Sugar as poison. Image courtesy of Flickr user chrisjohnbeckett.

A spoonful of sugar may help the medicine go down, but a growing body of research casts the sweet stuff as a bitter pill. While our ancestors had access to sugar only by way of fruits, the purified stuff has become an alarmingly major part of the Western diet. It’s in a great many processed foods—dessert items or otherwise—and people use and abuse sugar to the point that some nations are trying to control it like tobacco or alcohol. (Before passing its “fat tax,” Denmark imposed high tariffs on sugary goods.) Even sugar substitutes are coming under fire: A recent study reported a link between artificial sweeteners and the risk of metabolic disorders and diabetes, and some of you may recall a period when saccharin-sweetened goods were suspect because the substance caused cancer in lab animals. But perhaps one of the strangest sweeteners was lead-based—and as you might expect, its ingestion carried serious consequences.

Lead acetate, also known as sugar of lead, is a salt that (ironically) has a sweet flavor—a fairly unusual quality in poisons, which are more likely to taste bitter, signaling to the taster that they are unsafe for consumption. The ancient Romans used the compound—which they called sapa—to sweeten wine, and the aristocratic segments of the population could toss back as much as two liters a day (about three bottles’ worth, although wine was usually diluted with water). There is debate as to whether the wine alone could have produced the traditional physiological effects of lead poisoning, such as organ failure, infertility and dementia—the little things that help facilitate the fall of an empire.

This is not to say that sugar of lead can’t be lethal. When Pope Clement II died in 1047, no one was exactly sure what killed him, but a 1959 examination of his remains clearly indicated lead poisoning. No one knows for sure if it was accidental or intentional, but one thing was for certain: the man liked his wine, especially those from his native Germany which were sweetened in the ancient Roman manner. And while a number of theories have cropped up concerning Ludwig van Beethoven’s cause of death, ranging from syphilis and coronary disease to lupus, lead poisoning by way of wine has also been suggested as a contributing factor to his demise.

All that said, sugar of lead is probably best left to its modern application: hair coloring products, which, incidentally bear warning labels that this substance is contained therein.

Meringue cookies. Image courtesy of Flickr user wiserbailey.

Chefs began whipping up meringue sometime in the early 1600s. The light-as-air confection is made by whipping egg whites and is used in a variety of desserts, such as Pavlova, macaroons and baked Alaska. It’s a delicacy that’s delightfully counter-intuitive. While most other foods get smaller and flatter as they’re beaten and smashed, egg whites are comparatively resilient and fluff up and expand under similar duress.

This past weekend I had a few egg whites left over after making another dish and thought I would try my hand at them. If these things were made by Renaissance chefs in the days before electric hand mixers, surely I could manage to whip some up myself. Unfortunately, mine were a flop—literally. The egg whites never puffed and peaked like they were supposed to; they sat in flat, unappetizing pats on my baking sheet. How could something seemingly so simple fail so spectacularly? Turns out there’s a lot of chemistry to consider when making meringue.

Although egg whites are 90 percent water, the relevant molecules are protein. Proteins are made up of amino acids, some that are attracted to water, others that are repelled by water. One you start beating the whites and introducing air, the water-loving bits cling to the water, the water-repelling bits cling to the air. The more you beat, the more bubbles with a protein coating are created and the more the whole shebang fluffs up. However, bubbles and proteins divided against themselves will not stand, and the foam will collapse without a little stabilizer. One way of doing this is to introduce an acid such as vinegar, lemon juice or cream of tartar, which encourages the proteins in the egg white to bond together. Another ingredient that adds structural integrity, in addition to providing flavor, is sugar, which works like a glue that holds the foam together.

But why don’t we want to use the yolk? This part of the egg contains fat, which interferes with how the proteins line up and coat all those bubbles that are supposed to bulk up your meringue. If the bubbles aren’t properly protected, your meringue will never have much body. This is also why chefs are discouraged from using plastic bowls for this purpose as they have a tendency to retain oils. So perhaps I wasn’t as careful as I ought to have been when separating my eggs and a bit of stray yolk made it into my whites. I’m also in the habit of using my hands to separate eggs. And even though I washed my hands beforehand, perhaps residual oils sabotaged my baking venture. So even though my first try didn’t go so well, tell us about your meringue adventures (or misadventures) in the comments section below.

Thin Mints. Image courtesy of Flickr user Amy Loves Yah.

In a 1992 essay for The New Yorker, Susan Orlean took an inventory of the inventory left at the recently vacated Girl Scouts of America the USA headquarters building on Third Avenue. Aside from the people who make this youth service organization hum, it’s readily apparent that something more is missing.

Twelfth floor. Orange Hermann Miller Eames chairs, straight-backed wooden desk chairs, plastic stackable shell chairs in various colors. Troop Camper activity badges embroidered with little tents and trees, which Mom always promised to sew on when she had a free minute but never did: none. Cookies: ditto.”

With every floor there is another round of disappointment with the absence of the Girl Scouts’s signature edibles.

“Fifth floor. Acoustical office dividers covered in Scout-green fabric. Several boxes of green No. 2 pencils, embossed with the Girl Scout logo. No sunshine ponchos made by cutting up one of your mother’s cocktail dresses. Cookies: still none, although an employee of Affordable Furniture walking by confirmed having sighted and then eaten several boxes of Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Sandwiches and Peanut Butter Patties.”

The unfulfilled promise of Girl Scout cookies is absolutely cruel.

These brightly colored boxes of baked goods, hawked to us every year by little girls in scouting uniforms, they have lent themselves to loving parody, recipe ideas and even cocktails. This year, the classic lineup of Thin Mints, Samoas and shortbread trefoils was joined by Savannah Smiles, a lemony cookie dusted with powdered sugar, introduced to honor the 100th anniversary of Juliette Gordon Lowe’s founding of the Girl Scouts. But when did the annual cookie drive tradition get its start?

Cookie sales began as—and still are—a means for troops to fund activities and programs. The earliest known cookie drive was organized in December 1917 by Muskogee, Oklahoma’s Mistletoe Troop. Instead of being sold door-to-door, the baked goods were sold in a local high school cafeteria. In the 1920s and and 1930s, troops across the nation independently organized cookie drives, baking simple sugar cookies in their own kitchens and selling parcels of wax-paper-wrapped treats for anywhere between 25 and 35 cents per dozen. By the mid-1930s, commercial bakers were being approached to produce the cookies, and by 1951, the line included three varieties: a sandwich cookie, shortbread and a chocolate mint, now known as Thin Mint cookies, which currently account for 25 percent of all Girl Scout cookie sales. Currently there are two bakeries licensed to produce eight varieties, and your access to certain cookies depends on your location. (There’s a cookie locator app you can use to track down which goods are available near you.)

