WOULD YOU RIOT FOR EGG NOG?

  It happened in 1826. Every Christmas, cadets at the West Point Military Academy held an annual drunken egg nog party. Then the grim Superintendent, Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, imposed monastic discipline. That meant no alcohol. A cadet could be expelled for breaking the rule. &nbs
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FRUITCAKE: Love It or Leave It

To eat it, not eat it, or re-gift it. That is the question. Johnny Carson, comedian and original TV host of The Tonight Show, once said, “There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep passing it around.” Mmmm. When was the last time you ate fruitcake? Or received it
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WHAT’S YOUR PLEASURE: People, Houses, or a Happy Tummy?

  Gingerbread. It goes back thousands of years, traveled The Silk Road, baked in images of royalty, and celebrated in Medieval feasts. What is gingerbread? Wikipedia describes it as a “broad category of baked goods, typically flavored with ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon and
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IT’S SUFGANIYOT TIME!

What are sufganiyot? They’re deep-fried yeast donuts usually with sweet fillings and toppings. Some call them jelly donuts. However, there’s a lot more to the story than what meets the belly. An old Israeli folktale claimed that when Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden,
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LATKES: FEASTING ON HISTORY

  Latkes and Hanukah. They go together like coffee and cake or peanut butter and jelly. Latkes are popularly known as “potato pancakes.” Cuisines around the world have their own versions, like the Irish boxty, Korean gamja-jeon, and Mexico’s tortas de patatas. Let’s be real. Who
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ARE YOU DRESSING, FARCING, OR STOVE TOPING?

  Most of us call it stuffing. It’s got a lot of different names and has been around for a very long time. Probably long before any written records. No one knows for sure. Look at is this way. You have meat, fish, or another animal ready to roast. No insides. Only an empty cavity
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FROM LONGHOUSE TO YOUR HOUSE

  The Ice Age Glaciers gave us a gift. Ten thousand years ago, glaciers receded from what is now New England. They left bogs filled with sand, clay, and organic matter. Perfect for cranberries. What’s a cranberry bog? It’s soft, marshy ground with acidic soil. Low-lying cranberry
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WHAT’S YOUR RAMEN?

Instant or gourmet? Tokyo or Cup O’ Noodles? Vegan or chicken? Ramen has taken over the world. Where did this yummy dish come from? Basically, ramen is noodles and broth. According to Stastista the World loves “Oodles of Noodles” to the tune of over 106 billion servings a year. That’s
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FROM KINGS TO KIDS: The Sticky Story of Marsh-Mallows

Is it a typo? No. It’s a plant. The scientific name is althaea officinalis. It grows wild in Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa, along river banks, salt marshes, and swamps. Althaea Officinalis likes damp. The six-foot tall flowering plant was used over two thousand years ago by a
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ARE YOU AS UN-AMERICAN AS APPLE PIE?

  How can apple pie be un-American? Simple. Apples are immigrants like most of us except native American Indians. Apples have been around since the dawn of recorded time. Experts believe that apples originated in Central Asia, probably the Tian Shan Forest in Kazakhstan, up to 10
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