owing to the
development of refrigerated ships that could carry the fruit from California and to the building of
railroads into the heart of Florida. Also, a new orange, the "navel"...entered California in 1873
from Bahia, Brazil...By the 1890s, the navel orange had become commercially important...By the
1920s nutritionists were promoting the benefits of orange juice...and the drink became as
ubiquitious as coffee on American breakfast tables."
"Citrus cultivation in the area that would become the United States dates from the Spanish
exploration and settlement of Florida in the sixteenth century; it reached Louisiana around 1700
and California with the arrival of Franciscan friars in 1769. Since most citrus cannot tolerate
temperatures more than a few degrees below freezing, open-air cultivation has generally been
limited to warmer areas, but until the second half of the nineteenth century it was not uncommon
for the wealthy to grow oranges and lemons in greenhouses. With the advent of steam
transportation in the mid-nineteenth century, citrus was imported from Mexico, the West Indies,
and Italy. Large-scale commercial cultivation began in Florida and California in the 1870s and
1880s, when the extension of railroads allowed fresh fruit to be shipped to major eastern and
midwestern markets. Railroads and land promoters helped fashion a romatic image of citrus in the
popualr imagination, symbolizing sunshine, health, and elegance, to lure settlers to Florida and
California. To sell their corps profitably, growers formed marketing cooperatives, such as
Sunkist, founded as the Southern California Fruit Exchange in 1893."
Symbolism & mythology
"Oranges are native to Southeastern Asia. The ancient Egyptians knew nothing of this fruit, and the Greeks made no mention
of them either; but the Chinese cultivated them in antiquity, and the Japanese identified them as the fruit of life. In Japanese
myth, the emperor sent a hero named Tajima-mori to the Eternal Land, possibly southern China, to bring back the magical
fruit, so that the emperor might gain immortality. But Tajima-mori returned too late. The emperor had already died, and the
magic of oranges could no longer help him. Though the Chinese identified the fruit of life as the peach, they considered oragnes
magical also, believing that the fruit brought good luck and joy and warded off evil spirits. Oranges possibly gained respect
in myth and legend because of their color. Ancient peoples seem to have believed that orange or red fruits had magical properties,
connecting them with blood and life force. The golden color of oranges also led some mythmakers to link them with the sun. In Flemish
legend, a young prince once went in search of a bride hidden within a magic orange in a land of sunshine and orange
groves..."
Why give oranges at Christmas?
"Strange and exotic fruits had begun to reach Britain...through trade with southern Europe where oranges, lemons and pomegranates were cultivated. The original
home of the citrus fruits lay in northern India. They had been known to the Romans under the name of "Median apples', having apparantly arrived from Persia; and
their juice had been used as a medicine, and occasionally also to sharpen the tang of vinegar...The first Englishmen to enjoy oranges, lemons and 'Adams apples'...
were probably crusaders who wintered with Richard Coure-de-Lion in the fruit groves around Jaffa in 1191-2. About a hundred years later citrus fruits had begun
to arrive in England itself...Also on the spice ships from southern Europe came great raisins, 'raisins of Corinth' or currants...prunes, figs and dates. All were
consumed in vast quantities by the well-to-do, for the sweetness of dried fruits was greately appreciated while sugar was still rare and expensive. Poorer people ate
them principally in festive pottages and pies during the twelve days of Christmas, but the rich enjoyed them at other times , too."
"In the nineteenth century poor children dreamed all the year round of getting the precious, scented present of an orange for
Christmas. Most of them did not know what an orange tasted like, or even if they would dare eat that golden, almost
magical fruit."
Florida orange juice &
Sunkist oranges
RECOMMENDED READING:
MANDARIN ORANGES
"In China...there is clear evidence that oranges have been cultivated since antiquity...In T'ang times, the fruiting of
mandarin trees in the imperial gardens, apparently indoors, led to "formal congratulations to the monarch on his
divine charisma"...It is understandable that the Chinese have given the world the earliest surviving monography on the
orange...In this twelfth-century work, one reads not only of sour, sweet, and mandarin oranges, but of the related kumquat and
trifoliate orange...In South Chinese folk religion, orange and red-colored fruits, including mandarins and other oranges, are
common ritual offerings, and one also reads of small mandarin trees in homes at the time of Chiense New Year...This is because their
colors are religious and magical, life-sustaining, capable of warding off evil spirits and assuring good luck...Mandarin trees
are adaptable to a wider range of climatic conditions than other types of cultivated citrus. They are better able to stand heat
than most other types. They also tend to be more cold resistant than other citrus trees of commercial importance, though the furit,
mainly because it is small and thin-skinned, is more readily damaged by cold than are other oranges...As a result, mandarins are gown
in all of China's citrus-producting regions: South China, West China, Wouthwest China,...Central China, and Northwest China. Though
the mandarins are the largest and most varied group of cultivated citrus, their fruit possess the common characteristics
of small to medium size; shape like a flattened globe; a loose, readily removed skin, yellow or reddish orange in color; and
fruit segments that are separated with out difficulty. The mandarin is suffiently different from other oranges as to lead
Swingle...to place it in a separate species, Citrus reticulata, distinct from that of the sweet orange, C. sicnesis, and the sour
orange, C. aurantium. Plant scientists, geographers, and archeologists have suggested South China, Southeast Asia, or eastern
India as the place of the earliest domestication of the mandarin oranges. Hodgeson...argues for northeast India as their probable
home. In that area, there occurs a primitive, related form sometimes called the "Indian wild mandarin"...also found there are
highly developed forms of mandarins that are absent elsewhere, as well as many mandarin hybrids. The mandarin was cultivated
in very early times in Southeast Asia and East Asia, with both of those regions important in developing mandarin forms. In the
early fourth century A.D., Chi Han had already distinguished red and yellow forms of mandarins...in the south, and of them the
famous variety known in present-day Canton and the West as Ponkan or "Chinese honey orange."...Accounts form T'ang times mention
highly-prized varieties of common mandarisn and King mandarins, the latter...believed to be a natural hybrid, perhaps betweeen
mandarin and sweet orange...Mandarins seem to have been grown enve in the gardens of the imperial palace
far to the north of Shensei, apparently in some sort of greenhouse...a situation reminiscent fo the orangeries or orange-houses
of ancient Rome and later Europe...Many mandarin varieties are grown in South China today, of which two deserve special note.
one is the afore-mentioned Ponkan, which produces large fruit with loose skin and pleasant-tasting, juicy flesh, and which can
be picked in October. It is said to be the finest mandarin produced in China, in East Asia, and perhaps in the entire
world. The Cheokan, known better as Tankan, is an ancient form which originated in southeastern China."
"Mandarin Orange...Other citrus fruits that are very similar (or identical) to the Mandarin orange include the tangerine,
the satsuma, and the "Clemintine," all of which are identifies as members of Citrus reticulata and orange varieties. The
Mandarin--developed in China, or possibly Cochin China (southern Vietnam)--probably took its name from the yellow
robes of the Chinese civil servants called Mandarins. It worked its way toward the Near East at a leisurely pace and reached
Europe directly from China only at the beginning of the nineteenth century. By midcentury, Mandarin oranges were being
grown around the Mediterranean, and they entered the United States aat about the same time. Believed to have originated in
Tangier, they came to be known as tangerines in North America."
"The mandarin is a small loose-skinned somewhat flattened variety of orange...that originated in China. The first reference to it
in English comes in 1771, in J.R. Foster's translation of Osbeck's Voyage to China: 'Here are two sorts of China oranges...The
first is called the Mandarin-o, whose peel is quite loose'. English acquired the word, via French, from Spanish mandarina, where
its application to the fruit probably arose from the resemblance of its colour to that of the yellowish-orange robes of
Chinese imperial officials--mandarins (this term is not Chinese in origin, incidentally; it first arrived in Europe as a
Portuguese borrowing from Malay mantri, 'counsellor', which was itself a Hindi loanword that orignated in Sanskrit
mantrin)."
"Mandarin was originally no more than a nickname given to a small, loose-skinned orange-like fruit. Citrus reticulata, which was
brought to England from China in 1805...The original wild citrus from which mandarins are descended probably grew in
NE India, where a wild mandarin, C. indica, is still found. It was taken into cultivation at an early date in S. China, as were
other kinds of orange. However, mandarins were more highly esteemed than common oranges, partly because ancient varieties
of the latter were dry, thick skinned, hard to peel, and seedy. The mandarin was prized as much for its fragrance as for its
flavour, perhaps more...Mandarins were not taken to the West along with the other citrus fruits, whcih had all reached
Europe by the 16th century. And when they did come it was through another route. The first cultivars (probably of the ponkan
type...) were brought to England in 1805, and it was apparently the descendants of these which were introduced into Italy
in the following decade and which had become well established there before 1850. From Italy, cultivation spread quickly to
other Mediterranean countries. Meanwhile, mandarisn had been take direct from China to Australia in the 1820s. But it was not
until the 1840s that the first mandarin was grwon in the USA, but the Italian consul in New Orleans. Cultivation soon
spread to Florida, California, and other states, and the new fruits were at first...called 'Chinas'. Later, when different, darker
varieties were brought in from N. Africa they were called 'tangerines', a name which became general."
Pasta, in many shapes and forms, has been enjoyed by many different cultures and cuisines for
thousands of years. Who invented this food, where and when? That's very much a matter of
culinary debate. Current evidence suggests two (or more) concommitant centers of origin.
Ancient and Medieval pasta dishes were both savory (made with meat, pepper, onion, saffron) and
sweet (made with honey, nuts, and soft cheeses). According to the food historians, layered &
stuffed pastas (lasagne, ravioli) are a Medieval invention. In European/Christian cultures they
were often served with cheese during Christian Lent and other meat-abstaining days. 17th and
18th century English and American cookbooks contain recipes
for macrows, or macaroni. Thomas Jefferson is said to have introduced the first pasta machine to America in
1787. Tomatoes are "New World" food and were not combined with pasta until the 16th century.
WEB SOURCES
RECOMMENDED READING:
What about Marco Polo?
Food historians debunk the myth that Marco Polo introduced pasta to Italy as a result of his
travels to China . Notes here:
"Culinary mythology: Marco Polo's supposed introduction of pasta from China to the Western
world. This durable myth, which requires that nothing should have been known of pasta in Italy
until 1295, when Marco Polo returned from the Far East, can easily be shown to be wrong by
citing references in Italy to pasta of an earlier date. What is interesting about the myth is the
question of how it arose. An explanation was offered to a distinguished audience at Oxford
University by the famous Italian authority, Massimo Alberini: As far as I can make out, the
Chinese' story originates from an article entitled A Saga of catai that appeared in the American
magazine Macaroni Journal in 1929. There it was written that a sailor in Marco Polo's
expedition had seen a Chinese girl preparing long strands of pasta, and that the sailor's name was
Spaghetti. Obviously an "unlikely tale." It is tempting to add that the Macaroni Journal
explanation
may itself be a myth; but no better explanation has been offered. The question of interaction
between oriental and occidental forms of pasta and the extent to which particular forms may have
travelled either eastwards or westwards, through C. Asia, is a different one, of a subtlety and
complexity sufficient to deter myth-makers from trying to intervene with it."
The very real contribution Marco Polo made with regards to introducing foods of Asia to Europe
was his description of the cuisine and dining habits of the people he met on his journeys.
"Marco Polo's accounts of China are too well known to warrant further attention, but a word
needs to be said about his reliability. John Haeger, among others, has questioned whether Marco
Polo saw as much as we usually assume...There is no question that he relied on others'
acounts--usually reliable ones, but sometimes rumors--for his descriptions of some remote,
off-route
places... Of Yuan food, Marco tells us a good deal, all of it confirmed by others. The importance
of dairy products, especially horse milk, is clear. Dried skim milk was a staple...Wine is described
as being made of rice and flavored with spices...The luxury of the Great Kaan's table service is
described...and from Marco's note on the Yuan planting of shade trees, it seems that the Great
Kaan was as industrious as the modern People's Republic in lining the highways with
them...Marco notes the sharp contrast between the Central Asian influenced north and the
refractory south in choice of foods: in the south "they eat every kind of flesh, even that of dogs
and other unclean beasts, which nothing would induce a Christian to eat"...The importance of the
salt monopoly is stressed."
"Cheese is the earliest condiment for pasta of which we have documentation. Even before the
earliest recipes were written, cheese with pasta was the delight of the bon vivants of the Middle
Ages...Present in all the medieval collections of recipes that feature pasta, grated cheese was often
mixed with spices..."These tortelli must be yellow and strongly spiced, serve them in bowls with
plenty of pepper and grated cheese...Although it was abandoned by the elite beginning in the
seventeenth century, the mixture of cheese and spices continued in popular use. Pasta was served
with a carpet of well-aged grated cheese in taverns frequented by Pere Labat in the turn of the
eighteenth century."
"Fettucini Alfredo....A dish of fettuccini egg noodles mixed with butter, Parmesean cheese, and
cream. The dish has been a staple of Italian-American restaurants since the mid-1960s. It was
created in 1914 by Alfred Di Lelio, who opened a restaurant in Rome, Italy, under his first name
on the Via della Scrofa in 1910. The dish supposedly helped restore the appetite of his wife after
she gave birth to their son. The original dish was made with a very rich triple butter Di Lelio made
himself, three kinds of four, and only the heart of the best parmigiano. Fettuccini all'Alfredo
became famous after Hollywood movie actors Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford ate the dish
at Alfredo's restaurant while on their honeymoon in 1927...After World War II Di Lelio moved to
the Piazza Augusto Imperatore, and in the 1950s his restaurant became a mecca for visiting
Americans, most of whom came to sample fettuccini Alfredo...Because most cooks could not
reproduce the richness of the original butter, today the dish almost always contains heavy
cream."
"The story goes that while honeymooning in Rome in 1927, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary
Pickford dined almost daily on this rich pasta at Alfredo's restaurant, and in gratitude, presented
restauranteur Alfredo Di Lelio with a golden pasta fork and spoon at the end of their stay.
Journalists picked up the story and spread news of Fettucchine Alfredo across the Atlantic. Before
long, American chefs were imporvising. According to Marie Simmons...food writer who is of
Italian heritage, an authentic Fettuccini Alfredo is not tricked out with cream or mushrooms or
green peas or garlic. It's a mix of sweet creamery butter, Parmigiano-Reggiano, homemade
fettuccini, and black pepper. Nothing more, nothing less."
These recipes may not be called Fettuccine Alfredo, but they would certainly recreate something
close the original dish:
[1895?]
[1912]
Related food? macaroni & cheese (usually a baked dish)
Lasagne
"Lasagne
"Though some authorities believe the word [lasagne] derives from Vulgar Latin lasania (cooking
pot), the ancient Romans made laganum, which referred to strips of dough baked on a flat
surface. Since lasagne requires a baking oven, which for most of Italian history was to be found
only in the kitchens of the wealthy families, the dish was considered to be a lavish one..."
"While lasagne are the culmination of a pasta-making tradition dating back to antiquity, the origin
of macaroni and vermicelli, first metioned in medieval Italian cooking treatises, is far less
certain...."
Compare an original 1390 recipe for loseyns (lasagne) recipe with
a modern redaction.
Macaroni & cheese
Who invented macaroni & cheese? No one knows for sure, although the food historians generally
credit the ancient Greeks and Romans for coming up with the idea of combining these two foods.
The origin of pasta/noodles/macaroni is a matter of culinary controversy (Ancient
Rome? Etruscans? China? Korea?). According to the Oxford Companion
to Food, Alan Davidson, [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (page 159) "Cheese is one
of the oldest of made foods, dating back
to the prehistoric beginnings of herding. As with all fermented products, it seems likely that the
discovery of cheese was accidental..."
We do know that medieval macaroni dishes (lasagnes & raviolis) were made with cheese and
sweetened with nuts and spices (The Medieval Cookbook, Maggie Black, Lasagne with
cheese (pages 90-91). These would have tasted quite different from the mac and cheese we eat
today. Colonial American cookbooks contained recipes for macaroni and cheese in the English
tradition:
"Despite the many varieties, the most common name for pasta in later Medieval Italy seems to
have been macaroni', although this now means the round as contrasted with the flat kind. The
fourteenth century English Forme of Cury gives a recipes for macrows (an anglicized plural) that
unquestionably produces a flat result; the recipes even recommends serving it strewn with morsels
of butter, and with grated cheese on the side. In its native land it does not seem to have been
regarded as a very high-class food; in the sixteenth century
"Cheese is the earliest condiment for pasta of which we have documentation. Even before the
earliest recipes were written, cheese with pasta was the delight of the bon vivants of the Middle
Ages...Present in all the medieval collections of recipes that feature pasta, grated cheese was often
mixed with spices..."These tortelli must be yellow and strongly spiced, serve them in bowls with
plenty of pepper and grated cheese...Although it was abandoned by the elite beginning in the
seventeenth century, the mixture of cheese and spices continued in popular use. Pasta was served
with a carpet of well-aged grated cheese in taverns frequented by Pere Labat in the turn of the
eighteenth century."
"...we can establish the venerableness of the dish we call macaroni cheese from the following
recipe which must have been introduced from Italy... into the court cookery of Richard II
[1367-1400]. Macrows. Take and make a thin foil of dough, and carve it in pieces, and cast them
on
boiling water, and seeth it well. Take cheese, and grate it, and butter, cast beneath, and above as
for losenges, and serve it forth.' It was apparently not made in England during the next few
hundred years, but it returned from Italy in the eighteenth century...when Elizabeth Raffald
published a very good recipe entitled "To dress macaroni with Parmesan cheese."
Compare and contrast the following M & C recipes from different time periods:
[15th century]
[1769]
[1824]
[1847]
[1908]
[1915]
"Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Dinner is introduced nationally in yellow boxes (soon changed to blue)
by National Dairy Products, which has adopted the idea of one of its St. Louis salesmen to
combine grated American cheese with Tenderoni Macaroni."
---The Food Chronology, James Trager [Henry Holt:New York] 1995 (p.37)
"Kraft was the first to introduce an instant macaroni and cheese dinner. The year was 1937 and
soon Kraft, during commercial breaks in the Kraft Music Hall radio program, was promising
American cooks that a Kraft Dinner was "A meal for four in nine minutes for an everyday price of
19 cents. In 1937 alone, eight million Kraft Dinners were sold, but their popularity soared tenfold
during
World War II because they were not only good meat substitutes but also required just one ration
coupon. "Don't hurry, puff and wheeze," Kraft Dinner commercials now urged. "There's a main
dish that's a breeze.""
"In 1937, the Kraft Food Company which had introduced processed cheese to the world in 1915,
released its macaroni and cheese package, known to the world as "Kraft Dinner." As America
slowly emerged from the Depression, it became the housewife's friend--a nourishing one-pot meal
that could be easily prepared..."
Here is Kraft's own recipe for macaroni & cheese, circa 1938:
Cook macaroni in boiling salted water; drain. Melt the cheese over low heat in top of a double
boiler. Gradually add the milk, stirring well after each addition of milk. Add seasonings. Place
macaroni in a casserole and pour the sauce over it, carefully mixing with a fork. Cover with
crumbs, or with additional grated cheese. Bake in a moderate oven, 350 degrees, 15 minutes.
Spaghetti, noodles or rice may be substituted for the macaroni."
Recommended reading:
"Kraft Cheese," Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands, Volume 1:Consumable Products,
Janice
Jorgensen Editor [St. James Press:Detroit] 1994
Related food? Fettuccine Alfredo!
Ravioli
"Ravioli: the archtypal stuffed pasta of the western world, can be presumed to be Italian in
origin but had started to appear as far away as England by the 14th century (when the Forme of
Cury gave a recipe for rauioles), and was known in the south of France in medieval times. So
far as Italy is concerned, the earliest records of ravioli seem to be in some of the 140,000
preserved letters of Francesco di Marco, a merchant of Prato in the 14th century. They are
described as being stuffed with pounded pork, eggs, cheese, parsley, and sugar; while in Lent a
filling of herbs, cheese, and spices was used. There were both sweet and savoury kinds..."
"The small, stuffed Italian shapes such as a ravioli and tortellini (both attested from the middle of
the thirteenth century) also had parallels elsewhere, including China (won ton), Russia (pel'meni),
Tibet (momo), and in the Jewish kitchen, (kreplachs). It has been suggested that some of the
forms may have originated in the Near East and been transmitted in an arc from there, which
would certainly be consistent with the general historical pattern."
"The history of ravioli is quite old. Leaving aside for the moment as to whether the Central
Asian manti can be considered a ravioli, the earliest evidence we have of ravioli in the
Mediterranean is found in the statutes of the Cathedral of Nice in 1233, which report of crosete
sui rafiole', a ravioli pie..."
"According to the sixteenth-century Italian historians, we owe pasta stuffed with chopped meat
or herbs, cheese or even fish to a peasant woman of Cernusco called Libista...The ravioli of the
fourteenth-century cookery books were usually deep-fried, like fritters...in its early days ravioli
generally meant a stuffing made of meat, cheese, eggs and herbs wrapped in dough, a dish like
modern canneloni...one of the oldest recipes of the kind [1481], for tortelli' in the Assissi
manner'. These tortelli' do not even use a dough wrapping for the stuffing; the instructions are
simply to roll the chopped meat mixture in flour. This coating of flour, having absorved the fat
from the chopped meat, would have coagulated slightly in the hot broth into which the tortelli
were put to be cooked...Raviolo were eaten at banquets too, and were clearly very popular in
Prato. They were not served alone, but as a garnish to a torta made of several layers of pastry
filled with chicken fried in oil, garlic sausage, ravioli stuffed wtih ham, almonds, and dates. Pastry
lid covered the whole torta, and it was cooked in the embers."
"Ravioli. The world may derive form the Latin rabiola...whos shape was imitated in the ravioli, or
from ravolgere (to wrap). The city of Cremona claims to have created ravioli. But Genoa claims
them, too, insisting the word actually dates to their dialect word for the pasta, rabiole, which
means "something of little value" and supposedly came from the practice of thrifty sailors who
stuffed any and all leftovers into pasta to be used for another meal."
St. Louis toasted [deep fried] ravioli is a mid-20th century invention. Most sources agree it
was "supposedly first made in the 1930s[?] at a St. Louis restaurant named Angelo Oldani's..."
Related foods? Jewish Kreplach & Chinese Wontons.
Spaghetti & meatballs
About spaghetti
Food historians generally agree that the pasta we know today as spaghetti is a relatively new
invention, dating back to the early 19th century. Spaghetti served with meat in tomato sauce most
likely originated in Naples. Late 19th and early 20th century American cook books
often refer to recipes for spaghetti and meat sauce as Neapolitan spaghetti. The meats used in
these recipes are usually ham, sausage and bacon (traditional Italian fare). Recipes for spaghetti
and [ground beef] meatballs begin to show up in American cookbooks during World War II.
"Spaghetti...commonly said to account for more than two-thirds of the whole annual consumption
of pasta, is certainly its most popular form...but by no means the oldest. Indeed, until the
introduction of extrusion presses, and especially of the powerful machines which were introduced
in the latter part of the 19th century...its production was a laborious business. Macaroni, tubular
and hollow, was easier to make without modern machinery, and its name was sometimes used in a
generic way for pasta...The names of the Italian spaghetti dishes which are now known worldwide
are of relatively recent birth. It might be thought that spaghetti and tomato sauce, perhaps the
simplest combination, would go a long way back. However, the first documented tomato sauce
for pasta appears in Ippolito Cavalcanti's Cucina teorico pratica of 1839..."
"1819--In the Dizionario della Lingua Italiana by Nicol• Tommaseo and Bernardo Bellini, the
term spaghetto, "singolare maschile diminutivo di SPAGO" (masculine, singular diminutive for
SPAGO) includes the entry, "Minestra di spaghetti: che sono paste della grossezza di un piccolo
spago e lunghe, come i sopraccapellini" (spaghetti soup: pasta, the thickness of a small twine and
long)."
