Just to fill your holiday during the stay at home, or rather Ground Hog Day existence we are now living. Some totally useless information that may bring a smile or a snicker. So, lets check into Twinkies, fried chicken, catsup, and apple pie and ice cream. From the NYT: Twinkies as we know them now are simple: yellow cake filled with vanilla cream frosting. But when the sweet snacks first appeared in 1930, the tasty filling was not vanilla. Twinkie inventor James Alexander Dewar, then a baker for the Continental Baking Company, came up with the treat when he was looking for a way to utilize the bakerys strawberry shortcake machine when strawberries were out of season. He substituted banana cream, and the Twinkie was born. Unfortunately, with the advent of World War II, bananas were rationed, forcing Hostess to switch to vanilla cream filling. The change proved to be so popular with customers that the filling was never switched back to banana once the war ended. Hostess has since revived the original flavor for Twinkies on a few occasions — such as to promote the DVD release of the 2006 movie King Kong — but today, the
main flavor is still vanilla. Other varieties include chocolate cake, and strawberry. Do any of you remember when a San Francisco County Supervisor used the Twinkie defense, when he shot and killed the Mayor (George Moscone), and the first openly gay Supervisor (Harvey Milk)? From FirstWeFeast: The origin of fried chicken has never really been clear to anyone. It has possible antecedents everywhere, from Southeast Asia to Scotland to West Africa. But the oldest recipe anyone has found for a reasonably understandable fried chicken is from British cookbook author Hannah Glasses The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, first published in the 1740s. In her book, she suggests skinning and cutting up a chicken; covering it in a mixture of egg yolks, flour, and spices; and then frying it. Although she didnt call her dish fried chicken, her recipe is believed to have influenced subsequent recipes for fried chicken in America. Today it is generally agreed that modern fried chicken is an American invention the fricassees of European cooking and cooking methods and styles of enslaved African Americans.My paternal Grandmother, from Japan, made the best fried chicken. Where did she learn to make it? And let
The disastrous clich of asking for ketchup (catsup) in a fine dining establishment seems as American as apple pie (more on that later). However, ketchup itself is not an American creation. Fermented food pastes were a staple of Chinese culinary arts since ancient times. The word ketchup is actually derived from the Hokkien Chinese word This recipe for ketchup was actually made from fermented fish, and when the British copied the recipe, they included ingredients like anchovies, mushrooms, and walnuts.
When ketchup arrived on American shores, it was painstakingly and fermented in the kitchen with a list ingredients, without sugar or vinegar. Ketchup referred to a variety of fermented sauces, with mushroom ketchup being a popular option. However, the face of American condiment shelves was destined for change when H.J. Heinz used sugar and vinegar to preserve tomato ketchup in 1876.
Speaking of apple pie, it as much of a surprise that the fruity baked good did not originate here in the home of the brave. Apples are native to Asia, but
the Europeans had brought them home hundreds of years before America was founded. The oldest known recipe for apple pie dates back to England in 1381 – calling for figs, raisins, pears, and a sugarless pastry shell.
The association of apple pie to patriotism about until the early 1900s. It was around this time that apple pie became a symbol of prosperity and American home cooking. Decades down the road, for Mom and apple pie became the response of WWII soldiers when asked why they were going to the frontlines.
