Snowpocalypse scrapple with ketchup, served with a side of toast. Image courtesy of Jesse Rhodes.

Fast-food aficionados are all abuzz over the McRib, the sandwich with a sizable cult following enjoying a return engagement at McDonald’s locations through November 14. Seriously, how many foodstuffs do you know of that have their own locator map so that die-hard fans can get their fix? The pork patty itself is something of a technological marvel, with emulsified bits of pork meat molded into the shape of ribs.

The more I pondered the McRib, the more it seemed like a descendant of scrapple. For those not in the know, this traditional breakfast food combines grain with the scraps and trimmings of meat, including organ meat, left over from butchering a hog. The mixture is boiled and allowed to set before being molded into a loaf, sliced up and finally pan-fried until golden brown. Like the McRib, scrapple is a distinctively American pork product and remains a regional favorite.

The dish has its roots in the black blood puddings found in Dutch and German cuisine. Immigrants brought the dish, also known as pawnhoss, to the New World in the 17th century, where it became most closely associated with the Pennsylvania Dutch communities. In this country, blood was omitted from the meat mix and European grains were replaced with American ones, such as buckwheat and cornmeal. Seasonings can vary depending on locality, with Philadelphia scrapple going heavy on the sage, while more Germanic versions favor marjoram and coriander. The dish was a commonsense means of extending leftover meat and avoiding waste, making as much use of an animal as possible. While pragmatic, the flip side is that organ meats can be very high in fat and cholesterol, so regularly incorporating scrapple into your diet might not be the best idea. Nevertheless, it remains popular and has spawned local celebrations, such as Philadelphia’s Scrapplefest and Bridgeville, Delaware’s Apple-Scrapple Festival, which sports events like a scrapple shot-put contest. (And XBox users out there might also recall the scrapple commercial that was worked into the game Whacked!, with a line of dancing pigs being sent down a conveyor belt before being sloshed into tin cans. And I have to admit, the jingle is pretty catchy.)

My first encounter with scrapple was at the L&S Diner in Harrisonburg, Virginia, courtesy of an uncle who treated me for breakfast and didn’t explain what it was I was eating until after my plate was cleared. I took pause, but didn’t dwell on the matter too long because, frankly, the nondescript brown slice of pork-flavored something-or-other tasted great—though it’s difficult for anything that’s fried to be rendered unpalatable. When Snowpocalypse hit the D.C. area last year, this meatloaf of the morning was my comfort food of choice to get me through being stuck indoors for a few days. Former Food and Think blogger Amanda Bensen, on the other hand, seems to have had an unpleasant introduction to the dish, so much so that she turned vegetarian. Though based on her description of being served pork mush, I’m not sure that it was properly prepared. But, like with any regional cuisine, there are dozens of variations that can be had with the dish. Do you enjoy scrapple? If so, tell us in the comments section how you like it served.

We started it off by gabbing about the weird things people put in coffee, the evolution of the sweet tooth, and the history of cereal boxes, among other topics. We explored five ways to eat many kinds of seasonal produce. We launched a new Monday feature called Inviting Writing, and you all have been responding with wonderful stories on themes like road trips, college food and eating at Grandma’s house.

Looking back. Image courtesy of Flickr user hhoyer (saturn ♄).

Yes, it’s been a wonderful year. But personally, it’s not just 2010 that I’m wrapping up and waving goodbye to… I’m also leaving Smithsonian to work for another magazine. While that’s certainly exciting, it’s bittersweet, since it means parting ways with Food & Think, the blog I helped launch just over two years ago. We really hit our stride last year thanks to Lisa Bramen, the fantastic freelance co-blogger who joined me “temporarily” and is still going strong. You can look forward to reading more of Lisa’s work here, as well as posts from a few new and returning writers in months to come.

For me, this blog has been an excuse to do some fun things like interview a movie food stylist, attend a Red-Bull-themed art opening and sip Spanish wines with Jose Andres.

It has challenged to me to pay closer attention to serious issues of the day like food safety, childhood obesity and sustainable seafood, as well as track down answers to not-so-serious questions like “Does cheese pair better with beer or wine?” and “Why are chocolate Easter bunnies hollow?”

And it has inspired me to taste or cook many things for the first time: fresh sardines, jellyfish, lionfish, biltong (South African jerky), poutine, kohlrabi, sunchokes, purple long beans and more. Heck, I’d never even cracked into a crab or a whole lobster until I became a food blogger! I’m grateful for those opportunities, and to all of you for reading.

If you’d like to stay in touch, you’re welcome to visit my new personal blog, The Editor Eats, or connect with me on Twitter (@AmandaBensen).

Happy New Year, everyone!

Pot from Cyprus. Courtesy of NMNH

A question for the end of the  year, a time to look back: What’s the oldest kind of wine still in modern production?

If you answered “Commandaria,” I’m impressed. I had never heard of such wines until a few weeks ago, when I attended a Smithsonian Resident Associates lecture about the cuisine of Cyprus. It’s a sweet dessert wine, with a dark amber to light brown color, and an intriguing taste that starts like honeyed raisins and figs and ends like coffee. It reminded me somewhat of Hungarian Tokaji wine, while the woman next to me said she found it pleasantly similar to Portuguese Madeira.

I learned that Commandaria’s history dates back at least 3,000 years, although it was called Mana for much of that time. The ancient Greeks drank it at festivals celebrating Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who, according to myth, was born from the sea foam on the shores of Cyprus. The wine’s modern name can be traced to the 12th and 13th centuries, when the Knights Templar and Knights of St. John established a headquarters (commandery) in the growing region and began to produce and export the wine commercially. Commandaria proved so popular with European palates that it is said to have been served at King Richard the Lionheart’s wedding, and to have won what was perhaps the world’s first wine-tasting competition in France.