"Spaghetti was first produced on a large scale in Naples in 1800, with the aid of wooden screw
presses, and the long strings were hung out to dry in the sun. The dough was kneaded by hand
until 1830, when a mechanical kneading trough was invented and widely adopted throughout
Italy..."
Spaghetti in America
"Pasta came to America with the early Spanish settlers. In the USA the first notable introduction
was due to Thomas Jefferson...However, it was really the massive late 19th-century immigration
from Italy, and especially from Naples, which made pasta popualr in the USA. Consequently, N.
American ways of preparing pasta are essentially derived from Italian ones, although displaying
variations such as spagehtti with meatballs."
"Spaghetti...became as "naturalized" as did any Italian-American between the end of the
nineteenth century and the beginning of World War II. It became a repast first accepted by
nonconformists...New York's Little Italy, where spaghetti dinner was cheap, filling, and redolent
of good flavours not to be found elsewhere...American "bohemians" joined Italians in preparing
spaghetti in their own kitchens, buying the pasta from immigrant grocers..."
"In the beginning (around the turn of the century) Italian-America restaurants did not serve
meatballs with their spaghetti. These were added to satisfy Amerca's hunger for red meat."
Spaghetti recipes through time
[1884] Boston Cooking School Cook Book, Mrs. D. A. Lincoln
[1902] With a Saucepan over the Sea, Adelaide Keen
[1912] Simple Italian Cookery, Antonia Isola
[1922]
"Meat balls and spaghetti
[1924] Mrs. Allen on Cooking, Ida Baily Allen
[1944] Good Housekeeping Cook Book
Commercial production
Industry data & market statistics
Pasta manufacturers
Tomato paste/sauce manufacturers
About canned spaghetti
Black (and white) pepper comes from the dried, unripe fruit of the Piper nigrum plant. It is a
tropical plant, native to the East Indies. In ancient times, pepper was prized both as a medicine
and food flavoring. Symbolically,
pepper was a sign of wealth; practically, pepper was offered as payment and gifts. In
early times, to receive a gift of pepper was a great honor. Pepper is also connected with
some traditional Christmas foods dating back to Medieval times. Why? Cooks through
time saved their most precious commodities for the holidays. Northern European
pepperkor and peppernut cookies are of this tradition. Gingerbread and lebkuchen were
also made with pepper in these early days.
Black, white, green & pink pepper
"Peppercorns come in three colours. Unripe, they are 'green'--and green peppercorns began to enjoy considerable popularity
from the early 1970s, for the combination of heat, aroma, and soft crunchiness that they brought to sauces, terrines, etc. Picked
slightly underripe, dried, and sold without their husks removed, they are 'black'. And fully ripe and dehusked they are 'white'. None of these,
incidentally, should be confused with the so-called 'pink peppercorn', for which there was a brief fashion in the early
1980s; this superficially resembles the true peppercorn, but is in fact related to poison ivy."
"Peppercorn--piper nigrum is a vine--native to the East Indies...The Greeks and Romans accepted peppercorns as a tribute, and the
spice was certainly the basis for much of the "lure of the east" that impelled first the Portuguese and then other
European explorers around Africa toard the fabled Spice Islands."
"Pepper became known in classical Greece around 400 BC; it is first mentioned by the comic playwrights Antiphanes,
Eubulus and Alexis and in a Hippocratic text. Dilphius of Siphnos, recommending pepper with scallops in the early third
century BC, provdes the oldest positive evidence of the use of pepper as a condiment...Pepper was the quintessential spice of the
Indian Ocean trade in Roman times. It was for pepper, more than any other single product, that Roman gold and silver coins were
exported to India; pepper, when it reached Rome, was stockpiled as another kind of currency in the treasury an in the horrea
piperatoria 'pepper warehouses' built by Domitian. But it was for use as well as for storing. For those who could afford this
costly exotic, pepper is called for no fewer than 452 times in the recipes of Apicus."
"As several Sanskrit texts show, the use of pepper by the peoples of India goes farther back than
that of any other spice. The various forms of its name in the European languages, apart from
Spanish...are from an Aryan vocable, pippeli, originating in the valley of the Ganges. The
Aryans were the first exporters of wild pepper from the tropical forests of the Indian
subcontinent. Unlike cinnamon and indeed all other spices, pepper was used in foods in Europe
as soon as it was introduced, around the sixth or fifth century BC, although Hippocrates, the first
European writer to describe it, mentions it as a medicament rather than a culinary
ingredient...Like all spices, pepper was credited with health-giving properties,especially as a
digestive, an aperient, to induce sneezing, and-most important of all-as an aphrodesiac. Its rapid
rise to favour is unprecedented among spices. Pliny expresses his surprise at the fact six centuries
later in Book XII of his Natural History; its only pleasing quality is its 'pungency', it is bought
by weight like gold or silver'...The pepper the Romans like so much was 'long pepper', whereas
we now use round pepper, which became popular in the twelfth century and had replaced long
pepper by the fourteenth..."
"Pepper, more than any other spice, being stronger and more abundant than the others, came to
be seen as a symbol of power and virility, quantities reflected in its powerful and aggressive
flavour. The symbolic factor rated high, since in huge amounts, which could hardly all have been
consumed, would have been bound to go stale. In the same way, pepper, described as a useful'
rent or due, was included among the sources presented to overlords in the Middle Ages, but it was
generally specified separately, as a true determinant of workd of the act of vassalage. A French
proverb says that something is "cher comme poiver," expensive as pepper. Pepper was often
mentioned in dowries and as part of ransoms and fines. These symbolical meanings meet in the
pepper in the Christmas 'tax' imposed by Archbishops Bertrand and Rostaing de Noves."
"There are numerous references to pepper by classical authors. Pliny (1st Century AD) describes
black pepper minutely, complaining about the price and noting that white pepper cost almost
twice as much as black. Pepper was a precious and expensive substance for the Romans...By the
Middle Ages, pepper had assumed great importance in Europe where it was used by the rich as a
seasoning, and also a preservative...The earliest reference to the pepper trade in England is in the
statutes of Ethelred (978-1016) where it was enacted that Esterlings' bringing their ships to
Billingsgate should pay a toll at Christmas and at Easter plus 10lb of pepper. The first mention of
the Guild of Pepperers, one of the oldest guilds in the City of London, is from 1180...Pepper has
been one of the most important commodities of the spice trade. In Antwerp in the mid-16th
century...the price of pepper served as a barometer for European business in general..."
About pepper mills
"Pepper mill...In the 1880s Americans, used to using pepper shakers at the table, seemed to find
the French use of pepper mills a novel good idea, for flavor and to avoid adulterated packaged
ground pepper. This was about 1880. Many styles of carved or turned hardwood mills were
offered in the 1920s...Pepper mill, brass (sometimes copper & brass) cylinder with domed top,
longish, slightly bent crank handle in top, very common form. Actually started out sometime in
the early 19th C. As a coffee mill, from Persia/Turkey. Usually has decorative bands around part
of body...At some point in the 20th C., people either started using them as pepper mills, or
making similar ones for that use."
About ground pepper in America:
"Pepper was available in the United States in the colonial period, but it was only after the American Revolution that the United
States became a player in the global pepper trade. This trade began in 1793 when Jonathan Carnes, a Salem, Massachusetts,
sea captain, set sail for the East Indies. He was successful in finding pepper, but on his way home his ship was wrecked off
Bermuda. He sailed to the Indies in 1795 on a new ship...and returned with his hold full of peppercorns--which he sold at a
700 percent profit. Others followed and Salem became the pepper port of note in the new United States...In the early nineteenth century some regarded pepper as a cause of insanity. Pepper in any case was shunned by
food purists, who thought that the spice should be avoided or, at least, used in moderation. By the past-Civil War
period, pepper was considered more acceptable, but it was still to be avoided by children or by those who already had a
"sound digestion" and did not need condiments."
About fresh ground pepper served in American restaurants
"Black, white and green peppercorns are readily available in the United States and are best purchased as whole peppercorns. Unfortunately, the most common way pepper is sold in this country is in the ground state. Whole peppercorns will stay fresh for a long time, but ground pepper quickly loses both its aroma and its flavor. Bottled ground white pepper can even start to taste rancid.
Using fresh ground pepper is not just a fad started by smart restaurateurs who wanted to improve their salad presentations. Freshly ground pepper can mean the
difference between an ordinary dish and an extraordinary one. When a recipe calls for freshly ground pepper, it means pepper ground from a mill by the cook as
it is needed. And one of the easiest ways to improve your cooking is to buy whole peppercorns and a pepper mill."
"If fresh-gound pepper and grated cheese are offered at one table, we will be sure they are offered to all."
" "Fresh ground pepper" I liked it better when there was just a simple pepper shaker on a table. Then someone came up with the idea of
"fresh ground pepper," for which there seems to be only one pepper grinder in the entire restaurant. The waiter asks if we would like some as though we are
being tempted with saffron or beluga caviar. Once the waiter starts grinding, I've been tempted not to tell him when to stop, just to see how far he would go.
Give us either a pepper grinder for each table or give us back the shaker. Incidentally, a bit of semantics: What the waiters are really offering us is "pepper that is
freshly ground," although we are not sure how fresh the pepper is that is being ground. It just doesn't seem worth the trouble."
Additional information:
Spice Encyclopedia &
A Modern Herbal
Recommended reading: Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices/Andrew Dalby
Food historians tell us pickles (fruits and vegetables preserved in brine
with spices) originated in India. Both limes and lemons were pickled whole. Culinary evidence
confirms pickled limes (and lemons) were made by British cooks in the 18th century. These
recipes were introduced to North America by English settlers. Early American cookbooks contain
many recipes for pickles. Curiously? Very few contain recipes for pickled limes.
Louisa May Alcott's Little Women suggests pickled limes were fashionable New England
treats in
the middle of the 19th century. Amy, the youngest March daughter, was quite fond of these. She
did not make her own limes, but purchased them from a merchant. In
one scene of the book Amy is caught eating these by her teacher. The teacher humiliates Amy by
forcing her to
throw her beloved limes out of the window, two by two. Passage from Little Women: Amy's Valley of
Humiliation.
ABOUT LIMES
"Lime. An important citrus fruit which seems to have originated in the region of Malaysia. While
lemons are the major
acid citrus fruits in the subtropics, limes are the most prominent in the tropical regions...It is hard
to judge when the lime
was first taken into cultivation, since the oldest surviving documents do not distinguish it from the
other citrus fruits. An
Indian medical work of C. AD 100 refers to both lemon and lime as jambira. The later Arabic and
Persian word, laimun
and limun seem also to have been used for both; and most modern names for either come from
this root. The lime seems
not to have been known in classicat times. Although the westard path of the lime in early medieval
times is hard to trace,
it seems safe to assume that it was carried to Europe by the Arabs; that it was cultivated to some
extent in Italy and
Spain; and that, because it is better suited by a hotter climate, such is that, soon after the
discovery of the New World by
Europeans, the lime as introduced there along with other citrus fruits, and that limes quickly
became abundant in the W.
Indies and C. America, especially Mexico."
"Like most of the other members of the citrus family, the lime (Citrus aurantiifolia) is
native to Southeast Asia. It was first cultivated in China and India, then introduced in
southern Europe (probably during the Crusades), and carried much later by the
Spaniards to the West Indies. The original lime--small, round, and quite tart--is today
called the "Mexican," "West Indian," or "Key" lime, with its juice deemed essential to
Key lime pies. ..The lime and lemon industry of Florida (which provides close to 90
percent of the limes grown in North America) got its start in the 1880s, declined after
freezes in the 1890s, and revived after World War I. Limes are very high in vitamin C
and figured prominently in warding off scurvy, the dread disease of seamen from the
sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. In the eighteenth century, the British navy
issued lime juice to all seamen to keep the disease at bay--hence the nickname "limeys."
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas
"Lime...Its name derives from the Arabic limah, and was first mentioned in English in
1615...In Fading Feast (1981), Raymond Sokolov writes, "Whether Columbus brought
seeds of C. aurantifolia with him to Haiti in 1493 is a matter of conjecture, but it seems
probably, since limes were flourishing on that island in 1520. Limes then spread
gradually across the West Indies, westward to Mexico and northward to the Florida
Keyes." Lime trees were established in the Keys by Dr. Henry Perrine in 1835, and these
so-called "Key limes" (called "Mexican" in the Southwest) became a major commercial
crop after 1906...Today almost all limes grown in America are of the Tahiti varity, while
true Key limes are a rarity grown only on private, noncommercial plots in the Florida
Keys...Key lime pies were first made in the Keys in the 1850s...the recipe developed
with the advent of sweet condensed milk in 1856. Since there were few cows on the
Keys, the new canned milk was welcomed by the residents and introduced into a pie
made with lime juice. The original pies were made with a pastry crust, but a crust made
from graham crackers later became popular..."
RECIPES THROUGH TIME
[1845]
[1861]
[1881]
[1981]
[2001]
Peter Piper picks a peck of pickled peppers in the famous tounge-twister. What exactly were
these?
Food historians tell us pickles, foods preserved in brine or vinegar, have been known since
ancient times. Many foods are treated this way, including vegetables (cucumbers, cauliflowers,
onions), fruits (limes, mangoes, watermelon rinds), and nuts (walnuts, butternuts) Recipes varied
according to local ingredients and taste.
Peppers are a "New World" food, introduced to Europe
in about the 16th century.
"Chili peppers, both the hot and sweet varieties, which came from South America, swept through
the Far East and western Europe in the sixteenth century and became very popular in mixed
pickles, their vivid colors brightening up those giant jars of vegetables one still sees displayed in
shops and markets."
Recipes for pickles are found in 17th and 18th century American and British cookbooks. Recipes
for pickled peppers began appearing in the 19th century. As one might expect, there were several recipes. The level of
"heat" was controlled by the number of seeds left in the pickle. Sample recipes here:
[1844]
[1850]
[1857]
[1859]
[1877]
[1894]
Who first made the pickle and when?
This simple question does not have a simple answer. It all depends upon how you define the word
"pickle." Food historians trace the process of pickling (preserving foods in salt/brine or vinegar)
back to Ancient Egypt. These peoples were known to have pickled fish and melons. If you mean
the pickling of cucumbers (what we usually call pickles today) that practice perhaps dates back to
India, about 3,000 years ago. Some food historians say William Beukelz, a Dutch fisherman
invented pickled foods in the 15th century. Today? We have Kool-Aid pickles. Go figure.
ABOUT PICKLING
"We know from Herodotus that in the fifth century B.C. the Babylonians and Egyptians pickled
fish such as sturgeon, salmon, and catfish, as well as poultry and geese. (p. 76)...Salt's
dehydrating properties could...be applied to almost any food...In the hot southern regions of the
Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa, fresh vine leaves were parboiled and preserved
in jars of brine to make stuffed vine-leaf dishes such as dolma...(p. 93)...Although the word
"pickle" is used in many different preserving methods, preserving foods in container filled with
vinegar is always known as "pickling."
"Pickle...1.To put in to or steep in pickle; to preserve wth salt, to salt, as butter.."
"Pickle...The origin of the word...is obscure..."
"A Kannada work of AD 1594, the Lingapurana of Gurulinga Desika, describes no less than fifty
kinds of pickles. By far the most important material for pickling is raw mangoes (whole baby fruit,
wild mangoes, cut slices, or the hard fibrous avakkai). Others are limes, lemons, small onions,
brinjals, chillies, karaunda berries, pork wild boar, prawns and fish...In current practice, it is
customary to make use of the fire to make a pickle. Thus mustard seeds may first be fried in the
oil of choice; then the mango or lime pieces dressed with tumeric and salt are put in and fried till
tender, after which powdered spices (chillies, methi seeds, asafoetida) are added, and the mass
mixed thoroughly and put by to mature. There are of course numerous variations."
More pickle history:
PICKLES IN AMERICA
"Pickle...A food that has been preserved in a brine solution that has been flavored with herbs and
seasonings. Although in America the word most often refers specifically to a cucumber preserved
in this way, pickling may be one with fish and many other foods. Vinegar is most often the
ingredient that defines the flavor of such items.
The word may derive from a Dutch fisherman name William Beukelz (died 1437), who is
credited with inventing the pickling process. It was used in England as early as 1440 (pekille in
Middle English) and by the eighteenth century wany preserved food item could be called a
"pickle." In America pickled food became the product most associated with Henry J. Heinz, who
put up fifty-seven varieties for sale to groceries around Sharpsbury, Pennsylvania, beginning in
1869..."
Sweet pickles
Henry John Heinz (PA) is generally credited for mass-marketing the first
commercially manufactured pickle products to the American public in 1869. The Mt. Olive Pickle Company
(NC) is the largest privately owned pickle factory operating today (est. 1926).
Pickles, The Grocer's
Encyclopedia, Artemas Ward [Philadelphia:1911]
Americans have historically been pickling a variety of fruits and vegetables. A sampler of popular
19th century recipes:
About cucumbers:
"The Curcurbitacae are spread all over the world with different genera originating in different
places and there is a great deal of confusion as to which ones were known to the Greeks and
Romans, the translators of whos works refer to them as melons, pupkins, marrows, gourds, but
offer few clues as to what these really were...Calabashes were found in Twelfth-Dynasty Egyptian
tombs, and their use as bottles or containers for both wine and toilet waters was known to early
Greek and Roman writers incuding Theophrastus and Pliny, who says that both the flesh and the
stalk were eaten, and that in order to reach the flesh the rind had first to be scraped off.
Calabashes could also be preserved in brine like cucumbers..."
"It is often said that the cucumber is the kischschium, one of the fruits of Egypt regretted by the
Israelites in the desert. However, I do not find any Arabic name among the three given by Forskal
which can be connected with this, and hitherto no trace has been found to the presence of the
cucumber in ancient Egypt."
"Cucumber. Three species of "cucumber" are mentioned in the Bible and in rabbinic literature:
kishu'im, pakku'ot and the yerokat (or yerikat) ha-hamor. (1) Kishu'im: only the plural form
occurs in the Bible, but the singular, kishut, occurs in rabinnic literature. The reference is to the
chate cucumber. (Cucumuis melo, var. Chate) which appears frequently in pictures from ancient
Egypt. It was an important crop and a favorite food there which explains the yearning of the
Children of Israel for them during their sojourn in the wilderness."
About watermelons
"The ancient Egyptians cultivated the water-melon, which is represented in their paintings. This is
one reason for believeing that the Israelites knew the species, and called it abbatatchim, as is said;
but besides the Arabic name, battich, gatteca, evidently derived form the Hebrew, is the modern
for the water-melon.
So...did Cleopatra eat cucumbers or not?
Kool Aid pickles??!
"It's the yin and yang of the condiment world. A blending of color and flavor that almost defies description. Almost. It is called the Kool-Aid
Pickle and, really, that describes it perfectly. I know the look on your face right now (it's not pretty, by the way), because I saw it on my wife when I announced that I was going to make up a batch of Kool-Aid Pickles. The fact that she had no idea what a Kool-Aid Pickle was in no way diminished her reaction.
"I don't even like pickles. I'm not trying it; it sounds horrible," she said. "You like sweet and sour pork," I replied in something of a non sequitur. "OK, I'll try it. But only one bite."... The first time I ever heard of a Kool-Aid Pickle was in a Page Three article in this newspaper a few weeks ago. It was relaying a story that
ran in the New York Times and was picked up by media outlets around the world. The recipe apparently has its origins in the region around the Mississippi
Delta but, thanks to the New York Times and the Internet, it is spreading to other parts of the country (and the world), including my house. It may be giving it more credit than it deserves to call it a recipe. To create a Kool-Aid Pickle, you simply marinate dill pickles in your favorite flavor of Kool-Aid — Tropical Punch seems to be the preferred variety. The recipe I followed said I should pour out the brine from a jar of dill pickles, replace it with the Kool-Aid, then let it soak
for a few days. Judging by what I saw on the Internet, other people totally submerge the pickles in what appears to be a bucket of the drink mix."
Here is the original New York Times article:
"A GALLON jar of pickles sits near the register at Lee's Washerette and Food Market, a mustard-colored cinder-block bunker on the western fringe
of this Mississippi Delta town. Those pickles were once mere dills. They were once green. Their exteriors remain pebbly, a reminder that long ago they began their lives on a farm, on the ground, as cucumbers. But they now have an arresting color that combines green and garnet, and a bracing sour-sweet taste that they owe to a long marinade in cherry or tropical fruit or strawberry Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid pickles violate tradition, maybe even propriety. Depending on your palate and perspective, they are either the worst thing to happen to pickles since plastic brining barrels or a brave new taste sensation to be celebrated. The pickles have been spotted as far afield as Dallas and St. Louis, but their cult is thickest in the Delta region, among the black majority population. In the Delta, where they fetch between 50 cents and a dollar, Kool-Aid pickles have earned valued space next to such beloved snacks as pickled eggs and pigs' feet at community fairs, convenience stores and filling stations. And as their appeal has widened, some people have seen a good business opportunity. Even the lawyers have gotten involved. Children are the primary consumers, but a recent trip through the region revealed that the market for Kool-Aid pickles is maturing...Billie Williams, 56, a special-education teacher at Carver Elementary, never saw one when she was a child. But she did eat dill pickles impaled on peppermint sticks, and she remembers how friends sucked the juice from cut lemons through peppermint sticks repurposed as straws. ''That's the same kind of taste,'' she said. ''Same as how they used to dip pickle spears in dry Kool-Aid mix for that pucker.'' The school sells Kool-Aid pickles from the popular red flavor family at its fund-raisers. ''They're easy to make a gallon,'' Ms. Williams said. ''You pull the pickles from the jar, cut them in halves, make double-strength Kool-Aid, add a pound of sugar, shake and let it sit --best in the refrigerator -- for about a week. The taste takes to anything. A while back I made a mistake and bought a jar of pickle chips instead of halves or wholes. Came out fine. This whole Kool-Aid pickle thing is going so good, you wonder why somebody hasn't put a patent on them.'' No patent application has been filed, but the name Kool-Aid is a trademark owned by Kraft Foods. Upon learning of the pickles, Bridget MacConnell, a senior manager of corporate affairs at Kraft, recovered, and then pronounced, ''We endorse our consumers' finding innovative ways to use our products.''...At the Stephensville Mini-Mart, set amid the cotton fields and catfish
ponds between Shaw and Indianola, the owner, Hugh Davis, began stocking Kool-Aid pickles earlier this year at the behest of local children. ''They're not for me,''
said Mr. Davis, 66. ''It's the kids who've done it. They'll create a line of food for you; they'll dab a little something here and there and make it their own. They're
good at inventing.'' Recently, some Delta grocers began selling jars of ready-made pickles. And entrepreneurs are emerging. At Lambard's Wholesale Meats in
Cleveland, Allen Williams sells plastic gallon jugs of Best Maid dills, plastered with the Kool-Aid packs that denote the flavor within. (Mr. Williams declined to
reveal who actually makes his Kool-Aid pickles.)"
Related food? Pickled limes.
When and where did pork and beans originate? Excellent question! Ancient cooks were known
combine salt-preserved meat with legumes. Medieval cooks typically added sweeteners and
spices. Many of these old recipes combined peas with pork, both readily available to the average
person. In England, this was known as pease puddung (pottage).
This Italian recipe from 1475 is
fairly typical:
Pork and beans also played a significant role in American cowboy meals and pioneer dinners.
The ingredients were portable, nutritious, and filled the belly. Mass-produced canned foods were
made possible during the mid 19th century industrial revolution. Many new food companies
embraced this technology. Gilbert Van Camp, Van Camp
Packing Company of Indianapolis was one of the first to can pork and beans. Van Camp is now
owned by Conagra.
