John-Bryan Hopkins's Blog, page 65

September 17th is National Apple Dumpling Day!

Here are today’s five thing to know about Dumplings:

Dumplings are cooked balls of dough.
They are based on flour, potatoes or bread, and may include meat, fish, vegetables, or sweets.
They may be cooked by boiling, steaming, simmering, frying, or baking.
They may have a filling, or there may be other ingredients mixed into the dough.
Dumplings can also be sweet or spicy.

Today’s Food History

1630 Boston, Massachusetts was founded. Nickname, ‘Bean Town.’
1836 Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu died. A French botanist whose ideas formed the foundation of a natural plant classification system.
1900 Hotelier John Willard Marriott was born. Beginning with Hot Shoppe restaurants, then airline catering, and then motels, Marriott built his business into one of the largest, fastest growing, and most profitable hotel and restaurant businesses in the U.S.
1997 ‘Honey’ by Mariah Carey is #1 on the charts

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September 16th is National Cinnamon-Raisin Bread Day!

Here are today’s five thing to know about Bread:

It takes 9 seconds for a combine to harvest enough wheat to make about 70 loaves of bread.
Each American consumes, on average, 53 pounds of bread per year.
An average slice of packaged bread contains only 1 gram of fat and 75 to 80 calories.
One bushel of wheat will produce 73 one-pound loaves of bread.
Breaking bread is a universal sign of peace.

Today’s Food History

1380 Charles V of France Died.

* It was Charles V who commissioned Taillevent to write what would become the first professional cookery book written in France, ‘Le Viandier’.

* Forks were mentioned in an inventory during his reign

* Some believe that he died as a result of eating amanita mushrooms.
1630 Shawmut changed its name to Boston. If not for this, we might be eating Shawmut Baked Beans and Shawmut Cream Pie today!
1736 Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit died. Fahrenheit was a German physicist who invented the Fahrenheit temperature scale thermometer. It was the first thermometer to use mercury instead of alcohol, which also extended the temperature range of thermometers.
1835 Charles Darwin arrived at the Galapagos islands aboard the HMS Beagle. The unique fauna he observed on the various islands there helped in forming his theory of natural selection.
1919 Marvin P. Middlemark was born. He invented the TV ‘rabbit ear’ antenna, and among other minor inventions, a water powered potato peeler.
1947 The first aluminum foil, Reynolds Metals ‘Reynolds Wrap’ goes on sale.

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September 15th is National Double-Cheeseburger Day!

Here are today’s five thing to know about double cheeseburgers:

The oldest fast food restaurant in the world is the White Castle franchise, which opened in 1921.
The people of America eat more burgers out at restaurants or on the go than they do at home.
The largest hamburger ever created was over 8,000 pounds and was cooked for a burger festival in Wisconsin.
However, the hamburger in its current form, with ground beef and a bun, is a decidedly American creation.
Hamburgers are made of beef, not ham, and there is much debate over whether they actually originated in Hamburg.

Today’s Food History

1885 Jumbo, an African elephant exhibited by in France, the London Zoo, and finally in the Barnum & Bailey Circus, died after being hit by a locomotive in Ontario, Canada. Jumbo was supposedly 12 feet tall at the time of his death.
1898 William S. Burroughs died. An American inventor, Burroughs invented and manufactured  the first adding machine with a printer.
1962 The Four Seasons ‘Sherry’ hits number 1 on the charts.
1965 Green Acres TV show debuted.
1971 Greenpeace founded.
1981 The USDA announced that ketchup could be counted as a vegetable in the school lunch program.
1995 Tan M&Ms are replaced by the new blue M&Ms. The tan ones originally replaced violet M&Ms in 1949.

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September 14th is National Cream-Filled Doughnut Day!

Here are today’s five thing to know about Doughnuts :

In the U.S. alone, more than 10 billion donuts are made every year.
Between our 27 locations, LaMar’s Donuts produces 344,700 donuts per week, which is 17.9 million donuts per year.
A Ray’s Original Glazed Donut has only 220 calories, while a bagel and cream cheese averages 450 calories.
Per capita, Canada has more donuts shops than any other country.
The Dutch are often credited with bringing donuts to the U.S. with their olykoeks, or oily cakes in the 1800s.