Commandaria is made from two kinds of native grapes which I’d also never heard of before—white Xynisteri and red Mavro—which are partially dried in the sun to concentrate the juices before pressing and fermentation. By law, Commandaria wines must be aged for at least two years in oak barrels, but many of the best are aged for a decade or more. (I sampled a phenomenal 30-year-old vintage, Etko Centurion, although at $100 and up a bottle I don’t expect I’ll drink it again. But younger versions are also excellent, and much more affordable at around $20.)

Although its international popularity faded in the centuries after the knights lost power, Commandaria has been staging a comeback in recent decades. The name has been given “protected designation of origin status” in the European Union, the United States and Canada, and there is an official Commandaria wine region in southern Cyprus.

To learn more about the history of Cyprus, currently the subject of an exhibit at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, read this Smithsonian magazine piece.

The Aspiring Home Cook

Radically Simple: Brilliant Flavors with Breathtaking Ease, by Rozanne Gold. All the recipes in this lovely cookbook are described in 140 words or less, and many have only 5 ingredients, making even sophisticated-sounding dishes like “sauteed chicken with roasted grapes and grape demi-glace” quite approachable.

How To Repair Food, by Tanya Zeryck, John Bear and Marina Bear. The third edition of a perennially helpful classic that offers tips on everything from makeshift ingredient substitutions to stale marshmallows.

Williams-Sonoma: The Art of Preserving, by Rick Field with Rebecca Courchesne. An essential reference guide for anyone interested in making and cooking with their own canned and pickled produce.

The Original King Arthur Flour Cookbook: 200th Anniversary Commemorative Edition, by Brinna B. Sands. A sturdy, ring-bound classic devoted to all things flour-based, from pancakes to pie, and of course, bread.

Courtesy Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

The Cosmopolitan Foodie

My Calabria: Rustic Family Cooking from Italy’s Undiscovered South, by Rosetta Costantino with Janet Fletcher. The first cookbook to focus on Calabria, the region at the tip of Italy’s “boot,” its recipes celebrate ingredients like olives, anchovies, hot peppers… and pasta made on knitting needles.

Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, With Recipes, by Mark Bitterman. A fascinating tribute to the history and nuances of the many types of “artisan salt” in the world, written by a self-described “selmelier.” Includes a field guide to dozens of specific salts found in the Mongolian steppes, the deserts of Timbuktu and more.

Around my French Table: More than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan. The warm, conversational tone of Greenspan’s writing, combined with gorgeous photographs and tips about serving and storing, welcomes readers into the exciting world of French home cooking.

The Sweetheart

Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes, by David Lebovitz. From classics like creme brulee to unique concepts like Guinness-gingerbread cupcakes, the Paris-based pastry chef’s heavenly-sounding recipes are anchored in his funny, down-to-earth style. (“If you don’t have a pepper mill, shame on you. Go get one.”)

The Perfect Finish: Special Desserts for Every Occasion, by Bill Yosses and Melissa Clark. A collection of 80 sure-to-impress recipes from the White House pastry chef, helpfully organized by occasion (birthdays, brunches, bring-to-a-party desserts, etc.).

The Carnivore

Good Meat: The Complete Guide to Cooking and Sourcing Sustainable Meat, by Deborah Krasner. A satisfyingly thick tome, broken down into chapters on beef, lamb, pork, rabbit, poultry and eggs. Includes recipes for every part of the animals, and explains the terminology and practices involved in meat production and processing.

Planet Barbecue: An Electrifying Journey Around the World’s Barbecue Trail, by Steven Raichlen. More than 300 grill-centric recipes from 60 countries, ranging from South African braai to Korean pork belly.

The Meat Lover’s Meatless Cookbook: Vegetarian Recipes Carnivores Will Devour, by Kim O’Donnel. As O’Donnel explains, the inspiration for this marvelous book was helping her mother come up with heart-healthy meals that would pass muster with the meat-loving man in her life, “Mister Sausage.” O’Donnel isn’t condemning carnivores, she’s simply asking them to take a day off: “Meatless Mondays.”

The Vegetarian

The Very Best of Recipes for Health, by Martha Rose Shulman. A collection of simple, healthy, largely vegetarian recipes from Shulman’s popular New York Times column, including nutritional analyses. Mediterranean chickpea salad, creamy cabbage soup, “rainbow tofu” and much more.

The Butcher and the Vegetarian: One Woman’s Romp Through a World of Men, Meat and Moral Crisis, by Tara Austen Weaver. This food writer’s memoir is both entertaining and thought-provoking, as she grapples with the relationship between her vegetarian upbringing and some serious health issues, and gets a crash course in the world of meat production and consumption.

The Nostalgic

Courtesy Pelican Publishing.

The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century, by Amanda Hesser. A hefty treasure chest, bursting with gems of culinary history culled from the newspaper’s archives by one of its best food writers.

As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto, edited by Joan Reardon. Fans of Julia Child will devour this collection of her personal correspondence with her friend and literary mentor Avis in the 1950s. Although the letters discuss much more than food, they offer a window into the process of recipe and testing and development for Child’s famous Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Memories of a Farm Kitchen, by Bob and Rob Artley. A charming and utterly unique memoir about growing up on a 200-acre farm in Iowa in the 1920s and 1930s, this homespun book recalls bygone days of icebox refrigerators, cellar larders, and ham hanging from the rafters.

The Pop-Culture Geek

Cooking With the Movies: Meals on Reels, by Anthony F. Chiffolo and Rayner W. Hesse, Jr. With recipes based on the foods featured in 14 different films, from 1985′s Tampopo through 2007′s Waitress, this could be the basis for some seriously fun dinner parties.

Culinary Ephemera: An Illustrated History, by William Woys Weaver. I’ve already told you how much I enjoyed this collection of vintage advertisements, food packaging, menus and tidbits of trivia from culinary history.

Or how about one of these cookbooks by non-culinary celebrities, like Dolly Parton or Coolio?