COLONIAL FARE
"American cookery was heavily influenced by English and German practices. Pork and beans, a
traditional Saturday meal of New England, declined in popularity during the mid-19th century but
gained a new identity when someone thought of canning it, to give the ancestor of modern baked
beans. Molasses is used as a flavouring in this dish; it was also important as a condiment for pork
in general. Sweet ingredients are characteristic of American pork cookery..."
According to the food historians pork (esp. salt pork) figured prominently in the diets of early
New Englanders.
"...pork was America's first important meat from domestic animals, and would remain the
country's most common meat for three centuries. Pigs and chickens were, of course, the easiest
meat to carry to the New World by ship, and provided forever the advantage that if unfavorable
winds prolonged the voyage, they could be killed on the way to provide fresh meat for sailors and
passengers." (p. 59)
"A frequent criticism of the American diet in the early nineteenth century is that Americans
knew no other meat than salt pork...It is possible, however, that this observation on the monotony
of one category of American foods has been a trifle overworked. It is true that Americans did eat
a good deal of salt pork, another reason why the American sweet tooth developed to such
inordinate proportions: "So much salt pork was eaten by so many Americans in the 19th century,"
Dale Brown wrote in American Cooking, "That molasses, the most popular of sweeteners,
was
regularly used to subdue the briny taste."" (p. 131)
Pork & Beans as Cowboy food
"By mid-afternoon it was not unusual for the cook driving the chuck wagon to push on ahead to
the night's campsite."
"According to J. Frank Dobie in Up the Trail From Texas, the chuck wagon, the traveling
commissary from which the trail-driving cowboys and horse wranglers were fed, appeared to be a
good many years after the fist post-Civil War drives....The chuck wagon itself evolved from the
cart, sometimes driven by oxen, which carried the personal gear of the crew and the trail boss, and
a few pots of beans cooked on the overnight stops...On the drives, the cook hurried the chuck
wagon forward past the slow-moving cattle to set up at the next planned stopping place and have
food ready for the drivers when the her arrived. He needed a good head start to give him time to
bake the omnipresent red Mexican beans )"prairie strawberries," the cowboys called them)."
"The first wagons on the trail did not have built-in chuck boxes, but they had plenty of room for
iron pots containing cooked beans. Beans for supper had to be cooked the preceding night."
American pork and bean recipes through time:
[1877]
[1884]
Baked Pork
and Beans
WHAT KIND OF BEAN?
About Navy beans
"Navy bean...Also called "pea bean" or "beautiful bean." The navy bean is one of several varieties
of kidney bean (phaseolus vulgaris). The name comes from the fact that it has been a standard
food of the United States Navy since at least 1856, despite an old popular song that claims that
"the Navy gets the gravy, but the Army gets the beans."
"Navy bean...also called the "pea bean," the navy bean is of several varieties of the kidney
bean...that are cultivated for their nutritious white seeds. The name "navy bean" recalls former
times when the beans were among the standard provisions of warships of the U.S. Navy."
Are soy beans sometimee used to make pork & beans? It is possible, though it seem
unlikely. This is what the trade associations
have to say:
"...whether commercial producers of pork and beans use soy beans. The response from the United
Soybean Board is: To the best of our knowledge, soybeans are
not utilized in the preparation of commercial "pork & beans" type products.
This was confirmed by the Ontario White Bean Producers Board, who represent
navy bean growers in Ontario. They indicated that the finished product
would be significantly different from the usual navy bean product in terms
of flavor, mouthfeel, consistency, etc. and that because of the differences
in preparation methods, it would not make any sense for producers to
interchang or inter mix the two types of beans. After contacting serveral
producers of canned soybeans, it was found that none of these companies
offered such a product nor were they aware of any other companies
offering such a product. Clare M. Hasler, Ph.D."
About soybeans.
Alexander Anderson, American Cereal Company is generally credited for inventing the process
for puffing cereal grains in the early 20th century. These were introduced to the American public
at the 1904 Exposition in St. Louis. Some details on the person and the process here.
The earliest recipe we have that might have produced something like Rice Krispies Treats comes
from my great-grandmother's domestic science cooking notebook, circa 1916. She attended
public schools in New York City.
Boil sugar-water & vinegar together for five min. Then add mol. butter, salt & boil until it is
brittle when tried in cold water. Add the heated puffed rice & spread in butter tins."
It's fun to Cook, Lucy Mary Maltby [John C.
Winston:Chicago] 1938 has a recipe for "Puffed Wheat Squares," (p. 220) that lists these
ingredients: 2 teaspoons butter, 1 cup molasses, 1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tablespoon vinegar, 1 package puffed wheat (3 1/2 oz.) The directions are similar to those of
Rice Krispies Treats, the picture of the finished product (p. 219) confirms similarity. The caption
under the picture reads "Inexpensive and tasty are these Puffed Wheat Squares," indicating their
appeal to economical cooks. A suggested variation includes melted chocolate poured on top.
Sound familiar?
So, who *invented* Rice Krispies treats?
Who invented Rice Krispies Treats, where and when?
According to Iowa State University School of Agriculture it was
"Mildred Day, who died in June [1996] at the age of 92, was a 1928 home economics graduate
from Iowa State. Day is credited with the development of Rice Krispies Treats. She worked for
Kellogg Co., the maker of Rice Krispies, and used the cereal to develop the snack as a fundraiser
for a Camp Fire Girls group."
"[Mildred] Day was born in Durham, a village 8 1/2 miles east of Knoxville in Marion County
[Iowa]. She was a home economics graduate of Iowa Sate University in Ames. Her family says
Day, who worked at Kellogg Co. in Battle Creek, Mich., developed the recipe with Malitta Jensen
as a fund-raiser for a Camp Fire Girls group. Anthony Hebron, Kellogg spokesman, says Rice
Krispies cereal went on the market in 1928 and Rice Krispies Treats, a trademarked name, were
introduced in the 1940s. The recipe first appeared on packaging in 1941. "Many of our employees
created concoctions with Kellogg products," Hebron says."
Our survey of historic newspapers confirms the recipe was released in1941: "Kelloggs will advertise Rice Krispies Marshmallow Squares in two weeklies, starting February 24."
This snippet confirms the recipe was also published on Rice Krispies cereal packages:
"Rice Krispies Marshmallow Squares. Golden treasures--crunch--full-flavored! Everybody enores these sensational Rice Krispies Marshmallow Suqares. They're crisp--
completely different! A grand party treat. Perfect as a light dessert, between-meal snack. lunchbox surprise for the youngsters. A few minutes--a few pennies turn the
trick. Recipe on each Rice Krispies package."
Original 1941 recipe here:
Classic Rice Krispies Treats, the current recipe.
According to th recprds of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, the name "Rice Krispies Treats" was first used in
1986. Until 1995, Rice Krispies Treats were made at home and served as a popular treat.
The first pre-made Kellogg's Rice Krispies products were marketed in supermarkets: January 15,
1995 (U.S. Patent & Trademark Office Registration # 2233186). According to the articles, they
were an instant success.
If you need more on the history of Rice Krispies brand cereal ask your librarian to help you
find the Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands, Janice Jorgensen editor, Volume 1:
Consumbles (p. 313-4).
Risotto is not one dish, but many flavorful blends and interesting recipe variations. As
with many traditional foods, there are many conflicting theories regarding the origin of
risotto. Some culinary experts place risotto in the 16th century; others claim risotto (as we
know it today) is a 20th century dish.
Culinary historians generally agree the first risotto-type foods likely orginated during the
Renaissance, in the Lombardy region, Milan being famous for this dish. History confirms
wealthy Milanese families recognized this grain's market potential [when grain was
scarce, prices would rise] and capitalized on it. The rice traders became very rich,
according to some accounts, rice was sometimes proferred as gifts.
About rice (general).
The first rice dishes in this region were borrowed from the Mediterranean cuisines
responsible for introducing rice to Italy. They were typically sweet recipes combining
rice, almond milk and spices. Together, Milanese cooks and local ingredients eventually
created a unique dish. Historic American cook books confirm risotto was cooked in
America beginning the late 19th century, though it did not become widely accepted until
after World War II. This is true of many Italian dishes, including pizza. Amercian chefs
*rediscovered* risotto in the 1980s, elevating this dish from simple & economical to
gourmet status.
Italian rice is short-grained. There are many varieties. Arborio rice is the type most often
use by current American chefs when making risotto.
"How did rice get to Western Europe from China? The Persians and Mesopotamians first
encountered rice towards the fifth century BC, as a result of diplomatic and trading
contacts between Darius and the Chinese and Indian states. Rice-growing reached Egypt
and Syria during the next two centuries...Southern Spain owed its first rice-fields to the
Moors of Andalusia...Several attempts were made to grow rice in Italy in the early Middle
Ages. At the end of the thirteenth century the Visconti dukes of Milan, a very shrewd
family, took a personal interest in the possibilities of rice-growing, but it was their
successors, Galeazzo Sforza and his brother Ludovico Moro, who brought rice to the Po
delta, and with it prosperity..."
"One of the unintentional end products of the clearing of the Lombardy plains for the
establishment of rice fields in the fifteenth century was risotto. The motivation for the
clearing and reclaimation of the plains was simply the demand of the growing towns for
food. That demand was met not by rice growers by budding capitalists who had the
financial wherewithal to back the farmers in establishing these rice fields in the Po
Valley. One of the earliest references I know of concerning rice in northern Italy is a letter
of September 27, 1475, from Galeazzo Maria Sfora to the Duke of Ferrara concerning
twelve sacks of rice....It is a typical part of the story that profit margins were kept high as
riziculture in Lombardy meant the near enslavement of workers who were not organized,
including children exposed to barbarous cruelties, according to a Lombard ordinance of
1590 seeking to stop this practice..."
"Risotto. A dish of creamy cooked rice that has absorbed a good quantity of broth to make it
flavorful and tender...The most famous risotto is made "alla milanese," from Milan. It is
flavored with saffron and contains beef marrow. Legend has it that the dish dates to 1574,
when a stained-glass worker on Milan's cathedral, who was known for the yellow color of
his glass, which he achieved by adding saffron to his pigments, colored the rice at the
wedding of his boss's daughter, whereupon the guests pronounced the dish "Risus
optimus" (Latin for "excellent rice"). Thereafter such yellow-tinted rice was called risotto
all milanese."
"Northern Italians fancy themselves as having a monopoly on the consumption of rice,
but in fact rice first entered Europe as a foodstuff via Arab-occupied Spain and Sicily.
The Romans knew rice only as an extremely expensive commodity imported in small
quantities form India for medicinal purposes, buy the Saracens were so skilled in
irrigation that they were able to create paddies in the area around Lentini, to the south of
Catania...where the cultivation of rice persisted into the eighteenth century."
Medieval cookery texts sometimes included sweet recipes combining rice, almond milk
and spices, a recipe originating in Turkey. The fact that rice was thought to have
medicinal value at that time is confirmed here:
"Risotto. A celebrated and popular rice dish which originated in the rice-growing areas of North
Italy. It has something in common with paella and pilaf, in that rice is cooked in a liquid
with other ingredients whose flavour is absorbed by the grains, but the method is quite
different; risotto is probably a peasant dish which has become sophisticated. The first
recipes were published in the mid-19th century by Artusi, the first celebrated Italian
cookery writer, and Vialardi, later chef to King Victor Emmanuel...Towards the end of
the 20th century a steady expansion of the concept of risotto was observable, especially in
restaurants..."
"Risotto. Although Fannie Farmer includes a "Rissoto Creole"...in the revised Boston
Cooking-School Cook Book [1906] and Ida C. Baily Allen offers what she calls "Risotto
alla Milanese" in Mrs. Allen's Cook Book [1917], risotto can hardly be said to have made
the grade until well after World War II. Credit Marcella Hazan (The Classic Italian Cook
Book 1973) with putting it on the culinary map of America. Certainly it was she who
taught us how to prepare risotto properly. Still, only when arborio (short-grain rice)
became widely available (the 80s) did many American cooks attempt risotto in earnest.
Today whole books are devoted to the art of making risotto..."
"Some time after World War II risotto (rice cooked in stock with the addition of meat and
vegetables) became as acceptably American as San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square; a
similarly popular one-dish meal, eagerly admired by mothers with a kitchen full of
children and no domestic help, combined rice and sweet Italian sausage. Something
called "Italian seasoning" was packaged commercially to seduce cooks whose herb
shelves were otherwise bare."
Related foods? Rice pudding & paella.
Did you know that waffles have been around for thousands of years?
"The ancient Greeks used to cook very flat cakes, which they called obleios, between two hot
metal plates. This method of cooking continued to be used in the Middle Ages by the obloyeurs
who made all sorts of oublies, which were flat or rolled into coronets. The oublie became the
waffle in the 13th century, when a craftsman had the idea of forging some cookie plates
reproducing the characteristic pattern of honeycombs, which at that time were called gaufres
(from the Old French wafla)."
"The word [waffle] is from the Dutch wafel, and first appeared in English print in 1735.
The item was known to the Pilgrims, who had spent time in Holland before sailing to America in
1620, and waffle parties became popular in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Thomas
Jefferson returned from France with a waffle iron, a long-handled patterned griddle that encloses
the batter and gives it its characteristic crispness and shape. A century later vendors on city streets
sold waffles hot and slathered with molasses or maple syrup.
Waffles continued to be extremely popular breakfast items in the twentieth century, an electric
waffle irons made the timing of the cooking easier. Then, in 1953 Frank Dorsa introduced frozen
waffles into supermarkets, calling them Eggo Waffles. At the 1964 World's Fair Belgian
Waffles made with yeast and thicker than the usual waffle, were an immediate sensation, and
they are sold today at stands, county fairs, carnivals, and other fast-food outlets."
What about Belgian waffles?
According to an article from Newsday [a Long Island, NY newspaper], the inventor of the
Belgian waffle made famous by the 1964-65 New York World's Fair was Maurice Vermersch:
"Vermersch started making waffles from a recipe of his wife's when living in Belgium before the
outbreak of World War II. After serving in the war, he started two restaruants in Belgium before
making his World's Fair debut at the Brussels fair in 1960. Business went so well in Brussels that
Vermersch and four other families decided to head to New York for the 1964 World's Fair. And
when they arrived in Queens, the name of their product was changed from the Brussel Waffle to
the Belgian Waffle. The name Belgian waffle was created in New York."
Recipes over time:
"Waffles
"Wheat Waffles &
"Mrs. B.'s Waffles
"Libby's Hot Waffles
About waffle irons
"Surviving inventories often indicate that rural homes in fourtheenth-century Tuscany as well as
Burgundy often contained metal utensils. Iron skillets were the most common, along with copper
pots and kettles...pastry-making was mainly left to the professionals. Nevertheless, we do find
molds of pates, tarts, and flans in private homes. Only professionals and the wealthiest private
kitchens possessed waffle irons and griddles. The numerous waffle recipes contained in medieval
cookbooks suggest that waffles were a savory pastry often made with cheese. This probably
accounts for the cheese graters found a a few sites."
"It is not only from excavations that we can learn. Written inventories also help in the search for
remnants of the Dutch past. In the inventory of the extensive possessions of Margareta van
Slichtenhorst Schuyler (ca. 1630-1711), we find a brass poffer pan as well as a wafer iron. From
the inventory of the belongings of Anna de Peyster (1701-74)...we learn that she possessed a
billabusse pan and a waffle iron."
Electric waffle irons were introduced in the first decade of the 20th century. They became
standard household items by the 1930s. Some history on the introduction of electric appliances to
American kitchens from the Smithsonian
Institution
One of the best sources for the history of antique kitchen items is this book:
300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles/Linda Franklin
Need pictures?
EBay currently offers 100+ waffle irons from 18th century
to present.
Related food? Pizzelle.
Pancakes & crepes
Did you know that the first pancake-type foods were eaten by prehistoric peoples? No, they were
not the same pancakes we eat today. These simple, fried concoctions of milk, flour, eggs
and spices were called "Alita Dolcia" (Latin for "another sweet") by the Ancient Romans.
Depending upon the proportion of ingredients and method of cooking, the finished product might
have approximated pancakes, fritters, omlettes, or custard. Some of these dishes were sweet
(fruit, nuts, honey); others were savory (cheese, fish, meat). These ancient recipes are also
thought to be the relatives of waffles, cakes, muffins, fritters, spoonbread and doughnuts.
Pancakes, as we Americans know them today, were "invented" in Medieval Europe.
Throughout history,
pancake ingredients (finest available wheat flour, buckwheat, cornmeal, potatoes), cooking
implements (ancient bakestones, medieval hearths, pioneer griddles perched on campfire embers,
microwave ovens), social rituals (Shrove Tuesday crepes, Chanukah latkes, mass quantities for
community pancake breakfast fundraisers) and final product (thick or thin, savory or sweet, slathered with butter and
smothered with syrup, or gently rolled around delicate fruit) have reflected regional cuisine and
local customs. Cake-like galettes [France], thick
potato
pancakes [Germany], Boxty [Ireland], paper thin crepes [France],
palascinta [Hungary] drop scones [Scotland],
coarse cornmeal Indian cakes [colonial
America], flapjacks [19th century America], rich blini [Russia], poori
[India], qata'if (Middle East) dadar gutung [Indonesia], bao
bing [China] and generic hot cakes are all members of the pancake family.
The connection between pancakes and Shrove Tuesday (the day before the Christian season of
Lent begins) is rooted in the need to deplete stores of eggs and fat...both forbidden by the
Catholic Church for consumption during Lent. The practice began in Medieval times and
continues today (in some places) in the form of Pancake day. There are many customs
connected with this day. The Olney pancake
race is said to be one of the oldest.
"We may speculate with the archaeologist regarding the earliest culianry technologies available at the dawn of humanity...
among these...must be the primeval griddle, perhaps a flat rock, daubed with grease...Any primitive grain or truber, dried, pounded
and moistened, could have given rise to the very first pancake. With the domestication of wheat in the Fertile Crescent, corn
in the Americas and rice in Asia...the pancake would find expression in countless forms."
"The griddle method of cooking is older than oven baking, and pancakes are an ancient form. The
first pancakes clearly distinguishable from plain griddle breads are sweet ones mentioned by
Apicius; these were made from a batter of egg, mixed milk and water, and a little flour, fried and
served with pepper and honey. An English culinary manuscript of about 1430 refers to pancakes
in a way which implies that the term was already familiar, but it does not occur often in the early
printed cookery books...Throughout Europe pancakes had a place among Easter foods, especially
on Shrove Tuesday (or Mardi Gras), the last day before Lent. Customs varied from country to
country...One peculiarly English institution is the pancake race. The oldest of these has been held
at Olney in Buckinghamshire, in most years since 1445..."
"Pancakes are traditionally served on Candlemas and Shrove Tuesday, to celebrate renewal,
family life, and hopes for good fortune and happiness in the future. It is customary in France to
touch the handle of the frying pan, and make a wish while the pancake is turned, holding a coin in
the hand. In French rural society, crepes were also considered to be a symbol of allegiance:
farmers offered them to their landowner...."
"Pancakes, which were so popular in all classes, could be made with the simplest kind of
equipment. A skillet and a grill over a heap of small coals or wood were alll that was needed. For
the hurried professional cook, pancakes were a boon. They were easily an quickly prepared. They
were also useful to intersperse with the fish and egg dishes for fast- or fish-day meals, as well as
to fill menus on meat days. One of the advantages of such batters, then and now, is that they can
be mixed up ahad of time."
According to the Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare, Marvin Spevack,
Shakespeare mentions pancakes four times in two plays. Both plays were comedies
and both characters referencing this food were clowns. Interesting, yes?
In Sweden, pancakes are traditional Thursday winter's night dessert, following pea soup. This
hearty combination has been enjoyed since the Middle Ages:
"Swedish pea soup is regarded as a real national dish. It has been served every Thursday in most
Swedish homes for hundreds of years. During the cold winter it makes a very satisfying meal,
economical as well as filling. The soup is served as a main course with boiled pork, The traditional
dessert after pea soup is Swedish Pancakes or "Plattar", served with jam or lingonberrries...It
makes very good eating, although it is a bit on the heavy side for modern poeple...The exact
cooking time of the peas is hard to say, some peas take longer than others. There is no harm in
overcooking, so you can easily cook soup ahead of time."
In the United States, pancakes are commonly served for breakfast:
"Pancakes have long been a staple of the American breakfast table, and their history is as old as
that of the Native Americans who shaped a soft batter in their hands and called it, in the
Narragansett, nokehick (it is soft), transmuted by early white settlers into " no cake." Cornmeal
pancakes were called "Indian cakes" as early as 1607. The Dutch in America made similar cakes
from buckwheat, panekoeken, which by 1740 were called "buckwheat cakes." English settlers
brought with them the feast of Pancake Tuesday, an old name for Shrove Tuesday, the day before
the Lenten fast begins...By 1745 Americans were also referring to hoe cakes," perhaps because
they were cooked on a flat hoe blade...One of the most beloved versions of this simple cake is the
Johnnycake [also known as journey cake], specifically associated with Rhode Island...The word
"pancake" itself was not in general usage until the 1870s..."
What is a flapjack?
"The term flapjack has had a variety of designations in the course of its career. Originally it
denoted at sort
of thick pancake ('a Flapjack, which in our translation is called a Pancake,' John Taylor,
Jack-a-Lent, 1620),
and that is how it is still used in the USA. Flap in this context means 'toss'. According to the
Oxford
English Dictionary a flapjack used also be be a sort of apple tart or apple turnover (called
applejack in
dialects of eastern England). And in the 1930s we see the first evidence of the word's present-day
British
usage, for a biscuit made from rolled oats, syrup, and butter."
"By the nineteenth century northerners were referring to "flapjacks" and "griddle cakes," which by
the 1830s
and 1840s were being made with white flour rather than cornmeal."
"Indian flapjack...(2) 1835 P. Shirreff Tour 221 Into one of those pans some small loaves were
placed...and
in the other, batter-cakes, called flapjacks, were prepared."
"Flapjack. 1. A pancake. Also called clapjack,flapcake, flapover, flatcake, flatcjack, flipjack,
flipper,
flopjack, flopover, slapjack.
1789 Thomas' MA Spy or Worcester Gaz. (MA) 1 Mar, Danties [sic] of all sorts, too, are
here...Pies,
custards, cranb'ry tarts, and flapjacks.///2. A kind of fried bread or biscuit...3. A fruit
turnover"
A sampler of historic pancake recipes:
1st century
Ova
svongia ex
lacte, Apicius
13th century
White crepes or pancakes
1615
To make pancakes so crispe
that you may set them upright, A New Booke of Cookerie, John Murrell [London]
1660
1683
"To fry the best kind of Pancakes.
1769
1884
If you are researching corporate side of pancakes in America, these sources may be of interest:
Related foods? Yorkshire pudding & popovers
About crepes
"Crepe, a pancake, made by cooking a thin batter sparingly in a very thin layer in a frying or
special crepe pan. The word comes from the Latin "crispus," meaning curly or wavy...Pancakes
[and crepes] are traditionally served on Candlemas and Shrove Tuesday, to celebrate renewal,
family life and hopes for good fortune and happiness in the future. It is customary in France to
touch the handle of the frying pan and make a wish while the pancake is turned, holding a coin in
the hand. In French rural society, crepes were also considered to be a symbol of allegiance:
farmers offered them to their landowner...In western France, particularly in Brittany, crepes are
prepared throughout the year and served with salted butter...Crepes...were extolled by Anatole
France in Le Temps...In traditional cookery, crepes are served as a hot hors d'oeuvre, filled with a
fairly thick mixture of veloute sauce with mushroooms, ham, Gruyere cheese or seafood. They
may also be cut into find strips and used to garnish soup. Most often, however, crepes are
prepared as sweet dishes."
