John-Bryan Hopkins's Blog, page 68

August 21st is National Sweet Tea Day!

Here’s 5 facts about Tea:

Many say iced tea was ‘invented’ at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair where ice was added to hot tea to cool down the visitors.
Thomas Sullivan ‘accidentally’ invented the teabag when he sent out tea samples in small silk pouches to customers in 1904. The pouches proved much less messy thatn raw tea leaves. The rest is history.
Tea is believed to have arrived in Europe thanks to a Portuguese Jesuit priest named Jasper de Cruz after visiting China in 1590
 Drinking tea helps boost the immune system do to its natural antibacterial properties.
Tea can also help regulate cholesterol.


Today’s Food History

1814 Benjamin Thompson, Count von Rumford died. American physician who invented the percolator, a pressure cooker and a kitchen stove. He is frequently credited with creating baked Alaska.
1988 Pubs are now allowed to stay open 12 hours each day (except Sunday) in the U.K.
1997 The largest food recall in U.S. history. Hudson Foods closed its Nebraska plant and recalled 25 million pounds of ground beef that were potentially contaminated with E. coli 01557:H7

Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: august-food-holidays, national iced tea day, national sweet tea day, tea trivia

August 20th is National Chocolate Pecan Pie Day!

Here are today’s five thing to know about Pecan Pie

 A handful of Pecans provide nearly 10 percent of the recommended Daily Value for zinc
It would take 11,624 pecans, stacked end to end, to reach the top of the Empire State Building in New York City.
Texas adopted the pecan tree as its state tree in 1919.  In fact, Texas Governor James Hogg liked pecan trees so much that he asked if a pecan tree could be planted at his gravesite when he died.
Albany, Georgia, which boasts more than 600,000 pecan trees, is the pecan capital of the U.S.  Albany hosts the annual National Pecan Festival, which includes a race, parade, pecan-cooking contest, the crowning of the National Pecan Queen and many other activities.
Pecan trees usually range in height from 70 to 100 feet, but some trees grow as tall as 150 feet or higher.  Native pecan trees – those over 150 years old – have trunks more than three feet in diameter.

Today’s Food History

1913 Stainless steel was cast for the first time in Sheffield, England. Harry Brearly of Thomas Firth & Sons discovered how to make ‘the steel that doesn’t rust’ by accident.
1948 Robert Plant of the music group ‘Led Zeppelin’ was born.
1955 ‘The Popcorn Song’ by Cliffie Stone hit number 14 on the charts.
1968 The largest sea bass caught with a fishing rod weighed over 563 pounds. It was caught off the coast of California.

Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national chocolate pecan pie day, today's food history, todays food history

August 19th is National Soft Serve Ice Cream Day!

Here are today’s 5 amazing Ice Cream facts:

An average dairy cow can produce enough milk in her lifetime to make a little over 9,000 gallons of ice cream.
 The first ice cream recipe was handwritten in the recipe book of Lady Anne Fanshawe in 1665
Chocolate ice cream was invented long before vanilla, and the first documented recipe for it appeared in the book The Modern Steward, published in Italy in 1692.
In the U.S., all ice cream needs to have a minimum of 10% milkfat if it is to be labeled “ice cream”. This includes custard based (French Style) ice creams.
 The Häagen-Dazs brand was established by two Americans – Reuben and Rose Mattus – and the name was made up to sound Danish and sophisticated. The Danish language does not actually use umlauts.

Today’s Food History

1851 Charles E. Hires was born. Manufacturer and inventor of Hires Root Beer.
1856 Gail Borden was granted a patent for a process to make condensed milk, which he developed in 1853.
1887 Spencer Fullerton Baird died. An American naturalist and zoologist, he was the second Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
1947 J. Arens and D. van Villages synthesized vitamin A.
1996 Miss Universe was told to lose 27 pounds or lose her crown.

Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national soft ice-cream day, today's food history, todays food history

August 17th is National Vanilla Custard Day!

Here are today’s five thing to know about Vanilla Custard

Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on a cooked mixture of milk or cream and egg yolk.
Depending on how much egg or thickener is used, custard may vary in consistency from a thin pouring sauce (crème anglaise), to a thick pastry cream used to fill éclairs.
The most common custards are used as desserts or dessert sauces and typically include sugar and vanilla.
Custard bases may also be used for quiches and other savory foods.
Sometimes flour, corn starch, or gelatin is added as in pastry cream or creme patissiere.

