John-Bryan Hopkins's Blog, page 69
August 10, 2017
August 10th is National S’Mores Day!
Today’s Chocolate, graham crackers, and marshmallows facts:
The Hershey Company makes more than 373 million HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate bars a year. That’s enough to make 746 million S’mores!
HONEY MAID Graham Crackers were introduced in 1925 and are the leading brand of Graham Crackers in the U.S.
Every HONEY MAID Graham Cracker is made with the goodness of 5 grams of whole grain per serving and real honey.
Americans buy around 90 million pounds of marshmallows every year.
Did you know? S’mores were ‘invented’ by the Girl Scouts
1833 Chicago, Illinois, was incorporated as a village, its population was about 200.
1889 Dan Rylands patented a screw cap for bottles. He was employed at the Hope Glass Works, Barnsley, Yorkshire, England.
1917 Clara Peller was born. She is the actress who is famous for her Wendy’s TV commercial, “Where’s the beef?”
1947 Ian Anderson of the music group ‘Jethro Tull’ was born.
1998 Massena ‘Andy’ Gump died. Inventor and portable toilet king of Southern California
The Hershey Company makes more than 373 million HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate bars a year. That’s enough to make 746 million S’mores!
HONEY MAID Graham Crackers were introduced in 1925 and are the leading brand of Graham Crackers in the U.S.
Every HONEY MAID Graham Cracker is made with the goodness of 5 grams of whole grain per serving and real honey.
Americans buy around 90 million pounds of marshmallows every year.
Did you know? S’mores were ‘invented’ by the Girl Scouts
Today’s Food History
1833 Chicago, Illinois, was incorporated as a village, its population was about 200.
1889 Dan Rylands patented a screw cap for bottles. He was employed at the Hope Glass Works, Barnsley, Yorkshire, England.
1917 Clara Peller was born. She is the actress who is famous for her Wendy’s TV commercial, “Where’s the beef?”
1947 Ian Anderson of the music group ‘Jethro Tull’ was born.
1998 Massena ‘Andy’ Gump died. Inventor and portable toilet king of Southern California
Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: national s'mores day, today's food history 
August 9, 2017
August 9th is National Rice Pudding Day!
Here are today’s five thing to know about Rice Pudding:
Hundreds of millions of the poor spend half to three fourths of their incomes on rice and only rice.
Rice is the staple diet of half the world’s population.
More than 90 percent of the world’s rice is grown and consumed in Asia, where people typically eat rice two or three times a daily.
Rice farming has been traced back to around 5,000 BC.
To plow 1 hectare of land in the traditional way, a farmer and his water buffalo must walk 80 km.
Today’s Food History
1593 Isaak Walton was born. He is mainly known for ‘The Compleat Angler, or, the Contemplative Man’s Recreation,’ which is one of the most frequently published books in English literature. It is a literary discourse on the pleasures of fishing.
1762 Mary Randolph was born. She was a Southern U.S. cookbook author, whose ‘The Virginia Housewife’ (1824) is considered the first cookbook of the American South, and one of the most influential cookbooks of the 19th century. It contains hints of the influence of African cooking on the cooking of the American South. Mrs. Randolph was also one of the first to use measurements in her recipes, rather than just a list of ingredients.
1910 Alva J. Fisher of Chicago, Illinois patented the electric washing machine.
1911 John Gates died. Gates was an inventor, promoter and barbed wire manufacturer.
Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: national rice pudding day, today's food history
August 7, 2017
August 8th is National Frozen Custard Day!
Here are today’s five thing to know about custard:
Custard bases may also be used for quiches and other savory foods.
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.
Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on a cooked mixture of milk or cream and egg yolk.
The most common custards are used as desserts or dessert sauces and typically include sugar and vanilla.
Sometimes flour, corn starch, or gelatin is added as in pastry cream or creme patissiere.
Today’s Food History
1899 A.T. Marshall of Brockton, Massachusetts patented the refrigerator.
1927 Alfalfa was born on this day. Actually, it was Carl Switzer who played Alfalfa in the ‘Our Gang’ short film series.
1983 Rolla N. Harger died. A biochemist, he invented the first successful test machine for blood alcohol content, the Drunkometer, in 1931.