"Crepes seem to be a French specialty. Neither the crispa and crispelli found
respectively in Latin and Italian texts nor the "cryspes" in English sources are really similar to
what we think of a crepes: a mixture of flour, eggs, and liquid (milk or cream nowadays; water
and wine in the Middle Ages) made into thick pancakes in a shallow pan. There is indeed every
reason to think that this preparation is specific to France, where it was already being prepared in
the pan known as a galettiere, judging by the description in Le Menagier de Paris
of a low-rimmed skipped with perpendicular, not flared sides ("as broad at the top as at the
base"), which is the shape of a galettiere. On the other hand, crispa and crispelli
were made of a leavened dough and were deep fried. While "cryspes" were indeed cooked in the
same was as crepes, they were made of only flour and egg whites." This book translates the Medieval French crepe recipe found in Le Menagier de
Paris:
Who invented Crepes Suzette?
"A Crepe Suzette is a light pancake served rolled up or folded over in an orange sauce, sprinkled with an orange-based liqueur or
brandy and flambeed at table. It seems to have come on the scene around the turn of the twentieth century, but its prcise origins
and the reason for its name are not clear. The chef Henri Charpentier made great play with having invented the dish at the Cafe de Paris,
Monte Carlo in 1896 for the Prince of Wales, and named it after the young lady who was the prince's companion on that particular
occasion, but his claim has been shown to be an imposture. The first know preference to such crepes in print comes in August Escofferi's
Modern Cookery 1907), in which he refers to them by the English name Suzette pancakes."
---An A to Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 96)
"In 1897 Suzanne Reichenberg, an actress who was known professionally by the simple name of Suzette, was appearing at the
Comedie Francaise in the role of a maid. The plot of the play involved a meal at which she served crepes. Monsieur Joseph,
proprieter of the nearby Restaurant Marivaux, provided the crepes for each perfomance. To attract the attention of the audience
as well as to heat the creps for the actors who must eat them night after night, they were served flambe. Later Joseph moved on to
the savoy Hotel in London and served his now famous dessert to the diners there. The widely accepted claim of Henri Charpentier,
French maitre d'hotel and later restaurant owner in the United States, that he invented the crepes almost accidentally while serving
Edward, Prince of Wales, is completely spurious. It is possible, though, that it was he who made them seem the essence of
sophistication to many Americans during the 1930s."
---Rare Bits: Unusual Origins of Popular Recipes, Patricia Bunning Stevens [Ohio University Press:Athens OH] 1998 (p. 216)
Who was Henri Charpentier?
"Henri Charpentier, one of the world's great chefs, who frequently was credited with being the creator of crepes Suzette...He was
chef to the royalty at the turn of the century, the dandies of Edwardian England, the millionaires of America's flourishing twenties,
and ended his days serving sumptuous meals in a tiny cottage to a clientele that included the notables of Hollywood...Among those
he cooked for were Queen Victoria, King Edward VII of England, King Leopold of Belgium, Sarah Bernhardt...John D. Rockefeller,
Diamond Jim Brady, Lillian Russell and President Theodore Roosevelt...M. Charpentier operated one of the world's most unusual
restaurants in his home at this seaside suburb [Redondo Beach, California]. Clients had to place reservations four years in advance
to get served. The dining room held twelve, sometimes sixteen persons. The dinner stook all day to prepare and four hours to
consume, and cost $8. While the guests dined, M. Charpentier usually sat in a rocking chair near bu, regaling them with remininiscences
of an age the world will never see again...M. Charpentier, born in Nice, France, was a cousin of the famed chef, August Escoffier.,
and also his student...The famed chef loved to tell guests at his restaurant the story of a memorable breakfast sixty-five years
ago on the terrace of the Cafe de Paris in Monte Carlo. 'I was only 16...and was serving the Prince of Wales...later Edward VII...
Among the diners at the Prince's tables was a beautiful French girl named Suzette...His Highness ordered crepes...I mixed the sauce
and added a brandy blend of my own. As I did, the flame of the chafing dish accidentally set the simmering cordials afire.
'I was embarrassed, but I did not show it. I poured the fiery sauce on the crepes, as if the flames were set on purpose. The prince
tasted, then he smiled, and said" 'Henri, what have you done with these crepes? They are superb!' ' I was thrilled, and offered to
name them in his honor. But he declined...he said, 'We must always remember that the ladies come first. We will call this glorious
thing crepes Suzette.'...Henri's in East Rockaways, L.I. was perhaps the island's most famous restaurant from the century's early
years until the late Thirties. It had neither menus, music nor bar service. Such diners as J.P. Morgan, Diamond Jim Brady and Marshal
Ferdinand Foch paid staggering bills without comment. After 1930...changing times and tastes forced M. Charpentier to provide
a menu...The restaurant closed in 1938, at which time he blamed high taxes and a lack of appreciation for fine food. He had lost
his other restaurant...in Rockefeller Center, in 1935... when he was evicted for falling behind in rent."
Why crepes are folded in different ways? Interesting question. We are not
finding any official explanation that connects the practice to a particular region or (social,
religious) custom. Our French cookbooks and several Web sites suggest the method of folding is
determined by how the cook envisions the final product. Traditionally, filled crepes are rolled or
stacked; plain or topped crepes are folded in quarters (fan shape).
Related foods? Hot cakes, doughnuts, fritters & waffles.
Q, U, X, Y, Z foods
Q
Other "U" foods:
X
Y
Z
Sources used to compile this list:
If you need a longer list or were looking for examples of a specific type of food try these:
Saffron
"Saffron--produced from the pollen of the saffron crocus--has been widely used throughout the Old World for its color, flavor, and
fragrance. It is native to the eastern Mediterranean region, and it has been cultivated in Mesopotamia, Persia, and northwest
India since antiquity. The earliest reference to saffron cultivation dates form 2300 B.C. Saffron was abundant in ancient days...
The use of saffron as a oinment likely originated in Persia and India...Saffron is difficult to grow and thereore reamins the most
expensive spice in the world...People past and present have prized saffron largely because of its color, ranging from deep gold to a
reddish hue. Both red and gold achieved a high status in color symbolism...The prevalence of saffron in Greek myth attests to the
significance the early Greeks attributed to the plant...The Egyptians...assigned special powers to saffron, including the power to heal...
...Gold has traditionally symbolized enlightenment and wisdom, and thus Buddha is often depicted as golden in color. For this
reason, Buddhist priests may have used saffron to color their robes long before turmeric replaced it...Saffron remains the most
expensive and most highly prized spice in the world today."
"Saffron is perhaps native to Asia Minor. At any rate it was well known in the Aegean islands before the eruption of Santorini, which buried the
Minoan town of Akrotiri with its wall painting showing the picking of saffron. It was known to the poet of the Iliad, composed around
700 BC. And in Roman times the best saffron in the world grew in coastal Cicilia (south Asia Minor) at the Corycian cavern...In early Europe,
saffron was a dye and an aromatic. It coloured cloth either yellow or deep red, depending on its age. It was burnt in sacrifice for its
aroma, and it was used in a subtle...aromatic oil, crocinum, to be applied to the hair...The Romans combined its colouring and aromatic
effects in another special use: saffron was mixed with sweet wine and the resulting sticky yellow mixture was sprayed liberally about at theatres,
filling the air with costly fragrance. Grown in Iran from very ancient times, saffron reached Kashmir...no later than the third century AD
and possibly as early as the fifth century BC. It became a staple of the local enonomy...Westwards, saffron now grows in southern Spain,
which is where the hightest quality come from today."
"Native to the eastern Mediterranean, saffron was used in cooking for thousands of years before the Romans built their
empire. Indeed, some credit Phoenecian traders with introducing it in Spain--the county that today is the leading producer for
the commercial market. The word saffron comes from the Arabic word for 'yellow', and its distinctive color and taste grace
Spanish, Cuban, French, and Indian cuisines, especially their rice dishes."
"The Romans used [saffron], but do not seem to have introduced it to Britain to any extent, and it was not
until the fourteenth century that it began to be frequently used there...At that time most saffron was imported, by the later Middle Ages a
home-grown saffron industry developed, with saffron plantations being established in Cambridgeshire and Essex (Saffron Walden takes its name
from the local saffron industry)...The word saffron comes from a Middle Eastern or Arabic language, but its exact source has never been
pinpointed. The furthest back its history can be traced it so Arabic sa'faran, which found its way to English via medieval Latin safranum and
Old French safran. Its use as a colour term, for 'orange-yellow', dates from the late fourteenth century."
"Saffron probably originated in Asia Minor and Greece; it was an important item for Phoenician traders. Cilicia was its most
abundant area of cultivation...Sicily also produced a good deal of it, but Mount Tobus in Phrygia was, in the general opinion,
the site which produced the best saffron of the ancient world...Murals in the ruins of the palace of Knossos on Crete, which probably
antedates the second millenium B.C., depict saffron harvesters at work. Home said that Zeus slept on a bed of saffron...We read
saffron in the writings of Hippocrates...Virgil...Pliny...and Matial, from which we gain the impression that the Greeks were the
greatest appreciators of saffron in ancient times...Saffron grew wild in ancient Italy, but the Romans...preferred to buy
cultivated...saffron from Greece...Marco Polo did not rpeort encountering [saffron] in his [Far East] travels...Saffron is supposed to have entered
China when that country was invaded by the Mongols, who made considerable use of it in their cooking, which would mean the
thirteenth century, but it does not seem to have been listed in any written document before the second half of the sixteenth
century...There is a tradition that France gained saffron directly from the Moors when they were stopped at Poitiers in 732 by Charles
Martel; it is not impossible, but if so, the Moors gave saffron to the the French more than two centuries before they grew it
in Spain themselves. Perhaps surer is a second tradition which says that saffron first entered France at Avignon at the end of the
fourteenth century..."
Why is saffron so expensive?
"Too much" of a good thing? Devaluing saffron in Renaissance Europe:
Need more information?
Saffron (history, photos, linguistics, economics). Recommended reading: Secrets of Saffron/Pat Willard
About Saffron Walden
"England...has a double tradiiton concerning the first appearanc eof saffron. It was known tghere in the tenth century, for a
pharmaceutical work of that period describes it; perhaps it was an import from Spain. Four centuries later, Hakluyt wrote that
saffron was first brought to England from Tripoli by a pilgrim who had hidden a stolen bulb in his hollow staff. However and whenever
saffron made its comeback, it took medieval Europe by storm. There were times and places when a pound of saffron would buy a horse.
...There were a number of saffron-growing areas in Engalnd, but one of them captured all the attention by adding the name of the
seasoning to its own--Saffron Walden, in Essex, where John Gerard wrote that saffron 'groweth plentifully...'. Saffron workers
there were called 'crokers,' a harking back to the ancient name for the plant. Started in the fourteenth century, the Saffron
Walden industry petered out about 1770..."
The plant is said to have been introduced into England in the 14th century by a pilgrim who hid a corm in his hollow staff. Certainly, by the
sixteenth century the saffron crocus was being cultivated on a significant scale in England, particularly in Essex where the town of
Walden was renamed Saffron Walden. Use of saffron was especially noticeable in the west of England, and some believe that it had arrived there long
before the 14th century via the Phoenecians and their tin trade in Cornwall."
"Philip Miller gives a long careful account of saffron-growing in the 1720s between Saffron Walden and Cambridge. Growers had to
fence their small parcels of gorund with hurdles to prevent hares feeding on the leaves in winter. In July, everyone was out planting the 192,040
roots that went to the acre, noting the size of each one and placing it accordingly for maximum yield, as it cost so much. The
crocus flowers were gathered early in the day, and the filaments or 'chives' picked out. Then came the trickly business of drying\
the saffron, which was ranged in wet 2 or 3 inch layers between sheets of white paper...a watchful care was needed to make sure
the precious filaments did not scorch. For all this labour, including free family labour, the grower might clear L5 a year...this was a poor return...
Saffron cake has hung on in Cornwall and Devonshire from the days when all cakes were raised with yeast rather than eggs or
baking powder..."
Salt
Salt is a naturally occuring compound that is found in many places around the globe. Archaeologists and
food historians tell us salt was used at least as early as neolithic times.
"Salt-winning--the deliberate production of salt--is known to have been practiced in the Neolithic era, but
the naturally occuring variety had probably been gathered tens of thousands of years before that, even in
only by coastal communities that, subsisting largely on shellfish, found other foods insipid without it.
However the taste originated, salt was to become a more powerful factor in the world economy than any
other food material apart from basic grains...Salts, in a generalized sense, have always been not only
stimulating to the taste buds by also biological necessities...Raw meat is the best provider; cooked meat
less so, because salt is usually lost in the cooking process. A diet based on cooked grain and vegetables
contains few natural salts, even less if the vegetables are cooked in unsalted water, since some of their
own salts are then leached out...By the first millennium BC it was an essential feature of the administration
of China, as it was for the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Persia."
"Historically, dietary salt (sodium chloride) has been obtained by numerous methods, including solar evaporation of seawater, the boiling down of water from brine
springs, and the mining of 'rock' salt...'salt-making in history could be regarded as a quasi-agricultural occupation, as seen in frequent references to the annual
production as a 'harvest...the quest for salt led to the development of major trade routes in the ancient world. The historian Herodutus...described caravans
heading for the salt oases of Libya, and bread caravan routes also stretched across the Sahara, as salt from the desert was an important commodity exchanged for
West African gold and slaves. Similarly huge salt deposits were mined in northern India before the time of Alexander the Great, and in the Pre-Columbian
Americas, the Maya and Aztecs traded salt that was employed in food...IN China, evidence of salt mining dates from as early as 2000 B.C. Homer termed salt
'divine,' and Plato referred to it as 'a substance dear to the gods.' Aristotle wrote that many regarded brine or salt spring as a gift from the gods...The preservative
properties of salt have maintained the essentiality of the mineral throughout history. It helped meat last over long journeys...During the eighteenth century, other
industrial uses began to be found for salt. The invention in 1792 of a way to make sodium carbonate began the carbonated-water industry, and by 1850, 15
percent of the salt in France was going into soda."
"Salt, sodium chloride (NaCl), is commonly said to be essential to life...Since prehistoric times much effort
has been devoted to obtaining salt for use with food. One main source is the existence of underground
deposits of salt, from which it can be mined. Examples are the famous salt quarries at Nantwich in
Cheshire, those at Luneburg in Germany, and many others in various parts of the world. The other great
source, which is inexaustible, is the sea (or other natrually occuring briny waters), which is made to yield
salt by a process of evaporation."
"The salt mines of continental Europe encourged prehistoric peoples to settle down. The most famous
example is Hallstatt in the Austrian Salzkammergut, a name that speaks for itself and a very prosperous
place from the early period of the Bronze Age. Whenever Neolithic people settled down, abandoning
hunting in favour of agriculture and recuding the amount of meat in their very carniverous diet...it was a
great blessing to have a salt supply in the vicinity."
"Chinese salt history begins with the mythical Huangdi, who invented writing, weaponry, and
transportation. According to the legends, he also had the distinction over presiding over the first war ever
fought over salt. One of the earliest verifiable saltworks in prehistoric China was in the northern province
of Shanxi. In this arid region of dry yellow earth and desert mountains is a lake of salty water, Lake
Yuncheng. This area was known for constant warfare, and all of the wars were over control of the lake.
Chinese historians are certain that by 6000 B.C., each year when the lake's waters evaporated in the
summer sun, people harvested the square crystals on the surface of the water, a system the Chinese
referred to as "dragging and gathering." ...The earliest written record of salt production in China dates to
around 800 B.C. And tells of production and trade of sea salt a millennium before, during the Xia dynasty."
SALT INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET (MAJOR WEB SITES)
Related foods? Salt water taffy & baking soda &
The history of trail mix and and gorp-type foods (nutritious, high-energy snacks composed
variously of nuts, seeds, dried meats, dried fruits & berries and candy) begins with ancient
nomads. These people were experts (they had to be!) at creating portable high-energy snacks that
withstood weather and did not require cooking. The practice of drying food for preservation
purposes was practiced by many ancient cultures and cuisines, and these foods were relatively
easy to obtain.
As time marched on, so did the trail mix. Ancient travelers, explorers, pioneers, hunters, soldiers,
hikers, scouts--anyone needing a lightweight carboload-- have enjoyed some version of this
portable treat. Native Americans ate trail mix foods, too. They taught the Voyageurs how to
make pemmican.
Food historians generally place first the commercially manufactured products called trail mix/gorp
in California, 1968. This makes sense, given the plentify availability of locally dried fruits (raisins,
dates, etc.) and California's reputation for marketing natural foods. Today's American trail mix
and gorp typically do not
contain meat products. The recipes range from home-made favorites to pricey gourmet
pre-packaged items. They can be as healthy or sodium filled/fat-laden as any other food. It all
depends upon the ingredients.
TRAIL MIX
According to the records of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office Hadley's trail mix product was introduced to the American
public in 1968:
GORP
"Gorp...as a noun, "gorp" refers to a mixture of dried fruit, seeds, nuts, and chocolate chips used
as high-energy food for athletes, particularly hikers and mountain climbers, a meaning known in
print since 1968."
Vanilla
"Vanilla...of the great number of orchid family members, Vanilla planifolia...is one of the few to be prized for something other than its flowers. The vanilla bean is the
pod fruit of this climbing orchid, which is native to that part of the New World that also gave chocolate to the whole world...However, it was not the Aztecs who
first discovered the secret of vanilla, which was one of nature's better-guarded secrets that neither the vanilla flower nor its fruit have a telltale aroma that might have
demanded further investigation. Rather, it was the Totonacs, in what has become the Mexican state of Vera Cruz, who discoverd at least 1,000 years ago that if the
initially tasteless beans were "sweated" in the sun for two or three weeks, and then slowly dried for several months, this process would force the development of
vanillin, the major flavor componnent of the beans. It is interested to note that although the Totonacs were subsequently conquered by the Aztecs, they in turn
joined forces with the newly arrived Spaniards to overturn the Aztec empire. And this meant that they continued to have a monopoly on vanilla."
“The indigenous tribes of Mexico were harvesting vanilla pods as early as 6000 B.C. and using them primarily to flavor their chocolate drinks...They also ground
up vanilla flowers and wore them around their necks as amulets and medicinal charms. They used vanilla as a perfume, a medicine, a mental stimulant, an insect
repellant, and an aprhodisiac...By creating the goddess Xanath, the Totonacs revealed their belief that the gods themselves gave the people vanilla. According to
myth, the heavenly vanilla vine continued to bloom and produce fruit on earth to supply not only Xanath’s warrior but all of the Totonacs with eternal happiness.
Having received this heavenly gift, the people made it their duty to care for the vines, to guard them against theft, and to learn how to increase their productivity,
which they did by performing what was called a ‘marriage of vanilla.’”
Vanilla in Europe
"In its original Central American home vanilla was used by the Aztecs to flavour chocolate, and the first writers in English to mention it when it had crossed the
Atlantic with the Spanish describe the process; the natualist John Ray, for instance in 1673: 'vanillas which they mingle with Cacao to make Chocolate'. It fact, when
chocolate was first introduced to Europe in the sixteenth century, it was cinnamon that was usually used to flavour it, at is was not until the eighteenth century that
vanilla toook over a role it has never held since. But it is as and ingredient of ice cream that vanilla really come into its own: it appears to have been popularized in
the USA in the latter part of the nineteenth century...and by the early twentieth century it had established itself as the standard flavouring...The Spanish were
responsible not only for importing the vanilla pod to Europe, but also for supplying Europe's languages with a name for it. In Spanish it is vainilla, a diminutive of
vaina, 'sheath'--a reference to the long narrow pods."
"Vanilla...is one of the few tropical spices indigenous ot the New World, and one of the most popular flavourings worldwide for confectionery and other sweet
foods...Vanilla was first used by the Aztecs and its use recorded by the Spanish. Diaz noticed Montezuma drinking tlilxochitl, a drink made from cacao beans
flavoured with vanilla...In the second half of the 16th century, the Spaniards imported vanilla beans into Spain and made chocolate flavoured with the spice. Hugh
Morgan, apothecary to Elizabeth I, suggested vanilla as a flavouring in its won right and gave some cured beans to the Flemish botanist Clusius who described them
in his Exoticorum Libri Decem (1605). Plants were taken to Reunion in 1822 by the French, then to Mauritus in 1827 and to Madagascar in about 1840. But
pollination of the vanilla vine is mysterious and only occurs unaided in Mexico--even there only a small percentage of the fruits set naturally. So it was not until
Albius, a former slave in Reunion, developled a practical method of pollinating vanilla artificially that commercial cultivation of vanilla became possible. Madagascar,
together with the Comor Islands and Reunion, now produces about 80 per cent of the world output of the variety of V. planifolia known as Bourbon vanilla...Much
of the vanilla entering western markets is used for its preparation of vanilla extract, a hydroalcoholic solution which contains the extracted aroma and flavour of
vanilla...Vanillin, the chief flavouring principle, has been the subject of much attention from flavour chemists. The first synthetic vanillin was produced by German
chemists in 1874 was coniferin...Synthetic vanillin can also be produced from other sources such as coal tar extracts...European take-up of vanilla was long
restricted to a flavour enhancer for chocolate and tobacco although there was early use of it in puddings...Also, its rarity meant it soon entered the pharmacy,
particularly as an aphrodisiac."
“There are about a hundred species of the genus Vanilla, all tropical vining orchids...The French were certainly involved in the expansion of vanilla cultivation. There
were French colonists in the state of Veracruz in Mexico in the eighteenth century, growing vanilla. The first commercial plantations were there, on vanilla’s native
territory, but they suffered from the inadequacy of the natural pollinators until a series of experiments on greenhouse plants in the Old World showed how to do it
better than the bees. The French colonists had to share the technique, derived by Charles Morren in Liege Belgium in 1836, with the neighboring Totonac Indians,
who also raised vanilla, because the Totoancs, seeing the vastly increased crops of the French, accused them of thievery. In 1841 a former slave, Edmond Albius,
on the island of Reunion, in the Indian Ocean, discovered an even quicker and easier method of pollinating the flowers. This raised the productivity...by a factor of
five and encouraged the French to expand vanilla cultivation on their tropical island possessions.”
Vanilla in North America
"Americans were not much familiar with vanilla until ice cream became popular in the late eighteenth century. Thomas Jefferson discovered its virtues in France and
on arriving back in the United States in 1789 sent for some pods from Paris, which must have come from Central America in the first place. By the nineteeth
century Americans developed a passion for vanilla, especially as an ice-cream flavoring (by 1932 it as estimated that 75-80 percent of all ice cream was vanilla) and
today America uses more vanilla than any other country.Vanilla extract (or "vanilla essence") created by Joseph Burnett in 1847, was made by soaking vanilla
beans in grain alcohol and water."
"Although vanilla was used extensively in French cookery, it was not an important flavoring in colonial America, although small quanities of vanilla beans were
imported into the United Sates prior to 1800....By the late nineteenth century, vanilla was an important ingredient in American recipes for sauces, ice cream, baked
goods, and beverages...As the prices of vanilla and vanillin declined, the flavoring was used in a much wider range of foods and dishes, including custards,
puddings, cakes, candies, cookies, meringues, macaroons, and pies. In the 1870s, soda fountain proprietors began using vanilla as a flavoring, and the cream soda
was invented...Vanilla manufacturers produced cookbooklets filled with recipes to encourage the use of their products."
Recommended reading:
Vinegar
The history of vinegar is connected with that of wine. Ancient peoples of many cultures
and cuisines appreciated vinegar for its preservative qualities and medicinal attributes.
According to the food historians, commercial (large-scale) production began in France
during the 16th century. Why? Changing tastes prefered this new flavor over traditional
salt preservation. The French were quick to recognize and capitalize on the growing
demands of this new market.
