I’ve always been a lover of cheese. Any kind of cheese–hard cheese, soft cheese, and numerous in-between varieties. While I certainly have my favorites, I can’t remember a cheese I’ve ever tasted that I wouldn’t eat. And I’ve tasted a lot of cheese. But last evening, my wife, who was reading a new cookbook, asked […]
As a youth of about eleven or twelve, I was somewhat coerced by my best friend Billy to join the Boy Scouts. Although this experience was extremely short lived by both of us, we did manage to stay in the troop long enough to go on our first (and Billy’s last) camping trip. As I […]
Some months ago while passing through Waco, Texas on a business related road trip, I couldn’t help but think about some of the historic events surrounding this small city named after Native Americans who once lived in the area. One of the most significant of these events is that Waco is the birth place of […]
As I’ve mentioned before, ours was a family of modest means. But my father worked hard to see that we were able to afford some of life’s nicer things. An occasional dinner at the “Log House” after Sunday’s church service was one of the more pleasurable of them. And one of my life experiences I […]
For longer than I care to admit, I’ve started each year enjoying a typical Southern style New Year’s Day meal—baked ham, collard greens, cornbread, boiled new potatoes, and of course, black-eyed peas. In fact, to the best of my recollection, it’s about the only day of the year that I eat these black spotted legumes. […]
Although raised in modest, humble surroundings, my childhood was filled with happiness and more than my share of blessings. While we didn’t always have the luxuries of life, my father worked two and sometimes three jobs to make sure we had all the necessities. And my stay-at-home mom seemed to have an uncanny knack for […]
One of my all-time favorite desserts is ice cream. I mean, I could literally enjoy a bowl of ice cream every night of the week, year ’round. And when it comes to this light, creamy, frozen lusciousness, I’m really not very picky about the flavor–vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, banana nut, peach–almost any flavor will do. Some […]
My younger sister, while an accomplished pianist and singer, was not especially blessed in the art of cookery. In fact, I’ll never forget her first attempt at baking. One day while our mom was at work, Sis thought she’d surprise everyone that evening with a freshly baked cake. The recipe Sis chose was from a […]
You’ll find them in offices, boardrooms, classrooms, breakrooms, and newsrooms throughout the nation. They’ve become popular at baby showers, birthday parties, and other social events– even weddings. They’ve been featured in movies, television sitcoms, cartoons, video games, children’s books, and music albums. And, it’s purported that they’re a staple in just about every police station, […]
Some of my fondest childhood memories revolve around the daily meals my momma prepared for our family. Momma (or "Sugar" as everyone called her) was an Oklahoma farm girl and a terrific homemaker and fantastic cook who always seemed to enjoy maintaining a fastidiously clean house and caring for my father, younger sister, and me. […]
There were really only three kinds of cake that I ever remember my momma being fond of–her own Coconut-Pineapple White Cake with Seven Minute Icing, the gooey coconut, pecan goodness of her sister Mattie’s German Chocolate Cake, and our neighbor Mrs. Burnett’s Red Velvet Cake with Ermine Frosting. As for me, I dearly loved my […]
As a professional chef of almost 40 years, my personal collection of cookbooks and culinary references currently number more than three hundred, many of which are classics. One of those is the 1918 collector’s edition of the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer given to me by my mother early in my cooking […]
One morning on a recent road trip, I stopped at the local diner in a small Mississippi town. While sitting at the counter having breakfast, I overheard several guys discussing the proper way to season their grits. One gentleman remarked that he and his fellow Arkansans favored sugar while a couple of the local boys […]
The first baked goods I ever mastered was cornbread, that iconic quick bread so loved by just about everyone in American, especially in the South. Cornbread was a dinner staple in my home growing up, and I suppose that’s why my mother was so adamant about me learning to make it. It may have also […]
As a young boy growing up in a very modest home in North Texas suburbia, much of what is taken for granted in today’s society was for me an extravagance. That especially included bottled soda, which was a treat reserved for special occasions such as watching a baseball game at LaGrave Field with my father, […]
I’m not really sure when I developed my fondness for biscuits and gravy, as it was certainly not a regular part of my momma’s breakfast repertoire. Now don’t get me wrong. My momma was an outstanding country cook, but homemade breads (other than cornbread) was just not something she normally did. On the other hand, […]
Before explorers set foot on American soil, the Cherokee and Creek Indians were making raisins, dumplings, drinks, and poultices from wild grapes they called muscadines.
