August 31st is National Trail Mix Day! / #TrailMixDay

John-Bryan Hopkins

Here are today’s five thing to know about Trail Mix:

Trail mix is a combination of dried fruit, grains, nuts, and sometimes chocolate, developed as a snack food to be taken along on outdoor hikes.
Trail mix is considered an ideal snack food for hikes, because it is tasty, lightweight, easy to store, and nutritious, providing a quick boost from the carbohydrates in the dried fruit and/or granola, and sustained energy from the mono- and polyunsaturated fats in nuts.
Many claim that trail mix was first invented in 1968 by two California surfers who blended peanuts and raisins together for an energy snack.
However, trail mix is also mentioned in Jack Kerouac’s 1958 novel The Dharma Bums as the two main characters describe their planned meals in their preparation for a hiking trip.
The recipe for trail mix is most likely European in origin, where it has been known as a snack under various names in various countries since the 17th century.

Today’s Food History

1742 A plague of grasshoppers destroyed crops in Pennsylvania.
1900 Sir John Bennet Lawes died. An English agronomist, he founded the artificial fertilizer industry. Together with Sir Joseph Gilbert, they conducted agricultural experiments at Rothamsted Experimental Station, the oldest agricultural research station in the world. They are considered the founding fathers of agricultural sciences.
1900 Coca-Cola goes on sale for the first time in Britain.
1921 The first successful demonstration of aerial crop dusting was performed in Ohio by Lt. John A. Macready. He was flying a Curtiss JN-6H (Jenny).
1960 The National Agricultural Center & Hall of Fame established.
1995 The summer was so hot in Missouri, that at the end of August, methane gas emitted within large bales of freshly-cut hay began to spontaneously combust.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national trail mix day, today's food history, todays food history

August 30th is National Toasted Marshmallow Day!

John-Bryan Hopkins

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

This confection is the modern version of a medicinal confection made from Althaea officinalis, the marshmallow plant.
Not all marshmallows are vegan, most marshmallows contain eggs or animal based gelatin.
The marshmallow is a confection that, in its modern form, typically consists of sugar, corn syrup, water, gelatin that has been softened in hot water, dextrose, vanilla flavorings, and sometimes coloring, whipped to a spongy consistency.
The marshmallow probably first came into being as a medicinal substance, since the mucilaginous extracts comes from the root of the marshmallow plant, Althaea officinalis, which were used as a remedy for sore throats.
Concoctions of other parts of the marshmallow plant had medical uses as well.

Today’s Food History

1812 Agoston Haraszthy de Mokcsa was born. Mokcsa imported 1,400 varieties of grapevines to California in 1862 and planted the first large vineyard in California in the Sonoma Valley. After the devastating blight destroyed much of Europe’s vineyards, some of these same vines, now on resistant root stock, helped rescue the French and German wine industries.
1939 The first Wheaties commercial (live) aired when host Red Barbar promoted it during a Brooklyn Dodgers game (Variety, August 30, 1939). Later the Dodgers did a promotion dressed in street clothes saying ‘Yum, Yum Stuff!’ (‘Variety’, April 24, 1940)
1979 President Jimmy Carter was attacked by a rabbit while on a canoe trip in Georgia. He beat it away with a paddle. (Man eating, aquatic rabbits?)
2007 Michael Jackson, a leading beer critic, died at age 65.He was the author of ‘The World Guide to Beer’ (1977), and wrote for articles for various newspapers and food magazines, etc.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national toasted marshmallow day, today's food history, todays food history

August 29th is National Chop Suey Day!

Todays 5 facts about Chop Suey:

Chop suey is a Chinese American dish originating in the mid to late 19th century for Chinese immigrants in San Francisco
Many believe there are similar recipes in the Toisan region of China.
A chop suey fad swept the ‘big city’. In 1896, Americans began to visit New York Chinese restaurants in large numbers for the first time.
Chop suey consists of small pieces of meat, chicken or shrimp stir-fried with celery, onions, bean sprouts, water chestnuts, mushrooms and/or other vegetables, and served over rice, usually with soy sauce.
Most Chinese servers in the 1890’s were know for their yellow jackets.

