FOOD HISTORY

History of fructose

2012-02-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

Fructose was first extracted from sugar cane more than a century ago, and it’s found in varying amounts in such fruits, as apples, grapes oranges, honey, cane sugar and berries.

The sweetness of cane sugar approximates that of wild honey. Honey is mentioned in very ancient documents. It was antiquity’s only form of sugar. Oriental peoples as w ell as early Teutonic tribesmen found honey indispensable to their way of living as both a nutrient and an appetizer, as the writings of Plutarch and Aristotle attest.

It wasn’t until 1744 that a German chemist found that the sugar isolated from sugar beets was identical to the sugar from sugar cane.

During the first thirty years of the nineteenth century, chemists isolated and characterized sucrose, glucose, fructose, starch, cellulose, gum arabic, and many other carbohydrate.

The name derived from the observation by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Louis Jacques Thenard in 1810-1811 that the formula of all of the members of these class of organic compounds could be reduced to the generic formula Cn(H2O)n.

In the 1970s, the food processing industry made a discovery: high fructose corn syrup could save them lot do money.

The first hydrolysis plant was built in America in 1967, the Clinton Corn Processing Co., producing syrups of 42% fructose practically as sweet as sucrose.
History of fructose

History of marshmallow

2012-02-09T16:35:00.000-08:00

The historic roots of marshmallows are literally the roots of a plant: the marsh mallow, Althaea officinalis.

Marshmallow were originally medicine, despite their modern reputation as the fluffiest of foods and the emptiest of calories.

Botanical name, Althaea is derived from the Greek, althe which means ‘to cure’. The use of marshmallow originated in traditional Greek medicine and later spread to Arabian and Indian Ayurvedic medicine.

It was ancient Egyptians who are the first documented consumers of marshmallow. 4000 years ago, the Egyptian enjoyed a treat made from the mallow plant which oddly enough grew in the marshes of Egypt.

Egyptians would mix together the mucilaginous sap from the root of the marsh mallow with sweeteners, probably honey; the resulting confection was deemed worthy of pharaohs and even the gods themselves.

It was used in Persian to reduce inflammation in teething babies, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne (A.D 800-814) insisted that it be planted throughout his kingdom.

The word mallow can refer to any a variety of plants of the genus Malva. Mallow comes from Old English mealwe, possibly influenced in its development by Old French malve. Both English and Old French words ultimately descend from Latin malva, mallow.

By 1917, cookbook were calling for marshmallows as essential ingredients.

In the early 1920s, Red Seal Marshmallow was advertised to manufacture as a product that ‘improves ice cream, ices and sherbet and gives added smoothness’.

In 1955 marshmallow manufacturers made a great leap forward in efficiency and economy when Alex Doumakes patented a method for extruding the marshmallow foam through a tube into a long rope and the n cutting it into uniform pieces.

Soon commercially made marshmallows were popping up for home use in everything from salads to gelatin desserts and of course ice creams.

History of marshmallow

History of leavening agent

2012-02-01T16:59:00.000-08:00

The very first breads were unleavened. They were more like flat tortillas made by moistening and baking ground nuts, cereal, grains or seeds.

The Egyptians were probably the first to leaven bread, As early as 2300 BC, they used breadmash, which contained wild yeast from the air, to lengthen dougns.

The immigrants from Europe, had all brought their national recipes for bread and pastry making to America, using brewer’s yeast or a sour dough process of one kind or another.

Until the late 1700s, naturally occurring airborne yeast was still the leavening agent of choice.

In 1868, the production of bread was advanced by the use of compressed yeast as a leavening agent, a product developed by Charles Fleischman. Earlier bakeries had produced their own leavening agents with uneven result.

The first popular chemical leavening agent was pearl ash, a crude from of potassium carbonate, and alkali.

Carbonates of soda were obtained from ashes of sea plants, as well as from plants and was originally referred to as potashes.

The potash was used in baking as a leavening agent until 1830s. Later, a more favored baking soda (sodium carbonate) soon arrived on the scene.

Baking ammonia appeared on the market at this point and it was used by home bakers as well as in commercial bakeries.