"Vinegar has been in use for thousands of years and its origins are untraceable. One of
the earliest references is from the 5th century BC, where Hippocrates recommended its
medicinal powers. However, then as now, its main use has beeen as a flavoring and
preserving agent. There was no need to invent vinegar as it makes itself without
difficulties."
"Vinegar merely as a condiment was not important, but ut was a very necessary part of
food preservation; vinegar and hard brine', says Columella, are essential for making
preserves'. In addition, it was commonly used as a drink when diluted with water. This
diltuion meant that a small abount of vinegar would go much furhter han the same
amount of wine, so it proved to be useful and refreshing drink to take on long journeys
where baggage had to be kept to a minimum. It is not surprising therefore that it figured
among the rations of the Roman soldiers when on the march. Vinegar was usually
manufactured from flat wine and various crushed ingredients such as yeast, dried figs,
salt and hone added. It could also be made from other fruits such as peaches, and
squill vinegar is also mentioned."
"Vinegar, product of a secondary fermentation of wine (or other alcohol). In the ancient
Mediterranean vinegar was practically always made from wine, hence the epic epithet
oininon oxos winy vinegar' employed by Archestratus. Although by no means as
desirable as fine wine, vinegar has important food uses and has been purposefully
made ever since ancient times: instructions are given by Columella. Vinegar is most
often used as a culinary ingredient and as a preservative. Numerous medicinal uses
are listed by ancient physicians. A vinegar and water mixture, known in Greek as
oxykraton, was also used medicinally. A very similar mixture, flavoured with herbs,
formed a popular cheap drink...Vinegar is Greek oxos, Latin acetum. These terms are
often used metaphorically for bad wine' in comic contexts..."
"Vinegar (the French word, vinaigre, literally means sour wine') has been produced
and used since the Gallo-Roman era; vinegar diluted with water was a common drink of
the Roman legionaires. Orleans, an important centre for wine transport on the Loire,
soon became the vinegar capital, and hald the French wine vinegar is still produced
there. The vinegar merchants' corporation was created in this city in 1394, and in 1580
Henri IV ordered that the profession of vinegar and mustard merchant should be a
recognized occupation in the town and its suburbs', which resulted in the perfection of
carefully developed production methods."
"It is believed that the first large-scale production of vinegar occurred in France during
the 16th century--for use by the French as well as for export to the British Isles and
various European countries. It is further believed that the first major quantities of
vinegar were produced in England by processing soured beers and ales. The standard
table vinegars used in France today are of grape origin; in the United Kingdom (malt),
and in the United States (apples)."
"Vinegar pickling of all kinds of food suddenly became very popular in the sixteenth
century in England, when salted foods were losing favor and were gradually being
relegated to the food of the poor."
"Vinegar production must have started in ancient times as the natural result of
exposure of wine and beer to the atmosphere when uses for soured wine would
naturally have developed. The traditional technique for making vinegar is called the
Orleans process and involves only partially filling barrels with wine and leaving it there,
under the influence of desirable acetobacter, for several months."
"The H.J. Heinz Company, established in 1869, claims to have produced the first
bottled distilled white vinegar, which is today the largest selling of this type in the
United States."
Wheat
Domesticated wheat descended from earlier wild grains. Most notably?
Emmer and Einkorn. This Old World
grain was introduced to the New World as part of the Columbian Exchange.
"The wheat now growing in vast fields stretching across the Great Plains of North America had its beginnings in the eastern
Mediterranean region, where the wild grass Triticum aestivum originated to become one of the first of the domesticaed grains
and ultimately one of the world's two most important superfoods. Wheat was probably first domesticated in the Middle East many
thousands of years ago. The ancient Egyptians made bread from it, but only later did the Greeks adopt wheat in preference
to emmer. Later still, one of the reasons for the expansion of Rome was the need for wheat, and thej Romans turned Egypt
into a wheat-growing breadbasket for their empire. Wheat reached northern China later than it reached the West, and in eastern
Asia it jouned millet as a major crop."
"Wheat...appeared as a crop among the world's first farmers 10,000 years ago. It increased in importance from its initial
role as a major food for Mediterranean poples in the Old World to become the world's largest cereal crop...The real story of
iots origins disappeared from memory many millennia in the past, although some farming peoples still recount tales of how
they received other cultivated plants from gods, animate spirits, heroic ancestors, or the earth itself...Domesticated wheats
belong to at least three different species...and hundreds of distinct varieties...All domesticated wheat has lost the
physical and genetic characteristics that would allow itself aggressively to reseed and sprout by itself...Although humans domesticated
wheat, one may argue that dependence on wheat also domesticated humans. The switch from gathering food to producing food, dubbed the
"Neolithic Revolution"...ultimately and fundamentally altered human development. Both wheat and barley, destined to feed the
great civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome, originated in the Near East, the earliest cradle of Western
civilization..."
"Wheat, in this article, means club wheat, durum waet and bread wheat (see separate entries from Einkorn; Emmer; Spelt). These are
'naked' or free-threshing wheats, not requiring to be parched before threshing and therefore demanding less time and trouble
in preparation than emmer. Club wheat developed from emmer in cultivation. The earliest evidence for it comes in Syria and
Turkey, not long after 8000 BC. It spread very rapidly in cultivation, as far east as Baluchistan by 6000 BC, and as far west
as southern France by 5500. In western Europe, emmer and einkorn arrived on the scene later than club wheat. There is little evidence
of club wheat in Pharaonic Egypt. Turning to Greece, club wheat was being grown in Crete and in Thessaly soon after 6000 BC. At
some time in the later prehistoric period durum wheat begins to be distinguishable as a separate variety or group of varieties.
Bread wheat is a new species that arose in cultivation. its appearance on the scene is much later than that of club wheat: it
seems to have originated in northwestern Iran, not far south from the Caspian, in the late second millennium BC. Wheat was the
preferred staple food of the classical world; club wheat and durum wheat for flat cakes, flat breads and eventually for
pasta; bread wheat for raised bread. The two obvious alternative cereals, barley and emmer, were suitable for some types of
cakes and biscutis, and made a better basis for broths and gruels than does wheat, but they were little use for bread."
SYMBOLISM & MYTH
"Wheat...is the grain that has served as a symbol of ancient harvest deities from the
Hittite civilization to the civilizations of ancient Egypt and classical Greece and Rome...Because wheat was the staff of
life, people considered it a divine gift, and they made it the focus of ritual from early times...The people perceived wheat
as a benevolent grain from the benevolent god, who according to the Old Testament chose to bestow the gift of the wheat harvest as a
reward to the righteous and chose to destroy the wheat harvest as a punishment to evildoers. In the New Testament, Jesus used wheat in
his agricultural parables to illustrate the notion of resurrection...Long before Jesus...people understood the notion of
death and rebirth when they witnessed the cycles of nature...Early people organized their lives around the seasonal calendar.
They celebrated the gift of grain by conducting elaborate agricultural rituals during critical times in the seasonal cycle.
In Greek myth, the goddess Demeter gave wheat to the people, and the people who worshiped her understood the revelation
of the harvest...Many beliefs surrounding wheat applied to grain crops in general...The dieties of people credited with the
discovery and cultivation of wheat were culture heroes; they helped human beings advance by teaching them how to live off
the land and control the production of food. The Ancient Egyptians credited by Isis and Orisis with teaching them the
cultivation of both wheat and barley..."
ABOUT WHEAT IN AMERICA
"In the sixteenth century, colonists from the Old World brought wheat to the New World: The Spanish
intorduced it to Argentina, Chile, and California where the cereal flourished in climates and soils that
closely resembled the lands where it had already been grown for thousands of years."
"There is no evidence that wheat existed in the New World before Columbus brought it to Isabela on
Hispanolia in 1493, and it was introduced to Mexico by Hernando Cortes as of 1519. The Spanish
missionaries brougth the grain to Arizona and California in the eighteenth century. In the East wheat was
sown unsuccessfully by the Pilgrims, who made do with corn, and in Virginia tobacco was a more
profitable crop, so wheat was relegated to a minor role in that colony. It was not until it was planted in the
Mississippi Valley in 1718 by the Company of the West that wheat became an important Amercan crop,
increasingly so during the Civil War, when the mechanized Northern harvesters brought in far more wheat
for their troops than the Southerners could with manual labor."
"Under ordinary circumstances, the colonists might have been expected to abandon corn as soon as
grains they knew better became available, as they did soon, for rye, barley, oats and wheat were all
planted in America in the seventeenth century. Adaptable as those grains are, they were slow to accustom
themselves to a new climate and for a long time failed to give yields sufficently important to drive out
corn--particularly the grain colonists would have proferred above all others, wheat. In New England wheat
was attacked by a smut disease called "the blast'; in Virginia it did not do well either, for it was planted
chiefly on land already exhausted by having grown one fo the most soil-depleting of all plants, tobacco. As
late as the end of the eighteenth century wheat was still so rare and so dear that it might as well not have
been there at all, so far as the great mass of working people were concerned, though their chief food was
bread. A laborer's average wage at this period was two shillings a day, which meat that it would take him
four days at least to earn enough money to buy a bushel of wheat, whos lowest quality was priced at eight
shillings and up."
RECOMMENDED READING
Yogurt
Food historians generally agree the genesis of yogurt and other fermented milk products was
discovered accidentally by
Neolithic peoples living in Central Asia. These foods occured naturally due to local climate and
primative storage
methods. About milk. Yogurt has long been associated with
good health and long life. Notes here:
"Soured milk or curds have surely been consumed by many peoples from the earliest Neolithic
times, but little remains
as direct proof of this. They were fairly certainly used in Mesopotamia and Palestine, and possibly
Egypt, and Pliny later
mentions their production by barbarian'tribes."
"Milk being highly perishable, of course, a few hours would be enought to start it fermenting in
the climate of the Near
East. Depending on the temperature and the kind of bacteria in the air, the curds might develop
into something pleasant
and refershing, or something quite uneatable even by the Neolithic peoples, whose tastes were
necessairly less rigid than
those of their modern counterparts. The curds might also be either fine or coarse. The finer type
was to develop
ultimately into the sharp, creamy substance represented today by the yoghurt of the Balkans, the
taetta of Scandinavia,
the dahi of India. The coarser kind, strained off, would make the first soft, fresh
cheese...Whatever the background to the
early discoveries, however, curds, cheese, yoghurt and butter all developed into useful ways of
preserving milk that was
surplus to the people's immediate requirements..."
"Yoghurt is one of the fermented milk foods whose origins are probably multiple. It is easy
enough to imagine how, in
parts of C. or W. Asia, unintended fermentation of milk could have produced something like
yoghurt, and that people
would have noticed that this would keep for much longer than fresh milk, besides tasting good.
There is another
advantage which applies particularly to many Asians...Yoghurt is the Turkish name for the
product, long since adapted
into the English language, no doubt because yoghurt reached W. Europe through Turkey and the
Balkans."
"There can be few foodstuffs in recent times that have gone through such an orthographic identity
crisis as yoghurt. In
the days when it was known only as an exotic substance consumed in Turkey and other parts of
the Near East (first
reported in English in 1625 by Samuel Puchas in his Pilgrimes...) the original Turkish name of this
fermented milk,
yoghurt, inspired a whole lexicon of spellings...The notion of fermenting milk with bacteria to
form a semiliquid food is
nothing new, of course. Neolithic peoples of the Near East almost certainly ate a form of yoghurt
around 6000 BC, and
certainly it was popular in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. It seems to have been take from
Persia ot India, and today
it is an important ingredient in Indian cookery."
"Yogurt, like cheese, was discovered long ago, when wandering herdsmen carrying mik in
sheepskin bags noticed that
the milk had curdled. People likely discovered both cheese and yogurt in the beginning of the
Neolithic era, when they
first began to practice milking. Nomadic herdsmen milked their animlas, then carried the milk in
pouches made out of
sheep's stomachs, the lining of which contains an enzyme called rennin, which curdles milk. The
Middle Eastern climate
was ideal fo curdling milk: left in the heat, milk curdled in just a few hours. Depending on the
degree of heat and the type
of bacteria in the environment, the curds would be find and develop into yogurt, or coarse and
develop into cheese.
Yogurt was most likely discovered by accident. As a product of milk, it was assigned similar
properties.
Milk and milk products have always been considered nothing short of magical. In fact, it has
been suggested that the
milk in the biblical phrase milk and honey' referred to yogurt. As soon as the wandering herdsmen
discovered the
curdled milk, they tasted it and found it to their liking. It was not long before they perceived
health benefits that they
attributed to the curdled milk...Peasants in the Balkans live a long time, particuarly in Bulgaria,
and furthermore, many
of them retain their ability to conceived late in life. Both of these abilities have been attributed to
the fact that these
people eat large quantities of yogurt, and that yogurt apparently has healing properties."
"Yogurt may have been known by the ancient Greeks as pyriate. Andrew Dalby...argues that the Greek physician Galen (c. 130-c. 200)
was correct to identify this older term, pyriate, with the oxygala familiar in his own day, which was a form of yogurt
and was eaten on its own or with honey. The first unequivocable description of yogurt is found in a dictionary called Divanu luga-i
turk, compiled by Kasgarli Mahmut in 1072-1073 during the Seljuk era in the Middle East (1038-1194). Yogurt spread rapidly
throughout the Levant, but it hardly penetrated the Western and northern Mediterranean."
"Yoghurt... was known in France as early 1542, when Francois I was suffering from what would
now be diagnosed as
severe depression. The doctors could do nothing for his listessness and neurasthenia until the
Ambassador to the
Sublime Porte disclosed that there was a Jewish doctor in Constantinople who made a brew of
fermented sheep's milk of
which people spoke in glowing terms, even at the Sultan's court. The King sent for the doctor,
who refused to travel
except on foot; he walted through the whole of southern Europe, followed by his flock. When he
finally arrived before
Francois I, the latter's apathy had given way to a certain impatience but he still did not feel well.
After several weeks of
sheep's milk youghurt, the King was cured. The sheep, however, had not recovered from their
long walk and caught cold
in the air of Paris. Every last one of them died, and the doctor left again, refusing to stay despite
the King's offers. He
went home, taking the secret of his brew with him. The health of Francois I continued to improve,
which was the point of
the exercise, and yoghurt was forgotten for nearly four centuries...The koumis of Central Europe
is made from fermented
mare's milk, but its origin lies in farthest Asia. The barbarian' Huns and Mongols brought it with
them. In the past
Western Europe made milk-based drinks which were not yoghurt, but were more like kefir or
diluted and flavoured
curds. Such drinks bear withness to the memory of ancient migrations: they are the beverages of
people who did not
grow vines and whos only wealth was the flocks they drove ahead of them."
"[Yogurt] first gained international prominence in the early 1900s when Ilya Metchnikov, a
Russian bacteriologist,
observed that the life span of Bulgarians, whose diet included the consumption of large quantities
of soured milk, was
eighty-seven years and beyond."
YOGURT IN AMERICA
Zucchini in the USA
Zucchini is a fine example of New World foods circuitously introduced to the USA via Europe. In this case? Italy. The word
"zucchini" is the Italian diminutive for the word "gourd," [zucca].
"Zucchini, the Italian and American name for what the French and many English speaking people call courgettes, any of
several varieties of squash...which have been developed for this purpose and are still relatively small...when mature, or
small young specimens of other varieties of the same species which belong to the vegetable marrow group and would grow
much larger if left alone. This is one of the most attractive and delicious of the cucurbit vegetable fruits, but only
became prominent in the 20th century. In the 1920s, when the learned Dr. Leclerc was writing, the French still referred to
courgettes d'Italie, and it seems clear that it was the Italians who first marketed the vegetable marrows in a small size;
and that it is therefore appropriate tho choose their name zucchini rather than the French name...The 19th-century French
author Vilmorin-Andrieux...gave a illustration of the elongated variety of marrow grown in Italy...The English translator
added, more than half a century before the hour of the zucchini struck: 'This should be tried in England.' Vilmorin,
incidentally, had given the Italian name as cocozello di Napoli. That there is no true English name reflects the fact,
that, although courgettes were mentioned...in a few English recipe books of the 1930s, they only became popular in
England after Elizabeth David in the 1950s and 1960s had introduced them...to readers of her books; and that as zucchini
they had a similarly late arrival in the USA, where Italian immigrants made the introduction."
"Zucchini. Also, "Italian squash." A summer squash of the species Curcurbita pepo, which measures from four to six inches
in length, has a smooth green skin, and grows flowers that themselves are sometimes battered and fried (1925). The word
is derived from the Italian zucchino, for small squash. Zucchini became known to Americans only in the 1920s. By the 1950s
it was a staple of Italian-American restaurant menus and served with stewed with tomatoes, battered and fried in olive
oil, or cut into salads."
Our survey of American cookbooks confirms zucchini was consumed in the USA long before the 1920s. Early references are titled
"Vegetable marrow" or "Italian squash."
[1867]
[1870]
[1901]
[1919]
Pellegrino Artusi's Italian culinary classic Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well [1892] contains recipes
for Zucchini Pie, Zucchini with Meat Filling and Zucchini with Oregano. The book has been recently republished in English
by Marsilio in New York. ISBN 1-56886-039-0
Our survey of historic American newspapers confirms zucchini's popular debut in the 1920s. It also suggests that zucchini was
introduced as haute cuisine, not peasant fare. Trendy chefs caught on quickly:
"Italian restaurants usually to be found in high-class places, with all the surroundings that make for "class." Ornate, usually
with waxed floors for dancing, good orchestras, and skilled European waiters, they cater to the discriminating and serve
cosmopolitan fare of the best sort. But one may get Italian specialties, and wise is he who waives his customary steak and
potatoes, and instead scans the menu for real fare of sunny Italia. Zucchini, for instance, that Italian squash which Signore
Marcel--and others--import especially. It may be served in different styles, but the favorites is when, cut into small, succulent
squares, it is breaded and fried in olive oil."
As did forward-thinking home cooks:
"How to Cook Zucchini.
"Stuffed Marrow
ABOUT ZUCCHINI BREAD
Food historians generally drop zucchini bread squarely in the American 1960s & 70s. It
was promoted (as was carrot cake and banana bread) as a *healthy* alternative to
standard desserts. Was it actually healthier? It depended upon the amount/type of flour,
sweetener and fat used in recipe. Generally the bread employs fresh zucchini, which
argues logically for the healthy case. Like banana bread, zucchini bread is not frosted.
"Zucchini bread. A deliciously moist, full-flavored bread that became popular in the 60s
and remains so today. It's a splendid way to cope with a summer gusher of zucchini
because the bread freezes so well."
"Zucchini bread. This quick bread was full of zucchini, brown sugar, and vegetable oil,
all of which were considered good for you in the 1970s."
Our survey of American newspaper articles published in 1950s-1970s confirms the popularity of zucchini. Recipes for zucchini
bread proliferate in the mid-1970s. One of the earliest (& perhaps most influential) recipes is this gift from James Beard:
3 eggs
About culinary research & about copyright.
American muffins today are quite distinguishable from their English counterparts. This was not
always so. An examination of American muffin recipes printed in 19th and 20th century
cookbooks reveals some interesting culinary history. Early American muffin recipes were quite
similar (if not exact copies) of English muffins. Given the history of our country this is not
surprising. These same cookbooks also contain recipes for tea cakes' and other cakes to be
baked in small pans which read more like the cakey muffins we know today in America. Tea
cakes often called for spices, nuts and dried fruits (currants, dates, etc.). They were sweeter and
were more likely to be baked than griddled.
---American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean
Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 332)
It is doubtful that you will be able to trace the exact place where blueberry muffins were invented,
but we can make some assumptions. First, true blueberries are native to North America, bilberries
(a similar type of berry) are native to Central and Northern Europe. European settlers adapted
their recipes (muffins, cakes, breads & use of fresh/dried fruits) to New World foodstuffs out of
necessity. Therefore, anyplace where blueberries (they would have been the wild variety, not the
plump, juicy berries we are used to seeing in the stores) grew, blueberry muffins might have been
made. In the New World blueberries grew from North Carolina to Nova Scotia. Native Americans
also used blueberries in their foods:
"...this is to be boyled or stued with a gentle fire, till it be tender, of a fitt consistence, as of
Rice so boyled, into which Milke, or butter be put either with sugar or without it, it is a food very
pleasant...but it must be observed that it be very well boyled, the longer the better, some will let it
be stuing the whole day: after it is Cold it groweth thicker, and is commonly Eaten by mixing a
good Quantity of Milke amongst it."
Lesson plan from the U.S. Highbush
Council
Mushrooms
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 326)
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 519, 521)
[NOTE: This book contains separate entries for specific types of mushrooms...shiitake, enokitake, truffles,
etc. If you need these details ask your librarian to help you find a copy of the book.]
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge University
Press:Cambridge] 2001, Volume One (p. 314)
[NOTE: This book contains information on mushrooms/fungi as they relate to different cultures: Mesopotamia,
Egypt, Sudan, China, Greece/Rome, Japan, Mexico, Near East, and Europe.]
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, translated by Anthea Bell [Barnes & Noble Books:New York]
1992 (p. 57)
---Food in the Ancient World from A to Z, Andrew Dalby [Routledge:London] 2003 (p. 223)
"The word mushroom, first recorded in the early fifteenth century, was borrowed from Old French mousseron.
This has been traced back to a late Latin mussirio, a word of unknown origin."
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 221)
---Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, Andrew F. Smith, editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2007 (p. 396-7)
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Orneals
[Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2001, Volume Two (p. 1872)
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2993 (p. 351)
---Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early People, Don Brothwell and Patricia
Brothwell, expanded edition [Johns Hopkins University Press:Baltimore] 1998 (p. 92-3)
"Truffles had been known in Babylon as well as Rome...Although the people of medieval Baghdad feasted on truffles from the Arabian desert, in France Truffles
remained sunk in obscurity until the fourteenth century, when they were pickled in vinegar, soaked in hot water and served with butter. That they were eaten at all
was probably due to their reputation as an aphrodesiac (a label that was attached to most new or rare foods until the modern period.)...La Varenne suggested
cooking truffles like mushrooms, but although Louis XIV was one famous enthusiast and Napoleon another, it was not well into the nineteenth century that the
French really became converts. The truffles became so fashionable that the demand trebled, and so did the price."
---Food in History, Reay Tannahill [Three Rivers Press:New York] 1988 (p. 238-239)
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Orneals
[Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2001, Volume Two (p. 1872)
About Chocolate truffles (candy).
The food experts generally agree on three points when it comes to the history of portabellas:
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge University
Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volume Two (p. 1818)
---The New Food Lover's Companion, Sharon Tyler Herbst, 3rd edition [Barrons:New York] 2001 (p. 485)
---"FOR MANY CHEFS, IT'S SUNRISE FOR PORTOBELLOS," Ron Ruggless, Nation's
Restaurant News, 5/13/96, Vol. 30, Issue 19
Okra
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 230)
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 549-550)
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge
University Press:Cambridge] 2001, Volume Two (p. 1824)
---Eating in America: A History, Waverly Root & Richard de Rochemont [William Morrow:New York] 1976 (p. 84)
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York]
1999 (p. 220)
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford Univeristy Press:New York] 2004,
Volume 2 (p. 211-2)
---The Virginia House-wife, Mary Randolph (facsimile 1824 edition), with Historical Notes and Commentaries by
Karen Hess [Univeristy of South Carolina Press:Columbia SC] 1984 (p. 275-6)
[The passage quoted above is one of Ms. Hess' historical notes]
"Gumbs--A West India Dish
Gather young pods of ocra, wash them clean, and put them in a pan with a little water, wald tne pepper, stew them till tender,
and serve them with melted butter. Thye are very nutricious and easy of digestion."
