Tag: Food
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That Ideal Campaign Front Porch
On the 1920 campaign trail, future President Warren G. Harding revealed his perfect formula for eating waffles: You eat the first fourteen waffles without syrup, but with lots of butter. Then you put syrup on the next nine, and the last half-dozen you eat just simply swimming in syrup. Eaten that way, waffles never hurt […]
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Paraguay, Land of the Tea With a “Kick”
This 1920 article predicted Paraguay’s beverage yerba mate “may become a habit some day in the United States.” It was not to be. The article also noted the country’s 10:1 female-male ratio. Today, it’s completely even. A celebrated and valuable product of the little inland South American Republican of Paraguay is “yerba maté,” made from the […]
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Golden Apples in the Great Northwest
1849 was the California gold rush. The early 20th century was the Texas oil boom. 1919 was… the Pacific Northwest apple boom?! Orchards which a few years ago could be purchased for $200 and $300 an acre are today bringing $2,000 to $2,500 an acre. Boxes of apples which the grower considered profitable if sold […]
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America’s New Influence on European Life
American soldiers had spent years in Europe during World War I. What effect would that have on Europeans? This article predicted several ways, including what they’d eat, how they’d dress, and what women would look for in men. What European women would look for in men: [American men] were more serious, too. At close quarters they […]
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Q.M.C. — Unfailing Provider of the Soldier’s Food
How were soldiers fed during WWI? By the Q.M.C., which stood for “Quartermaster [Corporal] Department of the United States Army.” They tried to keep the costs relatively low: The cost of the standard menu amounts to from 41 to 43 cents per day per man, varying according to the location of the camp and market […]
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One Year of Hoover’s Control: Food Enough for All Allies
More than a decade before he would be elected president in 1928, Herbert Hoover led the U.S. Food Administration, which exerted much control over the nation’s and Allies’ food supply. The appointment cave even though the Republican Hoover was named by Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, a bipartisan move that would be difficult to imagine in today’s […]
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Welsh Rabbit As Harmless And Wholesome As Meat
Welsh Rabbit contains no rabbit. Its main ingredient is melted cheese. One theory about the name is that it’s supposed to be a joke: when only well-off people could afford butcher’s meat, rabbit was considered the poor-man’s meat in England; but in Wales, cheese was the poor-man’s rabbit. The only time I’ve ever eaten Welsh […]
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Science Measures The Energy Stored In Various Foods
We think about calories as just a number on a food container, and it’s easy to forget that a calorie is actually a unit of energy. It’s the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree. So how did they determine how many calories were in food […]
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Where Music Soothes While Lobsters Broil
Based on this article one could only conclude that in 1910, live classical music in restaurants was as pervasive and annoying as Muzak is today. You sit down at a table. And all is very peaceful. The waiter silently passes the carte de jour, while he and the others quietly wander to and fro. This […]