Today’s Food History

1809 Oliver Wendell Holmes was born. American physician, poet and humorist. Author of ‘The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,’ ‘The Professor of the Breakfast Table,’ ‘The Poet of the Breakfast Table,’ and ‘Over the Teacups.’
1896 Supposedly, the Chinese-American dish, chop suey, was created in New York City by the Cantonese chef of Chinese Ambassador Li Hung-Chang.
1905 Jack Teagarden, jazz trombonist was born.
1915 Nathan Pritikin was born. A nutritionist who believed that exercise and a low fat, high unrefined carbohydrate diet helped reverse his own heart disease. He founded the Pritikin Longevity Center in 1976.
1953 Rick Downey of the rock group ‘Blue Oyster Cult’ was born.
2007 Alfred Peet died. He was the founder of Peet’s Coffee & Tea in Berkeley, California in 1966. The founders of Starbucks were fans, and openly acknowledge his influence.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: august-food-holidays, chop suey day, chop suey facts, chop suey history, national chop suey day

August 28th is National Cherry Turnover Day!

John-Bryan Hopkins

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

Darker cherries have higher antioxidant and vitamin levels than lighter ones.
On average, commercially grown cherry trees produce about 7,000 cherries annually.
Over 75% of the cherries sold in the U.S. come from Michigan.
There are two main species of cultivated cherries; the sweet cherry (also called wild cherry), and the sour cherry (also called tart cherry).
Freezing cherries not only preserves but also concentrates and improves their taste.

Today’s Food History

1809 Oliver Wendell Holmes was born. American physician, poet and humorist. Author of ‘The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,’ ‘The Professor of the Breakfast Table,’ ‘The Poet of the Breakfast Table,’ and ‘Over the Teacups.’
1896 Supposedly, the Chinese-American dish, chop suey, was created in New York City by the Cantonese chef of Chinese Ambassador Li Hung-Chang.
1905 Jack Teagarden, jazz trombonist was born.
1915 Nathan Pritikin was born. A nutritionist who believed that exercise and a low fat, high unrefined carbohydrate diet helped reverse his own heart disease. He founded the Pritikin Longevity Center in 1976.
1953 Rick Downey of the rock group ‘Blue Oyster Cult’ was born.
2007 Alfred Peet died. He was the founder of Peet’s Coffee & Tea in Berkeley, California in 1966. The founders of Starbucks were fans, and openly acknowledge his influence.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national cherry turnover day, today's food history, todays food history

August 27th is National Burger Day! / #NationalBurgerDay

Today’s burger trivia:

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

1940 The London production of ‘Apple Sauce’ opened at the Holborn Empire Theatre.
1944 Tim Bogert of the Rock group Vanilla Fudge was born.
1949 Jeff Cook of the music group ‘Alabama’ was born.
1970 ‘Spill The Wine’ by Eric Burdon & War is #1 on the charts

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: august food holidays, burger day, National burger day

August 26th is National Cherry Popsicle Day!

John-Bryan Hopkins

Here are today’s five thing to know about Popsicle history:

In 1905 in San Francisco, 11-year-old Frank Epperson was mixing a white powdered flavoring for soda and water out on the porch
He left it there, with a stirring stick still in it.
That night, temperatures reached a record low, and the next morning, the boy discovered the drink had frozen to the stick, inspiring the idea of a fruit-flavored ‘Popsicle’, a portmanteau of soda pop and icicle.
Eighteen years later in 1923, Epperson introduced frozen pop on a stick to the public at Neptune Beach, an amusement park in Belmar, New Jersey. Seeing that it was a success, in 1924 Epperson applied for a patent for his “frozen confectionery” which he called “the Epsicle ice pop”.
He renamed it to Popsicle, allegedly at the insistence of his children.

Today’s Food History

1784 Stephen McCormick was born. Inventor and manufacturer of cast iron plow with removable parts.
1800 Felix Archimede Pouchet was born. A French naturalist, he was one of those who believed that life was created from nonliving matter in processes such as fermentation and putrification. Those flies and maggots, fungi, yeast and bacteria just appeared from nowhere. (He was wrong.)
1946 George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ was published.
1972 ‘Coconut’ by Nilsson reached number 8 on the charts.
1978 Frankie Valli’s ‘Grease’ reached number 1 on the charts.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays, Uncategorized

Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national cherry popsicle day, today's food history, todays food history

August 25th is National Whiskey Sour Day! /#NationalWhiskeySourDay

John-Bryan Hopkins

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

Pure ‘malt’ whiskey is produced only from malted barley.
After opening, a half-full bottle of whiskey will remain good for five years.
A closed bottle of whisky can be kept for more than 100 years and it will still be good to drink.
A whiskey stops maturing after it is bottled. It ‘ages’ in wooden barrels not glass.
Around 90 percent of Single Malt Whisky comes from Scotland.