The cookies have, however, run into a few problems over the years. The flour and butter shortages that came with World War II halted cookie drives, and scouts instead sold calendars to raise funds. The cookies later came under fire for their trans fat content. In 2005 cookies with zero trans fats were introduced, the organization using the occasion to impress upon scouts the importance of label reading when making eating choices. (Subsequent reporting suggests that the cookies abide by the FDA’s definition of what constitutes zero trans fats—any amount less than .5 grams—and that there are indeed some artery clogging dietary fats therein.) But the Girl Scouts are perfectly sensible in the advice they dispense regarding consuming their own product: “As with all treats, they should be enjoyed in moderation.”

Some cookies have gone extinct, varieties that didn’t sell well and were consequently retired—including an ill-fated venture into the cracker market with Golden Yangles.

What are your favorite Girl Scout cookies—and what do they say about you? And if you have memories of selling cookies, share them in the comments section below. And for those of you who are wanting to get a Girl Scout cookie fix in the off season, you may have to satisfy (torment?) yourself with a line of lip balms that come in Samoa, Thin Mint and Tagalong flavors. Just try to refrain from eating the stick.

Happy New Year! Image courtesy of Flickr user MarcelGermain.

When it comes time to think about how to make a new year better than the last, “lose weight” is one of the most commonly made—and broken—resolutions. This resolution tends to vilify fun food in favor of working out more. I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but isn’t it possible to make a few New Year’s resolutions that embrace food? I think so. Here are a few I’m putting on my list as I dive into 2012.

Resolution 1: Out with the old standbys, in with the new. I like to cook for myself and take some pride in the fact that I pack a lunch (almost) every day. I’ve come to rely on a limited number of dishes to make because they’re filling and familiar enough that I can whip them up with ease—pasta with chick peas and spinach will always be a great, quick weeknight meal. The thing is, I feel like I’m in a rut. There’s a lot of uncharted culinary territory to explore. Time to take an afternoon, sift through the cookbooks on my shelf and get out of my cooking comfort zone and tackle new things.

Resolution 2: Bake more. I personally prefer baking to cooking and love thumbing through books like The Perfect Finish for sugary ideas. My recent acquisition of a cookie press comes with tantalizing attachments for eclairs, and a Q&A I did with a heritage grain-grower has me wanting to attempt baking bread again. (The last two tries, while edible, weren’t too pretty.) I want the practice and the satisfaction of being able to make a perfect pie crust and that elusive loaf of bread, or use balloons to make decorative chocolate bowls that could hold whatever small-scale edibles I could manage to turn out. (Yes, it’s a thing and I want to do it.) Since I’m single, ridding myself of the sugary supply would be an issue if not for…

Resolution 3: Entertain more. I look at my apartment and keep telling myself it’s too small to really hold a crowd. But after polling a few friends who can offer more detached opinions, I may have been over-thinking my space limitations. Rearrange some furniture to clear the floor and make room for people, fill the table with finger food and have a relaxed time nibbling and visiting. And be realistic. My space is geared to casual dining and I can make those kinds of meals work well.

Resolution 4: Those fondue pots living in the closet? Use them. Yes, both of them. Should I be strapped for reasons why these need to be cracked out, refer back to items 1 and 3. A trip to the Melting Pot inspired their purchase, now it’s time to follow through.

Christmas pudding, courtesy of Flickr user minor9th

By guest blogger Derek Workman

English cuisine has always been laughed at by its European neighbors as bland, greasy and overcooked. This may or not be true, but one thing is for sure—not one of our European neighbors’ cuisines can measure up to the Great British Pudding. The variety is endless, and even the French were forced to admit British superiority when Misson de Valbourg said, after a visit to England in 1690, “Ah what an excellent thing is an English pudding!”

Most British puddings are rich and sweet (a “sweet” is another name for a pudding) with the recipes often going back hundreds of years. The quintessential English pudding incorporates fruits that are grown in England: apples, redcurrants and raspberries, bright red rhubarb, or gooseberries, which apart from being a green, sour, hairy fruit, is the name given to someone who goes out with a couple on a date without a partner for the evening himself.

When is a pudding not a pudding? Yorkshire pudding isn’t a pudding; it is a savory pastry case than can be filled with vegetables or served, full of gravy, with that other English staple, roast beef. And neither is black pudding—that’s a sausage of boiled pig’s blood in a length of intestine, usually bound with cereal and cubes of fat. Ask for mince in the United Kingdom and you will be served ground beef. But that Christmas delight, mince pie, is actually filled with a paste of dried fruits. Confusing!

A pudding may be any variety of cake pie, tart or trifle, and is usually rich with cream, eggs and butter. Spices, dried fruit, rum and rich dark brown sugar, first brought into England through the port of Whitehaven in Cumbria, were items of such high value that the lord of the house would keep them locked away in his bedroom, portioning them out to the cook on a daily basis. The port was where the last invasion of the English mainland was attempted, in 1772, during the American War of Independence, when John Paul Jones, the father of the American Navy, raided the town but failed to conquer it.

The names of some puds stick in the mind. “Spotted Dick,” a hefty steamed pudding with butter, eggs and dried fruit folded into a heavy pastry, has been a gigglesome name for generations of schoolboys. Hospital managers in Gloucestershire, in the west of England, changed the name to “Spotted Richard” on hospital menus, thinking patients would be too embarrassed to ask for it by name. No one knows where the name came from, other than that currants traditionally gave the pudding a ‘spotted’ appearance. A gooseberry fool isn’t an idiot whose friends don’t want to have him around; it is a deliciously creamy summer pudding. And despite its French sounding name, crème brulee, the creamy dish with the burnt sugar topping, was actually created in Cambridge in the early 19^th century.

An inescapable addition to any British pudding, especially the steamed ones, is custard; rich, golden and runny, it is poured hot over a steaming bowl of treacle pudding, apple crumble, plum duff or any other delicious pud hot from the oven. Another complication: Ask for “a custard” in a British bakery and you will be given a small pastry with a thick, creamy filling, which you would eat cold. Pudding custard is a flowing nectar made from egg yolk, milk, sugar and vanilla pods, and the thought of licking the bowl after your mum had made it fresh must linger in the top five of every Brit’s favourite childhood memories.

