Category Food

Origin

Though macaron is one of the most popular French confections, its root can be traced back to Italy. According to some food historians, macaron was brought to France by Catherine di Medici, and Italian noblewoman and the queen of France in the mid-1500s. These Italian macarons were simple cookies made of sugar, almond flour and egg white. It was popularly known as maccherone, Italian for fine dough. Almond macarons were a popular item served to the French King Louis XIV at the Palace of Versalilles. The first written recipe of the macaron appeared in France in the 17th Century. The popularity of the cookies has spread in the region since. However, macarons were eaten only by the elite until the early 1700s.

During the French Revolution, two Carmelite nuns in Nancy, a town in north-eastern France, sold macarons to common people to make some money to support themselves. They came to be known as “Macaron Sisters”. The macarons sold by the nuns were different from the ones prepared today, as they did not have any filling.

Macaron rose to International fame in the 1830s, when Parisian confectioner La Maison Laduree introduced ‘Macaron Parisien’. Laduree and his cousin were among the first to sandwich buttercream, jam and compote (syrups made with fruits) between two macaron cookies. Since then, macarons have been a huge hit not just among the French, but across the world.

Macaron or Macaroon?

Macarons and macaroons are often used interchangeably. However, these are two very different confections. Macarons are made with whipped egg white, almond flour and sugar, whereas macaroons are made with coconut, eggs and sugar. Macarons are light and have a filling, but macaroons are dense and are covered in coconut shavings, with no filling. The history and evolution of the two also vary.

Fun Flavours

From classic French to smoked salmon macarons, there are a wide range of flavours available today. The most popular flavours include pistachio, vanilla, caramel, chocolate, espresso and raspberry.

A few quickly flavours are cheeseburger, green Thai curry, ketchup, wasabi, cheetos, honey lavender, cheesecake, eggnog, creme brulee, and mustard and cauliflower.

Our Own Variant

The Thoothukudi macaroon made in Tamil Nadu is an Indian adaptation of the European macaron. This confection is a reinvented variant made with cashew and shaped into a cone. There is also a Mangaluru version, inspired by the Thoothukudi macaroon.

 

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Filled with just jam or layered with spicy meat, cheese and vegetables, sandwiches are one of the most popular quick-meal options today.

What exactly is a sandwich?

A sandwich is any food that consists of two slices of bread with a filling in between. This dish is generally eaten as a light meal. However, the definition changes from one place to another. For instance, burritos and hot dogs are also considered sandwiches in New York, but Massachusetts, a nearby State in the U.S., does not accept burritos as sandwiches.

Origin

The first sandwich was made in England in the mid-1700s for John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich. Most food historians believe that Montagu, who was addicted to gambling, spent several hours at the card table and did not even take breaks for meals. During one of his long games, he reportedly asked his cook to prepare something he could eat without getting up from his seat. The cook is said to have prepared a dish with meat stuffed between two slices of bread, and the sandwich was born. Some food historians believe that the cook might have drawn inspiration from the West Asian Mezze platter (a snack tray with a selection of appetizers). Documents such as diary entries from this period suggest that the noble men of the kingdom began consuming sandwiches after it was popularized by Montagu. Other gamblers and busy people eating sandwiches, and by the end of 1760s, it became common. It was noted that by 1789, King George III and his family always took a supply of sandwiches on outings. Though America is currently one of the highest consumers of sandwiches, the dish was not popular in the region until the 1820s. Some believe the Americans intentionally avoided culinary trends from their former colonizer. However, as time passed by, sandwiches were adapted to suit local preferences and were included in American cookbooks and restaurant menus.

One of the most iconic events in the history of sandwiches is the invention of the bread-slicing machine by American inventor Otto Rohwedder in the 1920s. This machine made it possible to get uniform, thin and neat slices of bread that can be packed and sold. By the end of the 20th Century, sandwiches became a global hit, with each region having its own variant.

Across the world

As mentioned above, most countries have their own iconic sandwiches. Here are a few famous ones:

Vietnamese Banh Mi

This consists of a baguette (French bread) split lengthwise and filled with various savoury ingredients and flavoured with cilantro, jalapenos and mayonnaise.

Bombay sandwich

This sandwich consists of cucumber, carrot, lettuce, mayonnaise, processed cheese, boiled potato and a generous layer of cilantro chutney.

Portuguese Francesinha

This rich sandwich is made of ham, sausage and steak layered between sliced bread. The sandwich is topped with melted cheese and a tangy red sauce.

The largest sandwich

The largest sandwich was prepared by Wild Woody’s Chill and Grill, Roseville, Michigan, the U.S. on March 17, 2005. The sandwich weighed about 2,467.5 kg and measured 17.5 inches in thickness and was 12 ft long and 12 ft wide. It contained 68 kg mustard, 468 kg corned beef, 118 kg cheese, 240 kg lettuce and 1,618 kg bread.

In the mood for something quirky?

If you’re bored eating the regular sandwiches, there are a wide range of offbeat options such as, banana and bacon’; banana and mayonnaise; instant noodles; harm, cheese and Oreos; chicken and Nutella; and cheese and maple syrup.

 

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Chicken nuggets, whether served with burgers or with a dip, are one of the most highly consumed fast foods. Did you know the invention of this iconic snack is also related to the origin of a few other chicken-based dishes such as hot dogs and steaks?

Mincing and moulding

Robert C. Baker, a Poultry Sciences professor at Cornell University, New York, is often credited with the invention of chicken nuggets. Baker was worried about the fall in poultry sales after World War II. Passionate about poultry, he conducted a detailed research on poultry products as processed foods. Baker created a ‘predecessor’ of nugget, known as chicken sticks in 1963.

