Dishbase Blog

Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving Day, presently celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, has been an annual tradition in the United States since 1863. It did not become a federal holiday until 1941. Thanksgiving was historically a religious observation to give thanks to God.

The First Thanksgiving was celebrated to give thanks to God for helping the pilgrims survive the brutal winter. The first Thanksgiving feast lasted three days providing enough food for 53 pilgrims and 90 Indians. The traditional Thanksgiving menu often features turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie. Americans may eat these foods on modern day Thanksgiving, but the first feast did not consist of these items. On the first feast turkey was any type of fowl that the pilgrims hunted. Pumpkin pie wasn't on the menu because there were no ovens for baking, but they did have boiled pumpkin. Cranberries weren't introduced at this time. Due to the diminishing supply of flour there was no bread of any kind. The foods included in the first feast included duck, geese, venison, fish, lobster, clams, swan, berries, dried fruit, pumpkin, squash, and many more vegetables.

Halloween (also spelled Hallowe'en) is an annual holiday celebrated on October 31. It has roots in the Gaelic festival of Samhain and the Christian holy day of All Saints. It is largely a secular celebration but some have expressed strong feelings about perceived religious overtones. Irish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America during Ireland's Great Famine of the 1840s.

The day is often associated with orange and black, and is strongly associated with symbols like the jack-o'-lantern. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, wearing costumes and attending costume parties, ghost tours, bonfires, visiting haunted attractions, pranks, reading scary stories, and watching horror films.

Because the holiday comes in the wake of the annual apple harvest, candy apples (known as toffee apples outside North America), caramel or taffy apples are a common Halloween treat made by rolling whole apples in a sticky sugar syrup, sometimes followed by rolling them in nuts.

At one time, candy apples were commonly given to children, but the practice rapidly waned in the wake of widespread rumors that some individuals were embedding items like pins and razor blades in the apples. While there is evidence of such incidents, they are quite rare and have never resulted in serious injury. Nonetheless, many parents assumed that such heinous practices were rampant. At the peak of the hysteria, some hospitals offered free x-rays of children's Halloween hauls in order to find evidence of tampering. Virtually all of the few known candy poisoning incidents involved parents who poisoned their own children's candy, and there have been occasional reports of children putting needles in their own candy in need of a bit of attention.

Other foods associated with the holiday:

* Apple cider (unfiltered apple juice)
* Barmbrack (Ireland)
* Bonfire toffee (Britain)
* Candy apple
* Candy corn (North America)
* Caramel apple
* Caramel corn
* Cider
* Colcannon (Ireland)
* Popcorn
* Pumpkin, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread
* Roasted pumpkin seeds
* Roasted sweet corn
* Soul cakes
* Novelty candy shaped like skulls, pumpkins, bats, worms, etc.

The story of the Jack o'Lantern comes from Irish folklore. Jack was a crafty farmer who tricked the Devil into climbing a tall tree. When the Devil reached the highest branch, Jack carved a large cross in the trunk, making it impossible for the Devil to climb down. In exchange for help getting out of the tree, the Devil promised never to tempt Jack with evil again. When Jack died, he was turned away from Heaven for his sins and turned away from Hell because of his trickery. Condemned to wander the Earth without rest, Jack carved out one of his turnips, took an ember from the devil, and used it for a lantern to light his way. He became known as "Jack of the Lantern."

With different varieties of leafy greens, how do you know what is best for your salad? The following is a quick guide on leafy varieties and what flavors they produce. For the complete list visit: http://snagwiremedia.com/quick-guide-to-leafy-gre…

Leafy Varieties

Arugula - A popular leafy green in Italy and Southern France, Arugula is also known as “rocket” and is part of the mustard family. It has a pleasant bitter flavor with a slight peppery mustard taste. It is often combined with milder greens due to its pleasant sharp flavor and is best tossed with an oil-based dressing.

Butterhead - The most popular Butterhead lettuce varieties are Boston and Bibb. It has a sweet, buttery flavor that is perfect for creamy dressings or light vinaigrettes. Butterhead lettuce has a delicate texture and can be added to other greens to give them a tender bite.

Endive - In 1830 Endive was created by Jan Lammers when he stored chicory roots in his cellar in hopes to dry and roast them as a coffee substitute. After his return from the Belgian War of Independence, the roots sprouted small white leaves that were tender, crunchy, and had a slight bitter flavor. A handful of endive can be used to add color to everyday salads.

Mesclun - Originated from the South of France, Mesclun is a mixture of greens which may contain arugula, Frisee, oak leaf lettuce, radicchio, baby greens, whole herb leaves, and sometimes edible flowers. The flavors of the greens depend on the mix, but will usually have a bitter-sweet taste.

Watercress - In the past watercress was carried by Greek, Roman, and Persian soldiers during battle to prevent scurvy. It is a “super-veggie” with vitamins C, B1, B6, K, E, Iron, Calcium, Magnesium, Manganese, Zinc, and Potassium. It is grown in water and has a pungent and slight peppery flavor. Watercress is great with other greens in a salad, layered in sandwiches, or cooked in soups.

Depending on the season and your location, certain fruits can be quite costly. Get quality fruits, by picking the best fruits possible. It’s always a good idea to get more for your money!