Today’s Food History

1752 Yesterday was September 2, 1752. No, really!
1849 Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born. Pavlov’s work with dogs actually started as a study of digestion. He theorized that digestion was controlled in part by sensory inputs of sight, smell and taste – and as he discovered, sound; ‘conditioned reflex.’
1976 ‘Play That Funky Music’ by Wild Cherry is #1 on the charts
2006 The U.S. FDA reported an outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7. Fresh spinach is the suspected cause of the outbreak and consumers nationwide were advised not to eat bagged spinach.  Eventually more than 200 people were sickened in 22 states and several deaths were reported.

Filed under: Food Holidays, September Food Holidays Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national cream-filled doughnut day, today's food history, todays food history

September 13th is National Peanut Day!

Here are today’s five thing to know about Peanut:

It takes about 540 peanuts to make a 12-ounce jar of peanut butter.
There are enough peanuts in one acre to make 30,000 peanut butter sandwiches.
By law, any product labeled “peanut butter” in the United States must be at least 90 percent peanuts.
Peanut butter was first introduced to the USA in 1904 at the Universal Exposition in St. Louis by C.H. Sumner, who sold $705.11 of the “new treat” at his concession stand.
In 1884, Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Montreal, Quebec was the first person to patent peanut butter.

Today’s Food History

1592 Michel de Montaigne died. French essayist. There are a few of his quotes about food and dining listed on the Food Reference website.

(“A man should not so much respect what he eats, as with whom he eats.”)
1857 Milton Snaveley Hershey of chocolate fame was born.
1876 American author, Sherwood Anderson was born. In 1941 Anderson supposedly swallowed a toothpick or a swizzle stick while at a cocktail party in the Panama Canal Zone, and died of peritonitis.
1909 ‘The Chocolate Soldier,’ an operetta by Oscar Straus and Stanislaus Strange, opened in New York.
1916 Roald Dahl was born. British author, one of his most popular books was ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,’ the film version was titled ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.’ Some of his other books are ‘A Piece of Cake,’ ‘Pig,’ ‘Royal Jelly,’ ‘Smell’ and ‘Lamb to the Slaughter.’
1922 The highest temperature ever recorded in the shade, 136.4 degrees F was recorded in a village 25 miles south of Tripoli, Libya.
1955 Little Richard recorded ‘Tutti Frutti’
1977 Fiona Apple, singer, songwriter was born.

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September 12th is National Chocolate Milkshake Day!

Milkshakes got their name from being served in bars. If the customer enjoyed the milkshake, he shook hands with the bartender. If not, the bartender didn’t get a tip.
Malted milk powder was invented in 1897 by James and William Horlick, but it was Ivar Coulson, a soda jerk for a Walgreen’s drug store, who first added it to milkshakes in 1922. This created the malted milkshake or just plain “malt.”
Steven Poplawski invented the electric blender in 1922 just for milkshakes. Before that, the effort of shaking them up must have required a lot of upper body motion.
It’d take 3,200,000 average-sized milkshakes to fill up an Olympic-sized pool. How fast do you think Michael Phelps could swim in that?
Australians can still buy traditional milkshakes in “milk bars,” which are much like old-fashioned drugstores with counter service. They’re usually served still in the steel cup, but may be poured into a paper cup for carry out orders.

Today’s Food History

1818 Richard Jordan Gatling was born. Before inventing the Gatling Gun, he developed a machine for sowing rice, wheat, and other grains, and invented a steam plow.
1928 Katharine Hepburn makes her first New York stage appearance in ‘Night Hostess.’
1940 The caves at Lascaux in France are discovered. They contain some of the earliest know art, dating back over 15,000 years. The prehistoric cave paintings (over 600) depict many large animals including aurochs, red deer, horses, stags, bison, etc.
1959 The TV show ‘Bonanza’ premiers. The frontier adventures of the Cartwright family, father, 3 sons and Chinese cook Hop Sing, on the ‘Ponderosa’ ranch near Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
1965 Norwood Fisher of the music group ‘Fishbone’ was born.
1971 Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey closed.

Filed under: Food Holidays, September Food Holidays Tagged: chocolate milkshake day, facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, lake tahoe nevada, life, national chocolate milkshake day, palisades amusement park, prehistoric cave paintings, richard jordan gatling, today's food history, todays food history, william horlick

September 11th is National Hot Cross Buns Day!

The celebration of ‘Soul Cakes’ is a perfect and respectful way to celebrate the 9/11 tragedy.