The Drinks Connoisseur

Boozehound: On the Trail of the Rare, the Obscure, and the Overrated in Spirits, by Jason Wilson. From the first chapter, titled “The Ombibulous Me,” this alcohol-soaked memoir from The Washington Post‘s Spirits columnist turns the esoteric into the entertaining. Includes dozens of cocktail recipes.

Whiskey: A Global History, by Kevin Kosar. This intriguing, stocking-stuffer-sized volume from the Alcohol Reviews blogger chases the history of whiskey around the world and through the ages, explains the differences between various types and includes several classic whiskey cocktail recipes.

The Great Domaines of Burgundy: A Guide to the Finest Wine Producers of the Cote D’Or, by Remington Norman and Charles Taylor (3rd edition). Serious oenophiles and/or Francophiles will savor this detailed reference book, which elucidates the methods and personalities at the heart of Burgundy’s best wines.

Vino Argentino: An Insider’s Guide to the Wines and Wine Country of Argentina, by Laura Catena. As described in a previous post, this is an excellent primer on the Argentine wine industry and its beloved malbecs.

The Kid

See our recent list of food-related children’s books.

To be considered for publication, please e-mail your submissions to FoodandThink@gmail.com by this Friday (Dec. 17) morning. We’ll read through all of them and pick our favorites to edit and publish on subsequent Mondays through mid-January. Just a reminder, we’re looking for true, original personal narratives of roughly 500 to 1,000 words. The rest of the details are up to you!

I’ll start with an example…

My Goodness, My Guinness
By Amanda Bensen

Ever heard the term “goody two-shoes?” That was me in high school, and that was still me at 19, as I entered my junior year of college. Up until then, I had never had an alcoholic drink. After all, I wasn’t 21—and underage drinking was not only illegal, but at my college it was an offense that could get you expelled (along with having opposite-sex visitors in your room overnight, or with the door closed).

Guinness, courtesy of Flickr user Paul Watson

But my junior year was different. I was studying abroad in England, where the drinking age was only 18, which meant that the mysterious world of alcohol was suddenly wide open to me. I was eager to experience British culture, and I quickly discerned that drinking was a necessary part of this—even the church I visited held its “young adults’ Bible study” at a pub.

When Ryan, another American student in my program, heard that I’d never had a drink, he was both incredulous and adamant that we remedy this strange condition immediately. He dragged me into a pub on the outskirts of Oxford. It was early on a weekday evening, and the place was quiet. We sat at the bar, where a handful of middle-aged men were silently watching television and nursing pints of beer.

“She’ll have a Guinness, and so will I,” Ryan announced loudly, as if this were something extraordinary. The bartender smirked as he handed us our drinks. I was about to take a sip when Ryan stopped me.

“Wait,” he said, lowering his voice. “Just so you know, this is a real local pub, not a tourist trap. They know how to drink. That means you have to take at least an inch or two out of the glass in your first swig, or they’ll probably laugh you right out of here.”

I was alarmed. That wouldn’t be a good way to experience the local culture. So, I took a big gulp, choking slightly and getting foam on my nose in the process. It tasted bitter, but not bad…kind of like dark chocolate, or coffee. I liked it!

Trying to ignore the fact that the other customers were now watching us more than the television, we hunched over our pints and tried not to talk. I looked at the vintage beer ads displayed on the pub’s wall, with slogans like “Lovely day for a Guinness” and “My goodness, my Guinness!” and debated whether it would be nerdy or cool to mention that I was reading a biography of the British mystery author Dorothy Sayers, who wrote those slogans in the 1930s. I was hoping it would help prepare me for a tutorial on C.S. Lewis I’d be taking that fall, since Sayers was a friend of his. Probably nerdy, I decided.

By the time my pint was nearly drained, Ryan was already finishing his second. “What did you have for dinner?” he asked. I said I hadn’t had dinner yet.

He put on a look of mocking seriousness (although the mocking part went straight over my head at the time).

“What?!? No food in your stomach? That means you’re going to be sick in…” he looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes.”

I felt fine, but he sounded certain, so I was worried. We tossed a handful of pound coins down on the bar and hurried out to the street in search of a quick bite. With only five minutes left in our ridiculous countdown, we found a food truck. I ordered a tray of fries and a greasy veggie burger, and downed them quickly, as if they were medicine. I don’t know how Ryan managed to keep such a straight face through it all.

By the end of that year, I was the one dragging visiting friends to the local pubs, although I never got into heavy drinking. After buying me eight shots in a row one night without seeing any effect, Ryan declared me the best drinking buddy he’d ever seen: “Such a tolerance! Never seen anything like it in a girl!”

What he didn’t realize is that I was the one doing the leg-pulling this time — it was a dark pub, there was nothing behind my chair but a dead-end stairwell, and I’d been tossing the shots over my shoulder the whole time.

I’ve long since lost touch with Ryan, but I still love Guinness.

When my father-in-law sent us home from Thanksgiving with a bag full of fresh leeks from his garden, I thanked him (diplomatically, of course), but was secretly befuddled. Having seen leeks only in restaurant dishes, I’d assumed they were something smaller, closer to scallions. These were white cylinders nearly as wide as soda cans, lopped off at the top as they grew greener.

After a bit of online research, I learned that late-harvested leeks like the ones I got are bigger than spring ones, with a stronger flavor that’s still milder than most onions. These bulbous vegetables have been called “the poor man’s asparagus” in France, but in Wales, people wear leeks (yes, wear them!) as a treasured national symbol. Ancient Egyptians and Romans apparently loved leeks, too.

Chopped leek, courtesy Flickr user Scot Rumery

Leeks can be cooked in many different ways. A few suggestions:

1) Potato-leek soup. A classic, easy-to-prepare winter comfort food. I made mine without a recipe, first sauteeing some chopped leeks and butter in a saucepan for about 10 minutes, then adding chopped potatoes and broth to simmer for about 20 minutes (until soft), and pureeing it with an immersion blender. I added some plain yogurt, creme fraiche and rosemary for a richer taste and texture, and crumbled a bit of blue cheese on top before serving. Yum. For a more precise recipe, see Pinch My Salt. Simply Recipes also has a creamless version with a kick, and NPR’s The Splendid Table offers several variations on Julia Child’s classic leek and potato soup recipe.

