2-20-20

Toothpick. Wine Auction. Cherry Pie. Paper Bag. Oldest Brewery. Satsuma. Coriander. Poitier.

Inventions For Better Eating 

A toothpick manufacturing machine was invented on this day in 1872, by two guys, J.P. Cooley and Silas Noble. One of them did the round toothpicks and the other flat. The best toothpicks are made of alder wood. Ask the next very expensive restaurant you dine in whether they have alder toothpicks. Then tell them that they should. Let's see how long this takes to make it into the national food magazines. Most of the toothpicks made in America, by the way, are made in Maine.

Annals Of Wine Marketing

The first wine auction that we know about took place in London on this date in 1673. Amazingly, a bottle of Insignia went for almost $2,000. No, it didn't. The wine being auctioned was entirely in barrels, and was sold as a bulk commodity.

Food Calendar  

Many websites claim that today is National Cherry Pie Day. The problem with this is that cherries are totally out of season right now, and we must make any cherry pie with canned cherries, resulting in a cloyingly oversweet dessert. Remember when you could get a cherry pie at McDonald's and places of that ilk? Just apple now, I think (although I'm behind on my research on fast-food fried pies.)

Great Moments In Grocery Shopping

The square-bottomed paper bag was invented by Luther Crowell of Cape Cod, who spent his spare time folding paper and attempting to make things out of it. He got a patent for his bag in 1867--which was universal in grocery stores until the plastic sack took over. But on this day in 1872 Crowell patented the machine that made the paper ones easily and cheaply.

Beer Through History

The Yuengling Brewery opened in Pottsville, Pennsylvania on this date in 1829. It's still in business, the oldest American brewery that can make that claim. I guess that makes them a bit older than Dixie. It continued operation during Prohibition by making a nasty drink called "near-beer." 

Delicious-Sounding Places

Satsuma, Alabama is one of four towns bearing that name--originally that of a place in Japan from which the delicious citrus came. This Satsuma is a suburb of Mobile, about fifteen miles north of that city on US 43. No evidence of satsuma groves; it might be too cold there in winter. For dining in Satsuma, we recommend Pintoli's Italian Cafe, right in the center of town.

Edible Dictionary  

coriander, coriander, n.--A member of the parsley family, whose leaves have a distinctly sharper flavor than other parsleys. References to coriander on menus or in spice jars almost always mean the seeds of that plant, which have a thin, aromatic sharpness that sets off many other flavors without jumping into the foreground, even if you use a lot of it. The plant's leaves themselves are most often called by their Spanish name, cilantro, which tastes very different from the seeds. Few people who hate cilantro (and there are many of those) find anything objectionable in coriander. 

Today is the birthday of Sidney Poitier, whose first big movie was Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? in 1967. It's about the problems the older generation had when their children started hanging around with people of other racial backgrounds.

Words To Eat By

"The majority of those who put together collections of verses or epigrams resemble those who eat cherries or oysters: they begin by choosing the best and end by eating everything."--Nicolas Chamfort, an eminently quotable author from the mid-1700s.