I've never officially won anything in my life in spite of my best efforts throughout most of 2002 to win the California Lottery...until now! Don't get me wrong, I have been showered with blessing which are better than winning the lotto any day but never anything official that I entered. So imagine my surprise when an email appeared in my inbox from Cooking with Amy that I had answered her trivia question correctly (one of five people) and Alan Richman's new book, Fork It Over, was in the mail! How cool is that?! This blogging thing is really great! Here was the challenge:
What pastry from Vienna made a big splash at the 1889 Paris World's Fair?
Pretzel, Croissant, Cheese Danish or Sacher Torte
I immediately headed to Google and typed in "1889 paris world fair, croissant". The second result I clicked on was to my delight a food timeline - imagine a complete timeline of all things food related, and sort of food related, from 20,000 BC and barley and grain to the invention of Cracker Jacks (1893) to 1986 and the closing of the Bay Area's Doggie Diner chain (where my dad took me when I was young because I loved the big huge dog head sign).
Here is what it said about the croissant. Interestingly enough it is correlated to the invention of cappucino! It doesn't mention the World's Fair but I took a leap of faith, guessed Empress Maria Theresa came a few hundred years later, and went with croissant for my answer.
1683, Sep 12, Marco d'Aviano, sent by Pope Innocent XI to unite the outnumbered Christian troops, spurred them to victory. The Turks left behind sacks of coffee which the Christians found too bitter, so they sweetened it with honey and milk and named the drink cappuccino after the Capuchin order of monks to which d'Aviano belonged. An Austrian baker created a crescent-shaped roll, the Kipfel, to celebrate the victory. Empress Maria Theresa later took it to France where it became the croissant. (Reuters, 4/28/03)(WSJ, 6/3/03, p.D5)
et voila! the wonders of the internet (what DID we do before?) and the amazing community of blogs! Thanks Amy for bringing us all a little bit closer thru our love of food. Another little tidbit, a rather disturbing one, I came across on this timeline took place only a few years ago...
2000, Mauritania launched a radio and television campaign to end gavage, the practice of force-feeding girls to make them gain weight as a sign of health and fertility. Illiteracy made progress slow. (WSJ, 12/29/04, p.A1)
Excuse me? Did I read this right? They force feed....GIRLS?!?!? OK, so let me get this straight... Animal-rights activists have been petitioning for decades to get foie gras banned and recently, in between botox appointments, stars with too much time on their hands including Martin Sheen (thought he was busy with West Wing?), Paul McCartney, Kim Basinger, Alicia Silverstone, Mary Tyler Moore, etc. joined in the fight but nary a word about these innocent cherubs. So it's NOT ok to forcefeed a stupid goose (that has no gagging reflexes by the way), but up until a few years ago it has been accepted, promoted and encouraged to forcefeed a young girl?! Am I missing something?
In California, the foie gras eating hypocrite, Ah-nold signed into law a banning of foie gras...after 2012! He'll be conveniently long gone thereby avoiding any controversy when this goes into effect. Lily-livered governor...or goose-livered as the case may be, but I digress...
Back to my point... So we made it a LAW not to forcefeed geese and ducks because it is so creul while in Mauritania they have a mere "televison and radio campaign" to stop it? Kind of like Nancy Reagan's "Just say no to drugs"? We saw how well that worked... So the good people of Mauritania thought this practice dangerous enough to launch an ad campaign but not enough so to pass a law banning it. If these stars want to really do something useful, take their overpaid, overbotoxed selves down to Mauritania, teach them how to read, and get a law passed to help these young girls!
On the other hand..."weight gain is a sign of health and fertility"??? Wow! How refresing! Obviously they haven't had our sick social influences imposed on their society that says fat is evil and slovenly and all those that fall into that category (which means anyone over 87 lbs - thank you Kate Moss) should be ostracized. So which society didn't get the memo?
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