Whaddya Think, Doctor Fink?

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 ancient Egyptians, Arabs, Greeks, and Romans. Technically, it’s the marsh variety of the mallow family. Get it? Marsh-mallow?   The ancient Greeks drained the marsh-mallow sap and used it as medicine to

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    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 quite a mouthful. It all began in . . . China? Take a walk down Ramen Street, a subterranean mall nestled beneath Tokyo Train Station. You’ll find some

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    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 vines thrive in that environment. The Native American tribe, Wampanoag Nation (“People of the First Light”) knew the value of the small, tart berries. They called them sasumauneaash or obimi, literally “sour

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    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, 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

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    George Washington knew what he was doing. Natalie Colarossi wrote in Business Insider that “he spent his entire campaign budget – a whopping 50 pounds – on 160 gallons of liquor in order to sway voters on election day.” Clearly, it worked. Munching for votes is a tradition, although it doesn’t always work the way it was intended. Some stump foods tell a different story. For example, President Gerald Ford committed an unforgivable gaff in 1976, dubbed “The

    *Roots are the energy-storage part of the plant. *Sweet cassava has low levels of cyanide that’s removed in cooking. Most of the poison is in the outer bark-like peel which is easily removed.   *Happy International Carrot Day is celebrated every year on April 4. *WebMD reports that root vegetables are “dense in essential nutrients and come with a number of health benefits.” *In 19th century Victorian England, women used beet juice to give their hair a red