He made use of minced and moulded chicken, mixed with vinegar and salt.

The vinegar aided in removing the moisture and also bound the meat together.

Baker froze the chicken mixture before coating small nuggets of it with eggs and breadcrumbs. Following this, the nuggets were flash frozen at – 10 degree F, before being deep-fried at a high temperature.

This was the first time someone figured out how to keep ground meat together without a skin. Prior to his research, there was no batter that could remain intact in the process of freezing and deep frying.

Baker continued his research in the field and also invented a few other iconic processed foods such as chicken hot dogs and steaks.

A global hit

Chicken nuggets rose to fame when McDonald’s sold its first McNuggets in 1980. According to reports, McDonald’s was trying to create a successful chicken dish for several years, as the meat was cheap and highly profitable.

However, despite several attempts, they couldn’t create a successful dish. As chicken nuggets began to be consumed across the U.S., McDonald’s set up a team to research and come up with a nuggets recipe for their menu. In a few months, bite-sized chicken chunks, known as McNuggets began to be served in McDonald’s outlets. Following this, several other fast-food joints across the world began serving nuggets. In just a few years, the crispy deep-fried snack shot to global fame.

Peri-peri or parmesan?

There are several types of nuggets available for people with varied dietary preferences, from vegan to paleo and keto. There are also a wide range of quirky flavours such as parmesan, Korean BBQ, pretzel-crusted, honey garlic, coconut, peri-peri, lemon grass and wasabi.

A symbol of our era?

According to experts, in the half-century after 1961, per capita meat and egg consumption has doubled.

This timeline coincides with the invention of several poultry-based processed and frozen foods such as chicken nuggets and hot dogs.

Reports suggest future civilisations will find evidence of the anthropocene through the 50 billion-bird-a-year consumption in the fossil record.

 

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Food writer Tori Avey tells us the story of the burger. Hamburgers may well be considered America’s favourite food, she says. You can buy a hamburger anywhere –in small hole-in-the-wall diners, at the drive-through fast food chains, and in high-end restaurants. Worldwide, McDonald’s sells 75 hamburgers per second.

Hamburg, a town in Germany, is where the first hamburger was made. Much later, in the 19th century, beef from German Hamburg cows was minced and combined with garlic, onions, salt and pepper, shaped into patties (without bread or a bun) to make Hamburg beef. Diners loved these burges, but they were expensive because of the price of the Hamburg beef. Then Germans migrated to New York and Chicago, and opened restaurants to make a living. They served an American version of the German burger. During the Industrial Revolution, factory workers were served Hamburg steak from food carts. They were too slippery to eat standing, so a cook sandwiched the meat patty between two slices of bread, and the Hamburg sandwich was born. American soon shortened the name to “hamburger.”

Now, hamburgers are made in a number of ways, including with vegetables. In countries where beef is not part of the traditional diet, it is substituted with potato. So, if you  order a veg burger, be ready to bite into an aloo tikki. The beef hamburger is so popular that environmentalists now fear it is not sustainable. Scientists are trying to grow burger meat in petri dishes in a lab to meet the hamburger demand worldwide.

 

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When you were biting into a slice of your favourite pizza, did you ever wonder ever why this favourite food item is spelt and named so oddly? With its two Zs, you have to learn to pronounce it properly before you can order it. Say pit-zz-a to get it right!

The word pizza was first seen in English writing in the early 1800s, but lexicographer John Florio had described pizza as “a small cake or wafer” in his 1598 Italian-English dictionary. Pizza, as you can guess, is an Italian word. Some think the Greek pitta (pita, which means “bran bread”) is the source. Some think it is from the Langobardic (an ancient German language in northern Italy) bizzo, meaning “bite.”

 

Who made the first pizza?

The Italian version of the pizza (specially the one from Naples) is what we are most familiar with, and so most people think Italians invented the modern pizza. But baked bread with different toppings was being eaten long ago in different parts of the world. The pissaladiere from Provence, coca from Catalonia, and lahmacun from the Middle East look and taste the same as the modern pizza.

What is a pizza? It is a flat, open pie with a generous coating of tomato sauce and a heavy sprinkle of mozzarella cheese. It was first made by baker Raffaele Esposito in Naples. In 1889, he made a patriotic pie that was topped with mozzarella, basil and tomatoes to reflect the colours of the Italian flag, in honour of King Umberto and Queen Margherita’s visit. The story goes that the Queen loved the pie and it came to be called Margherita.

In the U.S., Italian immigrants began to sell pizza in their stores. The first pizzeria (Lombardi’s) was opened in 1905 by Gennaro Lombardi on Spring Street in New York City. But the wholesome dish became popular only after World War II. Why? American and European soldiers who had done duty in Italy had tasted the pizza and asked for pizzas to be served in restaurants when they returned home.

Is it a pie, a pizza, or a pizza pie?

On the East Coast of the U.S., you can call a pizza a “pie” or a “pizza pie.” The use of “pie” for “pizza” dates back to the 1800s. But outside the U.S., these terms are not used for pizza at all. In some places in the U.S., you can order a “Za”, which will be understood as the shortened form of the word pizza. (In grammar, such a shortening of a word is called a “clipping.”) How do we know a pizza is well-made? A pizzaiolo (a pizza maker) will judge a pizza by its leopard spots (the black spots on the crust) or its hole structure (the holes in the bread’s interior).

 

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