1988 ‘Kid Chocolate’ (Elgio Saldana) died. He became Cuba’s first world boxing champion in 1931 after defeating Benny Bass for the Jr. Lightweight Championship.
2006 Krispy Kreme donuts opened its first Asian outlet in Hong Kong.
Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: national frozen custard day, todays food history
August 6, 2017
August 6th is National Root Beer Float Day!
Here are today’s five thing to know about root beer:
Authentic Root beer is made with up to 16 Roots, & herbs.
Colonist were actually the first people to make root beer.
The A and W in A&W stands for Alan and Wright.
Hires Root beer was introduces by Charles Hires in 1876 Philadelphia’s Centennial Exposition.
The most original ingredient was Sassafras. It comes in an alcoholic drink as well.
Today’s Board:
Root Beer Floats: 50 ways
Today’s Food History
1889 The Savoy Hotel opened in London, with Cesar Ritz and Escoffier.
1911 Lucille Ball was born. Two of the funniest food related comedy routines ever done were the chocolate factory and the grape stomping episodes from her TV show.
1928 Andy Warhol was born. American painter of the pop art movement. In the 1960s he made paintings of Campbell’s Soup cans, Coca-Cola cans and other American products.
1954 David Grandison Fairchild died. An American botanist and agriculturalist, he was responsible for introducing many useful plants to the U.S. Author of ‘The World Was My Garden,’ and ‘Exploring for Plants’.
Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: august food holidays, national root beer float day, todays food history 
August 5, 2017
August 5 is National Oyster Day
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National Oyster Day
The average 3 inch oyster filters about 50 gallons of water a day.
Americans eat more oysters than any other country in the world.
Most oysters varieties in North America are actually native to Eastern Europe or Asia. Brought here by ships over the centuries
The world’s only oyster museum is on Chincoteague Island, Virginia.
For centuries, oysters are one of the best known aphrodisiac foods in the culinary world
Today’s Food History
1850 Henry-Rene-Albert-Guy de Maupassant was born. Among the subjects of his short stories are many about the fashionable life of Paris.
1858 Alexis Benoit Soyer died. French chef and author. Chef of the London Reform Club. He opened kitchens in Ireland during the famine to sell food at 1/2 price and was an advisor on food to the British army during the Crimean War. Invented several stoves and kitchen utensils. Wrote ‘The Pantropheon; or, History of Food’ (1853), ‘A Shilling Cookery Book for the People’ (1854), ‘Soyer’s Charitable Cookery’ (1847).
1909 The first corporation tax was passed by the U.S. Congress.
1914 The first electric traffic lights were installed in Cleveland, Ohio at Euclid Ave and East 105th Street.
1955 Carmen Miranda died. Brazilian singer and actress. Miranda appeared in many Hollywood movies, and was known as “the Brazilian bombshell” and also “the lady in the tutti-frutti hat.”
1962 Marilyn Monroe died. American actress, primarily remembered as being crowned Artichoke Queen of 1947 in Castroville, California.
2008 IBM is granted a patent for storing a customers preference for ‘paper or plastic bags’ on the stores customer loyalty card. Does this really deserve a patent?! Our patent system is definitely out of control.
National Oyster Day
The Five Facts you should know about Oysters:
The average 3 inch oyster filters about 50 gallons of water a day.
Americans eat more oysters than any other country in the world.
Most oysters varieties in North America are actually native to Eastern Europe or Asia. Brought here by ships over the centuries
The world’s only oyster museum is on Chincoteague Island, Virginia.
For centuries, oysters are one of the best known aphrodisiac foods in the culinary world
Today’s Food History
1850 Henry-Rene-Albert-Guy de Maupassant was born. Among the subjects of his short stories are many about the fashionable life of Paris.
1858 Alexis Benoit Soyer died. French chef and author. Chef of the London Reform Club. He opened kitchens in Ireland during the famine to sell food at 1/2 price and was an advisor on food to the British army during the Crimean War. Invented several stoves and kitchen utensils. Wrote ‘The Pantropheon; or, History of Food’ (1853), ‘A Shilling Cookery Book for the People’ (1854), ‘Soyer’s Charitable Cookery’ (1847).