---The Virginia House-wife, Mary Randolph (facsimile 1824 edition), with Historical Notes and Commentaries by
Karen Hess [Univeristy of South Carolina Press:Columbia SC] 1984 (p. 96)
Get two double handsful of young ochra, wash and slice it thin, add two onions choppped fine, put it into a gallon of water
at a very early hour in an earthen pipkin, or very nice iron pot: it must be kept steadily simmering, but not boiling: put in pepper
and salt. At 12 o'clock, put in a handful of Lima beans, at half past one o'clock, add three young cimlins cleaned and cut in
small pieces, a fowl, or knuckle of veal, a bit of bacon or pork that has been boiled, and six tomatats, with the skin taken off when
nearly done; thicken with a spoonful of butter, mixed with one of flour. Have rice boiled to eat with it."
---ibid, (p. 34-5)
[NOTE: Cimlins are a type of squash.]
Okra stew is generally composed of tomatoes, onions and garlic. It is popular in Mediterranean
countries and surrounding regions. Most of the ingredients are indigenous and have been
combined since ancient times. Tomatoes date the recipe. These new world fruits (yes, they are
fruits!) were introduced to the region in the 16th century. About
tomatoes.
This is a Lebanese dish, but also popular in Egypt. Okra...is a mucilaginous vegetable in the
Malvacaea family, as is cotton. Both Ethiopia and West Africa have been proposed as its place of
origin and its date of arrival in the Mediterranean is not known. The cytotaxonomy of okra is so
confused that it is possible the plant has an Asian origin. Lebanese and Palestinian cooks favor
the baby okra, small and tender, about the size of the last joint on your little finger...The meatless
version of this stew, called bamiya, is made with okra, tomatoes, onions, lots of garlic, and lemon
juice. In Damascus they would also add lots of fresh coriander, while in Homs and Aleppo the
okra would be cooked with copius quantities of garlic, pomegranate molasses, and tomato juice.
Serve with rice pilaf and khubz arabi (Arabic flatbread or pita bread)."
---A Mediterranean Feast, Clifford A. Wright [William Morrow:New York] 1999 (p. 128)
[NOTE: This book contains a recipe for the above dish.]
Olive oil
---Food in the Ancient World From A-Z, Andrew Dalby [Routledge:London] 2003 (p. 239-240)
---Food in Antiquity, Don Brothwell and Patricia Brothwell [Johns Hopkins University Press:Baltimore] exanded edition, 1998 (p. 155-156)
"When the olives are ripe, they should be gathered as early as possible, and stand as little as possible on the ground
or in the loft. On the ground and in the loft they deteriorate. The gatherers want there to be as many windfalls as possible,,
so that they gather more. The press workers want them to be in the loft as long as possible, to soften, which makes their
work easier. Do not accept that oil yield increases with storage. The more quickly you make it, the better the work will go,
and the highter will be the quantity and quality of oil from the same amount harvested...Make green oil as follows: Collect windfall
olives as quickly as possible. If dirty, wash them, clean them of leaves and manure. Make oil one day or two days after
picking. Pick olives when black. The more bitter the olives you make oil from, the better the oil will be. Itg is most profitable
for the owner if oil is made from ripe olives. If there are frosts when you are harvesting olives, make oil two or three days
after: add salt to these olives, if you wish."
---Cato: An Farming, a modern translation with commentary by Andrew Dalby [Prospect Books:Devon] 1998 (p. 147)
---Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews [ABC-CLIO:Santa Barbara] 2001 (p. 161,163)
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford Univeristy Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 459)
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volume One (p. 378)
---<>Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volume Two (p. 1312)
Olivenaise
Oranges
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Orneals [Cambridge
University Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volume Two (p. 1826)
---The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York]
1999 (p. 223-4)
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford
University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 254)
---Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews [Firefly Books:Ontario] 2000 (p. 166)
Food historians trace the practice of proferring fresh fruit gifts for major celebrations to ancient times. These exquisite, perishable
objects were expensive and reflected the giver's wealth and status. Indeed, before the age of speedy transportation and
reliable refrigeration, fresh citrus fruit was out of reach of the average person. As time progressed, fresh fruit out of
season (including oranges in Northern Europe and/or North America) was possible, but still rare. This made these items perfect
Christmas gifts. Today, when oranges are inexpensive and readily available throughout the year, this little history tidbit is overlooked.
A child today who encounters an orange at the toe of his Christmas stocking is unlikely to appreciate the message unless someone
takes the time to share the history.
---Food and Drink in Britain: From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Anne Wilson [Academy Chicago:Chicago IL] 1991 (p. 332-4)
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, translated by Anthea Bell [Barnes & Noble Books:New York] 1992 (p. 659)
---Food in China: A Cultural and Historial Inquiry, Frederic J. Simoons [CRC Press:Boca Raton FL] 1991 (p. 195-7)
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge Univeristy Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volume
Two (p. 1808)
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford Univeristy Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 198-9)
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson, second edition edited by Tom Jaine [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2006 (p. 477)
Pasta
---Food: A Culinary History, Jean-Louis Flandrin & Masssimo Montanari [Columbia
University Press:New York] 1999 (p. 1-2)
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p.
232) 88 (p. 273-4)
---The Food of China, E.N. Anderson [Yale University Press:New Haven] 1988
Fettuccine Alfredo
Although combinations of pasta, butter and cheese were enjoyed by ancient cooks, the invention
this particular dish is generally attributed to Alfredo's
[restaurant] in Rome, 1914. Why? Alfred Di Lelio, with a little help from Hollywood, made it
famous. Contemporary restaurants serve many versions of this dish, ranging from rustic &
traditional to rich & creamy.
---Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food, Silvano Serventi & Francoise Sabban [Columbia
University Press:New York] 2000 (p. 258-9)
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New
York]
1999 (p. 126)
---The American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean
Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 213)
[1769]
"To dress Macaroni with Parmesan Cheese
Boil four ounces of macaroni till it be quite tender and lay it on a sieve to drain. Then put it in a
tossing pan with about a gill of good cream, a lump of butter rolled in flour, boil it five minutes.
Pour it on a plate, lay all over it parmesan cheese toasted. Send to to the table on a water plate,
for it soon goes cold."
---The Experience Engish Housekeeper, Elizabeth Raffald, introduction by Roy
Shipperbottom [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1997 (p. 144)
"Maccaroni, With Cream
Boil one pound of maccaroni, and when done, cut it up in three inch lengths, and put in into a
stewpan, with four ounces of fresh butter, four ounces of grated Parmesan cheese, and a similar
quantity of Gruyere cheese also grated, and a gill of good cream; leason with mignionette-pepper
and salt, and toss the whole well together over the stove-fire until well mixed and quite hot, then
shake it up for a few minutes to make the cheese spin, so as to give it a fibrous appearance, when
drawn up with a fork. The maccaroni, when dished up, must be garnished round the base with
fleurons of pastry, and then served."
---Francatelli's Modern Cook: A Practical Guide to the Culinary Art in All Its Branches,
Charles Elme Francatelli [David McKay:Philadelphia] 1895? (p. 397)
[NOTe: Chef Francatelli was in service to Queen Victoria.]
Macaroni with Butter and Cheese
(Maccheoni al Burro)
Boil and drain the macaroni. Take four tablespoons of table-butter, three tablespoons of grated
Parmesan cheese, add to the macaroni in the saucepan, mix well over the fire, and serve."
---Simple Italian Cookery, Antonia Isola [Harper & Brothers:New York] 1912 (P. 10)
According to the food historians, lasagne [long flat strips of dried wheaten dough] were probably
the earliest forms of pasta. They were laid out to harden in the hot mediterranean sun and cut with
simple rollers designed expressly to create a curly, interlocking edge. Serving instructions for the
very first lasagnes were not much different from other than flat breads. Medieval lasagnes were
typically creamy, sweet, layered macaroni and cheese type
dishes, often eaten during Christian Lent. This is a far cry from the meat, ricotta, tomato sauce,
and mozzerella topped dish we Americans think of as lasagne today. How things do change with
time!
probably one of the earliest forms of pasta...consists of fairly flat sheets of pasta, typically
interleaved with a savoury mixture and baked in the oven...Some believe that its remote ancestor
was the classical Greek laganon; this was a flat cake, not pasta as we know it now, but capable of
developing in that direction. In classical Rome this was cut into strips and became known as
lagani (plural). Cicero (1st century AD) was known to have been particularly fond of lagani. So
was the Roman poet Horace, of the same century. He sited them as an example of simple
peasant's food while boasting of his simple way of life...something which could be called lasagne
in the modern sense had appeared in Italy by the 13th century...Since medieval times, lasagne have
been a popular feature in the range of pasta products. Recipes have changed over the centuries,
but the advantages of a pasta which comes in sheet form...have been a constant in the
kitchen."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] (p. 444)
---Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink, John Mariani [Broadway Books:New York] 1998
(p. 134)
---Medieval Kitchen: Recipes From France and Italy, Odile Redon et al [University of
Chicago:Chicago] 1998 (p. 58-60)
[NOTE: this book contains far more information than is transcribed here. Ask your librarian to
help you find a copy.]
---Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food, Silvano Serventi & Francoise Sabban [Columbia
University Press:New York] 2000 (p. 258-9)
---Food and Drink in Britain: From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Anne Wilson
(p. 252)
[1390]
Kraft confirms its
macaroni & cheese dinner product was introduced in 1937. What about the details?
A modern redaction
of the original Forme of Cury recipe.
"Roman noodles
Blend meal which has which has been separated from chaff with water in the best way. When it
has been blended, spread it out on a board and roll it with a rounded and oblong piece of wood
such as bakers are accustomed to use in such a trade. Then when it has been drawn out to the
width of a finger, cut it. It is so long you would call it a fillet. It ought to be cooked in rich and
continuallly boiling broth, but it, at the time, it must be cooked in water, put in butter and salt.
When it is cooked, it ought to be put in a pan with cheese, butter, sugar, and sweet spices."
---De Honesta Voluptate et Valetudine [On Right Pleasure and Good Health], Platina,
Book VII, recipe 43, translated by Mary Ella Milham, Italy 15th century (p. 329)
"To dress Macaroni with Parmesan Cheese
Boil four ounces of macaroni till it be quite tender and lay it on a sieve to drain. Then put it in a
tossing pan with about a gill of good cream, a lump of butter rolled in flour, boil it five minutes.
Pour it on a plate, lay all over it parmesan cheese toasted. Send to to the table on a water plate,
for it soon goes cold."
---The Experience Engish Housekeeper, Elizabeth Raffald, introduction by Roy
Shipperbottom [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1997 (p. 144)
"Boil as much macaroni as will fill your dish, in milk and water till quite tender, drain it on a sieve,
sprinkle a little salt over it, put a layer in your dish, then cheese and butter as in the polenta, and
bake it in the same manner."
---The Virginia House-Wife, Mary Randolph, 1824 (p. 100)
"Maccaroni with cheese...Simmer quarter of a pound of maccaroni in a quart of milk, until the
pipes are well swelled and tender; then butter a pudding dish, put in a layer of maccaroni; strew it
plentifully with grated cheese and bits of butter; then another layer of maccaroni, alternately, until
the dish is full, then cheese being last; then put over the whole bits of butter, or melt the butter
and put it over; then put it into a moderate oven until it is nicely browned. Serve hot. The cheese
for this purpose should be cut and allowed to become dry beore it is grated Pineapple, or old
English or Parmesean, should be used. The milk in which the maccaroni is steeped must also be
added, if not all absorbed.
---Mrs. Crowen's American Ladies' Cookery Book, Mrs. T. J. Crowen, 1847 (p. 427)
"Baked macaroni...Break up half a pound of macaroni in two-inch lengths, and simmer it as for
boiled macaroni, drain it well; have ready grated half pound of good rich cheese, not too old;
butter a baking dish, one that will do to serve it in, divide the cheese in half, put one portion in the
dish, scattering it evenly over the bottom, pour in the macaroni, arrange it smoothly, and put over
it the remaining half of the cheese, sprinkle it plentifully with salt, and pour over it a large
coffeecup of cream and milk mixed; bake it three-quarters of an hour; it should be a nice brown
on top."
--The Economical Cook Book, Sara T. Paul, 1908 (p. 138)
"English Style Macaroni...Cook one cup Larkin Short-Cut Macaroni in boiling salted water until
tender. Rinse with cold water. Make a sauce by melting three tablespoons butter in a
double-boiler. Add three tablespoons flour. When bubbling add one and one-half cups sweet milk.
Stir
constantly until thickened, add two thirds cup grated cheese or four ounces cheese thinly sliced.
Stir until melted. Add one-half teaspoon salt and a little pepper. Mix together sauce and
Macaroni, reheat in kettle or put into baking dish and bake about twenty minutes until
brown....Mrs. I. F. Knee, Omana, Nebr."
---Larkin Housewives Cook Book, Larkin Company [Larkin Co.:Philadelphia] 1915 (p.
54)
[NOTE: This recipe instructs the cook to make a cheese sauce rather than simply using grated
cheese.]
---The American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean
Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 180)
---American Dish: 100 Recipes from Ten Delicious Decades, Merrill Shindler [Angel City
Press:Santa Monica] 1996 (p. 61)
Macaroni American
1 cup elbow macaroni
1/2 Kraft American
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Dash of cayenne
Buttered crumbs
---Favorite Recipes from Mary Dahnke's File, Kraft-Phoenix Cheese Corporation [1938]
(p. 19). There is a picture of the yellow & blue Kraft Dinner box on the second to last page of this
booklet.
Pasta (in many different shapes and sizes) is an ancient food. It was enjoyed by many peoples in
many cultures. Stuffed pasta (ravioli, wonton, kreplach) is likewise a food shared by many
cultures and
cuisines. Food historians generally agree that stuffed pastas (and related recipes such as
lasagna) were probably introduced in Medieval times. Cookbooks confirm European and Middle
Eastern medieval pasta dishes could have been sweet (filled with cheese, honey, nuts, and
cinnamon) or savoury (filled with meat, pepper, and saffron). Asian wontons were typically
steamed or fried and were served with local vegetables.
Tomato sauce was not served with pasta
products in Medieval
times. Tomatoes are a "new
world" food and were introduced to Europe in the late 15th century by explorers. About pasta.
---The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford]
1999 (p. 655)
---Food in History, Reay Tannahill [Three Rivers Press:New York] 1988 (p. 236)
---A Mediterranean Feast, Clifford A. Wright [William Morrow:New York] 1999 (p. 298)
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat [Barnes & Noble Books:New York]
1992(p. 193)
---Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink, John Mariani [Broadway Books:New York] 1998
(p. 213)
15th century Italian Ravioli recipe
"Ravioli. Get a pound and a half of old cheese and a little new creamy cheese, and a pound of
porkbelly or loin of veal that should be boiled until well cooked, then grind it up well; get well
ground fragrant herbs, pepper, cloves, ginger and saffron, adding in a well ground breast of
capon, and mix in all of this together; make a thin dough and wrap nut-sized amounts of the
mixture in it; set these ravioli to cook in the fat broth of a capon or of some other good meat,
with a little saffron, and let them boil for half an hour; then dish them out, garnishing them with a
mixture of grated chreese and good spices."
---The Neapolitan Recipe Collection, Cuoco Napoletano [Martino], Critical edition and
English translation by Terence Scully [University of Michigan Press:Ann Arbor] 2000 (p.
177)
[NOTE: This book contains the original Latin text. If you need this ask your librarian can help
you obtain a copy.]
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New
York] 1999 (p. 327)
Who invented spaghetti & meatballs? The answer to this question depends upon how strictly you
want to define these two foods. Both pasta and meatballs [ground meat mixed with cereal/spice
fillers, also known as sausage or forcemeat] date back to ancient times. They were foods that
evolved independently across many cultures and cuisines. Meat filled lasagne and ravioli were
quite popular in Medieval Europe, although they were not served with tomatoes at this time.
Tomato sauce was introduced in the 18th century.
Pasta, in many forms, has been around for thousands of years. In the beginning, ancients rolled
pasta by hand into long, flat shapes, similar to modern lasagne. Other shapes became
possible/popular as technology advanced. Vermicelli and other long noodles were made in ancient
days, though evidence from old cook books suggests they were thicker than the products we eat
today. Very thin spaghettis (including angel hair, capellini) were first introduced in the 19th
century because they required more sophisticated machines than the pasta presses used in Thomas
Jefferson's day for production. Naples, Italy is generally acknowledged for its long tradition of
spaghetti making.
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p.
740)
Professional Pasta [NOTE: site no longer connects, 4 April 2009]
---Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, Charles Panati [Harper Row:New York]
1987 (p. 406)
Many colonial American cookbooks contain recipes for macaroni. Although recipes for
sauce were also included, none of these books combined these two ingredients. Tomato [aka
tomata sauce] recipes listed in these books were intended for meat, soup or a served as a side
dish. Macaroni recipes called for cheese or white sauce. Beginning about the 1880's, American
cookbooks began including recipes for spaghetti, some combined with tomato sauce and meat.
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p.
581)
[NOTE: this book offers much more information on the history of pasta]
---American Food: The Gastronomic Story, Evan Jones, 2nd ed.[Vintage Books:New
York] 1981 (p. 151-2)
---American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean
Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997(p. 183)
...note many similar recipes printed in these books still called for macaroni or vermicelli
--Spaghetti: boil, serve with cream, or tomato sauce, cheese, and crumbs (p. 309)
--Spaghetti (prevailing method all over Italy): chopped ham, onion, stewed tomatoes (p. 144)
--Spaghetti (Amalfi): casserole with Parmesean cheese, hard boiled egg yolks & puff paste (p.
145)
--Spaghetti with tunny-fish: tuna fish & tomato sauce (p. 12)
A meal that will 'hit the spot' on a cool fall or winter day. Boil 1 package American Beauty Spaghetti until tender
(almost 15 minutes). Break 3/8 pound of dry bread into small pieces and put into 3/4 cup hot water, allow bread to soften, then squeeze
out water. Put 1/2 pound chuck beef, 1/4 pound shoulder pork and 2 slices onion thru a meat chopper. Mix with bread, 1 beaten egg,
2 tablespoons chopped parsley, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, and 1/4 pound grated cheese. Form into balls. Fry balls in
olive oil. Serve with spaghetti and tomato sauce."
---display ad, Amerian Beauty Macaroni Products, The Hutchinson News [Kansas], Ocboter 27, 1922 (p. 10)
--Spaghetti Italian: ground bacon/salt pork, mushrooms, onions in the tomato sauce (p. 178)
--Escalloped spaghetti, tomato, and cheese: spaghetti casserole, no meat (p. 179)
--Neapolitan spaghetti with meat balls: ground beef meatballs (p. 388)
--Genoese spaghetti: cubed steak, mushrooms & onions (p. 386)
Food historians tell us that the technology for mass-producing pasta and canned tomato products
existed in the middle of the 19th century. Primary evidence (cookbooks, food advertisements)
confirms spaghetti was prepared and consumed by the American public in the late 1800s and early
20th century. "Global penetration" of many Italian food products occured at this time because
that's when people from this country immigrated in large numbers to other parts of the world,
most notably America. This explains why many of our American pasta/tomato sauce companies
were founded in the beginning decades of the 20th century.
Pizza has a similar history.
Buitoni [1827--Italy]
Catelli [1867--Canada]
San Giorgio [1914]
Ronzoni [1915]
[1918]: Contadina
According to the food historians, canned spaghetti products were introduced to the American
public in the 1930s by the Chef Boyardee company [Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands, Volume
1: Consumable Products, Janice Jorgensen editor, [St. James Press:Detriot] 1994 (p. 111-113).
Campbell's Spaghettios were
introduced October 19, 1965 (U. S. Patent and Trademark
Office,
registration # 72247002).
Curiously enough, the USPTO also has a registration (#0399825) for a product line under the
brand name PLEE-ZING, which offered a canned prepared spaghetti products (with and without
meatballs) in December, 1922. Tastewell brand was registered in 1935 (#0580891)
Pepper
---An A to Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 250)
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge]
2000, Volume Two (p. 1832)
[According to this source, pepper originated in prehistoric India.]
---Fodo in the Ancietn World From A to Z, Andrew Dalby [Routledge:London] 2003 (p. 254-255)
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat [Barnes & Noble:New York] 1992 (p.491)
---ibid (p. 493)
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 595)
---300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles, Linda Campbell Franklin, 5th ed.[Krause Publications:Iola
WI] (p. 92)
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 2 (p. 254)
Our survey of newspapers and magazines indicates the practice of offering freshly ground pepper (at table) to restaurant patrons
began sometime in late 1980s. It climaxed in the mid-1990s. By the late '90s, it was *old.* We're not finding any particular chef/restaurant/culture/cuisine credited for this
innovation. Indeed, print sources confirm offerings are all over the map...from upscale European restaurants to chain eateries catering
to trendy youthful crowds.
---"Pepper Puts Dishes on More Flavorful Ground," JeanMarie Brownson, Chicago Tribune, Feb 22, 1987 (p. 18)
---"Today's Special: Advice for Restauranteurs," Patricia Brooks, New York Times, January 2, 1994 (p. CN12)
---"Disappearing dishes and other pet peeves," Errol Laborde, New Orleans Magazine, September 1995, (p. 9)
Pickled limes
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p.
453)
[Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volume Two (p. 1802)
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New
York] 1999 (p. 184)
[1747]
"To pickel LEMONS.
Take twelve Lemons, scape the with a Piece of broken Glass, then cut them cross in two, four
Parts down right, but not
quite through, but that they will hang together; then up in as much Salt as they will hold, and rub
then well, and strew
them over with Salt. Let them lay in an earthen Dish for three days, and turn them every Day; then
slit an Ounce of
Ginger very think and salted for three Days, twelve Cloves of Garlick parboiled, and satled three
Day, a small Handful of
Mustard-seeds bruised, and searched through a hair-sieve, some red India Pepper, one to every
Lemon; take your
Lemons out of the salt, and squeeze them very gently, and put them into a Jar, with the Spice and
Ingredients, and cover
them with the best White Wine Vinegar. Stop them up very close, and in a Month's time they will
fit to eat."
---The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, Hannah Glasse, facsimile 1747 edition
[Prospect Books:Devon]
1995 (p. 133)
"To Pickle Lemons, and Limes.
Excellent.
Wipe eight fine sound lemons very clean, and make, at equal distances, four deep incisions in
each, from the stalk to the
blossom end, but without dividing the fruit; stuff them with as much salt as they will contain, lay
them into a deep dish,
and place them in a sunny window, or in some warm place for a week or ten days, keeping them
often turned and basted
with their own liquor; then rub them with some good plae turmeric, and put them with their juice,
into a stone jar with a
small head of garlic, divided into cloves and peeled, and a dozen small onions stuck with twice as
many cloves. Boil in
two quarts of white wine vinegar, half a pound of ginger slightly bruised, two oundes of whole
black pepper, and half a
pound of mustard-seed; take them from the fire and pour the directly on the lemons; cover the jar
with a plate, and let
them remain until the following day, then add to the pickle half a dozen capsicums (or a few
chilies, if more convenient),
and tie a skin and a fold of thick paper over the jar.
Large lemons stuffed with salt, 8: 8 to 10 days. Tumeric, 1 to 2 oz; ginger, 1/2 lb;
mustard-seed, 1/2 lb.; capsicums, 6
oz."
---Modern Cookery for Private Families, Eliza Acton, reprint of 1845 London edition with
an introduction by
Elizabeth Ray [Southover Press:East Sussex 1993 (p. 445)
Book of
Household
Management, Isabella Beeton (use your browser's "find" feature to locate pickled
lemons)
"Pickled Limes.--Make a brine strong enough to float an egg; stick your limes on two sides with a
silver fork; then put
them in the brine with a weight on the limes to keep them well under the brine; let them stand in a
warm place for a
week; they are then fit to eat. You can add some red peppers to the brine.--West India
Woman"
---"Receipts," New York Times, August 7, 1881 (p. 9)
"There are many recipes for pickled lemons and limes. In each you can substitute one for the
other. The commonest
recipes call for making slits in the fruit without cutting them through. You add salt, which
dissolves as it stands. The
lemons or limes are left to stand for a considerable period before serving. In India, where pickled
lemons and limes--called achar--are served sweet or hot, various spices are added, including
cumin, chili pods, mustard seeds, fenugreek
and so on."