Apples are often a regular at my household’s fruit basket. They’re great for on-the-go snack ideas and taste wonderful with various simple dips. Here are some tips for picking the best apples during your next trip to the market:

• Grip your hand around a Red Delicious apple and try to make an indent with your thumb.

• Notice if the flesh under the skin of the apple creates a “crunch” sound. If that’s the case, the apple is good enough to take home with you!

• Yellow Delicious apples tend to have more of a softer and springier feel, so just get a good squeeze when picking out these apples.

• For Granny Smith, Pink Lady and Brae Burn apples, the crispier and more firm the apple is, the more savory the flavor.

For more information check out http://lovemyphilly.com/picking-the-best-apples-a…

Sushi is perhaps the most famous Japanese food in the world. In Japanese cuisine, sushi indicates dishes that use sushi rice, which is seasoned with a sweet vinegar mixture. Since Japan is surrounded by ocean, seafood has always been widely consumed as well as rice. So, the combination of raw fish and rice, sushi, naturally became a popular food in Japan. Originally, raw fish was fermented in salt to preserve it and eaten with seasoned rice. That's the origin of sushi. Even though there is sushi that doesn't include sashimi, raw fish and rice are the main ingredients of sushi.
http://japanesefood.about.com/od/sushi/a/aboutnig…

Easter eggs are specially decorated eggs given to celebrate the Easter holiday or springtime.
The egg was a symbol of the rebirth of the earth in Pagan celebrations of spring and was adopted by early Christians as a symbol of the rebirth.
The oldest tradition is to use dyed or painted chicken eggs, but a modern custom is to substitute chocolate eggs, or plastic eggs filled with confectionery such as jellybeans. These eggs are often hidden, allegedly by the Easter Bunny, for good children to find on Easter morning. Otherwise, they are generally put in a basket filled with real or artificial straw to resemble a bird's nest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg

Saint Patrick's Day (Irish: Lá ’le Pádraig or Lá Fhéile Pádraig), colloquially St. Paddy's Day or Paddy's Day, is an annual feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick (circa 385–461), one of the patron saints of Ireland, and is generally celebrated on 17 March.

Saint Patrick's Day is celebrated worldwide by Irish people and increasingly by non-Irish people, as well (usually in Australia, North America, and Ireland). Hence the phrase, "Everyone wants to be Irish on St. Patrick's Day." Celebrations are generally themed around the color green and all things Irish; both Christians and non-Christians celebrate the secular version of the holiday by wearing green or orange, eating Irish food and/or green foods, imbibing Irish drink (usually Guinness), and attending parades.

Corned beef and cabbage is the most common meal eaten in the United States for St. Patrick's Day, even though historically, corned beef and cabbage is an American (rather than a traditionally Irish) meal.

In the United States, many people have also made the holiday a celebration of the color green. These people, besides wearing green on that day, may also stage dinner parties featuring all green foods. An example of such a menu would be chicken with rice and lima beans with sliced green maraschino cherries in coconut sauce colored with green food coloring, a green salad including greens, avocados and sliced green apples, split pea soup, green tinted bread spiced with sage, Lime Jell-O, iced limeade and/or a green-beer, and lime pudding, key lime pie, or lime sherbet for dessert.

Valentine's Day or Saint Valentine's Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14 through out many people of the world. In the West, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine's cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery. The holiday is named after two among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.
The day is most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of "valentines." Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten notes have largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards. The sending of Valentines was a fashion in nineteenth-century Great Britain, and, in 1847, Esther Howland developed a successful business in her Worcester, Massachusetts home with hand-made Valentine cards based on British models. The popularity of Valentine cards in 19th-century America was a harbinger of the future commercialization of holidays in the United States.

Pasta is a generic term for Italian variants of noodles, food made from a dough of flour, water and/or eggs, that is boiled. The word can also denote dishes in which pasta products are the primary ingredient, served with sauce or seasonings.

There are approximately 350 different shapes of pasta. Examples include spaghetti (solid, thin cylinders), maccheroni (tubes or hollow cylinders), fusilli (swirls), and lasagne (sheets). Two other noodles, gnocchi and spätzle, are sometimes counted as pasta. They are both traditional in parts of Italy. Pasta is categorized in two basic styles: Dried and Fresh. Dried pasta made without eggs can be stored for up to two years under ideal conditions, while fresh pasta will keep for a couple of months. Pasta is generally boiled to soften it before being eaten.

Most pastas are made from a simple combination of flour and water. Pre-packaged speciality pasta often includes spices, cheese or added coloring from spinach, tomatoes or food dye.

Under Italian law, dry pasta (pasta secca) can only be made from durum wheat or semolina flour. Durum flour has a yellow tinge in color. Italian pasta is traditionally cooked al dente (Italian: "to the tooth", meaning not too soft). Abroad, dry pasta is frequently made from other types of flour (such as farina), but this yields a softer product which cannot be cooked al dente.

Particular varieties of pasta may also use other grains and milling methods to make the flour. Some pasta varieties, such as Pizzoccheri, are made from buckwheat flour. Fresh pasta may include eggs (pasta all'uovo). Gnocchi are often listed among pasta dishes, although they are quite different in ingredients (mainly milled potatoes) and therefore can't be called pasta because they don't contain flour.