There is one fact about that popular, spicy concoction we call chili (or chili con carne) that should be cleared up right from the very start–it did not come from Mexico. If there is any doubt of what the citizenry of our southernmost neighbors think of this dish, one needs only to consult the Diccionario […]
When Ruth Wakefield ran out of Baker’s chocolate to make her chocolate cookies and decided to use pieces of a chocolate bar to finish the task, she never thought it would result in the creation of America’s favorite cookie. But it did, and the rest, so they say, is history. Ruth Graves Wakefield graduated in […]
Although the cookie was introduced in America by Dutch settlers in the early seventeenth century, it wasn’t until the early 1900s, with the development of peanut butter, that the first recipe for peanut butter cookies first appeared. When the cotton crop was heavily damaged by the boll weevil, the now famous African-American botanist and agricultural […]
No other food exemplifies America and its plentiful bounty like corn. This is the second in a series of articles that explores the history and culinary uses of this versatile grain. Thousands of years before Europeans first landed on the shores of the New World, corn had become a staple food of Native Americans. Among […]
Corn–born in the Americas, domesticated in the Americas, first cultivated in the Americas, and most of its uses developed in America. No other food exemplifies this country like corn. In its honor, this is the first in a series of short articles exploring the history and culinary aspects of this versatile native grain. The origin […]
The delicate, yet heady fragrance of the quince is said to be reminiscent of lemon, pineapple, flowers, and apple.
Probably no other holiday in America is more deeply entrenched in food tradition and superstition than New Year’s. While the first recorded festivities celebrating the arrival of the new year date back 4,000 years to ancient Babylon, it was Julius Caesar who originally established January 1 as the first day of the year, with the […]
“The worst Christmas gift is fruitcake,” cracked Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show. “There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other, year after year.” We all hear the infamous fruitcake jokes year after year: “Why does fruitcake make the perfect gift? Because the U.S. Postal Service […]
What would Christmas in America be without cookies? There would be no snack for Santa, no visions of sugar plums for the children and no edible decorations for the tree. Christmas it seems was, above all other holidays, invented with cookies in mind. While Christmas cookies have been around since Medieval Europe, it was the […]
Whether you call it pop, soda, soda pop, or coke (a generic term), the soft drink industry in this country is huge–more than 50,000-gallons-per-American-per-year huge! By the late nineteenth century, bottled soda had come of age in America with over five hundred bottling plants producing some 260 million bottles of soda a year. In 1888, […]
As some of you may already know, Hostess Brands, Inc., the company who makes Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Sno Balls, and other popular baked goods, filed for bankruptcy protection on January 11 of this year. Finally on Friday, November 16, after striking workers refused to return to work, company officials decided to seek the court’s permission […]
For most people, the mention of Thanksgiving brings to mind visions of roasted turkey filled with stuffing, pumpkin pie, family get-togethers, football, and young schoolchildren acting out stories of the Pilgrims sharing the first feast with native Indians . But was that day of feasting at Plymouth really the first Thanksgiving in this country? Let’s […]
In the early seventeenth century, sweet sorghum was introduced into America as an alternative to sugar cane in the upper South and Midwest. First brought here by African slaves, sorghum cane thrived in hot, arid conditions and was soon grown by farmers in the Carolinas and as far west as Texas and far north as […]
The peanut is thought to have originated in Brazil and Central America, making its way to Africa by means of Spanish explorers and traders. When African slaves were brought to United States, the peanut arrived with them. In fact, the name "goober," as they are called in the southern states, comes directly from the African […]
We’ve all heard the popular story of how in 1762 a hungry John Montague, Earl of Sandwich, ordered some meat stuffed between two pieces of bread in order to continue playing a game of cards. The idea caught on and the sandwich was born. But it would be some 160 years later, with the advent […]
The distillation of whiskey in this country dates back to the arrival of European farmers, especially those from Ireland and Scotland, who brought with them the skills and knowledge necessary for producing spirits from whatever grains were available. However, beverages produced by these homemade distilleries were for self consumption only and perhaps a few friends […]
The pawpaw is the largest edible tree fruit native to North America and indigenous to the temperate woodlands of the eastern United States.