2) Risotto. I’m a little addicted to making risotto, as my husband, Charles, can attest. Cold weather only makes me crave it more. But at least my repertoire is expanding! This caramelized leek risotto from Daily Unadventures in Cooking is phenomenal. Cauliflower or butternut squash would be tasty additions, and if Charles didn’t hate mushrooms, I’d also be trying The Kitchn’s mushroom and leek risotto. (That blog also has a helpful explanation of how to clean leeks.)

3) Latkes. Add another one to Jess’s list of not-so-orthodox latkes! One of my favorite blogs, Food & Style, recently featured an enticing butternut squash and leek latke recipe, although carnivores may prefer these leek and beef latkes. Along the same lines, WGBH’s The Daily Dish has a recipe for shredded potato cakes with leeks and cheese.

4) Mac & Cheese. Just when I thought homemade macaroni and cheese couldn’t get any better…it did. Try this recipe from Food & Wine, which the Capital Spice bloggers can testify to.

5) Bread Pudding. Smitten Kitchen wins the prize for most creative use of leeks with this Leek Bread Pudding recipe adapted from the Ad Hoc cookbook. Doesn’t that look great?

Also, a recipe to keep in mind for spring—Martha Rose Shulman’s grilled leeks with romesco sauce make me dream of warmer weather.

Do you like leeks? How do you use them?

Gross, right? But a century ago, the term didn’t refer to hormonally-induced epidermal horrors. It was simply a brand of cheese-covered popcorn!

Cover image courtesy of University of California Press.

According to the new book “Culinary Ephemera: An Illustrated History,” by William Woys Weaver, a Philadelphia company called Tassel Corn Foods made a snack called “Cheese Zits White Popcorn” in the 1920s.

Weaver provides a photo of the label, and offers this explanation of the word’s evolution:

This company also introduced the term ‘zits’ into American slang. Originally, the term…referred to a type of popcorn covered with powdered cheese. Zits were a popular snack at movie theaters, so doubtless sometime during the 1940s Philadelphia teenagers made this snack a moniker for something quite different. The term has since gone mainstream.

He also notes that Tassel used a type of corn with a naturally buttery taste, so that the company didn’t have to add butter to its popcorn products. That heirloom variety, called Pennsylvania Butter-Flavored Popcorn, still exists today—so why can’t we get that in movie theaters?

There are many other intriguing tidbits in Weaver’s book, too. Here’s just a few:

1. Bananas were once viewed a luxury food by Americans, so exotic that they deserved their own special glass dishes.

2. Being fat was considered a good thing in late-19th century America. At the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, a 442-pound teenager named Frank Williams was displayed as “a specimen of American achievement.”

3. “Magnetized” food used to be marketed as health food for babies. It may have actually contained powdered magnets—yikes!

4. Constipation was such a problem around the turn of the 20th century that the inventor of shredded wheat wrote a tract titled “The Vital Question and Our Navy,” about how to make things, um, go more smoothly on the high seas. The temperance movement may have unwittingly contributed to that problem, because it promoted baking-powder based breads based on a belief that “the consumption of alcohol in all its forms, even in natural yeast for bread baking, was a sign of moral decay.”

5. The term “moxie” got its start as a medicinal drink for women, marketed by a Lowell, Massachusetts doctor. It apparently had a “peculiar” taste, which may explain why the term is now a slang synonym for gutsy behavior. As Weaver puts it: “If you could stand to drink Moxie, you could face just about anything.”

Unless otherwise noted, all titles were published this year. If I’ve missed something great, please add it in the comments!

Picture Books (Elementary Readers)

Cover image courtesy of Random House.

1. Perfect Soup, by Lisa Moser, illustrated by Ben Mantle (Random House). This engaging, colorful story about a mouse’s quest to find a carrot so he can make “the perfect soup” is a creative way to teach kids the classic maxim that it’s better to give than to receive—and that you don’t always have to follow recipes exactly.

2. Don’t Let Auntie Mabel Bless the Table, by Vanessa Brantley Newton (Blue Apple Books). Lively illustrations and simple rhymes celebrate a mixed-race family’s Sunday dinner by poking gentle fun at the relative whose “grace” drags on forever.

3. Three Scoops and a Fig, by Sara Laux Akin, illustrated by Susan Kathleen Hartung (Peachtree). A sweet story about a girl who wants to help prepare a feast for her visiting Nonno and Nonna, this gives young readers a taste of Italian words and foods.

4. Oscar and the Very Hungry Dragon, by Ute Krause (NorthSouth). With wonderfully wry lines like: “The dragon, who had only eaten princesses so far, was amazed when he tasted Oscar’s cooking,” this fairy tale offers a lesson about the power of shared meals to turn enemies into friends.

5. Wolf Pie, by Brenda Seabrooke, illustrated by Liz Callen (Clarion). An impish spin on the classic fairy tale about three little pigs and a hungry wolf, this early chapter book will delight kids who love jokes and wordplay.

6. You Are What You Eat, and Other Mealtime Hazards, by Serge Bloch (Sterling). Award-winning illustrator Serge Bloch plays with food idioms. His creative combination of photography and cartoon sketches will make young readers “pleased as punch.”

7. The Gigantic Sweet Potato, by Dianne de Las Casas, illustrated by Marita Gentry (Pelican Publishing). Adapted from a Russian folktale called The Giant Turnip, the cute cast of human and animal characters in this watercolor-illustrated version work together to harvest a huge sweet potato from Ma Farmer’s garden. Includes a recipe for sweet potato pie.

8. Too Pickley! by Jean Reidy, illustrated by Genevieve Leloup (Bloomsbury). From the very first line (“I AM HUNGRY!”), this book takes the voice and perspective of a pint-sized picky eater. The silly rhymes and bright, playful illustrations encourage kids to experience food with all their senses.

9. Little Mouse and the Big Cupcake, by Thomas Taylor, illustrated by Jill Barton (Boxer Books). When a little mouse discovers a tasty treat that’s even bigger than he is, he must learn the importance of sharing and appropriate portion sizes.

10. A Garden for Pig, by Kathryn K. Thurman, illustrated by Lindsay Ward (Kane Miller Books). This whimsically illustrated story about a pig who craves vegetables also includes tips for kids to plant their own organic gardens.

Chapter Books (Middle & Teen Readers)

1. Noodle Pie, by Ruth Starke (fiction, Kane Miller). This pre-teen novel follows an 11-year-old boy raised in Australia on a trip to Vietnam, where his father takes him to explore his roots. Food becomes his touchstone for learning about Vietnamese culture, and the book includes several recipes.

2. When Molly Was a Harvey Girl, by Frances M. Wood (fiction, Kane Miller). A historically based story about the hardships and adventures faced by an orphaned 13-year-old girl in the 19th-century Wild West. In her job as a New Mexico railroad station waitress, she serves up American classics like chicken salad and peach pie, but also forms friendships that introduce her to Mexican food.

3. Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science, by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos (nonfiction, Clarion). A dense but engaging book that ties together many important and complex historical issues.

4. Candy Bomber: The Story of the Berlin Airlift’s “Chocolate Pilot,” by Michael O. Tunnell (nonfiction, Charlesbridge). This true story about an American pilot who started dropping candy for kids during the 1948 airlift in West Berlin teaches both World War II history and a deeper lesson about putting “principle before pleasure,” as its subject, Gail Halvorsen, writes in the preface.

5. The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Kids, by Michael Pollan (nonfiction, Dial, 2009). An easier-to-read, yet not oversimplified version of Pollan’s popular manifesto about sustainable eating, the young readers’ edition looks at the American food chain from four perspectives—Industrial, Industrial Organic, Local Sustainable, and Hunter-Gatherer—and offers plenty to chew on.

Cookbooks and Activity Books

1. The Children’s Baking Book, by Denise Smart (DK Publishing, 2009). Ages 7 to 12. With plenty of pictures, step-by-step instructions and a glossary, this book makes baking look both exciting and accessible to young novices.

2. My Lunch Box: 50 Recipes to Take to School, by Hilary Shevlin Karmilowicz (Chronicle Books, 2009). Ages 3 and up. This isn’t a book, technically—it’s a box full of recipe cards with colorfully illustrated ideas to get children excited about packing their own simple, healthy lunches.

3. Sam Stern’s Get Cooking, by Sam Stern (Candlewick). Teenage British cook Sam Stern aims this book at his “mates,” with simple recipes like My-Style Chicken Parmigiana (“a classic tomato sauce with the coolest chicken dish”) and Cheese and Potato Pizza, although he does sneak in more sophisticated dishes as well (Korma and Cucumber Salad; Chocolate Soufflé).

4. Kitchen Science Experiments: How Does Your Mold Garden Grow? by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen, illustrated by Edward Miller (Sterling). Ages 9 to 12. Bright, curious young minds will enjoy experimenting with food to answer questions like “How do temperature and time affect the growth of microbes in milk?” and “What happens when you heat a marshmallow?” (Their parents might be slightly less grateful.)

5. I’m a Scientist: Kitchen, by Lisa Burke (DK Publishing). Ages 5 to 9. With sturdy, colorful pages and simple experiments such as mixing oil and water to understand density, this will whet kids’ appetite for science by encouraging them to play with their food.

Editor’s Note: For more holiday shopping ideas, check out our guide to crafty gifts made from recycled food packaging.

Courtesy of Flickr user Dustan Sept.

There’s usually at least one relative who asks prying questions, tells terrible jokes or talks too much about their latest doctor’s appointment at the Thanksgiving dinner table, isn’t there? When you need to change the subject or fill an awkward pause, just look to your plate for inspiration. A few suggestions, based on recent science news:

Please pass the…

1) Turkey: Have you heard the good news? Researchers are almost done sequencing the turkey genome, which could help breeders improve the quality of the birds’ meat for future Thanksgiving dinners. Also, did you know that turkeys were initially domesticated as a source of feathers rather than meat?

2) Rolls: Hey, speaking of flour…new archaeological evidence shows that humans were making flour from plants like cattails as long as 30,000 years ago!

3) Lima beans: These little rascals are smart. They can tell the difference between day and night, and play some sweet defense during daylight hours by secreting a nectar that attracts ants, whose presence repels hungry herbivores.

4) Yams: Did you know yams are a daily staple food for more than 60 million people in Africa? That’s why the Global Crop Diversity Trust wants to collect 3,000 yam samples to preserve biodiversity in the African “yam belt.”

5) Cranberry sauce: Cranberries could help fight cavities and gum disease. (They can also help prevent urinary tract infections, but that may be too gross for table talk.)

6) Chocolate cream pie: Cacao may be even older than we thought. Kinda like Great-Aunt Matilda…uh, never mind!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

On a trip home, I discovered Vermont Spirits, a small St. Johnsbury distillery that makes vodka from the fermented sugars of maple sap instead of potatoes or grain, the usual suspects.

“We’re the only ones I’m aware of in the world who do this,” the company’s distiller, Harry Gorman, told me. “Others are using maple as an additive or flavoring, but we’re actually making alcohol from it.”

A builder by trade, Gorman met the company’s founder, Duncan Holaday, while building a house for him. Gorman mentioned that he’d been experimenting with making his own beer, wine and cider for decades, and Holaday eventually recruited him as a distiller.

Bottles of Vermont Spirits vodka at a trade show, courtesy of Flickr user Christopher Lehault

Vermont Spirits has existed since 1998, but this is the first year it has been able to offer tastings to the public at events like the craft festival where I encountered it. (Before a 2009 change in Vermont legislation, distillers could only sell bottles in liquor stores, with no sampling.) Now that word is spreading and business is picking up, the micro-distillery plans to move into a larger, better-located facility next year and start offering tours.