Today’s Food History

1925 John Hawkes was born. American avant-garde novelist, author of ‘Blood Oranges’, ‘The Lime Twig’, ‘The Goose on the Grave’, etc.
1947 Gary Talley of the music group ‘The Box Tops’ was born.
1986 A bronze statue of a pig was dedicated at Seattle’s Pike Place Market.

Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: august-food-holidays, national vanilla custard day

August 16th is National Rum Day!

Here are today’s five thing to know about Rum

Rum was manufactured, distilled, and made long before any other spirit. It’s history is a vast one filled with stories, and fables. It was the first branded spirit made.
Rations of rum were given to sailors in the British Army to be mixed with lime juice because it fought off the scurvy.
When wealthy titles were given to parsons, they were thanked with a glass of rum.
In Australia, the rum hospital can recognize rum as it as its chief contributor of revenues that were generated via the rum exports they were known for.
Triangular trade was introduced as slaves were traded for rum, sugars, and other items that were all carrying missionaries- this was known as ‘rum and bible.’

Today’s Food History

1888 John Styth Pemberton died. Pemberton was the pharmacist who invented Coca-Cola in 1885.
1966 ‘Summer In The City’ by the Lovin’ Spoonful is #1 on the charts

Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national rum day, today's food history, todays food history

August 15th is National Lemon Meringue Pie Day!

Here are today’s five thing to know about Lemons

Lemon trees bloom and produce fruit year-round. Each tree can produce between 500 and 600 pounds of lemons in a year.
Add the juice of one lemon to an equal amount of hot water for an anti-bacterial gargle.
Food historians say lemons have been in cultivation around the Mediterranean from as early as the first century A.D.
High in vitamin C, lemons prevent scurvy, a disease that causes bleeding gums, loose teeth and aching joints. To this day, the British Navy requires ships to carry enough lemons so that every sailor can have one ounce of juice a day.
California and Arizona produce 95% of the entire U.S. lemon crop.

Today’s Food History

1794 Elias Fries was born. A Swedish botanist who developed the first system for classifying fungi.
1796 John Torrey was born. American botanist who did extensive studies of North American flora. He was the first professional botanist in the New World.
1835 C.H. Farnham was issued a patent for a hand cranked rotary washing machine.
1848 M. Waldo Hanchett patented a dental chair.
1911 Crisco is introduced by Procter & Gamble. Crisco is a hydrogenated shortening made from vegetable oil, which keeps its solid form even in warm weather.
1912 Julia Child was born. American cooking authority, cookbook author, TV Cooking show host, etc. During World War II, she also worked for the OSS from 1941-1945 (The OSS is the forerunner of the CIA).
1914 The Panama Canal was officially opened when a ship sailed from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
1928 Walter E. Diemer died. While working for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company, he experimented with recipes for chewing gum as a hobby. He invented bubble gum in 1928.
1943 Sgt. Edward Dzuba received the Legion of Merit award because of his talent to use food scraps in unusual and appetizing recipes.
1969 The 3 day Woodstock Music and Arts Fair began on a dairy farm in Upstate New York.
2009 In Detroit, Michigan, GourmetGiftBaskets.com set a new record for the world’s largest cupcake at 1,224 pounds.

Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national lemon meringue day, today's food history, todays food history

August 14th is National Creamsicle Day!

Five Food Finds about the Creamsicle

Creamsicle is a brand name for a different frozen dessert also owned by Unilever.
Again on the same flat wooden stick, it is made as a single flat bar with a rounded end.
The center is vanilla ice cream, covered by a layer of flavored ice. Creamsicle flavors include orange, blue raspberry, lime, grape and cherry.
They are available in several varieties, including 100 Calorie Bars, Low Fat Bars, No Sugar Added Bars, and Sugar Free Bars.
50-50 bar is an alternative name for a Creamsicle.

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

1873 The first issue of ‘Field & Stream’ was published.

1897 The largest sturgeon was caught, 1,387 pounds, in the Fraser River.

1941 Paul Sabatier died. Organic chemist. The margarine, oil hydrogenation and methanol industries grew out of his research.