---"Q & A," New York Times, April 1, 1981 (p. C9)
[NOTE: achar' simply means pickle, not pickled limes.]
"PICKLED LEMONS
4 thin-skinned lemons, scrubbed and quartered
1/4 cup kosher salt
Juice of 8 or 9 lemons
In a 1-quart widemouth jar, combine the lemons and the salt. Add the lemon juice to cover the
lemons by 1/2 inch.
Cover and store at room temperature, shaking the jar twice a week, for two to three weeks. The
lemons are ready when
the rind is soft. Discard any skin that might develop on the surface of the jar. If you wish to speed
up the pickling
process, gently heat the quartered lemons before packing them in lemon juice and salt. To heat,
arrange the lemon
wedges in a single layer in a microwave-safe dish. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high
for 30 seconds or
until the lemons are warm to the touch. Pro ceed as directed above. The lemons will be ready in
four to five days."
---"Internet site reveals recipe for Exotic Chicken," Geissler Janet, Lansing State Journal,
April 9, 2001, Pg. 3D
Pickled peppers
---Pickled, Potted, and Canned: How the Art and Science of Food Preserving Changed the
World, Sue Shepard [Simon & Schuster:New York] 2000 (p. 97)
[1824]
A "peck," by the way, is a British unit of dry measure. It equals approximately two gallons.
"To Pickle Pepper.
Gather the large bell pepper when quite young, leave the seeds in and the stem on, cut a slit in
one side, between the large veins, to let the water in; pour boiling salt and water on, changing it
every day or three weeks--you must keep them closely stopped; if, at the end of this time, they be
a good green, put them in pots and cover them with cold vinegar and a little tumeric; those that
are not sufficently green, must be continued under the same process till they are so. Be careful
not to cut through the large veins, as the heat will instantly diffused itself through the pod."
---The Virginia Housewife, Mary Randoph, originally published in 1824 , with Historical Notes
and Commentaries by Karen Hess [University of South Carolina Press:Columbia SC] 1984 (p.
208-9)
"472. Peppers.
Take such as are fresh and green; cut a small slit in them; take the seeds out carefully and neatly with a small knife; and wash
them. Pour weak boiling water brine over them, and let them stand four days, renewing the brine daily boiling hot. Chop cabbage
fine; season it highly with cinnamon, mace and cloves; and stuff the peppers, adding nasturtiums if liked. Sew them up
nicely; and turn the same sharp vinegar boiling hot over them, three successive weeks, adding a little alum the lsat. Tomatoes, if
green and small, are good pickled with peppers."
---The Improved Housewife, Mrs. A. L. Webster [Richard H. Hobbs:Hartford CT: 1844 ] fifth edition, revised (p. 156)
"Peppers.
Pick the peppers late in the season, just before they begin to turn red; soak them ten days in a strong brine of salt and
water; then, if they have a good green color, remove them from the brine to clear cold water, in which let them soak twenty-four
hours; if they have not a good green color, they will get it by a scalding in the brine; drain them, and if you wish them very
hot, pack them away whole in cold vinegar; if you wish them very mild, remove their seeds--scraping them out through a slit
cut in the side of each pepper, and pack them in vinegar. They ought to be good pickles in eight weeks. You may, also, fill
the pepper with red cabbage cut finely; they pour boiling vinegar over them,--when cool, pack them in jars, and they will
keep for years."
---The Practical Cook Book, Mrs. Bliss [Lippincott, Grambo & Co.:Philadelphia] 1850 (p. 104-5)
Bell-Peppbers Pickled.
Take fine full-grown bell-peppers. Make a brine in a stone jar of salt and water, strong enough to float an egg; and let the
peppers remian in it two days, putting a weight on the cover to keep it down. Then take them out, wash them well in cold water,
drain them, and wipe them dry. Cut a slit in the side of each, and extract all the seeds, as if left in, they will be entirely
too hot. Through these slits let all the water run out. Put them into a clean stone jar. Boil sufficient of the best cider
vinegar, interspersed with the muslin bags of broken-up cinnamon, mace, and nutmeg. Pour it, boiling hot, on the peppers in the
jar. Distribute the bags of spice among the peppers, and cork the jar warm. You may stuff the peppers in the manner of mangoes,
with pickled red cabbage finely shred, minced onions and minced uccumbers pickled, and seasoned with a little mustard seed, ginger,
and mace. Tie up the slit with pack-thread, crossing all round. Fill upt the jars with vinegar, putting sweeet oil on the top.
Your mary green bell-peppers in the usual way, with vine leaves or cabbage leaves. All pickles should be kept in a dry place. If
you find them mouldy they are not always spoiled. Take them out of the jar, wipe off all the mould carefully, and throw away
the vinegar. Wash the jar very clean, scald it, and set it in the sun to purify still more. Make a new pickle with fresh
seasoning, and put them into that."
---Miss Leslie's New Cookery Book, Eliza Leslie [T.B. Peterson:Philadelphia] 1857 (p. 574)
"Peppers.
Take fresh, hard peppers, soak them in salt and water nine days, changing the brine each day. Let them stand in a warm place.
Then put them into cold vinegar. If you wish them very hot, leave in the seeds. If not, take out the seeds of the greatest
part of them. If peppers are put into the same jar with cucumbers, the entire strength of them will go into the cucumbers, and they
themselves will become nearly tasteless. Half a dozen peppers will improve a jar of cucumbers."
---The Young Housekeeper's Friend, Mrs. Cornelius [Taggard and Thompson:Boston] 1859 (p. 182)
"Pickled Peppers.
Take large green ones (the best variety is the sweet pepper). Make a small incision at the side,
take out all the seeds, being careful not to mangle the peppers; soak in salt water one or two days,
changing water twice; stuff with chopped cabbage, or tomatoes seasoned with spices as for
moangoes (omitting the cayenne pepper), or a mixture of nasturtions, chopped onlins, red
cabbage, grapes, and cucumbers, seasoned with mustard-seed and a little mace. Sew up incision,
place in jar, and cover with cold spiced vinegar."
---Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, Estelle Woods Wilcox, originally published
1877 Minneapolis MN [Applewood Books:Bedford MA] 2000(p. 230)
"Capsicums, Pickled.
These may be pickled either green or red. They are finest and ripest in the
late autumn. It is best to gather the pods with the stalks before they are red, as the rule. Required:
capsicums and vinegar to cover them, and a teaspoonful of salt and half an ounce of mace to
every quart of vinegar. The vinegar and spice and salt should be poiled together, then pour while
hot over the capsicums. They must be tied down with a bladder when cold, and should remain for
six weeks before they are untied, as they improve by keeping."
---Cassell's New Universal Cookery Book, Lizzie Heritage [Cassell and Company:London] 1894
(p. 1156)
Pickles
---Pickled, Potted and Canned, Sue Shepard [Simon & Schuster:New York] 2000 (p.
95)
[NOTE: This book traces the history of food preservation from ancient salt to modern chemicals.]
---Oxford English Dictionary
---A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food, K.T. Achaya [Oxford University Press:Delhi]
1998 (p. 186)
---A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food, K.T. Achaya [Oxford University Press:Delhi]
1998 (p. 186)
Pickle Packers International
Inc.
New York Food Museum
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New
York] 1999 (p. 239-40)
"The noun "pickle" applies to that which pickles as well as to that which gets pickled; hence, a
sweet pickle is both a fruit or vegetable that has been preserved in a sugary solution and the
sugary solution in which the fruit or vegetable has been preserved...In the United States, pickles
are primarily the products of central European tradition...American Indians themselves produced a
maple-sap vinegar to preserve game in preparation for the winter. Still, the story of American
pikcles does not really take shape until the searly eighteenth century, with the arrival of the
Pennsylvania Dutch...Pennsylvania Dutch cookery fairly rests on the notion of the seven sweets
and seven sours thought requisite for any feast; sweet pickles made from small cucumbers,
particulalry gerkins, are just one of many options--but the one Americans have collectively chose
to adopt and to adapt...There are...numerous variations on the sweet pickle theme...Pickled fruits
(including strawberries, grapes, and even watermelon rinds) may be less relevant in the
twenty-first century than they were in the nineteenth when home canning and preserving was the
norm."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford
University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 2 (p. 267)
[NOTE: This book contains a wealth of information on American pickles. Ask your librarian to
help you find a copy.]
Of
Pickling, The Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter
Pickles,
Buckeye Cookery, Estelle Woods Wilcox
"Cucumbers are generally believed to have originated in India...they have been cultivated
throughout western Asia for at least 3, 000 years. From India, the cucumber srpead to Greece and
Italy-where the crop was significant in the Roman Empire-and slightly later to China and southern
Russia. In Classical Rome, Pliny reported greenhouse production of cucumbers by the first
century, and the Emporer Tiberious was said to have had them at his table throughout the year.
Cucumbers probably were diffused into the rest of Europe by the Romans and later throughout
the New World via colonialism an indigenous trade networks."
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Conee Ornelas,
volume 1[Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000 (p. 305)
---Food in Antiquity, Don Brothwell and Patricia Brothwell, expanded edition [Johns
Hopkins University Press:Baltimore] 1998 (p.
125-6)
[NOTE: this book has much more information on your topic...too much to paraphrase. Ask your
librarian to help you find a copy.]
---Origin of Cultivated Plants, Alphonse De Candolle [Hafner:New York] 1959 (p. 266)
---Encyclopedia Judaica, volume 5 [MacMillan:New York] 1971 (p. 1151)
"Archaeological data suggests that they [watermelons] were cultivated in ancient Egypt more than
5,000 years ago, where representations of watermelons appeared on wall paintings and
watermelon seeds and leaves were deposited in Egyptian tombs."
---Kiple & Orneals, (p. 306)
---De Candolle (p. 263)
The confusion surrounding the history of cucumbers and pickles is the result of conflicting
linguistic and archaelogical evidence. Food historians generally agree that some members of the
cucurbit family (including melons, watermelons, cucumbers etc.) originated in India approximately
3000 years ago. There is solid evidence that Egyptians ate watermelons. They were also known to
have preserved food by pickling (salt, not vinegar.) If Cleopatra ate pickles they were most likely
watermelons soaked in brine rather than the spicy cucumber/vinegar mix we know today.
Pickles can be curious things. On the most basic level, almost any fruit or vegetable can be *pickled*. The primary purpose of the pickling process is preservation. This accounts for the standard brine, vinegar and sugar concoctions. Color alteration is nothing new. Eggs pickled with a splash of beet juice produce quite the colorful result. Kool-aid pickles appear to be a brand new twist on a very old theme. Notes here:
---"Kool-Aid livens up family pickle jar," Ventura County Star (California), May 31, 2007, Community section (no page provided)
---"A Sweet So Sour: Kool-Aid Dills," JOHN T. EDGE, The New York Times, May 9, 2007, Section F; Column 3; Dining, Dining Out/Cultural Desk; Pg. 1
Pork & beans
"Dish Made from Peas. Let peas come to a boil with carob. When they are taken form the water,
put in a frying pan with bits of salt meat, especially that balanced between lean and fat. I would
wish, however, that the bits had been fried a little beforehand. Then add a bit of verjuice, a bit of
must, or some sugar and cinnamon. Cook broad beans in the same way."
Most (though not all) food historians tell us that pork and beans..as we know them
today...probably came to colonial America via New England. It was a marriage of old world
habits and new world ingredients. Have you ever heard of Boston baked beans? Amelia Simmons
[1798] did
not provide a recipe for pork and beans but she did briefly mention small
white
beans, which she thought "excellent." Presumbly these were pea beans, later called Navy
beans.
---Platina: In the Right Pleasure and Good Health, A Critical Edition and Translation of
De Honesta Voluptate et Valetudine, by Mary Ella Milham [Medieval & Renaissance Texts &
Studies:Tempe AZ] 1998 (p. 325)
"Boston baked beans. A dish of navy beans made with molasses and salt pork or bacon. Some
argue that baked beans were introduced to the colonists by the Indians, but novelist Kenneth
Roberts, in an essay on "The Forgotton Marrowbones," prionted in Marjorie Mosser's Foods of
Old New England (1957), argues that baked beans had long been a traditional Sabbath dish
among North African and Spanish Jews, who called the dish "skanah." Roberts also cites Riley's
Narrative (1816) by James Riley as a source and supposes that New England sea captains brought
the idea home with them from Africa. Nevertheless, the dish clearly became associated with
Boston, whose Puritan settlers baked beans on Saturday, served them that night for dinner, for
Sunday breakfast with codfish cakes and Boston brown bread, and again for Sunday lunch,
because no other cooking was allowed during the Sabbath, which extended into Sunday
evening...Baked beans of this kind were first canned in 1875 by the Burnham E. Morrill Company
of Portland, Maine, for local fishermen..."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New
York] 1999 (p. 36)
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p.
624)
---Eating in America: A History, Waverly Root and Richard de Rochemont [Morrow:New
York] 1976
When it comes to dried beans it seems hard to believe that chuck/cowboy cooks had adequate
time/cooking facilities to prepare such food. They required hours of soaking before they could be
prepared for dinner. But! History reminds us never to underestimate the ingenuity of a dedicated
cook. These people were revered for their energy, abundance and creativity. It is quite likely the
experienced cowboy's cook knew how to adjust his methods for cooking beans to have meals
ready at the appointed time. The most feasible explanation is that the cook started soaking his
beans the night before. Did you know? Charles Goodnight & Oliver Loving (from Texas) are
credited with inventing the chuckwagon in 1866 in
order to accomodate the gustatory needs of American cowboys.
---Cowboy Culture: A Saga of Five Centuries, David Dary [Knopf:New York] 1981 (p.
191)
---Eating in America: A History, (pps. 199-200)
---Up the Trail, J. Frank Dobie [Random House:New York] 1955 (p. 98)
[NOTE: This [children's] book has an entire chapter on "The Cook and His Chuck
Wagon"]
[1847]
"Pork and Beans
Take two quarts of dried white beans, (the small ones are best,) pick out any imperfections, and
put them to soak in cold water, more than to cover them, let them remain one night; the next day,
about two hours before dinner time, throw off the water; have a pound of nicely corned pork, a
rib piece is best; put the beans in an iron dinner-pot; score the rind or skin of the pork, in squares
or diamonds, and lay it on the beans, put in hot (not boiling) water to them, add a small dried red
pepper, or a saltspoon-ful of cayenne; cover the pot close, and set it over a gentle fire for one
hour; then take a tin basin, or earthen pudding-pan, rub the inside over with a bit of butter, and
nearly fill it with the boiled beans, lay the pork in the centre, pressing it down a little; put small
bits of butter over the beans, dredge a little flour oer them, and the pork, and set it in a
moderately hot oven, for nearly one hour..."
---Mrs. Crowen's American Lady's Cook Book, Mrs. E. L. Crowen [New York] (p. 115)
Yankee
Pork and Beans
Buckeye Cookery, Estelle Woods Wilcox
Boston Cooking School Cook Book, Mrs. D. A. Lincoln
It's the Navy bean...a small white bean...that is traditionally used in historic American recipes and
manufactured pork and bean products. Surprised? Most people are. It is the sauce that makes
these beans look light brown. Picture of navy beans here.
What we now know as the Navy bean existed long before the U.S. Navy. It is a new world food
that was cultivated and cooked by Native Americans. The military moniker? Food historians tell
us the name was a result of this bean's recognition and utilization by the U.S. Navy for its
nutritious, versatile, and portable properties. History notes here:
---The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani
[Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 216)
---The Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas,
Volume 2 [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000 (p. 1821)
http://www.ag.uiuc.edu/archives/experts/health/1997/0008.html
Rice Krispies Treats
Rice Krispies-type treats existed long before the name-brand cereal was invented. This snack
traces its roots to the middle of the 19th century when recipes for puffed grain treats mixed with
sweeteners (molasses, corn syrup) pressed into various shapes were popular. They were known as
popcorn balls.
"Puffed Rice Brittle
1 c. Gran. Sugar
1 tsp. vinegar
1 tbs. Butter
1 package rice
1/2 cup water
2 tbs. Molasses
1/2 tbs. Salt
---Laura Crystal, Domestic Science 7B [manuscript]
According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office,
Kellogg's Rice Krispies cereal was first introduced February 29, 1928 (registration #024993).
http://www.ag.iastate.edu/aginfo/aginaction/8.29.96.html
---"Her gift to Us: Recipe for Rice Krispies Treats," Carol McGarvey, The Des Moines
Register,
June 14, 1996 (p. 1)
---"Advertising news & Notes, New York Times, February 11, 1941 (p. 40)
---Dislay ad, Los Angeles Times, March 15, 1942 (p. F14)
1/3 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 lb Fluffi-i-est Marshmallows (this is a brand name)
1 package Kellogg Rice Krispies ( 5 1/2 oz.)
Melt butter and marshmallows in double boiler. Add vanilla; beat well. Put Rice Krispies in large buttered bowl and pour on marshmallow mixture. Press into
shallow buttered pan. Cut into squares. Yield: 16 2 1/4-inch squares (10 X 10-inch pan). Note: Nut meats and cocoanut may be added."
---"Try this Candy Recipe," Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1941 (p. 4)
Risotto
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, translated by Anthea Bell [Barnes &
Noble Books:New York] 1992 (p. 161-2)
---A Mediterranean Feast, Clifford A. Wright [William Morrow:New York] 1999 (p. 587)
---Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink, John Mariani [Broadway Books:New York] 1998
(p. 218-9)
---Pomp and Sustenance, Twenty-Five Centuries of Sicilian Food, Mary Taylor Simeti
[Ecco Press:Hopewell NJ] 1989 (p. 69)
"7. On Rice
Rice [risum], which I think was called oriza in the ancient spelling, is of warm and dry
force, and for this reason it is very nourishing, especially if it has been seasoned with
ground almonds, milk, and sugar, as will be described later. When it is cooked down it
pure water, it constricts the belly. Its frequent use, however, harms those accustomed to
suffer with pain in the bowel."
---De Honesta Voluptate [On Right Pleasure], Platina, Book VII [1475] critical edition and
translation by Mary Ella Milham, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies Volume 168,
Tempe AZ (p. 309)
ABOUT MODERN RISSOTO
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999
(p. 666)
[NOTE: Pellegrino Artusi's Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (c. 1891) contains the following risotto recipes:
Risotto Colle Telline (Rice with Clams), Risotto Colle Tinche (Rice with Tench), Risotto nero Colle Seppie Alla Fiorentina (Blask
Risotto with Cuttlefish Florentine Style), Risotto Coi Piselle (Rice with Peas), Risotto Coi Funghi (Rice with Mushrooms),
Risotto Coi Pomodori (Rice with Tomatoes), Risotto Alla Milanese I (Rice Milanese Style I), Risotto Alla Milanese II, Risotto
Alla Milanese III, Risotto Coi Rangocchi (Rice with Frogs), Risotto Coi Gamberi (Rice with Prawns) & Risotto Col Brodo Di Pesce
(Rice in Fish Broth).]
---American Century Cook Book: the most popular recipes of the 20th Century, Jean
Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 216)
---American Food: The Gastronomic Story, Evan Jones, 2nd edition [Vintage Books:New
York] 1981 (p. 155)
Waffles
---Larousse Gastronomique, Completely Revised and Updated [Clarkson Potter:New
York] 2001 (p. 1285)
---The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New
York] 1999 (page 343)
A true Belgian waffle is a thicker product than it's American counterpart because it requires yeast.
Yeast is a living organism and takes time to grow. Over the years--often from necessity--
American cooks have discarded yeast recipes in favor of newer and faster solutions yielding
similar products. Baking powder & baking soda are faster, more reliable, and achieve (somewhat)
similar results. What the American version lacked in height it made up for in convenience.
---"His waffles made memories at the Queens World's Fair," Newsday (Queens edition)
August 22, 1989 (p. 21)
"To Fry Waffles
For each pound [one English pound, or 454 grams] of Wheat-flour take a pint [about a half a
litre] of sweet Milk, a little tin bow, of melted Butted with 3 or 4 Eggs, a spoonful of Yeast well
stirred together."
---De Verstandige Kock (The Sensible Cook) [Netherlands, 1683?], Translated and Edited
by Peter G. Rose [Syracuse University Press:Syracuse] 1989 (p. 76)
Put two pints of rich milk into separate pans. Cut up and melt in one of them a quarter of a pound
of butter, warming it slightly; then, when it is melted, stir it about, and set it away to cool. Beat
eight eggs till very light, and mix them gradually into the other pan of milk, alternately with half a
pound of flour. The mix it by degrees the milk that has the butter in it. Lastly, stir in a large
table-spoonfull of strong fresh yeast. Cover the pan and set it near the fire to rise. When the batter
is
quite light, heat your waffle-iron, by putting it among the coals of a clear bright fire; grease the
inside with butter tied in a rag, and then put in some batter. Shut the iron closely, and when the
waffle is done on one side, turn the iron on the other. Take the cake out by slipping a knife
underneath; and then heat and grease the iron for another waffle. Send them to table quite hot,
four or six on a plage; having buttered them and strewed over each a mixture of powdered
cinnamon, and white sugar. Or you may send the sugar and cinnamon in a little glass bowl."
---Directions for Cookery in its Various Branches, Miss Leslie [Philadelphia, 1849]. (p.
359)
One quart of flour, and a teaspoonful of salt. One quart of milk, with a tablespoonful of melted
butter in it, and mixed with the flour gradually, so as not to have lumps. Three tablespoonfuls of
distillery yeast. When raised, two well-beaten eggs. Bake in waffle-irons well oiled with lard each
time they are used. Lay one side on coals, and in about two minutes turyn the other side to the
coals.
One quart of flour, and a teaspoonful of salt. One qurt of sour milk, with two tablespoonfulls of
butter melted in it. Five well-beated eggs. A Teaspoonful for more of saleratus [precursor of
baking soda], enough to sweeten the milk. Baked in waffle irons. Some like one tea-cup full of
sugar added."
---Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book, Catharine E. Beecher [New York, 1858] (p.
96)
1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
2 cups milk
2 eggs, separated
1/4 cup melted butter or margarine, or salad oil
Directions for assembly follow. From the same book "Packaged frozen waffles are
delicious."
---Good Housekeeping Cook Book, Dorothy B. Marsh, editor [1962] (pps. 336-337)
---Food: A Culinary History, Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari [Columbia
University Press:New York] 1999 (p. 341)
---The Sensible Cook: Dutch Foodways in the Old and the New World, translated and
edited by Peter G. Rose [Syracuse University Press:Syracuse] 1989 (p. 22)
---Pancake: A Global History, Ken Albala [Reaktion Books:London] 2008 (p. 20)
[NOTE: we highly recommend this new book. Ask your local public librarian to help you get a copy!]
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p.
571)
---Larousse Gastronomique, Jenifer Harvey Lang, New American Edition [Crown
Publishers:New York]1989 (p. 332)
---Dining With William Shakespeare, Madge Lorwin [Atheneum:New York] 1976 (p.
141)
---Swedish Cooking at its Best, Marianne Gronwall van der Tuuk [Rand
McNally:Chicago] 1962 (p. 62)
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New
York] 1999 (p. 229-30)
(This is only a small portion of the information on pancakes found in this book. Ask your librarian
to help you find this book for additional facts and trivia. Historic recipes for hoe cakes).
Flapjacks are one (of several) American names for pancake-type foods. Food historians generally
agree
the term belongs to the New England states.
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p.
