National Empanada Day

Five Food Finds about Empanadas

The Spanish word for bread is “pan”.  “Empanar” is a verb form that means “to bread”.  Emapanada is the past-participle, “breaded”.

It’s basically a single-serving turnover.  It can be filled with sweet foods like fruits, sugars, and syrups, or savory foods like meats, cheeses, and oils.

They originated in northwest Spain, in a region known as Galicia.

Today they are most popular in Spanish-speaking countries across Europe and South America.

Originally they were made with bread dough, but now they are made with pastries as well.

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

1513 Ponce de Leon landed in Florida while searching for the Fountain of Youth. He thought it was just another island of the Bahamas.

1862 John D. Lynde of Philadelphia patented the first aerosol dispenser.

1873 Alfred Paraf received a patent for the first commercially viable margarine manufacturing process.

1879 The Echo Farms Dairy of New York began selling milk in glass bottles, the first in the U.S.

1946 ‘Catfish’ Hunter, baseball pitcher, was born.

1992 R.I.P. Benjamin Eisenstadt. He invented the artificial sweetener, ‘Sweet ‘n Low’ (granulated saccharin and dextrose).