 

Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national creamsicle day, today's food history, todays food history

August 13th is National Filet Mignon Day!

Here are today’s five thing to know about Filet Mignon:

“Filet Mignon” is just a fancy name for a beef tenderloin steak.
Famous author O. Henry coined the term filet mignon in his book, The Four Million in 1906.
A French derivative, the literal meaning is small (mignon) boneless meat (filet).
Filet Mignon is the cut from the small end of the beef tenderloin.
Filet mignon is a steak cut of beef taken from the tenderloin, or psoas major of the steer or heifer.

Today’s Food History

1899 Alfred Hitchcock was born. Renowned director known for his great love of food.
1970 ‘Make It With You’ by Bread is #1 on the charts
1991 Jack Ryan died. Before helping to develop the Barbie Doll for Mattell and create the ‘easy bake oven’, Ryan worked for the Pentagon designing missiles!
2004 Julia Child died 2 days before her 92 birthday. American cooking authority, cookbook author, TV Cooking show host, etc. During World War II, she also worked for the OSS from 1941-1945 (The OSS is the forerunner of the CIA).

Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: national filet mignon day, today's food history

August 12th is National Julienne Fries Day!

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

Leaving the potato skin on French fries actually leaves in important vitamins that are lost if the skins are peeled away.
In England these are referred to as “chips”
French fries are, perhaps, poorly-named, since they originate in Belgium and are most popular in America.
Though French fries were invented in Europe, the potatoes, from which they are made, originated in the Americas and were imported.
The first occurrence of French fries in America may have been at a diplomatic dinner hosted by Thomas Jefferson.

Today’s Food History

1759 Thomas Andrew Knight was born. British horticulturist and botanist who experimented with geotropism, phototropism and heliotropism. (We all know our tropisms, don’t we?).
1856 James Buchanan (‘Diamond Jim’) Brady was born. American financier and philanthropist Diamond Jim Brady was known for his collection of diamond jewelry, and for his gargantuan appetite. He was known to eat 6 or 7 giant lobsters, dozens of oysters, clams and crabs, 2 ducks, steak and desserts at a single sitting. He would also mix a pound of caviar into a baked potato. George Rector, a New York restaurateur said he was ‘the best twenty-five customers I ever had.’
1883 The quagga, a zebra-like mammal of southern Africa became extinct when the last mare at Amsterdam Zoo died. They had been hunted to extinction.
1948 Harry Brearley died. Brearley was an English metallurgist who invented stainless steel in 1912.
1955 The U.S. minimum wage was raised from 75 cents to $1.00
1981 IBM introduced its Personal Computer (PC) and PC-DOS 1.0
1990 B. (Barnard) Kliban died. A satirical cartoonist, best known for his cat cartoons. A few of his cartoon book titles: ‘Never Eat Anything Larger Than Your Head’, ‘The Biggest Tongue in Tunisia’.

 

Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: national julienne fries day, today's food history

August 11th is National Panini Day!

Celebrate the Panini!

August 11, 2015 is the first ‘official, National Panini Day*
The first U.S. reference to panini, a ‘pan warmed Italian sandwich’ dates to 1956 in an article about an Italian street fair.
Panini’s are said to have originated in Lombardy, Italy, in response to the demand among Milanese office workers for a quick lunch without sacrifice in flavor and quality
In the late 1970s & 1980s. Trendy U.S. restaurants, particularly in New York, began selling panini’s.
In many English-speaking countries, a panino , from Italian, meaning “small bread, bread roll” is a grilled sandwich made from baked roll or any thing other than sliced bread.

*A day proclaimed by Foodimentary, the interest source fore Food Holidays and celebrations since 2006
Today’s Food History

1858 Christiaan Eijkman was born. A Dutch physician who discovered that beriberi was caused by a poor diet (a lack of vitamin B1), which eventually led to the discovery of vitamins.
1874 Harry S. Parmelee of New Haven, Connecticut patented the sprinkler head.
1949 Eric Carmen of the music group ‘The Raspberries’ was born.
1962 Booker T and the MG’s released their instrumental single ‘Green Onions’.
1992 The Mall of America opened in Bloomington, Minnesota. It was the largest shopping mall in the U.S.

Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: august food holidays, national panini day, panini day, panini history