November 6, 2017
Days Until. . .
Thanksgiving (Nov. 23): 15 Christmas: 40 New Year's Eve: 47.
World Food Records
Today in 1993, the biggest peanut butter and jelly sandwich ever was made in (appropriately) Peanut, Pennsylvania. It was forty feet long and used 150 pounds of peanut butter. The jelly was kept to fifty pounds to keep the ants from going nuts. It was a poor boy sandwich, by the way, but not dressed. Parenthetically, let's note that this is Peanut Butter Lover's Month, according to Skippy.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Baked Mountain--which sounds like a dessert to me--is in the last place you'd expect to find a feature with that name: in Alaska. Specifically, near the top of the Alaska Peninsula, in Katmai National Park and Preserve. Baked Mountain rises to 3800 feet, nearly 2000 feet higher than the bottom of the Valley Of Ten Thousand Smokes just two miles away. A fair-size glacier pours down that valley. Nothing baking around there. If you didn't come with food, you're in trouble: no towns,let alone restaurants, are anywhere within 75 miles.
Today's Flavor
Today is Pan-American Nacho Day. Nachos were created by Ignatio Anaya, whose nickname was Nacho. (Say "Ignatio" and you'll see why.) In his restaurant in the bordertown of Piedras Negras, Mexico, he created a dish he named for himself: Especiales de Nacho. It was fried tortilla chips topped with melted cheese and jalapenos. It became a hit, and mutated into chips covered with all kinds of stuff from the Mexican steam tables.
Deft Dining Rule #718
The maximum number of ingredients that can top an order of nachos before they become limp and gross is three.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez:
If you want to make your own tortilla chips but don't feel like frying them, brush corn tortillas with olive oil on both sides, cut them into quarters, then arrange them on a cookie sheet. Bake them in the oven at 375 degrees for five minutes.
Edible Dictionary
stamp and go, Jamaican, n.--The classic Jamaican native breakfast, composed of three kinds of fritters. One is made with fish--traditionally dried, salted codfish, soaked overnight before frying. The second is ackee, a starchy tree fruit which resembles scrambled eggs. The third is callaloo, a spinach-like green leafy vegetable. The name comes from the rapidity with which it's cooked and served, and the way people pick it up from a cook and walk away with it.
Annals Of Sensitivity
Today in 1981, Edy's--maker of a line of premium ice creams--bought a quarter-million-dollar insurance policy on the taste buds of its chief tester and flavor developer, John Harrison. A quarter-million? Is that all? My poor taste buds have given me more pleasure than that.
Annals Of Prohibition
Today in 1911, Maine law made it illegal to sell alcoholic beverages within its borders. It became the first dry state. No wonder they call themselves Maniacs. No more gin and Moxie for awhile.
Annals Of Beer Marketing
Director Mike Nicholls was born today in 1931. Early in his career, he did voice-overs for the famous series of cartoons advertising Jax Beerhere in New Orleans, with Elaine May doing the female voices.
The Saints
This is the feast day of St. Leonard of Noblac, who lived in the early France in the sixth century. He is the patron saint of grocers.
Food Namesakes
Glen Frey, a member of the rock group The Eagles, was born today in 1948. . . American Olympic hockey star Laurie Baker was born today in 1976. . . Today in 1583, the first European explorer to land in Texas did so. His name was Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, which translates "cow's head.". . . Jim Pike, one of the singers in the close-harmony group The Lettermen, gave out his first note today in 1934.
Words To Eat By
"Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love."--Charlie Brown.
Words To Drink By
"It reminded him of his Uncle Seamus, the notorious and poetic drunk, who would sit down at the breakfast table the morning after a bender, drain a bottle of stout and say 'Ah, the chill of consciousness returns.'"--Molly O'Neill.
