It’s Pumpkin Time!!

The pumpkin.  It has become a symbol of harvest, Halloween, and Thanksgiving, and can be found in a variety of colors: orange (the one everyone knows), white, tan, and rarely seen red, and blue.  But what exactly is a pumpkin?  According to Wikipedia, “a pumpkin is a gourd-like squash…and is native to North America.”  The University of Illinois published a list of facts about pumpkins, which includes how they “…contain potassium and vitamin A….are used for feed for animals….Native Americans used pumpkin seeds for food and medicine.”  And so, the tradition continues with stores everywhere displaying bountiful arrangements of pumpkins signaling the upcoming holidays.  Growing up, I always looked forward to this time of year with the smells of baking bread, cinnamon, cloves, apples, and pumpkin greeting me as I arrived home from school.  Weekends were spent playing with friends, running and trudging through piles of orange and yellow leaves or visiting family. 

Homemade Brown Sugar

Mmmmm, brown sugar.  Just the words conjure images of baked deliciousness.  So many recipes use this wonderful brown sweetness – from bacon to desserts to chicken.  Try to imagine your favorite chocolate chip cookies without it.  Horrifying!  But what exactly is brown sugar?  I found a couple interesting links.  One, from www.ehow.com states that it’s “made from sugar cane or sugar beets…cut and squeezed for their juice, which is boiled until it thickens to molasses.”¹  It is then stripped and dried.  Foodtimeline.org is another site that always has such interesting information as well.

Macaroni and Cheese

 

Macaroni and cheese is the ultimate American comfort food.  Many people grew up enjoying the stuff from the Kraft ® Macaroni & Cheese box.  But, did you know that while many believe this is an American dish, it actually originated in Italy?  Oh, and the ingredients did not come from a box.  Shocking, right?  Well, according to TLC on their “How Stuff Works” page, “back in the 13^th century an Italian cookbook, Liber de Coquina (Book of Cooking), included a recipe that food historians believe is the first macaroni and cheese recipe.”¹    There are multiple stories on the internet that credit Thomas Jefferson with bringing the recipe and a pasta machine from Italy home to his daughter, Mary Rudolph, who then made it for White House dinner parties.  According to the Monticello website, Mr. Jefferson brought neither the recipe nor the pasta machine.  The machine was shipped from Naples to Paris, and eventually listed among Mr. Jefferson’s household items shipped from Philadelphia to Monticello in 1793.  He did make the recipe popular by serving it to dinner guests during his presidency.²  Apparently the original cheese (possibly Parmesan) was replaced with white American cheese.    In 1937 Kraft foods introduced Mac & Cheese during the Great Depression, selling 8 million boxes that year.³  And a brand was born.