“People go around looking for a gift, and maybe they’re used to buying maple syrup and other things made in Vermont, but they’re usually surprised to see this,” Gorman said.

The vodkas from maple are called Vermont Gold and Vermont Gold Vintage; the company also makes a Vermont White using milk sugars. The idea in both cases, he said, was to use ingredients that represented the state.

“Maple is a very expensive source of sugar for fermentation—potatoes or beets would be much cheaper. But Vermont doesn’t grow as many potatoes or beets as it does maple trees,” Gorman explained. “Plus, it just makes an extraordinarily good vodka.”

To make the Gold, he starts with something between sap and syrup, since sap is only 2 or 3 percent sugar and syrup is at least 66 percent, while about 20 percent is best for fermentation. The distillery ran its own sugaring operation at first, but it was “a huge project,” so now they buy syrup in bulk and dilute it with spring water. The mix is fermented with yeast in a temperature-controlled tank for roughly a week.

“At that stage it’s about 9 percent alcohol, so we call it a beer, although it’s not a particularly good one,” he said. The first distillation stage separates the heart (ethanol) from the heads (other compounds) of this “beer,” and the heart continues into a “fractionating-column still” for evaporation. The third and final distillation refines any remaining compounds (tails) out of the alcohol. You can see the process in this photo gallery on VPR’s website.

“I think one of the big secrets to distilling good vodka is making absolutely certain than you’ve made a clean cut between the heads and the heart, because heads really make the flavor go bad,” Gorman said. “After making that cut you’ve got 192-proof pure spirits, 96 percent alcohol, which is as pure as you can distill.”

After adding distilled spring water to dial the alcohol down to 80 proof, he runs the vodka briefly through a charcoal filter “to take the sharp edges off, but ensure that we’re not removing the flavor,” and then it’s ready for bottling. Vermont Spirits produced about 30,000 bottles this year, which retail for $40 and up.

Technically, there’s no maple in Vermont Gold, just alcohol—but the taste somehow lingers through the distillation process, giving the vodka a very subtle sweetness and hints of buttery caramel.

“People have often said that good vodka has no flavor; it’s supposed to be a clear, neutral spirit for mixing,” Gorman acknowledged. “But making it from these sources produces vodkas with a very different character. The Gold has such a unique flavor that I would only have it neat, personally. I use a lemon twist and that’s it.”

Neat is right.

Cranberries, courtesy Flickr user jillmotts

So, this entry is for Bryn—and for people like me who buy too many fresh cranberries at the grocery store simply because they’re seasonal and on sale, but don’t know what to do with them!

1. Red and Green: Cranberries can grace your Thanksgiving table in more ways than just sauce. Use them to add color and zing to your green vegetable sides, like these roasted brussels sprouts with cranberry brown butter or wilted kale with cranberries.

2. Red and Orange: They also pair wonderfully with orange vegetables—try Simply Recipes’ butternut squash, cranberry and apple bake, this cranberry sweet potato bake or some roasted carrots with fresh cranberries. I’m also intrigued by the idea of apples and cranberries baked in a pumpkin.

3. Red and Brown: Bryn’s favorite recipe is Mollie Katzen‘s cranberry brown bread, which balances the berries’ tartness with molasses, orange juice and brown sugar. You can find it in Katzen’s “Enchanted Broccoli Forest” cookbook, or see this version on Modern Sage. I can’t wait to try it!

4. Red and White: Baked apples are my latest obsession. Peel the top third of some large apples and scoop out their cores (I used a grapefruit knife and a melon baller), leaving the bottoms intact. Squeeze a lemon over them, using your fingers to coat any exposed parts of the fruit. Stuff the cavities full of cranberries coated in brown sugar, the zest of one orange and a generous sprinkle of cinnamon. Put the apples in a glass baking dish, and pour a few tablespoons of sweet liquid into and over each one—I used pear cider with a splash of maple syrup and cognac. Bake at 325 degrees for an hour, basting occasionally. Top with white chocolate shavings, as this Cooking Light recipe suggests, or a scoop of your favorite white topping, like creme fraiche, whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

5. Red and Blue: Make your cranberry sauce more interesting by throwing some blueberries into the mix, as Elise from Simply Recipes suggests, and maybe even some red wine. You can also pair the berries in a dessert, such as Sweet Life Kitchen’s cranberry blueberry pie or Food for Laughter’s cranberry blueberry crumble.

What’s your favorite way to eat fresh cranberries?

“Supper clubs” back then, you see, were what a Chicago Tribune article from October 20, 1899 defined as “where the pampered sons of fortune meet Bohemians upon a common level and engage in revelry—where fools are duped and criminals are bred.” Places that advertised themselves as where “both ladies and gentlemen of the theatrical and kindred professions could find rest and recreation after their evening’s exertions.”

Ah. “Kindred professions.” Got it.

Such clubs sprang up in the late 19th century to skirt a new law that set a closing time of 12:30 a.m. for London’s pubs and restaurants. The law’s intent was to clean up the city’s debaucherous nightlife, but as the reporter writes: “It is a time-honored saying that a nation a cannot be made moral by Parliament.” Clubs could stay open all night because they were technically private establishments—even if, in practice, their doormen declared everyone who knocked on the door an “honorary member.”

Rabbit ragout on corzetti pasta, one of the courses served by chef Bryon Brown at Artisa Kitchen supper club in D.C. Photo by Amanda Bensen.

The term had a much different meaning in the United States at the time, from what I can see in historical newspaper articles. In 1900, mentions of supper clubs were often included in the New York Times’ page headlined: “Some Happenings in Good Society.” But during the days of Prohibition, “supper club” seems to have become another name for a speakeasy.

