Asparagus

The spring veggie that makes your pee stink! Tasty. Healthy. Magical. Did you know that you actually have to have a certain gene to be able to pick up on that pungent asparagus scent and only about 22% of the population have that gene. The smell comes from metabolic compounds that produce "ammonia and various sulfur-containing degradation products". 

The asparagus is a true springtime veggie. It has a very short growing season and generally shows up around Easter. Once upon a time folks use to use veggies and plants and herbs as medicines because there simply were no doctors. Almost anything that can be grown has a certain medicinal property. Asparagus is a diuretic. Asparagus can be traced back as far as 3000BC when Egyptians put the veggie's image on their architecture. Greeks and Romans would dry it out for the winter. After the Roman Empire fell, asparagus really wasn't mentioned as much until 1469 when French monasteries began to grow it. It slowly began making a comeback ~ 1538 England, 1542 Germany, 1850 U.S. In Europe "asparagus is the highlight of the foodie calendar". It is a bit high in price since the growing season is short ~ 23 April to 21 June. White asparagus is very popular in the Netherlands, Spain, France, Poland, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland. 

Asparagus has a short growing season virtually everywhere which can make for some high prices. Around Easter time here in the United States, asparagus goes on sale in all the stores so it's not too terribly hard on the wallet and it's a bit worth it for the once-a-year treat. Asparagus is low in calories and low in sodium. Look for young spears since the bigger the spears get, the more woody they become and you find yourself chewing A LOT. Preparation is simple. Just wash and snap off the ends. Slightly bend them and they'll just snap. If you are growing asparagus, then they prefer a more saline soil. Traditionally, a bit of salt was actually added to the soil to keep weeds from growing.  White asparagus is also called "the royal vegetable", "white gold" or "edible ivory". The shoots are covered up with soil as it's growing so it's devoid of light and becomes blanched. White asparagus tends to be less bitter and more tender. Purple asparagus is higher in sugar and lower in fiber. Asparagus can be cooked a number of ways from grilled, steamed and stir fried AND it tastes great raw too!

Although asparagus looks like tiny, green fingers, give it a try. I think you might like it.

National Beer Day

Beer is the most widely consumed alcohol beverage, the 3rd most consumed beverage (after water and tea of course) and the most common cause of divorces and children. Okay, so maybe the last two weren't 100% true. A lot of people drink a lot of beer and it has adopted it's own pop culture. Folks go to beer gardens and beer festivals and private breweries to try out different types of ales and they can be very different. There are beers with different fruits or different spices or that have had a special brewing process. No matter how you look at it, beer has been around for a while. Consider this - beer has been around longer than clean water! Many civilizations drank beer and wine simply because it was much safer to drink than the water. Beer is thought to be the oldest fermented beverage. The Babylonian code of law that dates back to ancient Mesopotamia in 1754BC - also known as the Code of Hammurabi - talks about the production and distribution of beer. It was such a big thing that they even had a Goddess of Beer in which they sung hymns to called - "The Hymn to Ninkas" - in which yeah, it was a prayer thing, but more importantly it was a recipe about how to brew beer. Most folks were illiterate and songs, hymns, prayers to get information to pass down and learn from. Early beer would probably be unrecognizable and contain quite a bit of different spices and fruit that was probably common to the local area. It would not have hops in it since that addition didn't happen until around late 822. In 1516, William IV (Duke of Bavaria) adopted the "Reinheitsgrebot" or what was known as the purity law. It was the first of food quality standards and it called for beer to only contain water, hops and barley-malt. By the 7th century AD, the good ol' monasteries were making their fair share of ale and selling. It makes me wonder how many food and drink items were produced, sold and marketed by monasteries (idea!). Busy dudes! The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century ushered in mass production. The domestic brews weren't really all to significant anymore. Today, the mass market of beer is a global business bringing in about $294.5 billion dollars for about 35 billion gallons in 2006. China's beer consumption is skyrocketing at a rate of twice of the U.S. Beer is definitely big business.

Beer is a fermented drink meaning that a starch is broken down into sugars and those sugars are then fermented. Starches come from the usual suspects that I know you've heard before in commercials - malted barley and malted wheat. Hops provides the bitterness and acts as a natural preservative. The usual alcohol content is between 4% and 6%, but you can rise on up to 20% with different varieties. Beer has many varieties. Pale Ales are one of the most common beer styles an uses a pale malt. Stout is a dark beer that using roasted malt or roast barley. Mild beer is a bit dark and malty with an alcohol content of about 3.5%. Wheat beer contains a large portion of wheat. A lager is the most commonly consumed beer in the world especially the pale lager. 

Many folks make a hobby of making beer and enjoy experimenting with different flavors and styles. A particular style is seasonal ales. Although the mass beer industry is doing just fine, smaller breweries seem to be making a comeback. Many small and local brewhouses are starting to see a following and fans and enjoying great popularity. It's refreshing to get back to an older place in time when a craft really meant something.

Happy Birthday Twinkies and Welcome Back!!

It is said that 2 things will survive a nuclear holocaust - roaches and twinkles. I guess the roaches will have to have something to eat. I'm not sure where this urban legend stemmed from (hmmmm, sounds like a good idea for a post), but Twinkies do have a shelf life. In the good ol' days Twinkies had a shelf life of 26 days. With advanced improvements in 2012, the shelf life has gone up to 45 days! Clearly not holocaust timeframe. So where did all of this start?