1909 The first corporation tax was passed by the U.S. Congress.
1914 The first electric traffic lights were installed in Cleveland, Ohio at Euclid Ave and East 105th Street.
1955 Carmen Miranda died. Brazilian singer and actress. Miranda appeared in many Hollywood movies, and was known as “the Brazilian bombshell” and also “the lady in the tutti-frutti hat.”
1962 Marilyn Monroe died. American actress, primarily remembered as being crowned Artichoke Queen of 1947 in Castroville, California.
2008 IBM is granted a patent for storing a customers preference for ‘paper or plastic bags’ on the stores customer loyalty card. Does this really deserve a patent?! Our patent system is definitely out of control.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: august food holidays, national oyster day, oyster day, oyster facts, oyster trivia 
August 4, 2017
August 4th is National Chocolate Chip Day!
Five Food Finds about Chocolate Chips
Chocolate chips are a required ingredient in chocolate chip cookies, which were invented in 1933 when Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in the town of Whitman, Massachusetts added cut-up chunks of a semi-sweet Nestlé chocolate bar to a cookie recipe.
The cookies were a huge success, and Wakefield reached an agreement with Nestlé to add her recipe to the chocolate bar’s packaging in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate.
Initially, Nestlé included a small chopping tool with the chocolate bars, but in 1939 they started selling the chocolate in chip (or “morsel”) form.
The Nestlé brand Toll House cookies is named for the inn.
Originally, chocolate chips were made of semi-sweet chocolate, but today there are many flavors.
Today’s Food History
Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national chocolate chip day, today's food history, todays food history
Chocolate chips are a required ingredient in chocolate chip cookies, which were invented in 1933 when Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in the town of Whitman, Massachusetts added cut-up chunks of a semi-sweet Nestlé chocolate bar to a cookie recipe.
The cookies were a huge success, and Wakefield reached an agreement with Nestlé to add her recipe to the chocolate bar’s packaging in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate.
Initially, Nestlé included a small chopping tool with the chocolate bars, but in 1939 they started selling the chocolate in chip (or “morsel”) form.
The Nestlé brand Toll House cookies is named for the inn.
Originally, chocolate chips were made of semi-sweet chocolate, but today there are many flavors.
Today’s Food History
on this day in…
1608 John Tradescant was born. He succeeded his father as naturalist and gardener to Charles I.
1693 Dom Perignon discovers the process for making champagne. “Come quickly, I am tasting the stars!”
(A widely held legend, but only a only a legend.)
1755 Nicolas-Jacque Conte was born. He invented the modern graphite pencil.
1958 The first potato flake manufacturing plant opened in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
1983 Dave Winfield, a N.Y. Yankee outfielder accidentally killed a seagull with an errant throw in a game against the Toronto Blue Jays. He was arrested, charged with cruelty to animals and had to post a $500 bond. The charges were dropped the following day.
Filed under: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national chocolate chip day, today's food history, todays food history
August 3, 2017
August 3rd is National Watermelon Day!
Today’s five facts about watermelons:
By weight, watermelon is the most-consumed melon in the U.S., followed by cantaloupe and honeydew.
Watermelon is 92% water.
The first recorded watermelon harvest occurred nearly 5,000 years ago in Egypt.
Watermelon’s official name is Citrullus Lanatus of the botanical family Curcurbitaceae. It is cousins to cucumbers, pumpkins and squash.
Early explorers used watermelons as canteens.
Today’s Food History
1492 Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain on his first voyage to what he thought were the Indies.
1801 Sir Joseph Paxton was born. Paxton was an English landscape gardener, and hothouse designer. He was the architect of the Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London.
1806 Michel Adanson was born. Adson was a French botanist who developed a system of plant classification based on physical characteristics. His system was opposed by Carolus Linnaeus, and was not widely used.
1811 Elisha Graves Otis was born. He invented the first safe elevator, and opened the door to rooftop restaurants.
1914 The first ships pass through the Panama Canal.
1921 John Macready became the first to crop dust from an airplane (Troy, Ohio).
1941 Martha Stewart was born. Entertaining advisor, cookbook author, etc.
1954 Colette, (Sidonie Gabrielle) died. A French novelist, her novels contain many exact and detailed descriptions of food and the pleasures of the table, and quite a few recipes
Filed under: August Food Holidays Tagged: august food holidays, national watermelon day, watermelon day, watermelon trivia
August 2, 2017
August 2nd is National Ice Cream Sandwich Day!