The Christmas pudding reigns supreme, the highlight of the Christmas dinner, especially if you were served the portion with the lucky sixpenny piece in it.Copious quantities of currants, candied fruit, orange peel, lemon peel, eggs and beef suet bind the Christmas pudding together. Then go in the spices, cloves and cinnamon; brandy if you want it and a good slug of sherry. It’s then steamed for an hour, maybe two hours, it depends on the size of the pudding.

But it isn’t just the wonderfully rich pudding that is important, it’s how it is served. You warm yet more brandy and then light it, pouring it over the hot Christmas pudding moments before it is carried to the table. If served when the light is low, the blue flames dance and sparkle around the traditional sprig of berried holly stuck into the top of the pudding.

So, you may laugh at our fish ‘n’ chips, make rude comments about our drinking warm beer, or call us a nation of tea drinkers, but you will never, even in your wildest gastronomical dreams, match the rich British pud!

Derek Workman is an English journalist living in Valencia who “delights in searching out the weird, the wonderful and the idiosyncratic, which Spain has by the bucketful.” He blogs at Spain Uncovered.

Gingerbread men. Image courtesy of Flickr user Ann@74.

On a recent visit home, I pondered what I have always thought to be the most perfect gingerbread man ever. The cakey confection with a delicate balance of seasonings, an almond nose and raisin buttons and eyes comes from Ukrop’s bakery, and Mom and I have searched high and low to find a comparable recipe and figure out how they are made . Thus far, success has been elusive. The gingerbread man always stares back with his silently taunting grin. My thoughts then turned to the other gingerbread man who runs and runs and fast as he can, sassily tormenting those who want to eat him along the way. It turns out the tale of the gingerbread man is part of a genre of folklore about goodies gone wild.

Believe it or not, there is a classification system for the stories that we usually hear at bedtime, all neatly grouped and numbered based on their shared motifs. Folklore can be organized into animal tales, fairy tales, religious tales and so on. Of special interest—at least for this post—are the stories in group AT 2025, or more colloquially, ”The Fleeing Pancake” stories. No matter what part of the world you’re in, the basic ingredients of the story remain the same: a baked good pops out of the oven, runs or rolls away and escapes a series of pursuers before being eaten. What changes—and what makes this story fun to look at across different cultures—is how the details are changed. In European versions of the story, it’s a pancake—or sometimes a cornmeal johnny-cake or a bunnock, a small cake of oatmeal and treacle—that lifts itself out of a frying pan and goes on a spree. In some German tellings it willingly offers itself to two hungry children. In Norway, the pancake is ultimately consumed by a pig, and in other places it’s a fox. Every time the pancake encounters a hungry character, he mockingly lists all of the others who unsuccessfully tried to scarf him down; in Russian versions the pancake’s boasting is in verses meant to be sung by the storyteller.

The American variation of the story, “The Gingerbread Boy,” was first printed in the May 1875 issue of St. Nicholas magazine, the landmark children’s literary journal. Before that, the story seems to have belonged exclusively to oral storytelling traditions. “‘The Gingerbread Boy’ is not strictly original,” the unnamed author explained. “A servant girl from Maine told it to my children. It interested them so much that I thought it worth preserving. I asked where she found it and she said an old lady told it to her in her childhood.” (Though I have to admit, as fun as it was seeing how the story originally appeared, I missed the “Run, run as fast as you can/ You can’t catch me I’m the gingerbread man” chant I remember from how the story was told in my childhood.)

It’s also a story that has been re-imagined by others. Author L. Frank Baum, best remembered for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, used the folktale as inspiration for his children’s fantasy novel John Dough and the Cherub. In this story a baker uses a magical life-giving elixir in his batter for a life-sized gingerbread man who sets out to explore the world—and is pursued by a villainous character intent on eating him so that he might enjoy the benefits of the magic potion by proxy and live forever. The Stinky Cheese Man has a little humanoid mass of smelly cheese running around town with no one wanting to follow him on account of his odor. In The Runaway Latkes, the potato pancakes traditionally served during Hannukah decide to make a bit of trouble.

For those interested in reading other takes on the gingerbread man, the University of Pittsburgh has an online collection of tales from all over the world. Tell us about your favorite spin on the story in the comments section. And if you are traveling through Richmond, Virginia during the holiday season, find a Ukrop’s bakery for one of their gingerbread men. I’ve yet to have one escape my grasp.

A plate of pizzelle. Image courtesy of Flickr user flaurella.

‘Tis the season for specialty foods that grace store shelves and dining tables but once a year. And for some people, certain times of the year just don’t seem quite right unless the table is graced by those unique edibles. Have you ever gone to ridiculous lengths to make sure that you and yours could have that one, prized food on your stomachs? For this month’s Inviting Writing, tell us about the distances you traveled, the favors you called in, the sleepless nights, the hours spent slaving in the kitchen and whatever else you had to do to secure a special dish. Send your true, original essays to FoodandThink@gmail.com by Friday, December 9 and we will publish our favorites on subsequent Mondays. I’ll get the ball rolling.

How I Got My Cookie Fix

By Jesse Rhodes

For almost every special occasion—anniversaries, graduations and always at Christmastime—Mom would invariably make platters of pizzelle. For the uninitiated, these are Italian cookies made via a waffle iron-like press where dollops of sticky dough—punched up with flavorings like vanilla, anise or cocoa—are flattened out into wafer-thin discs emblazoned with fabulously intricate designs. Coated with confectioner’s sugar, their resemblance to snowflakes is striking. And, due to their delicacy, trying to eat them requires some skill. One wrong bite and the entire thing snaps, smattering the front of your shirt with flecks of white powder, which, admittedly, can be some source of entertainment. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the perfect cookie. Not content with trying to time visits home to when Mom might be making them, I decided I needed an iron of my own. The problem is that every pizzelle manufacturer has its own cookie design. Logically, pizzelle made in any other machine should taste just like the ones I ate growing up, but none quite inspired the same sense of nostalgia as the look of Mom’s cookies. So, like hers, mine had to be the Vitantonio model 300 pizelle chef with cast iron grids, made in the good ol’ U.S.-of-A. No substitutions.