Today’s Food History

1809 Oliver Wendell Holmes was born. American physician, poet and humorist. Author of ‘The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,’ ‘The Professor of the Breakfast Table,’ ‘The Poet of the Breakfast Table,’ and ‘Over the Teacups.’
1896 Supposedly, the Chinese-American dish, chop suey, was created in New York City by the Cantonese chef of Chinese Ambassador Li Hung-Chang.
1905 Jack Teagarden, jazz trombonist was born.
1915 Nathan Pritikin was born. A nutritionist who believed that exercise and a low fat, high unrefined carbohydrate diet helped reverse his own heart disease. He founded the Pritikin Longevity Center in 1976.
1953 Rick Downey of the rock group ‘Blue Oyster Cult’ was born.
2007 Alfred Peet died. He was the founder of Peet’s Coffee & Tea in Berkeley, California in 1966. The founders of Starbucks were fans, and openly acknowledge his influence.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national whiskey sour day, today's food history, todays food history

August 24th is National Peach Pie Day! / #NationalPeachPieDay

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

Did you know? Peaches were once known as Persian apples.
“You’re a real peach” originated from the tradition of giving a peach to the friend you liked.
Peaches were mentioned as early as 79 A.D. in literature.
Most peaches are cultivated by grafting different combinations of rootstocks to scions; not raised from seed
There are over 700 varieties of peaches-some Chinese varieties are even flat like hockey pucks.

Today’s Food History

79 R.I.P. Pliny The Elder. A Roman scholar and naturalist, he was the author of the 37 volume ‘Historia Naturalis’ (Natural History). This was a compilation of thousands of ancient books by hundreds of authors. It is an invaluable record of ancient theories on countless scientific subjects.
1853 The month and day are uncertain, but the year is correct. Native American Chef George Crum invented potato chips at Moon’s Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York.
1869 Cornelius Swarthout received the first U.S. patent for a waffle iron.
1918 Ray McIntire was born. A chemical engineer who worked for Dow Chemical Company, he invented Styrofoam.
1969 The movie version of Arlo Guthrie’s ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ premiered in New York and Los Angeles.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national peach pie day, today's food history, todays food history

August 22nd is National Pecan Torte Day!

John-Bryan Hopkins

Here are today’s five thing to know about Pecan Torte:

If the body does not get enough zinc, it may have difficulty producing testosterone – a key hormone in initiating sexual desire in both men and women. 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

1647 Denis Papin is born. The French physicist who invented the pressure cooker (Papin’s Digester) in 1679
1865 William Sheppard of New York City received a patent for liquid soap.
1867 Charles Francis Jenkins was born. An inventor who is best known as an early television pioneer. Among his many inventions was a cone-shaped drinking cup.
1867 Maximilian Bircher-Benner was born. He was a Swiss doctor who developed the cereal product ‘Muesli,’ which is similar to Granola.
1939 The first U.S. patent was issued for a disposable whipped cream aerosol container. Julius S. Kahn’s patent was titled “An Apparatus for Mixing a Liquid with a Gas” and was specifically concerned with making whipped cream, using a ordinary soda bottle.
1970 ‘Spill The Wine’ by Eric Burdon & War hit number 3 on the charts.
2004 Sonya Thomas won $500 and a trophy belt at the World Lobster Eating Contest in Kennebunkport, Maine. She ate 9.76 pounds of lobster meat (38 lobsters) in 12 minutes. She also holds the record for hard boiled eggs, and pork & beans (8.4 pounds in 2 minutes 47 seconds). She weighs only 105 pounds.
2007 A 12 year-old boy in Manchester, England was charged with assault for throwing a cocktail sausage at a 74 year-old man.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national pecan torte day, today's food history, todays food history

August 21st is National Sweet Tea Day! ?#NationalSweetTeaDay

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

Categories: 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!

John-Bryan Hopkins

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.

Categories: 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

Yum! 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.

Categories: 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 18th is National Ice-Cream Pie Day!

Here are today’s five thing to know about Ice Cream:

An average dairy cow can produce enough milk in her lifetime to make a little over 9,000 gallons of ice cream.
A cow has only 1 stomach with 4 areas where food is digested: the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and the abdomen.
The udder of a cow can hold between 25-50 lbs. of milk.
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.
Sorbet, has no milk at all!