These days, supper clubs are not only back in vogue, they’re getting positively classy. I attended one a few weeks ago here in Washington, D.C. that commenced at the shockingly respectable hour of 6 p.m. and was over well before midnight. You had to buy a ticket in advance to find out the location, which turned out to be a chic art gallery.

There was plenty of wine, but no one got drunk enough to doze off in the corner or brandish a pair of Colt sixshooters, both of which happened at the supper clubs in that Chicago Tribune article (rowdy American tourists were to blame for the latter incident). Before the meal, we all sipped champagne and mingled shyly while admiring the artwork—a bit different from the old days, when pre-dinner entertainment consisted of inebriated dancing and competitive flirting to secure a dining companion.

The club I had discovered is called Artisa Kitchen, launched earlier this year by chef Bryon Brown. The name refers to the fact that he serves his meals in various art galleries around the city, but he says it also plays on the Spanish slang of his native East Harlem: “Artisa means a loud woman who gets what she wants, and that’s who I would consider my kitchen to be if she was personified,” he explains.

The club has no bricks-and-mortar location; Brown operates with a catering license, and rents gallery space a couple of times a month to create a temporary private restaurant. There are tables and waiters, but no menus—you must “submit your appetite to me,” Brown says—and no bill at the end, since you’ve bought your $90 ticket in advance. The price tag always includes an aperitif, 12 courses and 4 wine pairings, plus an intangible added value: a socially acceptable way to talk to strangers.

“Food brings people together,” commented a woman named Elizabeth, seated to my right. “We may not know anything else about each other, but we know we all have this common interest, so it’s a starting point.”

There were about 70 people at the event I attended, twice as many as Brown normally allows, because he had a celebrity co-host for the night: food writer Amanda Hesser. Each of the 12 courses Brown cooked was based on recipes from her newly released The Essential New York Times Cookbook, drawn from the paper’s archives as far back as the 1860s. (I’ll tell you more about that book and some of those specific recipes in another post.)

By the end of the night, I had conversed with at least eight strangers and exchanged business cards with a few. I learned about one woman’s childhood memories of pig roasts in Romania, swapped stories about last year’s “snowpocalypse” in D.C. and marveled at how different people’s palates can be from one another. It was fun, and delicious, which is exactly what Brown intended.

“We’re trying to change the scheme of going out at night for dinner,” Brown says. “At a restaurant, you usually sort of end up in a silo with the person you go with. We wanted to break down that silo, because engaging with other patrons can add to your experience and memories of the dinner.”

Brown is still a fledgling chef, but he’s clearly quite talented. He left his job as a college administrator in New Jersey when his wife got a job in D.C. about three years ago. Finding himself at a “crossroads in life, where I had the opportunity to do something new,” he decided to pursue a lifelong interest in cooking. In lieu of formal culinary education, Brown worked for free in various restaurant kitchens—a practice called staging (pronounced “stodging”) in the industry—including a stint at Jose Andres‘ Minibar, where he became intrigued with molecular gastronomy.

The supper club is a less risky way to establish his reputation than investing in his own restaurant, and since Brown also considers himself an artist (he paints, and plays the cello), he likes being able to offer galleries both the income from renting their space and “a new group of eyeballs” that might buy their work.

“We’re trying to change the landscape of eating here in D.C., and set the bar of what a supper club is, since that’s a term used very loosely. Our goal is to become known as the best supper club in America,” Brown says. “It’s a blessing to be able to create these moments that are memorable and happy in people’s lives.”

Well, that’s certainly a higher calling than the supper clubs of yore, which were, as that Tribune article concluded: “all depraved.”

The Fojol Brothers were my first love; their hearty vegetable curries were a welcome alternative to the overcrowded deli and fried-foods buffet that were the main lunch options near my office. So I was delighted when they launched a sister truck this week that puts another country on the map of D.C. food trucks: Ethiopia.

Beets and collard greens atop Ethiopian injera bread, from the Fojol Brothers' new Benethiopia food truck in Washington, D.C. Photo by Amanda Bensen.

They’re calling it “Benethiopian,” because not-quite-reality is their schtick, complete with fanciful costumes, pseudonyms and fake mustaches (the original truck sells “Merlindian” food, and they call themselves a “culinary carnival”).

“It’s ‘ben’ like ‘beneath,’ because Ethiopia is at the root of everything, you know?” the guy at the window told me. And according to the blog Capital Spice, the recipes come from the Ethiopian wife of a partner in the Fojol business.

I ordered their beets and collard greens, which came on a bed of injera (atop a paper plate), the staple of Ethiopian cuisine. I’ve had injera before, but am fascinated by it every time—the taste and texture combine elements of a crepe, a crumpet, sourdough bread and a sponge. It’s typically made from teff, a tiny, protein-packed African grain that is largely gluten-free—which means that instead of rising, it tends to bubble when fermented with yeast. (The Exploratorium explains in more detail.)

The injera functions as both a plate and a utensil for scooping up the stews and sauces served with it, which means eating Ethiopian food can get a bit messy. The new Fojol truck has a sink in a niche on the outside of its truck for customers to wash their hands, and offers packets of wet wipes with each order, which were definitely needed! (Note to self: Ethiopian isn’t good desk food, especially when beets are involved. Sorry about that, white keyboard.)

Day of the Dead altar, courtesy of Flickr user Mexicanwave

But now that I’ve read a bit more, I’m beginning to understand that it’s about life as much as death. According to the Smithsonian Latino Center:

Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a day of celebration for the people of Latin America, particularly in Mexico and Central America, and more recently for Mexican Americans. Rather than grieve over the loss of a beloved family or friend, they choose to commemorate the lives of the dearly departed and welcome the return of their spirits.

Another site explains that “indigenous people believed that souls did not die, that they continued living in Mictlan, a special place to rest. In this place, the spirits rest until the day they could return to their homes to visit their relatives.” The Food Timeline offers more details on Aztec conceptions of the afterlife and how these ideas blended with the Catholic tradition of All Souls’ Day.