This particular machine had not been produced since the early 1990s, and eBay seemed to be my only hope for scoring one. It turned out other people had a similar appreciation for the goodies this iron made and were willing to shell out big money, sometimes paying upwards of $100, which was well above what I could afford. Nevertheless, I was not above engaging in bidding wars. Despite knowing that the odds of actually winning were slim, I blithely kept placing bids in dollar increments, sticking it to whoever had the means of investing more money than I in a uni-tasker kitchen appliance that, admittedly, even I would only use during the winter holidays. Sure, my fellow eBay bidders could have their cookies. But if I had anything to say about it, they were going to pay for them.

It was late July and weather forecasters were making a big t0-do over the fact that the heat index would hit a whopping 105 degrees. Since that day also happened to be a Saturday, and I wasn’t about to waste a day off sitting inside with the blinds closed and A/C cranked, I got up early to at least get a walk in and went down to the local Goodwill before  the weather became too unbearable. While browsing the mishmash of kitchen goods, I saw it. Nestled among the tortilla makers, griddles and cannibalized hand mixers sat the blackened and dingy object of my culinary affections. I wondered how it could have ended up here. Perhaps an Italian grandmother had died and whoever settled her estate thought this thing made really bad waffles. Whatever its origins, it was mine. And for all of five dollars. Plus the cost of a new electrical cord. (I went back on the hottest day of the following summer thinking the stars would align again and there would be another one sitting on the shelf. No such luck, not that I technically needed a second. But the thought of a pizzelle iron trophy room, glittering in chrome-plated glory, was an undeniably attractive idea.)

I got home and set to work cleaning, cracking out the liquid soap, the dish rag, the automotive-grade steel wool, the bottle of Turtle Wax liquid chrome polish, but soon noticed that one of the tapered, black bakelite feet was a little loose. I know well enough that turning a screw to the right tightens it, but on upending the iron and turning it around a few times, telling my right from the appliance’s right was anyone’s best guess. So I ventured a guess, made a few turns, and soon heard an ominous “clink” as the foot fell off in my hand and heard the sound of a renegade nut rolling around inside. Turning it right-side up again I stared at my gimpy little pizzelle iron, barely able to maintain its balance. There was no avoiding a trip to the hardware store in order to buy a few tools to crack this thing open.

A few days later and a mile and a half mile walk up to Cherrydale Hardware, I found myself staring at a display case jam-packed with socket wrenches, puzzled by their strange denominations: quarter inch, three-eights of an inch, half inch, three-quarters of an inch. The clerk kindly asked if I needed help and told him I needed a crash course in what these things were.

“What are you trying to do?” he asked.

My mind raced. I mean, could tell him I was fixing a pizzelle iron, but that would require explaining what the thing was, which would then require a description of the beautiful snowflake-like cookies—maybe mention the powdered sugar—and then realize I was standing in a sawdust-and-plywood, mom-and-pop-style hardware store telling a total stranger that I’m repairing a cookie press.

“I’m fixing a waffle iron.” Waffle iron. Yes. With big, muscular Belgian grids ready to churn out hearty breakfast-of-champions-grade golden waffles. It was a perfect fudging of the truth. The clerk instantaneously suggested a quarter inch wrench, which I purchased, along with a five dollar appliance cord, and went home.

The repairs were quick and painless. Soon I had it plugged in and heated until the grids were smoking hot, dropping teaspoonfuls of vanilla-flavored batter and finally making my own cache of cookies. I have since made them up for friends and as table offerings at social gatherings, and there’s a certain sense of pleasure that comes from introducing people to a cookie that always seemed so unique to Italian kitchens. It’s a feeling that just barely trumps the satisfaction of having a personal reserve of pizzelle at home stacked in a popcorn tin that sits beside my favorite chair.

A loaf of parkin, courtesy of Flickr user Johnson Cameraface

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot.

So goes one version of a popular rhyme about Guy Fawkes, whose failed plot to assassinate the King of England in 1606 1605—Fawkes was caught under the House of Lords with barrels of gunpowder—got him hanged, drawn and quartered. Sure enough, 400 years later, the act of treason is still remembered: November 5th, known as Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night, is celebrated throughout England with fireworks, bonfires and the burning of the traitor in effigy. The celebrations once held an anti-Catholic undercurrent (Fawkes and his co-conspirators were Catholic), but that has all but disappeared today.

I first heard of Guy Fawkes Night in a 1992 cookbook, The Inspired Vegetarian, by British author Louise Pickford. She includes a recipe for “Miff’s Spicy Pumpkin Soup,” which her Aunt Miff used to make for a Guy Fawkes fireworks party every year. She recalls that “all the children would spend hours preparing pumpkin lanterns to hang in the garden. We would watch the fireworks, huddled around the bonfire, with mugs of steaming pumpkin soup.”

I asked my cousin’s husband, who grew up in Exeter, in the southwest of England, whether he recalls any particular Guy Fawkes Night foods, and he couldn’t think of any—with the possible exception of beer. But up north, particularly in Yorkshire, there are a couple of treats that are associated with the holiday. Both revolve around treacle, or sugar syrup.

The first is parkin, sometimes spelled perkin, a gingerbread-like oatmeal cake usually made with dark molasses and golden syrup (a light sugar syrup—the closest American equivalent would probably be corn syrup). One of its features is that it keeps well; in fact, many recipes advise aging the cake for several days to let the flavors develop.

Pinning down food origins is always tricky, but the BBC reports that parkin may have originated with the Vikings and was certainly around by the time of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. Why it’s associated with November 5th is unknown—one possibility is that it dates to the Viking Feast of Thor, which was celebrated around the same time of year with bonfires and a similar cake—but some in Yorkshire even call the date Parkin Day. The one place that refuses to serve parkin, though, according to the BBC, is Fawkes’ alma mater in York.

The other Guy Fawkes-related treat, also from Yorkshire, is bonfire toffee, sometimes called treacle toffee. Also made with black treacle (or molasses), golden syrup and Demerara sugar (a light brown sugar), it’s made by boiling the sugars to a very high temperature with water and cream of tartar (other recipes call for butter and/or condensed milk), then letting it cool in a sheet pan until it becomes brittle. The pieces are broken off with a hammer. I couldn’t find any information on why this candy is associated with Guy Fawkes Night in particular. But, for a sweet tooth like me, who needs a reason?

