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Posts tagged “cars”

National Pralines Day

John-Bryan Hopkins

National Pralines Day

 

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

1374 An outbreak of Dancing Mania (sometimes known as ‘St. John’s Dance’) occurred in Aix-la-Chapelle, France. People were overcome with bouts of uncontrollable, manic dancing. Frothing at the mouth, screaming, and sexual frenzy were other symptoms. Ergot (fungus) poisoning (from grain) is now believed to have been the ultimate cause.

1532 Robert Dudley, the earl of Leicester, was born.
Hey diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle,
the cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
and the dish ran away with the spoon.

Dudley was Queen Elizabeth I’s first court favorite. She called him her ‘puppy.’ He is the dog who laughs in the nursery rhyme ‘Hey diddle diddle,’ when the dish runs away with the spoon, i.e., when Lady Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen’s ladies in waiting, ran away with the Queen’s taster, the Earl of Hereford, since he did not favor the tight reign Elizabeth kept on her court. He was also the step-father of her second lover, the Earl of Essex.

1817 The first coffee was planted in Hawaii on the Kona coast.

1839 Gustavus Franklin Swift was born. Founder of the meat-packing business, Swift & Co., the inventor of the refrigerated railway car, and the first to ship ‘dressed’ beef to eastern markets instead of live animals.

1895 Jack Dempsey was born. He is regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time. He held the world heavyweight title from 1919 to 1926. He then became a successful restaurateur in New York City.

2003 Richard Pough died. An American ecologist he was the founding president of the Nature Conservancy and helped found the World Wildlife Fund. In 1945, he was one of the first to warn about the dangers of DDT to fish and birds.

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Categories: Food Holidays, June Food Holidays

Tagged: aviation, cars, climate, nature, science, transportation

National Peaches and Cream Day

John-Bryan Hopkins

Five Star Recipe from Food52

National Peaches and Cream Day

Five Food Finds 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.
  • There are over 700 varieties of peaches-some Chinese varieties are even flat like hockey pucks!

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

1834 Cyrus McCormick received a patent for the first practical mechanical reaper.

1893 The first Ferris Wheel opened at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. Invented by George Washington Ferris, it had 36 cars and carried 60 passengers 264 feet high.

1933 A barge loaded with grain arrived in New Orleans to complete the first Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico barge trip.

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Categories: Food Holidays, June Food Holidays

Tagged: aviation, barge trip, cars, facts, five food finds, food, foodimentary, fun, life, mechanical reaper, national peaches and cream day, today's food history, todays food history, transportation, varieties of peaches

National Pretzel Day

John-Bryan Hopkins

National Pretzel Day

Five Food Finds about Pretzels

  • The first pretzel was created in 610 A.D. by a monk in southern France or northern Italy. It was originally called a ‘pretiola’ and was renamed ‘pretzel’ later when the idea migrated to Germany and Austria.
  •  In 1861, pretzel twisting was the second highest-paying job in the Philadelphia region. Today, machines do the twisting, although at some artisan shops, tourists can still see it done the old-fashioned way.
  • The birthplace of the hard pretzel was Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The pretzel, or bretzel as it was called then, first came to America in 1710 with Palatine German immigrants (from the Rhineland) who settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and became known, incorrectly, as the “Pennsylvania Dutch.”
  •  In the 18th century, German children would wear pretzel necklaces at the beginning of a new year for prosperity, health and good fortune.
  • In the 17th century, pretzels were known as a marriage knot. During a wedding ceremony, a couple would wish upon a pretzel, break it (like a wishbone), and eat it to signify their oneness. It is speculated that the term, “tying the knot,” originated in Switzerland in 1614 during a wedding between two prominent families.

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

1785 John James Audubon was born. Ornithologist, naturalist and artist, known mainly for his paintings and sketches of North American birds.

1877 Minnesota held a state day of prayer to plead for an end to a 4 year plague of Rocky Mountain locusts. In southwestern Minnesota, locusts had been eating crops, trees, tobacco, fence posts, leather, dead animals, sheep’s wool – everything but the mortgage. Two days later a snowstorm moved through and the locusts were never seen again. No one knows what caused the locust plague, nor why the Rocky Mountain locust became extinct after the plague.

1947 Pete Ham of the music group ‘Badfinger’ was born

1962 ‘Mashed Potato Time’ by Dee Dee Sharp is #1 on the charts.

1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine explodes. The worst nuclear disaster in history. In addition to the human toll, agriculture  and livestock was contaminated by radiation in large areas of Europe for years to come.

1989 Lucille Ball died. Two of the funniest food related comedy routines ever done were the chocolate factory and the grape stomping episodes from her TV show, ‘I Love Lucy.’

2005 A herd of buffalo escaped from a farm and wandered around a Baltimore, Maryland suburb disrupting traffic, and shutting down several major highways. Police eventually herded them onto a nearby tennis court.

2006 Chicago banned the sale of foie gras.

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Categories: April Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: aviation, cars, climate, facts, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national food holidays, National Pretzel Day, nature, science, todays food history, transportation, wordpress

National Picnic Day

John-Bryan Hopkins

National Picnic Day

 Five Food Finds about Picnics

  • Did you know that a “picnic” ham is really not a true ham? It is cut from the upper part of the foreleg of a pig – a true ham is cut from the hind leg.
  • Italy’s favourite picnic day is Easter Monday. It is called “Angel’s Monday” or Pasquetta (“Little Easter”).
  • After an ant has visited your picinc, it lays down a scent as it returns to the nest for the other ants to follow!
  • In the year 2000, a 600-mile-long picnic took place in France to celebrate the first Bastille Day of the new millennium.
  • The first table designed specifically for picnics (in a style similar to what we know today) appeared in the late 1800s.

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

1564 and 1616 William Shakespeare was born. He passed away on the same date 52 years later. There are many references to food in Shakespeare’s works. “Let the sky rain potatoes.” (‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’). “Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.” (‘Romeo and Juliet’).

1895 Purdy and Peters were issued a patent for a “design for spoons.”

1947 Glenn Cornick of the music group ‘Jethro Tull’ was born.

1982 The Conch Republic (Key West & the Florida Keys) seceded from the United States to protest an INS (Immigration & Naturalization Service) roadblock on the only road into the Keys.

1985 Coca-Cola announced it was changing its 99 year old secret formula. New Coke was a big flop.

1992 The first McDonald’s in Beijing, China opened. It is the world’s largest McDonald’s, with 28,000 square feet, seating for 700 and 1,000 employees.

1993 R.I.P. Cesar Chavez. He was the founder of the United Farm Workers Union.

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Categories: April Food Holidays, Food Holidays

Tagged: aviation, cars, climate, facts, food, foodimentary, fun, life, national food holidays, National Picnic Day, nature, restaurants, todays food history, transportation, wordpress

  

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