Sodium acid pyrophosphate was the next leavening acid introduced to the United States in 1911.

History of leavening agent

History of food fortification in North America

2012-01-24T20:44:00.001-08:00

Fortification of food with micronutrients has a long history in improving the diet of populations. The food fortification of foods began in the early 1900s as a result of the discovery of the vitamin deficiency diseases pellagra, scurvy, rickets, goiter and beriberi.

In the United States, as in most parts of the world, fortification of food was initiated as a systematic approach to correct identified nutrient deficiencies in the population.

Table salt and milk were the first foods fortified. In 1924 iodine was first added to salt in a voluntary basis in a attempt to address the prevalent health problem of goiter in the United States. It is the first US food fortification program.

Canada has a distinguished history of effectively using food fortification to combat nutritional deficiencies and to improve the nutritional quality of the food supply.

For example the mandatory fortification of fluid milk with vitamin D or the iodization of salt which have virtually eliminated childhood rickets and goiter respectively.

Prior to 1936 only milk and salt were approved for fortification.

Mandatory requirements for flour fortification became effective in 1943 after the US government published its first Recommend Dietary Allowances. These requirements were the outcome of a National Nutritional Conference for Defense convened by President Roosevelt in 1941, to explore why so many military recruits were in poor health.

In January 1998, the United States introduced mandatory folic acid fortification of flour as well as a number of other grain based foods including cornmeal, rice, pasta and breakfast cereal.

History of food fortification in North America

History of crème caramel

2012-01-22T02:57:00.000-08:00

Crème caramel is a custard dessert made with whipped cream eggs and topped with caramel. It is French origin known as ‘cream turned upside down’.

The dessert is known across Europe and the world by different names.

The ancient Romans understood the binding capacity of eggs; they were the first known to cook them with milk and honey into various custard-like dishes.

When the Arabs brought cane sugar to southern Italy, France and Spain, they also brought their love of dessert custard.

Their cooks were skilled in using sugar to create pastries, nougats, syrups, and custards.

In the medieval Arabs world, Spain cooks discovered how to make a delicate and subtly sweet custard by blending eggs, cream and sugar and baking it in an earthware dish.

Moorish cooks also lined the baking dish with a thin covering of caramelized sugar.

It is known as flan in Spain and Mexico and as cream caramella in Italy. Flan and crème caramel, both a mixture of sugar, flavorings and a milk product, differ in that flan is Spanish in origin and is made with sweetened condensed milk while crème caramel is French in origin and is made with whole milk or cream.

History of crème caramel

History of tomato soup in America

2012-01-18T00:40:00.000-08:00

Tomato soup is quintessential American comfort food, usually eaten with a grilled cheese sandwich.

Although tomatoes apparently were introduced into Florida in the 1600s, they made minimal impression on the dietary habits of Americans until two centuries later. The first tomato soup recipes were simply tomatoes added to basic vegetable soups.

By 1840s tomatoes were an important part of most cookery books, Modern Cookery, written by the British cookbook author Eliza Acton for publication in the United States, in 1845 contained several tomato recipes.

Between 1832 when N. M. K. Lee’s first tomato soup recipe was published and in 1841, when Lettice Bryan’s version published the multitude of other vegetable were left out and the purely tomato soup know today emerge. Lettice Bryan’s Kentucky Housewife feature more than twenty tomato recipes, including some for baked, broiled, stewed, fried and pickled tomatoes.

Andrew Smith in his The Tomato in America stated that tomatoes were used in soup at least as early as the mid-eighteenth century in colonial America.

In 1897, John T Dorrance created a process of condensing soup which involved removing half of the water from the soup to create a thicker consistency.

The first production in 1898 means reducing volume to make it lighter and more transportable, cheaper to can and yet convenient to cook was a new development of a specifically commercial commodity food.

History of tomato soup in America

Discovery of Acesulfame potassium

2012-01-12T02:55:00.001-08:00

Acesulfame potassium entered the food world in 1967. Karl Clauss and H. Jensen of Hoechst AG in Frankfurt, Germany, reacted 2-butene and fluorosulfonyl isocyanate in 1967 to produce a new compound with a novel ring system.