Of course, in recent years another candy-centric fall holiday from America has been creeping into British culture, leaving some people there to worry that, in time, gunpowder and treason will be all but “forgot.”

Licorice. Image courtesy of Flickr user Luca Zappa.

It’s first day of November and kids everywhere are sitting down with stashes of goodies they earned the night before by dressing up, knocking on doors and rattling off the three magic words that win them a treat. And for adults, the leftover Halloween goodies are all on sale, so the time is right to enjoy a treat or two as well. Personally, I love my Good and Plenty, the licorice treats with pink and white sugary shells that spokesperson Choo Choo Charlie uses to make his locomotive zip down the track. But it turns out that Charlie should consider cutting back on his candy habit. According to a consumer awareness update published by the FDA, overindulging in licorice can cause health problems.

In Western medicine, licorice root has been used for hundreds of years as an herbal remedy to treat conditions from common colds to hepatitis. Clinical evidence of its effectiveness, however, is decidedly mixed. While it may soothe your symptoms, licorice more than likely isn’t curing what ails you. But licorice—the root as well as the black-colored iterations of the candy—can potentially do you harm, due to a chemical called glycyrrhetinic acid. When consumed in large quantities, it can cause your body’s potassium levels to fall to the point that some people experience arrhythmia, a rise in blood pressure, swelling and even congestive heart failure. People taking diuretics or medications for high blood pressure should be especially wary as the licorice may inhibit the effectiveness of the drugs. How much is too much? According to the FDA, a diet including 2 ounces of black licorice a day for two weeks might merit a trip to the hospital to have an irregular heart beat checked out. And consuming one to two pounds of licorice candy in one go may cause the blood vessels in your eyes to spasm, causing temporarily impaired vision. Though predominately a concern for persons over 40, it is recommended that everyone should moderate a high licorice intake.

That said, it pays to be an avid label reader. Some licorice products don’t contain extracts from the actual root and instead use anise to achieve a similar flavor. Packaging language such as “licorice-flavored” might serve as a tip-off that you’re not getting the real deal, but take a second to read the fine print on the ingredients list. Furthermore, licorice can also be processed so that the trouble-causing acid is removed, so you can keep an eye out for products marked DGL, or de-glycyrrhizinated licorice.

Deviled eggs, one of many Halloween treats. Image courtesy of Flickr user edgeplot

My cute little hamlet, population 148, is holding a block party this weekend, and one of the events scheduled is a deviled egg recipe contest. I don’t think it was intended as a nod to Halloween’s celebration of the dark side, but it got me wondering: What, exactly, is so wicked about mixing hard-boiled egg yolk with mayonnaise and mustard? I could understand if they were so hot and spicy they evoked the fires of hell, but most of the deviled eggs I’ve had could hardly be classified as having more than a mild zippiness. Was the dish’s name coined by Puritans who thought adding anything remotely flavorful to food was the work of Satan? Furthermore, what about all those other foods with fiendish names, like deviled ham, devil’s food cake and fra diavolo sauce?

It turns out I wasn’t too far off—Puritans had nothing to do with it, but the term “devil” has been used since at least the 18th century to refer to highly seasoned foods, according to The Straight Dope’s Cecil Adams. He quotes from the Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, by John Mariani (1999), who says, “Washington Irving has used the word in his Sketchbook to describe a highly seasoned dish similar to a curry. Deviled dishes were very popular throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, especially for seafood preparations and some appetizers.”

This definition would cover deviled ham, the most famous of which is the canned chopped ham spread sold by Underwood since 1868 (the company’s devil logo is supposed to be the oldest trademarked logo still in use). Underwood used to sell other deviled meats, including deviled tongue, but today the ham is the only demonic item in its product line.

In The Essential New York Times Cookbook, Amanda Hesser includes an 1878 recipe for deviled crabs, saying that today’s deviled eggs are the mild-mannered cousins of deviled crab and kidneys, which “were meant to be spicy and bracing, the kind of food you had after a long night of drinking.” She also notes that in David Copperfield (the Dickens novel, not the flashy magician), “Mr. Micawber saves a dinner party by turning undercooked mutton into a devil,” covering the slices with pepper, mustard, salt and cayenne and cooking them well, then adding mushroom ketchup as a condiment.

Eggs notwithstanding, today the devil is most frequently invoked to imply a dish is truly tongue-searing—there must be dozens of hot sauce brands out there with names like Droolin’ Devil, Mean Devil Woman and Hell Devil’s Revenge. Dishes called chicken, shrimp or lobster fra diavolo—which means “brother devil” in Italian—show up on restaurant menus in the United States, but they appear to be an Italian-American invention, most food historians agree. In Italy, a similar spicy tomato sauce would usually be served with pasta, not meat, and be called pasta all’arrabiata, meaning “angry-style.”

There are also a number of foods that get their evil-sounding names to differentiate them from their angelic counterparts. In The Glutton’s Glossary, John Ayto writes that angels on horseback are a late-19th century British dish of oysters wrapped in bacon and grilled, and that devils on horseback are a variation made with prunes instead of oysters.

Devil’s food cake would seem to be another example of this, its dark, chocolaty richness a contrast to white, fluffy angel food cake. But on the What’s Cooking America website, Linda Stradley writes that devil’s food cake is actually a synonym for red velvet cake, which would suggest that it was the redness of the cake that evoked the devil. Today’s red velvet cakes usually get their vivid hue from food coloring, but the color was originally achieved through a chemical reaction between unprocessed cocoa and the acid in buttermilk.

There’s one more food I can think of with devil in the name, although when I first encountered it I never would have guessed it was a food at all. While traveling in Konya, Turkey, in the 1990s, my local guide took me to a bazaar. At one herbalist’s stall he opened a jar of something he called devil dung (he actually used a different word, but I try to keep things G-rated here) and told me to take a whiff. There was no mistaking how it got its name—this was some foul-smelling stuff. But my guide wasn’t able to come up with the English words to explain what it was used for.

It took me years, and the invention of Google, to figure out that this substance was actually asafoetida, also called hing, an herb used most frequently in Indian vegetarian cooking. I’ve never tasted it, to my knowledge, but its funky smell is supposed to mellow with cooking. As a bonus, it’s considered an anti-flatulent. In my book, that puts it firmly on the side of good, not evil.

Nigel Slater, played by Freddie Highmore, digs into his stepmother's lemon meringue pie while his own trifle sits on the sidelines. Image courtesy of W2 Media.