Here are today’s five thing to know about Hot Cross Buns:

A hot cross bun is a spiced sweet bun made with currants or raisins and marked with a cross on the top.
Ancient Greeks marked cakes with a cross, to symbolize remembrance of those who have past, ‘Soul Cakes’
They are believed by some to pre-date Christianity, although the first recorded use of the term “hot cross bun” was not until 1733.
It is believed that buns marked with a cross were eaten by Saxons in honour of the goddess Eostre (the cross is thought to have symbolised the four quarters of the moon); “Eostre” is probably the origin of the name “Easter”.
In many historically Christian countries, buns are traditionally eaten hot or toasted on Good Friday, with the cross standing as a symbol of the Crucifixion.

Today’s Food History

1721 Rudolph Jacob Camerarius died. A German botanist, he showed the existence of sexes in plants, and identified the stamen and pistil as the male and female organs.
1777 The Battle of Brandywine in the American Revolutionary War. The British win, enabling them to capture Philadelphia.
1851 Sylvester Graham died in Northampton, Massachusetts. He advocated vegetarianism, temperance and the use of coarse ground whole wheat (graham) flour. He developed the Graham cracker in 1829.
1959 Congress passed legislation creating the Food Stamp program.
1961 The World Wildlife Fund, a  conservation organization, was founded.

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September 10th is National Hot Dog Day!

Here are today’s five thing to know about Hot Dogs:

It is estimated that over seven billion hot dogs will be eaten by Americans between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
The term “hot dog” is credited to sports cartoonist Tad Dorgan. At a baseball game in New York in 1901, vendors began selling hot dachsund sausages in rolls.
The most popular condiment for adults is mustard, while children prefer ketchup.
The first words Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse ever uttered in a cartoon were “hot dogs” in “The Karnival Kid” in 1929.
The average American is believed to eat approximately 60 hot dogs every year.

Today’s Food History

1859 Thomas Nuttall died. An English naturalist and botanist, he collected and studied plants around the Chesapeake Bay area in the U.S.
1898 Waldo Lonsbury Semon was born. Semon was an American Inventor who is credited with the invention of Vinyl. Vinyl is the 2nd most used plastic in the world. Semon held over 100 patents.
1913 The official route of the Lincoln Highway was announced. It was the first coast to coast highway, running from New York to San Francisco.
1949 Barriemore Barlow of the music group ‘Jethro Tull’ was born.
2001 The first case of mad-cow disease in Asian animals was reported in a dairy cow in Japan.

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September 9th is National “I Love Food” Day!

Here are today’s five thing to know about Food:

Buffets are offered at various places including hotels and many social events.
 Sideboards are also known as buffets as they may be used to offer the dishes of a buffet meal to guests.
A buffet can also be referred to as a cafeteria, snack bar, counter and smorgasbord.
The word buffet comes from Fr bufet “bench, stool, sideboard”, from the 12th century. The definition of buffet was extended to mean a “meal served from a buffet” in 1888.
One form of buffet is to have a table filled with plates containing fixed portions of food; customers select plates containing whichever food items they want as they walk along.

Today’s Food History

1754 William Bligh was born. He became captain of the English ship, ‘Bounty,’ and while sailing to Tahiti to bring back breadfruit trees, the most famous mutiny in history took place.
1890 Harland Sanders was born near Henryville, Indiana. Founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food restaurant chain.
1901 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec died. French artist who documented Parisian night life in the 1890s with his insightful posters.
1995 Orville Redenbacher died. Founder of gourmet popcorn company.
1999 ‘Catfish’ Hunter, baseball pitcher, died.

Filed under: Food Holidays, September Food Holidays Tagged: breadfruit trees, de toulouse lautrec, fast food restaurant, henri de toulouse lautrec, kentucky fried chicken, orville redenbacher

September 8th is National Date-Nut Bread Day!

Here are today’s five thing to know about Bread:

It takes 9 seconds for a combine to harvest enough wheat to make about 70 loaves of bread.
Each American consumes, on average, 53 pounds of bread per year.
An average slice of packaged bread contains only 1 gram of fat and 75 to 80 calories.
One bushel of wheat will produce 73 one-pound loaves of bread.
Breaking bread is a universal sign of peace.

Today’s Food History

1621 Prince Louis II de Condé, known as the Great Condé, was born. He was a French general who loved to hunt and had a passion for rice. Several dishes have been named for him, including Consommé Condé and Creme Condé.
1636 The Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony established Harvard College (New College), the first college in the Americas.
1930 Richard Drew invented Scotch tape.
1966 The first episode of the TV show ‘Star Trek’ airs. Chemically synthesized food on the Enterprise – we seem to be getting close to that now.

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