Clauss accidently spilled some on his finger, which he then licked as he reached for a piece of paper.

The substance was found to have a sweet taste. The generic name initially chosen, acetosulfam, was change to acesulfame potassium salt.

Approved for use in the United States in 1988, acesulfame potassium is marketed under the brand name Sunette. The brand name Sweet One when sold as a table top sweetener. Later approved for use in beverages in 1998.

It was approved for use in Europe in 1983 and used in more than 3000 products in the world. Approval for use in confections was granted by FDA in 1993.

Discovery of Acesulfame potassium

History of cinnamon

2012-01-04T18:52:00.000-08:00

Cinnamon is one of the oldest spices known. It was used in ancient Egypt not only as a beverage flavoring and medicinal herb but also as embalming agent.

Cinnamon has probably been known in the Mediterranean since the second millennium BC.

Herodotus describes is as being used in mummification and Ezekiel mentions it as one the commodities handled by the Tyrian trading network.

It was written that Nero, Emperor of Rome burned a years’ supply of cinnamon at a ceremony for the death of his wife.

In the early times, nomad tribes in Arabia were frequent traders in the markets along the Mediterranean Sea, Persian Gulf and on the coats of India. When they traded with merchants in India they were introduced to cinnamon.

The Indians have always used cinnamon lavishly, but the Greeks and Romans did not really introduce it into their cooking until the final period of the Roman Empire, around the third and fourth centuries.

During the late Middle Ages, cinnamon became one of the frost commodities traded regularly between Europe and the Near East.

The demand for cinnamon was enough to launch a number of explorers’ enterprises, especially exploration by the Dutch and Portuguese.

Cinnamon was one of the spices sought on European 15th and 16th century voyages.

During Dutch settlement in Ceylon, cinnamon made by them a lucrative article of trade and one which they strive by every means wholly to monopolize, this tree was not made by them an object of cultivation in Ceylon until 1766.

The Dutch controlled of cinnamon and their monopoly subsequently passed to Britain in 1796.

In 1771, the French introduce cinnamon to the Seychelles, and form 19th century cinnamon was more widely cultivated.
History of cinnamon

Early history of papaya

2011-12-30T07:58:00.001-08:00

Papaya belong to the Caricaceae, a small family of only four genera and 27 to 30 species. Linnaeus gave the papaya the Latin name of ‘Carica papaya’ in 1753. The Mexican Indians named the papaya ambapaya.

The papaya most probably originated along the Caribbean coast of Central America. The species was probably widely cultivated by Indians in Mexico and Central America prior to 1492.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it quickly became favored by Spanish and Portuguese explorers.

The Spanish brought the plant from tropical America to the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands and South east Asia in the 16th century.

Papayas are consumed year round in the tropics and subtropics, The numerous seeds, when dried, remain viable for several years and this facilitated their movement from the Caribbean region to Malacca and to India.

The fruit was first describe by the Spaniard Oviedo in 1526. Papaya was quickly disseminated to tropical and some subtropical areas of the world by Spanish and Portuguese sailors.

In twentieth century, papayas were brought to the United States and have been cultivated in Hawaii, the major US producer since the 1920s.

Early history of papaya

Pineapple Canning in History

2011-12-20T07:36:00.000-08:00

Pineapple canning began in Hawaii in 1892 and in Malaya at about the same time. From then on, production rose dramatically, creating employment and money for many people in the tropics.

The earliest recorded planting of pineapple in Hawaii was in 1813 by Francisco de Paula Marin.

The need to preserve pineapples for distant consumers was the original idea of canning the fruit.

The US canning industry grew during the nineteenth century often East Coast and its primary stimulus was food spoilage and the time required for transportation from the site of production to the marketplace.

J. D. Ackerman and E. Muller attempted the first commercial canning in 1882 at Kona but abandoned the venture due to lack of market response.

More successful was John Emmeluth from Cincinnati, who began canning pineapples in 1889 on Oahu and shipping them to Victoria, British Columbia, New York and Boston.