At 9 years old, Nigel had never eaten a vegetable that didn’t come from a can. His mother is not gifted in the culinary arts, preferring to boil prefab dinners on her stove. And when those meal plans go awry, there’s always buttered toast as backup. The boy spends his nights poring over cookbooks and fantasizing about the dinners that could be had with a little kitchen savvy. The story plays out like a fairytale set in mid-1960s Britain. When Nigel’s mother dies, his father takes on Mrs. Potter as a housekeeper and romantic interest. As it turns out, she’s a phenomenal cook and not at all interested in playing the role of a doting mother. With Nigel’s burgeoning culinary talents beginning to emerge, the pair try to use their prowess in the kitchen to win the father’s affections. Bullied by the adults in his life and starved for the companionship of people his own age, Nigel turns to the kitchen as a source of solace. So goes Toast, a movie based on the memoir by English food writer Nigel Slater that explores his coming of age by way of the foods that marked his childhood. Food is explored as a source of comfort, a means of connecting with other people, a means of escape—and as a weapon.

I love the idea of telling a life story through the lens of a dinner plate, and the film really comes alive when the gloriously photographed edibles grace the screen, no matter whether they come from a tin or from hours of slaving over a stove. It’s in those interludes that we get glimpses of genuine tenderness—such as when Nigel’s mother tries to teach her son how to make mincemeat pies, the one thing she can make well from scratch. They are the most memorable sources of humor, namely the culinary battle of wills between stepmother and stepson, which escalates to the point where Nigel spends his afternoons spying on Mrs. Potter in order to learn her well-guarded recipe for lemon meringue pie. It’s in home economics class that Nigel finds the one place where he’s able to shine and be accepted by his peers.

The food photography and even the sound editing are glorious. It’s strange to thrill at the sound of someone biting into a piece of toast. And yet, some clever person in the editing room was able to create a sonic portrait of a most basic food item that evokes cozy breakfasts at home whenever that distinctive crunching sound comes through the speaker system. Even the canned foods have a bit of character in the bright labels that mask their underwhelming contents and as we see them bubbling away in a pot of boiling water. And when we get to the feasts prepared by Mrs. Potter and Nigel, it’s nothing but eye candy.

Between courses, we have to get to know the characters—and they’re not your cut-and-dried fairytale figures. Nigel is constantly dealing with loss, loneliness and having a new woman in the role of his mother, so he displays a lot of anger and resentment—although at times this can be a little abrasive. For example, when making pies with his mother, unable to cope with the fact that she’s dying and realizing they can’t complete the job because they’re out of mincemeat, Nigel breaks down into a tantrum, shouting out “I hate you! I wish you would die!” I can understand the anger, but what breed of brat would say something like this? Furthermore, the boy displays a sense of elitism and class consciousness that, frankly, is pretty ugly, referring to Mrs. Potter as common and being sure to publicly point out that she was living in low-income housing before coming to live with him and his father.

Similarly, Mrs. Potter is not your typical evil stepmother. While she puts forth little to no effort to endear herself to the boy, she also seems to be someone dealing with loneliness. When we first meet her, she’s already married, sneaking out of the house in order to spend time with Mr. Slater, childishly shimmying out of a window in order to get out of her house. When she’s out at dinner parties with higher society, she’s hopelessly out of place with her rough-edged social graces. While the film tries to further vilify Mrs. Potter by implying that she fed her husband to death, it never offers a motive. If anything, her elaborate courses seem to garner her positive attention from a man who dotes on her. She seems to be someone who, like Nigel, is suffering from loneliness, but doesn’t deal with it in healthy ways—a vision of what the boy could become if he continues on his present course. When the movie leaves off, we know that the boy can cook, but not that he can create positive and substantial human relationships, so it’s anyone’s guess as to how he turns out. (Granted, we can look to the real-life Nigel Slater, but shouldn’t the movie be a self-contained package?)

The characters are perfectly human. I wasn’t able to wholeheartedly rally around any one of them, with their fair mix of charm and faults. It makes for fascinating watching picking apart the relationships, but it makes it difficult to emotionally invest in anyone. When Nigel leaves home, it feels like the logical conclusion to things. Without anyone he held near and dear, there was nothing at stake—aside from general personal happiness—and this moment doesn’t have much emotional payoff. But there again, how often does real life play out like a movie?

It’s absolutely worth watching for the food, the pitch-perfect 1960s aesthetics, the Dusty Springfield soundtrack and Helena Bonham Carter’s sassy and sharp-tongued Mrs. Potter. Toast is currently enjoying a limited release here in the United States, so check your local theater listings to see if it’s playing in your area. (The Landmark Theaters chain carries it here in Washington, D.C. and you can see if they have locations near you.) Or you can wait until it’s available to rent, or stream, or watch in whatever way you manage your home movie entertainment.

Is it possible to forget a few bad food memories and have a healthy relationship with a foodstuff? Image courtesy of Flickr user larry&flo.

Just because this is a food blog doesn’t mean we can’t talk about other things, like relationship issues. A while back on Inviting Writing we asked readers to tell us about foods that marked their break-ups, and another invitational garnered heartfelt essays about people’s relationships to their kitchens. This time, let’s consider food as a vehicle to get two entities back together. The stories could be about reconciliation between you and a foodstuff with which you’ve had tempestuous relationship, or perhaps how food was used to patch up a rocky—or broken—connection with another person. I’ll get the ball rolling, exploring my estrangement from a certain, wobbly dessert. And if it involves edibles, surely the best part of breaking up is when you’re making up.

If you have a story that fits with this month’s theme, please send your true, personal essay to FoodandThink@gmail.com by Friday, October 7 October 14. We’ll read them all and pick our favorites, which will appear on the blog on subsequent Mondays.

Making Room for Jell-O

Appendixes are funny things. You have only one of them and they go wonky just once, which means you need to be intuitive enough to tell the difference between a gnarly case of food poisoning and the sensation of the right side of your body getting ready to pop a seam. If the lightbulb goes off in your head early enough, you can get to the doctor and have the residual organ lopped off in a grand act of outpatient surgery. Otherwise, if you let it go so long that it erupts, you could develop a deadly case of peritonitis. Many famous people have gone this way: magician Harry Houdini, silent screen actor Rudolph Valentino, painter George Bellows. Thankfully, when my appendix decided to self-destruct when I was 14, I made it into the operating room, but the appendix burst mid-procedure. For the next three days I was stuck in the hospital, subsisting on a diet of broth, Italian Ice and Jell-O. Three times a day, without fail.

My mom used to do lot of fun things with Jell-O. She’d gel a sheet of the stuff and use cookie cutters to make novelty-shaped jigglers, or fold in some Cool-Whip while the gelatin was beginning to set for a completely different flavor and texture. And then there were the plastic egg molds she’d bring out at Easter to create three-dimensional artificially flavored treats. Jell-O was so much fun, so pure, so seemingly impossible to ruin. Yet the hospital cafeteria managed to achieve just that with their Lysol-colored cubes of lemon gelatin that had grown a peelable skin atop the wiggly insides, the lot of them twitching in a bowl. By the time I got home, my love affair with Jell-O was over, to the point that just the smell of the stuff being prepared made me feel ill. After a few years I could stomach it if it was mixed with other ingredients—lots of them. But standalone Jell-O was an absolute no-go.

A month or so ago I was in the local Goodwill thumbing through a bin of vintage cooking pamphlets when I found a copy of The Joys of Jell-O, a cookbook first published in the early 1960s that campily hails the glory of aspics and novelty desserts, all in the uniquely awful palette of mid-century color printing. Contained therein were pictures vegetables trapped in suspended animation and recipes calling for ungodly-sounding pairings—pineapple, lemon gelatin and mayonnaise anyone? The food presentations aspired to elegance, yet there is something inherently tragicomic about the sight of shrimp fastidiously arranged around the sides of an atomic green ring mold. These images that reinforced my idea that this is surely what they serve in Hell. Nevertheless, my deep-rooted love for kitchen kitsch trumped my longstanding prejudices and I picked up the book.

On a rainy day, I decided to attempt the rainbow cake: five layers of whipped Jell-O piled one on top of the other with the whole shebang encased in a layer of whipped cream. It was the kind of dessert that looked wonderfully ridiculous, and yet it seemed quite edible compared to its cookbook counterparts. That day I learned that Jell-O molds are hard work. One must be attentive. If I timed things just right, I could ply my hand mixer in a bowl of not-quite-firm gelatin and whip it up so that it frothed and doubled in volume, pour that layer into a ring mold, wait for that to cool and then try to prepare the next layer. It was an all-day affair, and I didn’t quite get the hang of the process until about layer three—orange.

From an architectural standpoint, the resulting cake was an epic disaster, splitting, sliding and wobbling every which way. Of course it all dumped nicely into a bowl and was consumable. The layers that turned out more like a traditional batch of Jell-O failed to make me gag. (Still didn’t think well of them, but even those sentiments could be considered progress.) But the ones that came out as they were supposed to tasted fantastic, surprisingly light and fluffy with a texture like an unusually moist cake made from a mix. Perhaps I misunderstood this neglected, complex foodstuff that had so much more potential beyond the “set it and forget it”-style dessert item I initially thought it to be. Perhaps this is a relationship that merits more thoughtful exploration.

How will you be working with pumpkins in your kitchen this fall? Image courtesy of Flickr user Dan Volkens.

With autumn in the air, we will inevitably see a sudden wealth of goods on store shelves and out at eateries flavored with that seminal, seasonal squash: pumpkin. And with Halloween just around the corner, you will also probably see bins full of the brightly-colored squash at your local supermarkets. First off, there’s a difference between pumpkins for carving and pumpkins for eating. Small, thin-skinned varieties are generally cultivated for consumption while the carving pumpkins are fairly bland. Then there are those monster-sized pumpkins that are bred for vegetable-growing competitions and would be kinda scary to try to work with in the kitchen. With some weighing in at some 1,500 pounds, one wrong slice and I’d fear being squashed by a squash. But though we mainly turn to pumpkins for pie-making purposes, the vegetable is much more versatile. So perhaps it’s time to think outside the pie crust and consider other ways you can put pumpkin on your table.

For most recipes, like soups and breads, a can of pumpkin puree should do you just fine and it’s a product that should be readily available at your grocery store next to the cans of pumpkin pie filling. You may have to hunt around a bit if you’re bent on using food-grade pumpkins hot off the vine, but there are a few varieties you can keep an eye out for.

Pumpkin Seeds: These are the only parts of your jack-o-lantern that you should consider eating. While you should totally toss the stringy squash intestines, the seeds are quite tasty once cleaned, dried, hulled, seasoned and toasted. These are great on their own as a snack, or you can use them to dress up salads or an autumnal trail mix.

Dips and Spreads: Looking for another pumpkin-centric snack or appetizer? Puree the meat with seeds and cashews, or pair it with cream cheese for something a little sweeter. You can also create a pumpkin-y spin on hummus, that traditional Middle Eastern chickpea spread.

Soups: Pumpkin can be used on its own to make a soup, or it can be paired with other seasonal veggies—such as potatoes and turnips—to make a hot and hearty meal on a cool evening. And what could be easier that popping prepped veggies in a pot, cooking them down and then pureeing everything? I personally have tried the combination of pumpkin and peanut butter in a recipe from the New Basics Cookbook, which was a sweet and savory soup. (Though I might try organic peanut butter, or something with reduced sugar the next time I make this.) If you’re hankering for stew, you can always throw a few cubes of pumpkin into the pot.

Stuffed: It’s true—a hollowed-out pumpkin can hold more than a candle. In French cooking, pumpkins are used more in savory dishes, such as stuffed pumpkin. Packed with bread, cheese, garlic and herbs and cooked until you can easily pierce the skin, this can make a hearty dinner. But also explore other combinations of ingredients to use, which can be completely vegetarian, use a combination of meats that will pique the appetite of the carnivores around your table or even use dried fruits if you’re in the mood for something sweeter.

Breads: Looking for a pumpkin dessert alternative that doesn’t involve a custard filling? Pumpkin can also be used in spiced breads, a slice of which can be a great finish to a meal. Or, with the aid of some cream cheese filling, enjoy a decadent sandwich to sate the sweet tooth. But you can also go the savory route and make breads to complement your dinner course. In lieu of nutmeg and cinnamon, spice up your pumpkin puree with herbs like chive, basil and coriander, try flatbreads that pair pumpkin with onion, or even go for a simple variation on potato rolls (just sub in squash for your starchy, mashed tubers).