Today’s Food History

1850 Honore de Balzac died. French author. Balzac would lock himself away during creative bursts, drinking coffee and eating only fruit and eggs. When he finally took a break, he was known to consume huge quantities of food. One report recalls that at the Véry restaurant he consumed at one sitting ‘a hundred Ostend oysters, twelve cutlets of salt-meadow mutton, a duck with turnips, two partridges and a Normandy sole,’ not to mention the desserts, fruit and liqueurs he finished up with.
1953 Four cows in Stearns county Minnesota were picked up by a tornado and set down unharmed.
2004 It was reported that it rained fish at about 2:30 p.m. in Shropshire, western England.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: august-food-holidays, ice cream trivia, national ice-cream pie day

August 17th is National Vanilla Custard Day!

John-Bryan Hopkins

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.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: august-food-holidays, national vanilla custard day

August 16th is National Rum Day!🥃🥃 / #NationalRumDay

John-Bryan Hopkins

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

Categories: 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!🍋+🥧=😋

Happy National Lemon Meringue 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.

Categories: 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!

Happy National Creamsicle Day!

Five Facts 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.

Categories: 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! / #NationalFiletMignonDay

Happy 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).

Categories: 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’.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: national julienne fries day, today's food history

August 11th is National Panini Day! / #NationalPaniniDay

Happy 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 source for Food Holidays & 
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.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: august food holidays, national panini day, panini day, panini history

August 10th is National S’Mores Day! / Thanks @GirlScouts for creating the perfect treat!

Happy 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

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

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: national s'mores day, today's food history

August 9th is National Rice Pudding Day!

John-Bryan Hopkins

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.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: national rice pudding day, today's food history

August 8th is National Frozen Custard Day!

John-Bryan Hopkins

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.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: national frozen custard day, todays food history

August 7 is National Raspberries and Cream Day

Hold the pie!

Raspberries and cream are delicious even outside of a pie crust.

Here are today’s five thing to know about raspberries

Raspberries are rich in Vitamin C and 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 Pinterest Board : Raspberries, Recipes and More

Today’s Food History

1782 Andreas Sigismund Marggraf died. A German chemist who discovered beet sugar, which led to the development of the modern sugar industry.
1794 The Whiskey Rebellion. Protesting the 1791 federal tax on distilled spirits a large gathering of rebels in western Pennsylvania burned the regional tax inspectors home. President Washington ordered 13,000 troops to the area, but opposition disappeared.
1903 Louis Leakey was born. Anthropologist largely responsible for convincing scientists that Africa was the place to search for human origins, not Java or China. Together with his wife Mary, they made many significant fossil discoveries.
1925 M.S. Swaminathan was born. Swaminathan is an Indian geneticist and a leading figure in India’s Green Revolution, which distributed high yield wheat and rice varieties to poor farmers.
1991 The world’s largest Burger King opened in Budapest.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: august food holidays, national raspberries and cream day, Raspberry pinterest, todays food history

August 6th is National Root Beer Float Day!

Happy National Root Beer Day!

Here are today’s five facts 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 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’.

Categories: August Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: august food holidays, national root beer float day, todays food history

August 4th is National Chocolate Chip Day! / NationalChocolateChipDay

Happy National Chocolate Chip Day!

Here’s today’s facts 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

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.

Categories: 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 3rd is National Watermelon Day! /#NationalWatermelonDay

John-Bryan Hopkins

Happy National WatermelonDay

Here’s today’s 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

Categories: August Food Holidays

Tagged: august food holidays, national watermelon day, watermelon day, watermelon trivia

August 2nd is National Ice Cream Sandwich Day! / #NationalIceCreamSandwitchDay

John-Bryan Hopkins

Happy National Ice Cream Sandwich Day!

Here’s today’s 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.

Categories: August Food Holidays

Tagged: august food holidays, ice cream sandwich day, national ice-cream sandwich day

August 1st is National Raspberry Cream Pie Day!

John-Bryan Hopkins

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.

Categories: August Food Holidays

Tagged: august food holidays, national raspberry cream pie day, raspberry cream pie day, raspberry facts, raspberry trivia

Posts from the “August Food Holidays” Category

Search by Month

Share Me:

Search by Month

Share Me:

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Todays 5 facts about Chop Suey:

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Today’s burger trivia:

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

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

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Here’s 5 facts about Tea:

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Share Me:

Here are today’s 5 amazing Ice Cream facts:

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Here are today’s five thing to know about Ice Cream:

Share Me:

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Share Me:

Happy National Lemon Meringue Day!

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Happy National Creamsicle Day!

Five Facts about the Creamsicle

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Happy National Filet Mignon Day!

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

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

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Happy National Panini Day!

Celebrate the Panini!

Today’s Food History

Share Me:

Happy National S’mores Day

Today’s Chocolate, graham crackers, and marshmallows facts:

Share Me:

Today’s Food History

Share Me: