Whaddya Think, Doctor Fink?

  Like marriages, there a lot of different ways to make it work. Traditionally, strawberry shortcake is a simple dessert, rich, and filled with history. The luscious red strawberries we love today started in the wild like young people looking for partners. Their natural habitat is temperate regions around the world. Food historians note that thousands of years ago indigenous people in North and South America consumed and cultivated the berries. Many believed that strawberries were a symbol of love,

Potato salad – hot, warm, or cold from the fridge. It’s the salad that conquered the world. However, you can’t have potato salad without potatoes – so let’s start with that. Potatoes are native to South America. They were cultivated over 8,000 years ago by indigenous tribes, serving as a staple in their diets. Potatoes were easy to grow, calorie-dense, and could be stored for a long time. Tribes mashed, baked, boiled, and stewed potatoes. (See the image of an

  “They say nothing is more American than apple pie,” observed David Sloan, author of The Key Lime Pie Cookbook, “but apple pie is from England. Hot dogs are German. Nothing is more American than Key Lime Pie.” It’s a southern gem – a cool, tangy mix of sweetened condensed milk, egg yolks, and key lime juice in a graham cracker crust topped with whipped cream or meringue. No one knows for sure who and when Key Lime pie was

  Meet the new kid on the menu (with three names): pearl milk, boba, and bubble tea. Bubble tea is a global phenomenon – you can find it everywhere from Taiwan and Australia to U.S., Europe, and the Middle East. It’s delicious, fun, and refreshing. The basic recipe is simple: black tea, milk, ice, and chewy tapioca balls. Leslie Nguyen-Okwu described it in Eater as “all shaken together like a martini and served with that famously fat straw to accommodate

  You’re in a fancy restaurant. They’re making Caesar Salad at the table, right in front of you. Visions of chariots racing in an ancient Olympic stadium flash through your mind. The audience of wealthy Romans and Senators cheer wildly. Maybe Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, and Mark Anthony are watching? Wrong. Caesar Salad was neither Roman or ancient. It came from . . . Mexico. Huh? How did the land of tacos and enchiladas give birth to your favorite salad? In

Sean Loyless, compliments of Wikimedia Commons   The sun is scorching, the air hazy with heat. Sun screens and sun hats appear like extras in a movie where weather is the star. Sno-cones, sno-balls, shaved ice, and slushies tempt you from every street corner, festival, event, and beach. There’s blue raspberry, watermelon, and cherry in colors that seem plucked from a rainbow. For the brave hearts, try flavors like pickle and crawfish juice or more popular mango madness and ninja

Giovanni Stanchi Dei Fiori, 1600s, compliments of Wikimedia Commons What is more delicious than ice cold watermelon on a scorching summer day? Mark Twain said it best in his 1894 novel, Pudd’nhead Wilson. “When one has tasted watermelons, he knows what angels eat.” The food that angels eat has been with us for a long time. An image of a watermelon was discovered in the ancient remains of an Israeli mosaic. A 4,300-year-old painting in an Egyptian tomb included a

  No, it’s not Rice Krispies. How about Dribble or Funny Cake? Mincebek, Nysebek, or Zalabia? There are so many names for this humble, popular treat most of us call funnel cake. Basically, it’s fried dough – a sweet that’s been around for thousands of years. Jeff Barto reported in Timonium that “some sources [believe] that fried cakes were consumed in China and Egypt” up to 10,000 years ago. It evolved with the invention of pottery and the stone grinder

  The stories are as yummy as the dogs. Which was first? Perhaps the ancient Egyptians who invented deep frying over 7,000 years ago? The corn dog we know today is a far cry from the ancients. Bar S speculated that modern “corn dogs are such a great idea, more than one person thought of it.” Huh? What’s a corn dog anyway? Basically, it’s a hot dog or sausage dipped in batter, and fried. There’s usually a stick attached for

  It’s totally American. Head back to the 1920s when Girl Scouts spent time outdoors, often huddled around a cozy campfire. They invented a gooey treat made with only three ingredients – graham crackers, toasted marshmallows, and a slab of chocolate. The story claims that the scouts always wanted “some more” of the delicious treat. Loretta Scott Crew, troop leader, published the recipe below in the 1927 edition of Tramping and Trailing With the Girl Scouts. 16 graham crackers 8