126-7)
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Marinani [Lebhar-Friedman:New
York] 1999
(p. 229)
---A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles, Mitford M. Mathews, editor
[University of
Chicago Press:Chicago] 1951(p. 625)
---Dictionary of American Regional English, Frederic G. Cassidy and Joan Houston Hall,
Volume II
D-H [Belknap Pres of Harvard University Press:Cambridge MA] 1991 (p. 462)
[NOTE: This source contains several historic references for all three references. Your librarian
can help you
obtain a copy of this book/page.]
[NOTE: this recipe is often cited as a recipe for pancakes, but it does not include a thickening
agent (flour, ground pulse). The ingredients and instructions indicate this dish would have
produced an omlette.
The English House-Wife, Gervase Markham [London] (p. 56-7)
"The best Pancake. To make the best Pancake, take two or three eggs, and breake them into a
dish, and beate them well: Then adde unto them a pretty quantity of faire running water, and beate
all well together: Then put in cloves, mace, cinnamon, and a nutmegge, and season it with salt;
which done make thicke as you thinke good with fine wheate flower: The frie the cakes as thinne
as may bee with sweet butter, or sweete seame, and madke them browne, and so serve them up
with sugar strowed upon them. There be some which mixe Pancakes with new milke or creame,
but that makes them tough, cloying, and not so crispe, pleasant andsavory as running water."
De Verstandige Kock, translated and edited [Syracuse University Press:Syracuse NY]
1989 by Peter G. Rose [Holland]
"To fry common pancakes.
For each pond on Wheat-flour take a pint of sweet Milk and 3 eggs. Some add some Sugar to
it."
Take 5 or 6 eggs with clean, running water, add to it Cloves, Cinnamon, Mace, and Nutmeg with
some Salt, beat it with some Wheat-flour as thick as you like, fry them and sprinkle them with
Sugar; these are prepared with running water because [when prepared] with Milk or Cream they
would be tough." (p. 76)
The Experienced Housekeeper, Elizabeth Raffald [London]
"To Make Wafer Pancakes"
Beat four eggs well with two spoonfuls of fine flour and two of cream, one ounce of loaf sugar
beat and sifter, half a nutmeg grated. Put a little cold butter in a clean cloth and rub your pan well
with it. Pour your batter and make it as thin as a wafer, fry it only on one side. Put them on a dish
and grate sugar betwixt every pancake, and send them hot to the table." (p. 80)
[NOTE: Mrs. Raffald also povided recipes for cream, clary and batter pancakes. Her book was
recently reprinted by Southover Press, introduction by Roy Shipperbottom. If you want to see the
other recipes ask your librarian to borrow a copy for you.]
Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book, Mary Johnson Lincoln [Boston]
buckwheat
cakes & French
pancakes
Like pancakes, crepes trace their roots back to ancient Roman times.
In Medieval France they
were connected with Candlemas and Shrove Tuesday, as symbols of good fortune and family life.
---Larousse Gastronomique, Completely Revised and Updated [Clarkson Potter:New
York] 2001 (p. 367)
---The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy, Odile Redon, Francoise Sabban,
& Silvano Serventi, translated by Edward Schneider [University of Chicago:Chicago] 1998 (p.
206-7)
Crepes.
Take some four, and moisten it with eggs, as many yolks as whites, with the filaments removed,
and mix with water and add salt and wine, and beat everything together for a long time; then put
some lard on the fire in a little iron pan, or half lard and half fresh butter, and let it bubble; and
then take a bowl pierced with a hold as wide as your little finger, and then put the batter in a dish;
beginning with the center, let it flow all over the pan; then put it in a plate with powdered sugar
on tip. And that iron or bronze pan should hold three chopines, and have a rim half a
finger's-breadth high and should be as broad at the top as at the base, neither more nor less; there
is a
good reason for this." (p. 229)
---"Henri Charpentier, Chef, Dies; Was Creator of Crepes Suzette," New York Times, December 25, 1961 (p. 23)
[NOTE: In 1935 the USA was mired in the Great Depression. Many businesses (of all kinds) could not pay rent and sought bankruptcy
protection. This was not automatically caused by a company's poor service or inferior products. In tough econonomic times
consumer confidence wanes & spending slows.]
[1907]
"Crepes Suzette
These are prepared with Mixture A flavoured with Curacao and tangerine juice. Spread the pancakes like Gil-Blas pancakes
with softened buttered flavoured with Curacao and tangerine juice. Mixture A: ingredients: 500 g (1 lb 2 oz) sifted flour,
200 g (7 oz) caster sugar, a pinch of fine salt, 12 eggs, 1 1/2 litre (2 5/8 pt or 6 1/2 U.S. cups) milk. Method: Place the
flour, sugar and salt in a basin, add the eggs and the milk little by little, whisking it well to form a smooth batter. Flavour with
1 tbs vanilla sugar or orange or lemon sugar which should be included in the weight of sugar given above. The mixture may be flaboured
with 3 tbs of Kirsch, brandy or rum."
---The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery, Escoffier, translated into English by H.L. Cracknell and R.J.
Kaufmann [John Wiley:New York] 1997(p. 524)
------------
qata'if (Near Eastern pastry)
qawarma (minced lamb preserved in fat eaten by Lebanese mountain dwellers)
quahog (popular North American clam)
quandong (peach native to Australia)
quail (small game bird from the New World)
quaking custard (cream custard made in New England)
quark (fresh curd cheese eaten in Germany)
queen's pudding (a type of bread putting eaten in England)
quelites (variety of edible greens gathered by indigenous inhabitants of Mexico and C.
America)
quenelles (dumpling eaten in Europe)
queso (Spanish word for cheese)
quetsche (plum native to the Alsace region)
quiche (pie or tart having an egg filling and other ingredients)
quignon (a liece of bread, usually the end crust of a loaf)
quillet (a small round sponge cake)
quince (fruit native to Western Asia, used for marmalade in medieval ages)
quinoa (cereal grain used by the Incas)
quroot (Asian dried curdled milk, popular in Afghanistan)
Udo--Japanese herb
Udon--Japanese wheat noodles
Uitmijer--Dutch open sandwich, sometimes topped with fried egg
Ulluco--minor root crop cultivated in the high Andes region of S. America
Umbles--edible entrails of a deer, eaten in pie in Medieval Europe (origin of expression "Humble pie")
Umbu--fruit grown in Northeast Brazil
Umeboshi--Japanes salted and dried "plums"
Urd--most important pulse (bean) in India, aka "mung bean"
Urda--Rumanian sheep's milk cheese
Ushky--Tiny dumplings served in soup, Russia
------------
xanthan gum (made from fermented corn sugar, used as a stabilizer in dairy products and salad
dressings)
xanthurus (Caribbean fish, resembles a carp, also known as yellow tail)
xerophagia (salad made with lettuce, bran, celery cabbage & chopped chives)
xicalli (Nahuatl name for a gourd of the tree Crescentia cujete', used by the Aztecs used to
fashion vessels for drinking chocolate...Doubtless in the process of making such cup...the seeds of
the gourd were sometimes retained to be roasted, and perhaps even the pulp was consumed)
xifias souvlakia (skewered swordfish, Greece)
xiao dou (small Chinese beans, fermented or curdled)
ximenia Americana (tallow wood, seaside plum)
xin-xin (Latin American chicken & vegetable dish, served with rice and peanuts)
xkinvat (fried twisted strips of rich pastry cented with orange flour water and served in a golden
crispy pile drizzled with Maltese honey and colored shot--tiny pinheads of colored candies used
for cake decoration--birthday treat from Malta)
------------
Yabby (crayfish from Australia)
yak (related to bison & cows, used for milk, cheese & yogurt)
yakitori (Japanese dish of skewered broiled chicken piece dipped in soy sauce)
yale boat pie (savory pie composed of meat, poultry & shellfish; named for Yale University)
yangtao (kiwi)
yarrow (pungent herb sometimes used in salads; also said to have healing powers)
yeast (these living spores make bread rise and beer ferment)
yam (tropical tubers; staple food for many cultures)
yerba yate (tea made from dried leaves of evergreen tree Ilex paraguariensis)
yoghurt (fermented milk)
yorkshire pudding (English batter pudding)
yuba (Japanese soy derivative)
yucca (Central/South American plant, banana-like fruit is eaten raw)
yuzu (golden yellow citrus fruit from Asia)
------------
zaatar (wild thyme-spice)
zabaglione (light foamy dessert from Italy)
zakusiki (Russian hors d'oeuvres)
zamia (grain used by Native Americans of the West Indies)
zampone (sausage eaten in Modena, Italy)
zandler (fish, also known as a pikeperch, European)
zarsuela (Spanish seafood stew)
zebra (meat eaten in South Africa)
zedoary (spice that resembles ginger, native to NE India and SE Asia)
zephrina (cookie baked by Native Americans in North Carolina)
zest (outer rind of an orange, lemon or other citrus fruit)
zewelewa (onion tart from the Alsace region)
zingara (sauce containing paprika and tomato, Italian)
zucchini (vegetable in the squash family)
zulu milkberry (sweet berries native to Africa)
zuttano (synonym for avocado)
zwieback (dry toasted bread slices, word is German for "twice baked")
zizyphus jujuba (Chinese date, jujube)
An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto
Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Connee Ornelas
Edgewater Beach Hotel Salad Book Arnold Shircliffe
Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani
Food Lover's Companion, Sharon Tyler Herbst, 3rd edition
International Dictionary of Food and Cooking, Martin
Larousse Gastronomique, Jenifer Harvey Lang, editor
Master Dictionary of Food and Cookery, Henry Smith
A Mediterranean Feast, Clifford A. Wright
Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson
You Eat What You Are, Thema Barer-Stein
Guide to Tropical Fruits and Trees,
California Rare Fruit Growers
Think about the assigment. Did your teacher specifically state which language you had to
use? If not, consider Latin (all foods have Latin names; you can find these names in
Agricultural/Botainical classificaion guides). You might also examine foreign language
dictionaries. Your librarian can help you find these books.
From ancient times forward, saffron commands the post of "most expensive" spice. What exactly is this substance and why is it so
valuable?
---Nectar and Ambrosia" An Encyclopeida of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews [ABC-CLIO:Santa Barbara CA] 2000 (p. 205-206)
---Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices, Andrew Dalby [University of California Press:Berkeley] 2000 (p. 138-9)
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kiple & Ornelas [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000 volume 2 (p. 1846)
---An A-Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 292-3)
---Food, Waverly Root [Smithmark:New York] 1980 (p. 426-427)
"What makes saffron so expensive is the unavoidably large amount of hand labor necessary to produce a small amount of it. Saffron
is the dried stigmas, and usually part of the styles, of the flower or Crocus sativus, which have to be picked painstakingly
out of each blossom, flower by flower..."
---Food, Root (p. 425-426)
"Within Renaissance dietary literature, the shifting meaning of various foods can therefore be used as an indication of shifting
values and, in a sense, a measue of the evolution of self-image. Take, for example, the fate of saffron. In the early
Renaissance, or period I, saffron
was a an ideal symbol of wealth, not only because it was difficult to harvest and expensive but it lent a dazzling effect to
foods. The way to impress a guest was to present saffron-daubed dishes sparkling like gold. Saffron became a symbol for
gold...To the wealthy reader of culinary literature, eating saffron invests the body with wealth the same way a gold chain would,
but here it is literally incorporated...The fact that period I dietaries consistently praised saffron reflects the fact that these
authors would primarily for courtly patrons...This enthusiasm for saffron abates during the sixteenth century among period 2 and 3
authors, and some even claim that it is dangerous. This is the effect...of increasing distance from wealthy patrons, but it can also
be linked to simple economic factors. Saffron was first cultivated on a large scale in the sixteenth century. It thus became
a more affordable luxury and consequently a less potent symbol of wealth...Ironically, as saffron was more widely used and as
lower social ranks were increasingly able to imitate their superiors, courtly cookbooks included saffron less."
---Eating Right in the Renassiance, Ken Albala [University of California Press:Berkeley CA] 2002 (p. 166-167)
Saffron Walden is a town in England so named for its historic connection with growing saffron. Food historians generally agree the
English saffron industry began in the 14th century. Notes here:
---Food, Waverly Root [Smithmark:New York] 1980 (p. 427-428)
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 680)
---English Food, Jane Grigson, revised edition, Sophie Grigson [Penguin Books:London] 1992 (p. 308-309)
[NOTE: Ms. Grigson offers a recipe for traditional English Saffron Cake in this text. Let us know if you want it.]
---Food in History, Reay Tannahill [Three Rivers Press:New York] 1988 (p. 179-180)
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volume One (p. 848)
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 687)
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, translated by Anthea Bell [Barnes & Noble Books:New
York] 1992 (p. 461)
[NOTE: this book has much more information than can be paraphrased here. Ask your librarian to help
you find a copy.]
---Salt: A World History, Mark Kurlansky [Walker and Company:New York] 2002 (p. 18-9)
[NOTE: This book is considered by many food historians to be THE book on the topic.]
RECOMMENDED READING (your librarian will help you get these)
If you need more information regarding a salt in a particular context (place/period/people), food (salt water taffy, salt pork, Kosher salt) or dining custom (salt spoons, salt cellars) please let us know. Happy to help!
Trail mix & gorp
This name recalls the old days when people ate mixtures of dried foods while traveling "on the
trail." As with many foods, the name preceded the product. Harmony Foods
(California) claims to be the first to market a product with this name. The date? 1968. The other company claiming the invention
of trail mix is
Hadley Fruit Orchards, also in California
"Word Mark ORIGINAL TRAIL MIX Goods and Services IC 029. US 046. G & S: Snack food mix consisting primarily of raisins, processed sunflower
seeds, processed pumpkin seeds, processed peanuts, processed cashews, processed almonds, soybean oil and/or cottonseed oil and/or canola oil and/or almond
oil and salt. FIRST USE: 19680000. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19770000 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Design Search Code Serial
Number 76345939 Filing Date December 7, 2001 Current Filing Basis 1A Original Filing Basis 1A Published for Opposition September 24, 2002
Registration Number 2662697 Registration Date December 17, 2002 Owner (REGISTRANT) Hadley Date Gardens, Inc. CORPORATION CALIFORNIA 83555 Airport Blvd. Thermal CALIFORNIA 92274 Attorney of Record John H. Alspaugh Disclaimer NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "TRAIL MIX" APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register PRINCIPAL-2(F) Live/Dead Indicator LIVE"
Word Mark HARMONY Goods and Services IC 029. US 046. G & S: DRIED FRUIT, PROCESSED NUTS, AND MIXTURES OF DRIED FRUIT AND PROCESSED NUTS. FIRST USE: 19690906. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19690906 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Design Search Code Serial Number 73184473 Filing Date September 5, 1978 Current Filing Basis 1A Original Filing Basis 1A Registration Number 1129023 Registration Date January 8, 1980 Owner (REGISTRANT) HARMONY FOODS, INC. CORPORATION CALIFORNIA 2141 DELAWARE AVE. SANTA CRUZ CALIFORNIA 95061 (LAST LISTED OWNER) HARMONY FOODS CORPORATION CORPORATION DELAWARE 11899 EXIT FIVE PARKWAY FISHERS INDIANA 46038 Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Attorney of Record ERIC S. WACHSPRESS Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register PRINCIPAL Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). Renewal 1ST RENEWAL 20000111 Live/Dead Indicator LIVE
(aka Good Old Raisins and Peanuts, Granola Oats Raisins and Peanuts)
Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary [Barnes & Noble:New York] 1996
suggests this term might have derived from "GLOP," used 1955-1960. Coincidentally? This was
also the time when home-made party snack mixes were popular and Chex Mix was born.
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar Friedman:New
York] 1999 (p. 142)
---Cambridge World History of Food/Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Conee Orneals [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volume Two (p. 1874-5)
---Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology/Tamra Andrews [ABC-CLIO:Santa Barbara CA] 2000 (p. 235)
---An A-Z of Food and Drink/John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 355-356)
---Oxford Companion to Food/Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2nd edition, 2007 (p. 823-4)
---America’s First Cuisines/Sophie D. Coe [University Of Texas Press:Austin TX] 1994 (p.59-60)
Like chocolate, vanilla arrived in North America via Europe:
---Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink,/John F. Mariani [Lebhar Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 338)
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America/Andrew F. Smith, editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 2 (p. 569)
Vanilla: The Cultural History of the World's Favorite Flavor and Fragrance/Patricia Rain
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davisdon [Oxford University Press:Oxford]
1999 (p. 827)
---Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples, Don Brothwell and
Patricia Brothwell, Expanded edition [Johns Hopkins:Baltimore] 1997 (p. 161-2)
---Food in the Ancient World From A to Z, Andrew Dalby [Routledge:London]
2003 (p. 343)
---Larousse Gastronomique, Completely revised and updated [Clarkson
Potter:New York] 2001 (p. 1287)
---Foods and Food Production Encyclopedia, Douglas M. Considine and Glenn
D. Considine [Van Nostrand Reinhold:New York] 1982 (p. 2064)
---Pickled, Potted, and Canned: How the Art and Science of Food Preserving
Changed the World, Sue Shepard [Simon & Schuster:New York] 2000 (p. 96)
[NOTE: This book has an entire chapter on vinegar, including the use of vinegar in
Asian cuisines. Worth the read if you are interested in learning more.]
---The Oxford Companion to Wine, Jancis Robinson, Second edition [Oxford
University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 749)
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New
York] 1999 (p. 341)
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge University
Press:Cambrdige] 2001, Volume Two (p. 1878)
[NOTE: Emmer, Einkorn and Spelt have sepearate entries.]
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Orneals [Cambridge University
Press:Cambrdige] 2001, Volume One (p. 159)
[NOTE: The chapter devoted to wheat in this book runs from p. 159-174. Your librarian will be happy to help you obtain these pages.]
---Food in the Ancient World from A to Z, Andrew Dalby [Routledge:London] 2003(p. 348-9)
---Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews [ABC-Clio:Santa Barbara CA] 2000 (p.244-5)
Is it true that wheat was introduced to North America by the English when they started colonizing in the
17th Century? Yes, but this grain didn't flourish in these colonies until much later. The Spanish are actually credited for introducing
this crop to the New World in the 16th century.
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Orneals [Cambridge University
Press:Cambrdige] 2001, Volume One (p. 170)
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 345)
---Eating in America: A History, Waverly Root & Richard de Rochement [William Morrow:New York] 1976
(p. 61)
---Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples, Don Brothwell and Patricia
Brothwell [Johns
Hopkins University Press:Baltimore] 1997, expanded edition (p. 51)
---Food in History, Reay Tannahill [Three Rivers Press:New York] 1988 (p. 27-9)
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p.
859)
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p.
373)
---Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews
[ABC-CLIO:Santa
Barbara] 2000 (p. 250)
---A Mediterranean Feast, Clifford A. Wright [William Morrow:New York] 1999 (p. 184-5)
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat , translated by Anthea Bell [Barnes &
Noble Books:New
York] 1992 (p. 119-20)
---Craig Claiborne's The New York Times Food Encyclopedia, Joan Whitman compiler
[Times Books:New
York] 1985 (p. 489)
"Turkish immigrants are said to have brought yogurt to the United states in 1784, but its
popularity dates only from the
1940s, when Daniel Carasso emigrated to the United States and took over a small yogurt factory
in the Bronx, New
York. He was soon joined by Juan Metzger, and the two sold their yogurt under the name
Dannon (originally Danone,
after Daniel Carcasso whose father was a Barcelona yogurt maker). In 1947 the company added
strawberry fruit
preserves to make the first "sundae-style yogurt." Whe nutrition promoter Benjamin Gayelord
Hauser published an
excerpt from his book Live Younger, Live Longer (1950), in the October 1950 issue of
Reader's Digest
magazine extolling the health virtues of yogurt, the product's sales soared. They leaped again--500
percent from 1958-1968--when so-called health foods were popularized by the counterculture of
the 1960s."
---Encyclopia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New
York] 1999 (p. 355)
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson, second edition edited by Tom Jaine [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2006
(p. 866-7)
---Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New Yrok] 1999 (p. 358)
Vegetable Marrow, The Market Assistant
Vegetable Marrows & Vegetable Marrow Tarts, Jennie June's American Cookery Book
"'Zucchini' from Northern Italy. One of the msot important vegetables of the Venetians, and worthy of serious consideration by our
truck growers."
---"Plants of All Climes," Guy N. Mitchell, Los Angeles Times, Feburary 22, 1901 (p. 8)
Fried Squash,
Stuffed Italian Squash &
String Beans and Squashes Sauteed
---The Italian Cookbook, Maria Gentile
---"Dining 'Round the World in Los Angeles," Wynonah B. Johnson, Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1921 (p. V19)
Wash and boil in salted water six Italian squash for fifteen minutes. Drain and cut in half, lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and fill
their places with a mixture made by mixing one cup of bread crumbs that have been soaked in milk and pressed nearly dry, the mashed
yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, the yolks of two raw eggs one mashed clove of garlic, six finely chopped blanched almonds, three
tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese and a seasoning of salt and nutmeg. Place in well-buttered baking dish, cover with melted butter
and brown in the oven. Serve with cream sauce."
---"What Women's Organizations are Doing," Chef A.L. Wyman, Los Angeles Times, January 25, 1922 (p. II8)
Select three vegetable marrows about six inches long, peel lightly, cut a piece from one end and remove the seeds. Press closely
into the marrows some well seasoned pork sausage, pin the end pieces on with tooth picks, place in a saucepan, dot with butter, add
one cupful of meat stock and one teaspoonful of lemon juice, cover the pan tight and set in a moderate oven for two hours or
until the marrows are tender, basting often. Lift the marrows to a serving dish, remove the fat from the sauce, add to the sauce one
cupful of tomato sauce, boil up once and strain over the marrows."
---"Chef Wyman's Suggestions for Tomorrow's Menu," Los Angeles Times, September 22, 1924 (p. A8)
Zucchini bread descends from a long line of European sweet vegetable puddings dating
back to the Middle Ages. Carrot pudding is one of the oldest examples. Sweet potato
pudding/pie followed in the Renaissance. Carrot pudding crossed from vegetable to
cake dessert in the 20th century.
Sweet potato pie remains on the dinner table.
After WWII, zucchini proved prolific in mainstream American home gardens. Which meant?
Too much zucchini. Just like leftover Thanksgiving turkey, recipes proliferated. Zucchini bread (portable, easy, healthy,
freezer-friendly) to the rescue!
---American Century Cook Book, Jean Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p.
329)
[NOTE: Includes recipe from the early 1970s.]
---Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads, Sylvia Lovegren [MacMillan:New
York] 1995 (p. 310)
"Carl Goh's Zucchini Bread
This rather unusual loaf has a very pleasant flavor, a little on on the sweet side, and a distinctive texture. The built-in
moisture provided by the zucchini makes it a very good keeper. It can be prepared with 1 cup of whole-wheat flour instead of
all white flour. [2 loaves]
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups grated, peeled, raw zucchini
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup coarsely chopped filberts or walnuts
Beat the eggs until light and foamy. Add the sugar, oil, zucchini, and vanilla and mix lightly but well. Combine the flour,
salt, soda, baking powder, and cinnamon and add to the egg-zucchini mixture. Stir until well blended, add nuts, and pour into two
9 X 5 X 3-inch loaf pans. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 1 hour. Cool on a rack."
---Beard on Bread, James A. Beard [Alfred A. Knopf:New York] 1973 (p. 169)
About these notes: Food history can be a complicated topic. These notes are not meant
to be a
comprehensive treatment of the subject, but a summary of salient points supported with culinary
evidence. If you
need more information we suggest you start by asking your librarian to help you find the books
and articles cited in these notes. Article databases are good for locating current recipes, consumer
trends, and new products.
Have questions? Ask!
Research conducted by Lynne
Olver, editor The Food
Timeline. About this site.