Twinkies were invented in Schiller Park, IL on 6 April 1930 by James Alexander Dewar in a factory that made cream-filled strawberry shortcakes. During the off season when strawberries were out-of-season, the machines sat lifeless. To fill up some unproductive time, a banana-cream filled snack was contrived. The name "Twinkie" came from a billboard advertising "Twinkle Toe Shoes". WWII was a difficult time for the U.S. and many things were rationed including bananas. Twinkie went over to vanilla cream which turned out to be more popular and became the permanent Twinkie flavor. The original flavor has come back for "limited time only". In 1988, Fruit and Cream Twinkies hit the market and were a flop. In 2005, the movie King Kong was recreated and as a promotion, Twinkie went back over to it's original flavor. Get it - monkeys and bananas! There was 20% rise in sales and in 2007 banana was restored to the Twinkie line. On 11 January 2012, Hostess filed for Chapter 11 and 16 November 2012 the Twinkie died.

It indeed was a sad day. Twinkies were returned to a much loving public on 15 July 2013 when Apollo Global Management and Metropolis & Co. purchased them out of bankruptcy. The Twinkie was reduced in caloric content - from 150 to 135. 

Twinkies have enjoyed a wide range of popularity. The deep fried Twinkie was introduced at the Texas State Fair. The Twinkie Wiener Sandwich of a Twinkie split open for a hot dog with easy cheese and dipped in milk was the signature dish of "Weird Al" Yankovic in the 1989 movie UHF. Twinkies have been cornerstones in many recipes from tiramisu to pies and cakes. In 2010, a Kansas State University professor, Mark Haub, lived off the "convenience store diet" which was meant to prove that counting calories weighed more than nutritional value. He lost 27lbs!

However you look at it, the Twinkie is truly an American icon!!

Side note: being the bad mother that I am, my kids have never eaten a Twinkie...until today. It had nothing to do with anything except that we're not big sweets people. As my daughter unwrapped the package, she looked like I was forcing her to eat rat poison. My son had the same apprehensive look. The kid down the street was a little more receptive to the trying of the Twinkie. I am clearly not the only poor parent. My daughter said it was "good" which means she doesn't like it which is weird because she is our 80 lbs garbage shute. My son said he didn't care for them which made me think that if he was starving, then he would eat them, but he wouldn't chose on his own to eat one. The kid down the street said that he liked them and then promptly asked for another. Who am I to deny a child happiness and bliss!

National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day!

National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day

Mmmmmm!!! Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches! The staple of both young children and college students alike. I think I lived on PB&J all through high school. Quick. Easy. Mobile. Who wouldn't love them. I pity the peanut allergy folks of the world. Some folks have been known to grill them. Some folks have probably even deep fried them! Hey, if you can do it to a Twinkie, then why not a PB&J! I like a layer a saltine crackers in the middle. Four perfect squares. Did you know though, that the components of peanut butter and jelly have been around far longer than the heavenly combination? The peanut butter and jelly sandwich as we know it is only about 60-70 years old. In fact, there may be folks living RIGHT NOW who remember life without PB&J sandwiches! Where did it all begin...soldiers. Many tasty treats have been brought home by soldiers. I would personally like to take a moment to thank our Navy sailors for bringing back S.O.S. (ask one and they can tell you what those letters mean). The dish is chipped beef on toast and that was another staple of mine during adolescence. Anyway, yes, the soldiers of WWII brought back the PB&J with them and I can't thank them enough! 

Bread goes back crazy far into history. That was probably the first food. Bread has gone through many changes before ending up in the Wonder Bread bag in the grocery aisle, but the biggest change is...being sliced! I'm not sure what was better than sliced bread before sliced bread! Maybe the wheel. In the early 1900's, some cat (slang for "dude") by the name of Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa got a great idea of selling pre-sliced bread. He developed a prototype in 1912 and tried to sell to local bakers. They had no interested in pre-slicing bread. The biggest problem was that the bread got stale and there really wasn't much demand for sliced bread. I guess it didn't really matter anyway because the plans and prototype were lost in a fire in 1917. Rohwedder didn't give up though. He reworked the plans and built another prototype and in 1927 he began to see some success. I guess it took a little time for folks to warm up to the idea and the wax paper sure did help with the staleness issue.

Jams and jellies have also been around for quite a long time. They are a great way of preserving crops, but Mr. Welch (have you heard of him?) was the frontrunner in commercialized jelly. In the food world, it's not who "invented" a product, but who "commercialized" it. Check out Mr. Birdseye during Frozen Food Week. Anyway, Mr. Welch was making grape juice to use for communions for soldiers, but it didn't really catch on (why on earth would anyone want a wine substitute?) so he created what was called "Grapelade" that was grape jam that was handed out with the WWI rations in 1918. The soldiers loved it! When the war was over and the soldiers went back home, they demanded their Grapelade and they got it! Commercial jams came out in retail stores in 1923.

Peanut butter is just another component with an illustrious history. Peanut butter can be traced back to 1000BC with the Incas, but the peanut butter as we know it made it's debut at the World's Fair in 1893. Back then, peanut butter was food for rich people so not too many folks ate it. 

So now you know the history of the standard ingredients of peanut butter and jelly. What about the combo? Well, the first peanut butter and jelly sandwich was mentioned in the Boston Cooking-School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics written by Julia Davis Chandler. Peanut butter was till considered "high end" food so, once again, it took a while to catch on. The perfect storm was brewing though. The soldiers came back from WWII with their Grapelade demands. Sliced bread was really catching on and becoming popular. Peanut butter became more widespread especially during the Great Depression. Peanut butter was a great source of protein when meat was scarce and very expensive. 

The sandwich became popular with soldiers and began to develop a following. It was a quick meal for children and inexpensive for college students. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich has been around for about a century, but has enjoyed immense popularity and a cult following in just the past 60-70 years. So next time you sit down to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, just remember...it's history in the making!