Six on History: Food

[panaritisp]

Welcome back to Six on History.  

PS: If you like what you find on the "Six on History" blog, please share w/your contacts. 

Here is the link to join: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/six-on-history

And please don't forget to check out the pertinent images attached to every post

Go to the Six on History Archive to search past posts/articles click "labels" on the left when there and the topics will collapse.

Click here for Detailed Search Help  Thanks John Elfrank

Thanks 

   Phil Panaritis

Six on History: Food

1) Eating Bunny Chow in Durban 

"It’s a sunny winter Thursday, just past noon, and on the streets of Durban, bakkies (pickup trucks) idle double- and triple-parked across wide boulevards as workers heave deliveries in and out of nearby shops. Ears of corn lap up flames on outdoor grills; women get their braids coiled by the side of the road. The heart of the city’s Central Business District hums with a scene that plays out daily, with the most minor of variations, across Africa in Kinshasa, Dakar, Bulawayo, and Gaborone."

Eating Bunny Chow in Durban

Shaped by apartheid and a massive but isolated Indian population, the food of this South African city stands apart.

2) The Colonial Roots of Cheese Pimiento 

A Filipina-American discovers her favorite snack has a bloody origin story.

The Colonial Roots of Cheese Pimiento | The Nib

A Filipina-American discovers her favorite snack has a bloody origin story. This comic first appeared in The Nib...

3)  A New Generation of Home Cooks Is Reconnecting With Soul Food Traditions on Facebook

With nearly 50,000 members, Facebook group Black Girls Cook & Meal Plan is preserving soul food traditions for a new generation of home cooks

A New Generation of Home Cooks Is Reconnecting With Soul Food Traditions on Facebook

Nikesha Williams

With nearly 50,000 members, Black Girls Cook & Meal Plan’s mission is to break the generational stigmas and ster...

4) Native Australian flours are being touted as the next big thing in sustainable baking. But the revival of ancient grains could have a much bigger impact than making sandwiches tastier.

"Detailing the advanced Aboriginal agricultural practices documented by white settlers, Bruce Pascoe’s 2014 book, Dark Emu, effectively “cancelled” the theory that Indigenous Australians led a simple hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Indigenous Australians were among the world’s first agriculturalists, Pascoe told me from his farm on Yuin Country near Mallacoota in eastern Victoria. What's more, the 1990s discovery of a grinding stone in Cuddie Springs in north-west New South Wales dated to be at least 30,000 years old – followed by the 2015 discovery of a grinding stone in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory found to have been used 65,000 years ago – has made him “certain” that Indigenous Australians were the world’s first bakers."

Who were the world's first bakers?

Sarah Reid

Native Australian flours are being touted as the next big thing in sustainable baking. But the revival of ancien...

5) How popcorn became a much-loved snack 

"Popcorn, that delicious, crunchy vehicle for butter, caramel and salt, is seeing its star rise. Americans already consume nearly 50 litres of popped corn a year each, on average. But in the UK, where crisps have traditionally been more popular, popcorn sales have skyrocketed: research firm Mintel found in 2016 that UK popcorn sales had grown 169% in the last five years.

While the internet abounds with tall tales about the origins of the snack food – Native Americans brought it to the First Thanksgiving! American colonists had it for breakfast! – there isn't any evidence to back up those stories. The real tale of popcorn is much more interesting.

It's certainly true that people in the Americas ate popcorn long before Europeans arrived. Popcorn is a specific breed of maize (not the same as the corn you eat on the cob, which is not a popping variety), and archaeologists have unearthed it from numerous caves and dwelling sites across the American Southwest and points farther south. The botanist Thomas Harper Goodspeed, who founded the University of California Botanical Gardens, once received a gift of ancient popcorn kernels from a Chilean archaeologist."

How popcorn became a much-loved snack

Veronique Greenwood

It’s a favourite for film fans and sofa snackers – and there’s some really special chemistry going on when popco...

6) Ackee and saltfish: Jamaica’s breakfast of champions 

"Ackee and saltfish is synonymous with Jamaica, as entwined with the national identity as reggae or cricket. Spiked with herbs and peppers and accompanied by rich Caribbean trimmings like plantains and breadfruit, it pays testimony to the country’s tempestuous history and multiracial roots. The world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt reputedly has it for breakfast. But how did a meal that combines a preserved North Atlantic fish and a potentially toxic West African fruit become Jamaica’s national dish?

Breakfast of champions: Usain Bolt’s ackee and saltfish

Rebecca Seal

The world’s fastest man likes to linger over this Caribbean dish

"The answer is embedded in the country’s history of slavery. Ackee is a voluptuous, red-skinned fruit related to the lychee that is native to Ghana. Saltfish originates in the choppy seas of Northern Europe and Eastern Canada. The ingredients’ subsequent marriage in the kitchens and restaurants of Jamaica was a direct result of the triangular slave trade between Britain, West Africa and its Caribbean colonies in the 18th and 19th Centuries."

Brendan Sainsbury

How did a meal that combines a preserved North Atlantic fish and a potentially deadly West African fruit become ...