Thirty cents could get the author an assortment of candy, including Boston Baked Beans. Courtesy of Flickr user daveparker.

For this month’s Inviting Writing series, we asked for stories about food and independence: your decisions about what, how or where you eat; the first meal you cooked—or ordered in—after moving out of the house; or about how you eat to the beat of a different drummer.

Our first story is about the thrill of illicit food. Nikki Gardner is a writer and photographer who lives in Williamsburg, Massachusetts. She blogs about art, food and stories at Art and Lemons.

A Mission for Candy

By Nikki Gardner

After years 7 years of living under my mother’s strict sugar-free household rules, I couldn’t take it anymore. It wouldn’t be far off to say that I kind of freaked out. My mission, which I bestowed upon myself, was to sample as much sugar as my stomach and allowance allowed.

My younger sister and I were allowed an occasional doughnut before a special Sunday church outing, a piece of birthday cake, or ice cream scoop. But there was a red line between candy and me: it was NOT allowed.

I remember clearly the ride home from school that day. I rode up to the stoplight, smiled and waved at the crossing guards, and made it through two crosswalks. Then I stopped. Parked my bike outside the Burger Dairy, which was another mile or so from our new neighborhood. The fluorescent lights flickered inside. One wall was dedicated to butter, bread, cheese, eggs and milk. Staples we often stopped for between trips to the grocery store. This was my first time there alone. The woman behind the cash register sized me up. We both knew I wasn’t in it for the milk that day.

She wore one of those black hairnets and snap-up white jackets like the lunch ladies at school. I was nervous and broke from her stare and busied myself with the business at hand. The coins in my pocket jangled recklessly, ready to be laid out on the counter. In a moment of haste, I pulled out 30 cents or so and quickly did the math. Thirty cents could get me a box of Lemonheads or Boston Baked Beans, a cherry Blow pop, a Fireball, and 2 pieces of Bazooka comic gum.

The cashier popped and cracked the small pink stash of gum in her mouth. She seemed as old as dust to me and she was all business. We were alone in the store and the small bubbles she blew between her coffee-stained teeth echoed in there.

I slid my money toward her. She wore black cat eye glasses. I noticed her eyes go squinty and small, like dots made with a ballpoint pen. I wasn’t sure what she would do. Rough me up a little about spending my college fund or give me some wisecrack about ending up like her one day, which seemed pretty okay to me.

“That it, sweetheart?”

“Um, yeah.”

A few gum cracks later, I walked out of there clutching my candy stash. I went back a number of times and it wasn’t until I developed a few cavities that I came clean, well not totally clean, but eating less candy anyway. So I switched to the fast food burger joint and replaced one restriction with another. But that’s another story.

A fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. Image courtesy of Flickr user pkingDesign.

The peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a classic lunchtime staple that will be popping up in school cafeterias this fall. (Well, unless you go to a school that has a wholesale ban on nut products because of student allergies.) Initially, peanut butter and other nut butters were championed by vegetarians who used the product to create mock meat dishes, while non-vegetarians seem to be the ones who pounced on peanut butter’s potential as a sandwich spread. The sandwich itself became a popular food in the United States in the late 19th century, and the first known recipe for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was published in 1901. Although this is the most mainstream combination of peanut butter with another sandwich filling, there are other, fascinatingly strange permutations to be had. Will one of the following crop up in your lunchbox any time soon?

Fried Peanut Butter and Banana: Outside of your standard PB&J, this may be the most famous peanut butter sandwich out there. It’s most frequently associated with Elvis Presley, although his penchant for this sandwich—peanut butter and mashed banana and pan fried until golden brown—might be a bit exaggerated. “He didn’t eat that many,” Joe Esposito, a close friend of Presley’s, recalled in a biography on the king of rock ‘n roll. “That peanut butter and banana sandwich thing was a treat for him once in a while. He didn’t eat five or six of them, he ate one—they’re very filling.” For those wanting to try this, some recipes call for mashing the banana, others say to slice and arrange the fruit on the bread, while other variations include lettuce and fried bacon.

Fool’s Gold Loaf: If the legend is true, this is Elvis’ other peanut butter sandwich. The story goes that a Graceland guest described an incredible sandwich the guest had tasted at the Colorado Gold Mine Company near Denver. A loaf of Italian bread was hollowed out and filled with a jar of creamy peanut butter, a jar of jelly and a pound of sliced and fried bacon. The whole thing was then either warmed in an oven or deep fried. Elvis supposedly hopped a private jet out to Denver, where the restaurant owner delivered the coveted sandwiches—which are said to cost $49.95 a pop—to the airport. Whether or not the story is true, recipes for this hunka hunka sandwich do indeed exist. Eat at your own risk.

Novelty Sandwiches: So reads a chapter subhead in the 1953 edition of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. When I hear the phrase “novelty sandwich,” I think back to my mom using cookie cutters to make fun shapes out of a PB&J sandwich. But in this particular cookbook, a novelty sandwich can be the blending of peanut butter with mayonnaise, a combination that is then spread on whole wheat bread and topped with shredded carrot. (Sadly, the book does not suggest an appropriate aspic to serve with this sandwich.) But this isn’t some piece of freak cookery that came about during the mid-20th century’s age of occasionally questionable taste. An 1896 sandwich recipe also recommended the marriage of peanut butter with mayo.

Peanut Butter and Cheese Curls: The brave souls who report NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Blog Me “Sandwich Monday” series gave this one a go: peanut butter and cheese curls on a bun. The verdict? Not a far cry from the peanut butter and cheese cracker sandwiches. (They also tried peanut butter as a hamburger garnish. However, I don’t think the paltry proportion of peanut butter relative to ground beef can qualify this culinary oddity as a bona-fide peanut butter sandwich.) This pairing of flavors also dates back to peanut butter’s burgeoning days as the sandwich spread of choice and was served in upscale New York tea rooms. Whether you prefer sliced cheddar over cheese curls comes down to what kind of texture you prefer in your sandwiches.

SPAM Kahuna: The Nutropolitan Museum of Art may be a whimsical mesh of marketing and artistry from New York sandwich shop Peanut Butter and Company—or it may be a serious attempt to get you to think outside the lunchbox when it comes to constructing a peanut butter sandwich. In this edible ode to the 50th state, how well do you think SPAM, pineapple and peanut butter would complement each other? (And I’m hoping the peanut butter and PEZ sandwich is just a joke.)