Whaddya Think, Doctor Fink?

  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 10,000 years ago. According to Sam Kean in Science, “modern apples were first domesticated from wild Asian apples . . . with subsequent crosses with European crabapples.” Seeds and cuttings were spread along trade

  No way! Blue pumpkins come from a big family rich in colors and types – way beyond the familiar orange. According to the Missouri Botanical Garden, pumpkins are part of a large and diverse plant family, Cucurbitaceae, which includes squash, gourds, watermelons, and cucumbers. Dr. Joe Masabni maintains in Agrilife Today, that pumpkins, whether blue, red, yellow, orange, or white are actually berries – fruit – “because anything that starts from a flower is botanically a fruit.” Pumpkins have

Casseroles and pies. Slow cooked or air fried. Baked or ice cream. The sweet potato goes everywhere. Consider this: it’s hard to keep track of sweet potatoes’ many names. In Puerto Rico, Columbia, and Brazil they’re batata; Japan calls them satsumaimo; Mexicans love el camote; and the French have patate douce. Israelis eat sweet potato latkes; Thais sip sweet potato soup; and Koreans adore sweet potato noodles. Americans love everything sweet potato – especially on Thanksgiving. How did sweet potatoes

It’s something worth crowing for. That’s how it was described in the 1880s when there were no cell phones or televisions. City people traveled by horseback, horse-drawn streetcars, and steam-hauled commuter trains. Nearly half of the population lived on farms and in rural areas. Meet George Renninger.  He lived in Philadelphia, PA, and was a a longtime employee of the Wunderlee Candy Company. Legend says that the father of five sons and two daughters invented a tri-color candy to celebrate

What was the best thing before sliced bread? You probably never heard of Chillicothe, Missouri. A 1928 ad called Chillicothe the home of an invention that was “the greatest forward step in baking . . .” Humans began baking bread long before recorded history. It’s no surprise that bread is considered the “staff of life.” Baking bread is a vital part of human history. Before 1928, everyone sliced their bread with knives. People couldn’t even imagine pre-sliced bread. Depending on

It was my birthday and all I wanted was Jahn’s Kitchen Sink. The Kitchen Sink was a massive sundae for over 6 people. It came in a sink-like bowl with 30 scoops of ice cream, topped with gooey nuts, sweet cherries, sprinkles, hot fudge, marshmallows, bananas, caramel, flags, sparklers . . . well you never knew exactly what was in it. Everything was slathered in whipped cream, with spoons for all. By the time we reached the bottom it was

Fingers and chopsticks are welcome. Forks and knives are not. Sushi has names and customs that challenge the imagination. Creative sushi chefs (Itamae) are always coming up with something new and different. People love it. In the U.S. alone, the sushi industry is worth $22 billion, with over 4,000 sushi shops around the country. A sushi chef is highly skilled – those individuals go through up to ten years of rigorous training to become a master itamae. Where did this

  April, 1930. There were no home microwaves or McDonald’s. Herbert Hoover was President, and everyone was listening to Duke Ellington, Judy Garland, and Cole Porter. A Canadian-born baker, James Dewar, worked at the Continental Baking Company in Illinois. He noticed that machines making cream-filled strawberry shortcake were left idle after the season was over. Dewar came up with the idea of making a mini-snack cake filled with readily available banana cream. On his way to a marketing meeting, Dewar

Is there a Kentucky Cordon Bleu in your future? How about a Coney Filet or Pigs in a Poncho? Twenty billion hot dogs are eaten every year in the U.S. They are the stuff of movies, music, baseball, barbecues, and busy street vendors. Basically, a hot dog is a thin sausage. It’s hard to find a cuisine, ethnic group, or country that doesn’t have its own version. In Brazil they eat cachorro quente, in Argentina they love choripán, and in

  Do you shout or just think, “Me want cookie!” when you pass a bakery or stroll down the cookie aisle? We’re all secret cookie monsters. And it’s been going on for over 1,400 years. According to Wikipedia, “cookies appear to have their origins in seventh century AD Persia, shortly after the use of sugar became relatively common in the region.” It probably began when bakers needed to test the temperature in their ovens – without thermostats and electricity. They