Today’s five facts about ice cream sandwiches:
The 30-44 age group buys the most ice cream sandwiches.
The average number of ice cream sandwiches eaten per second nationally is 48.
The ice cream sandwich ranks as the second best-selling ice cream novelty in America.
If all the ice cream sandwiches made last year were placed end to end, they would circle Earth 3 1/2 times.
The eastern seaboard consumes almost 50 percent of all ice cream sandwiches.
Today’s Food History
1861 The first U.S. national income tax is passed to aid the Union war effort.
1887 Rowell Hodge patented barbed wire. The beginning of the end of open range in the Old West.
1963 Eric Clapton leaves the ‘Roosters’ to form the band ‘Casey Jones and the Engineers.’
1980 The oldest known goldfish in Great Britain, Frederica, died at the age of 40.
2002 A jury awarded $120 million to 17 bakery workers who sued Interstate Brands for racial discrimination.
Filed under: August Food Holidays Tagged: august food holidays, ice cream sandwich day, national ice-cream sandwich day
The 30-44 age group buys the most ice cream sandwiches.
The average number of ice cream sandwiches eaten per second nationally is 48.
The ice cream sandwich ranks as the second best-selling ice cream novelty in America.
If all the ice cream sandwiches made last year were placed end to end, they would circle Earth 3 1/2 times.
The eastern seaboard consumes almost 50 percent of all ice cream sandwiches.
Today’s Food History
1861 The first U.S. national income tax is passed to aid the Union war effort.
1887 Rowell Hodge patented barbed wire. The beginning of the end of open range in the Old West.
1963 Eric Clapton leaves the ‘Roosters’ to form the band ‘Casey Jones and the Engineers.’
1980 The oldest known goldfish in Great Britain, Frederica, died at the age of 40.
2002 A jury awarded $120 million to 17 bakery workers who sued Interstate Brands for racial discrimination.
Filed under: August Food Holidays Tagged: august food holidays, ice cream sandwich day, national ice-cream sandwich day
August 1, 2017
August 1st is National Raspberry Cream Pie Day!
Five Facts about Raspberries:
Raspberries produce more fiber per calorie than any common fruit – even prunes.
There are over 200 species of raspberries.
Raspberries, as well as strawberries, belong to the rose family.
Raspberries can be four different colors, although red and black are the most common. They can also be yellow or purple.
Don’t wash the berries until they are ready to be used.
Today’s Food History
10 B.C. Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus was born. (Emperor of Rome A.D. 41-54). Known as Claudius I, supposedly he was poisoned with mushrooms by his wife Agrippina, after her son Nero was named as his heir.
1137 Louis VI “The Fat” died. (King of France).
1733 Richard Kirwan was born. Kirwan was an eccentric Irish chemist who hated flies. He had dysphagia, which is the inability to swallow food without convulsive movements. He always dined alone.
1744 Jean-Baptiste-Pierre-Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck was born. A French naturalist, he believed in the inheritance of acquired traits. Some of his ideas influenced Darwin.
1790 First U.S. census. We had a total of 3,939,214 mouths to feed.
1793 France introduces the first metric weight, the kilogram.
1817 Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert was born. Gilbert and his partner, Sir John Lawes, conducted agricultural experiments at Rothamsted Experimental Station, the oldest agricultural research station in the world. They are considered founding fathers of the agricultural sciences. They are also the co-inventors of superphosphate fertilizer.
1870 Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov was born. Ivanov was a Soviet biologist. Others had previously shown it was possible to artificially inseminate domestic animals, Ivanov developed the practical procedures in 1901. Initially working with horses, by the early 1930s the procedure was being used on other farm animals.
1889 It rained ants at Strasbourg, Germany.
1893 Henry D. Perky and William Ford patented Shredded Wheat. Whole wheat is boiled, dried, pressed into thin shreds and finally baked. They presented it at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois in 1893. When their patent expired in the mid 1930s, the name became generic.
1932 The Mars Bar, candy bar, was introduced.
1960 Chubby Checker’s ‘The Twist’ was released.
Filed under: August Food Holidays Tagged: august food holidays, national raspberry cream pie day, raspberry cream pie day, raspberry facts, raspberry trivia
Raspberries produce more fiber per calorie than any common fruit – even prunes.
There are over 200 species of raspberries.
Raspberries, as well as strawberries, belong to the rose family.
Raspberries can be four different colors, although red and black are the most common. They can also be yellow or purple.
Don’t wash the berries until they are ready to be used.
Today’s Food History
10 B.C. Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus was born. (Emperor of Rome A.D. 41-54). Known as Claudius I, supposedly he was poisoned with mushrooms by his wife Agrippina, after her son Nero was named as his heir.
1137 Louis VI “The Fat” died. (King of France).
1733 Richard Kirwan was born. Kirwan was an eccentric Irish chemist who hated flies. He had dysphagia, which is the inability to swallow food without convulsive movements. He always dined alone.
1744 Jean-Baptiste-Pierre-Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck was born. A French naturalist, he believed in the inheritance of acquired traits. Some of his ideas influenced Darwin.
1790 First U.S. census. We had a total of 3,939,214 mouths to feed.
1793 France introduces the first metric weight, the kilogram.
1817 Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert was born. Gilbert and his partner, Sir John Lawes, conducted agricultural experiments at Rothamsted Experimental Station, the oldest agricultural research station in the world. They are considered founding fathers of the agricultural sciences. They are also the co-inventors of superphosphate fertilizer.
1870 Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov was born. Ivanov was a Soviet biologist. Others had previously shown it was possible to artificially inseminate domestic animals, Ivanov developed the practical procedures in 1901. Initially working with horses, by the early 1930s the procedure was being used on other farm animals.
1889 It rained ants at Strasbourg, Germany.
1893 Henry D. Perky and William Ford patented Shredded Wheat. Whole wheat is boiled, dried, pressed into thin shreds and finally baked. They presented it at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois in 1893. When their patent expired in the mid 1930s, the name became generic.
1932 The Mars Bar, candy bar, was introduced.
1960 Chubby Checker’s ‘The Twist’ was released.
Filed under: August Food Holidays Tagged: august food holidays, national raspberry cream pie day, raspberry cream pie day, raspberry facts, raspberry trivia
July 31, 2017
July 31st is National Cotton Candy Day
Five Food Finds about Cotton Candy:
Cotton candy was originally called fairy floss.
Cotton candy contains only one ingredient: sugar.
The process by which cotton candy is made has been around for over 100 years so chances are you could ask your grandparents about their first encounter with cotton candy and they’ll tell you at great length how much it cost and how neat it was back in the day.
It was forgotten for a while several decades ago, but cotton candy became an instant hit when suddenly it was mass produced and became readily accessible to everyone – not just the ones going to a fair or circus.
Cotton candy doesn’t contain all that much sugar – merely as much sugar as one would get drinking a can of an average soft drink.
Today’s Food History
Filed under: Food Holidays, July Food Holidays Tagged: candy cotton, carbon dioxide gas, cotton candy day, facts, fairy floss, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national Cotton Candy day, sterling connecticut, stuart dynasty, today's food history, todays food history
Cotton candy was originally called fairy floss.
Cotton candy contains only one ingredient: sugar.
The process by which cotton candy is made has been around for over 100 years so chances are you could ask your grandparents about their first encounter with cotton candy and they’ll tell you at great length how much it cost and how neat it was back in the day.
It was forgotten for a while several decades ago, but cotton candy became an instant hit when suddenly it was mass produced and became readily accessible to everyone – not just the ones going to a fair or circus.
Cotton candy doesn’t contain all that much sugar – merely as much sugar as one would get drinking a can of an average soft drink.
Today’s Food History
on this day in…
1714 Queen Anne of Britain, the last of the Stuart dynasty died. She had grown so large that her coffin was almost square.
1790 The first U.S. patent was granted to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont. The patent was for a process for producing potash and pearlash . Potash was used in soap and fertilizer. Pearlash was also used in baking. It produced carbon dioxide gas in dough, used in the first ‘quick breads.’ (Commercial baking powder was not available until 1857 [phosphate baking powder]).
1921 There are reports that it rained frogs in Sterling, Connecticut.
Filed under: Food Holidays, July Food Holidays Tagged: candy cotton, carbon dioxide gas, cotton candy day, facts, fairy floss, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national Cotton Candy day, sterling connecticut, stuart dynasty, today's food history, todays food history
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