As with many holidays, food is a big part of things. The living construct altars to specific individuals or groups of people, decorating them with marigolds, candles, incense, photographs and the favorite foods and drinks of the deceased—especially aromatic treats like atole, mole and spicy tamales, so the spirits can “eat” the smell if not the substance.

Pan de muerto for Day of the Dead, courtesy of Flickr user Alanna Kellogg (Kitchen Parade).

Here in D.C., the Mexican Cultural Institute has an altar dedicated to Mexican revolutionaries on display through November 30th. In Los Angeles, one cemetery even features a Dia de los Muertos altar-making contest (though it notes that traditional candles must give way to battery-operated lights, to keep the fire department happy). Come to think of it, I’ve seen plenty of non-Mexican gravestones similarly strewn with flowers, stuffed animals, photos, candy and other personal memorabilia. It seems to be a basic human impulse to leave offerings to our dead.

For the living, the day is a chance to savor certain edible pleasures, pan de muerto, or “bread of the dead,” is a sweet, yeasty dough flavored with anise and shaped to look like bones or something creepier. Chocolate takes the form of skeletons and coffins. Children enjoy calaveras de azucar, or “sugar skulls“—often emblazoned with the name of a particular dead friend or relative—and candied pumpkin, or calabaza en tacha. Adults drink tequila or other types of mezcal distilled from the agave plant. Specific traditions vary from place to place, but there seems to always be food and partying involved!

Have you ever celebrated Dia de los Muertos? What foods or drinks were part of it?

Bestemor’s House
By Amanda Bensen

Thanksgiving always makes me think of Bestemor, my Norwegian-blooded grandmother. Throughout my childhood, Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Vermont was less than an hour’s drive from ours. It was like my second home, and was often the center of family gatherings for holiday meals. She sold it this year, so I’m feeling nostalgic.

Grandma's house held wonders like Fluffernutter sandwiches. Courtesy of Flickr user Ibán.

My brother and I were especially obsessed with the cupboard to the left of Bestemor’s kitchen sink, since we knew that’s where she stashed the jar of “candy buttons” and other sweets. We knew she wouldn’t let us leave without a treat in hand. And we knew that if we professed hunger, she’d rummage around and find ingredients that we’d never sighted in the aisles of the health-food coop where our mom shopped: bread as soft and pale as a cloud; peanut butter that somehow didn’t stratify; and magically gooey marshmallow Fluff. In other words, the makings of a “Fluffernutter” sandwich. (So, so unnatural, I know. But I still kind of want one.)

At Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, my brother and I feigned annoyance while basking in the adoration of our visiting younger cousins, imaginative girls who were always eager to involve us in their games. Just when we were beginning to tire of tossing stuffed animals down the three-story laundry chute, Bestemor would call out, “Kommer, spiser!” (“Come, eat!”)

There were never quite enough chairs, and an uncle or two usually ended up awkwardly perched on an antique bench that had a reindeer skin draped over the back of it, presumably a souvenir from one of Grandma and Grandpa’s many trips to visit relatives in Norway over the years. They took me with them on one of those trips when I was sixteen, and Grandma and I returned a few years later, after Grandpa died. I didn’t expect it from a woman in her late 70s, but Bestemor was an ideal traveling companion—spontaneous, open-minded and prone to fits of giggles.

Before the family ate, we’d all hold hands and bow our heads while someone—usually my father, a pastor—said a blessing. That was in English, of course, but sometimes we also recited the traditional Norwegian “grace” that was written out on hotplates, potholders and wall hangings around the house: I Jesu navn, gar vil til bords, Spise drikke pa ditt ord.… I loved the way the round, rhyming words felt on my tongue.

Finally, it was time to eat. The food wasn’t particularly outstanding, in retrospect, but I was always impressed by the sheer volume of stuff on the table. A grocery-store turkey or glazed ham was the standard main dish, joined by several classic casseroles: sweet potatoes topped with mini-marshmallows, green beans topped with French’s “fried onions,” and a strange but tasty concoction of pineapple chunks baked with butter and crushed crackers. There were salads, sort of: a fruit salad made from frozen berries and scoops of sherbet, a green salad of mostly iceberg lettuce, and Jello “salad” involving slices of bananas or mandarin oranges. There was a basket of “brown and serve” dinner rolls and a butter dish, which never seemed to be in the same place at the same time; and a gravy boat that was always getting separated from the mashed potatoes (which were always my favorite, and may have actually been homemade).

Though most everything came from the freezer, a can or a box, Bestemor served it all with elegance, getting out her best tablecloth, silverware and fine china. There was always some sort of seasonal centerpiece involving real candlesticks, which the kids fought over extinguishing with an old-fashioned brass snuffer after the meal. There were cloth napkins bound with wooden rings, and blue-tinged glassware filled with sparkling cider or cherry ginger ale (though only after the kids had finished a requisite glass of milk).

Grandma B.

For dessert, a parade of pies emerged, fresh from the supermarket baked-goods section (or frozen and baked at home, Marie Callender-style): pumpkin, pecan, cherry, and often two types of apple pie, always with Cool Whip to garnish. I liked to cut the tiniest slice possible of each one so I could try all of them.

After the table was cleared and the dishwasher loaded, the adults would play Uno or Trivial Pursuit and chat while the kids watched a movie in the other room. It was dark by the time everyone found their coats, boots, hats and mittens and stuffed themselves back into their cars. On our way out, we would practice the few Norwegian phrases we knew, to Bestemor’s delight: “Mange takk! Takk for maten!” (Many thanks! Thanks for the food!)

“Kjøre sikkert!” she would tell us. (“Drive safely!”) And of course: “Jeg elsker deg!” (“I love you!”)

The ritual continued as we backed out of the driveway, waving back at Grandma and Grandpa’s silhouettes in the doorway and honking until they were out of sight.

Jeg elsker deg ogsa, Bestemor. (I love you, too.)