December 15th is National Gingerbread Latte Day! / #GingerbreadLatteDay

John-Bryan Hopkins

Here are today’s five food things to know about the gingerbread latte:

According to Swedish tradition, you can make a wish using gingerbread.

The first mention of the “latte” was made by William Dean Howells in his 1867 essay, “Italian Journeys.”

Queen Elizabeth I is credited for creating the first gingerbread men.

English women in the 1600’s believed that coffee “made men as unfruitful as the deserts.”

The “Gingerbread Capitol of the World” is Nuremburg, Germany.

Today’s Food Historyon this day in…

1686 Isaak Walton died. 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.

1902 Pierre-Marie-Alexis Millardet died. A French botanist, he saved the vineyards of France from total destruction by the grape phylloxera, a small greenish-yellow insect which sucks the fluid from grapevines. He did so by grafting the French vines on American rootstock, which was resistant to phylloxera. He also developed the first widely used plant fungicide.

1903 Italo Marchiony received a patent for an ice cream cup mold. Initially, he would fold warm waffles into a cup shape. He then developed the 2-piece mold that would make 10 cups at a time.

1946 Carmine Appice of the music group ‘Vanilla Fudge’ was born.1964 Canada adopted the maple leaf as the official symbol for its national flag