Probably the most perfect rendition of street food ever created in this nation is the humble corn dog. After all, what could be more convenient to someone taking a stroll than a wiener impaled on a stick, dipped into a thick batter, and deep fried? The origin for this all-American fast food dates back to […]
The first known recipe for a macaroni and cheese casserole was recorded as far back as thirteenth century Italy. In the medieval cookbook Liber de Coquina, the anonymous author describes layering sheets of lasagne with powdered spices and cheese (likely parmesan) of choice. This recipe (called de lasanis), while certainly not the same as the […]
Gumbo is generally thought to derive its name from the word kingomb, meaning okra in the West African dialect of Bantu . . .
During the 1930s, in his search for a tastier tortilla that wouldn’t get stale so quickly, Charles Elmer Doolin (better known as C. E.) recalled a chip made by Gustavo Olguin, a Mexican native for whom he worked a short time as a fry cook. Gustavo’s fritos (meaning "little fried things") were made from masa […]
Exactly when and by whom the hamburger was invented seems to depend on who is telling the story. Well known historian Frank Tolbert attributed the honors to Fletcher Davis of Henderson County, Texas. It seems “Old Dave,” as he was known to most folks, owned a lunch counter in Athens where he served grilled beef […]
Geo. A. Hormel & Co, a meatpacker of fresh pork products, was founded in 1891 in an abandoned creamery on the banks of Red Cedar River northeast of Austin, Minnesota. Pork sales flourished during the late 1890s, and the company quickly expanded its manufacturing facilities and established a distribution center in Duluth and sales offices […]
No matter what you call it – pan fried steak, country fried steak, chicken fried steak or CFS – the fact is Texans love it! So much so, that restaurants in that great state serve more than 800,000 chicken fried steaks each and every day, according to the Texas Restaurant Association. And while many "outsiders" […]
Traditional whoopie pies consist of two soft, slightly dry devils food mini cakes, generously filled with creamy white filling. The filling not only serves to keep this delectable treat moist, but adds a certain gooeyness to the eating experience that’s half the fun. While the origin of this delicious cream-filled confection can be indisputably traced […]
We’ve all heard the expression "American as apple pie" hundreds of times. But in truth, just how American is apple pie? What you may not be aware of is both apple pie and the fruit whose name it bears are actually of European descent, coming to this country by way of early colonial English settlers. […]
Like with so many foods invented in this country, the question of when and how maple syrup was first discovered is surrounded by legends and folklore. Probably the most popular of these stories is that an Iroquois Chef named Woksis threw his tomahawk at a tree releasing a clear sap that his wife used for […]
Dairy Queen got its start in 1938 in an ice cream store in Kankakee, Illinois owned by Sherb Noble.
One morning on a recent road trip, I stopped at the local diner in a small Mississippi town. While sitting at the counter having breakfast, I overheard several guys discussing the proper way to season their grits. One gentleman remarked that he and his fellow Arkansans favored sugar while a couple of the local boys […]
Although it was the Swanson Company of Omaha who coined the name “TV dinner,” they were not the inventor of the frozen meal.