The modern pineapple industry dates from 1900, when a group of Californian farmers formed a colony at Wahiawa Oahu and under leadership of Byron O. Clark began raising a number of crops, including pineapples.

In 1906, James Dole built a new canning facility with warehouse in Honolulu and his company invented machines to streamline the pineapples canning, including feeder and slicer to cut fruit into uniform shapes and sizes.

Pineapple canning, which had became the territory’s second largest industry by 1920. In 1922, James Dole purchased nearly the entire island of Lanai, making it the largest pineapple plantation in the world.
Pineapple Canning in History

History of sugar production

2011-12-19T06:02:00.000-08:00

Sugarcane was first domesticated in Papua New Guinea, from here is cultivation spread throughout the Pacific and to India, where the first crude forms of sugar was produced around 2000 years ago.

The earliest references to sugar making appear in Sanskrit literature of the fourth century BC, but sucrose was practically unknown in Northern Europe until around 1000 AD.

It was only several century later that sugar began to reach Europe in sizeable quantities, both overland and via the Mediterranean. In the mid of 8th century, sugar cane was planted for the first time, sugar made from it, on European soil along Spain’s southern littoral.

A century birth of Islam established from Arabian peninsula to Southern Spain, an administrative and culturally allowed the development of the technology required to successful production of the novel sugar cane crop.

Sugar production in the early Islamic world harnessed both water and wind power to drive the crushing mills.

These technologies , as well as the practice of refining, were transferred to the Americas via the Atlantic islands.

With the development of the African slave trade in the mid 1400s the processing and ready accessibility of sugar became quickly established.

Until the mid nineteenth century sugar remained an extremely expensive luxury good in Europe, more properly thought of a spice than a food per se.

The first attempt at applying power to sugar production was made by John Stewart in 1768 in Jamaica. The first steam engine reported in Cuba was at the Ingenio Seibabo of the Conde de Mopox y Jaruco in 1769.

Although these steam engines made use of the crushed canes as fuel. They often depend on coal and other non-renewable resources, on contrast to the renewable of animal, wind and waterpower of earlier centuries.

The introduction of vacuum heating technology later revolutionized the boiling process and the introduction of the centrifugal machine likewise revolutionized the curing processed.

History of sugar production

History of flavonoid research

2011-12-17T17:57:00.000-08:00

The earliest studies of flavonoid pigments is Robert Boyle in 1664, which describes the effects of acid and bases on the color of extracts from plant flower and other pigmentation tissues.

In 1936 Nobel Prize winner Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi and co-workers reported that flavonoid preparation from paprika and citrus peel could restore complete health to scorbutic guinea pigs when vitamin C alone did not. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi was also the one who discovered vitamin C.

Szent-Gyorgyi suggested they were crucial for integrity of the small blood vessels and as treatment for the skin purpura.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi and co-workers at first referred this class of plant c0mpounds to vitamin P. But the chemical diversity of flavonoids precludes their classifications as a single vitamin.

Later vitamin P as renamed flavonoids. Since the discovery, scientist have isolated more than 4,000 flavonoids.

The isoflavones are among the first flavonoids studied biologically because their structures with hydroxyl groups in the 7 and 4’ positions of the basic ring structure provides them with an affinity to estrogen receptors.

Another group of flavonoids, the anthocyanins, were used early in human history as dyes and thus had commercial value.

Szent-Gyorgyi studied this compound for another forty years. When electron microscopes became available, he observed that the structural proteins in healthy cells were ‘the color of a good Swiss chocolate.’

Flavonoids, referred to as ‘biological response modifiers,’ posses anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic, antiviral and anticarcinogenic properties.

History of flavonoid research

Modern Food Advertising

2011-12-16T01:32:00.000-08:00

Before that late nineteenth century, food was not commonly marketed directly to Americans.

Shoppers at typical nineteenth century grocery stores would walk in, find a clerk and tell the clerk what they needed and the clerk would pass the order to other employees.

The goods then either delivered to the customer’s home or given to the customer on the spot.

The invention of modern advertising can be largely be credited to patent medicine sellers of the Reconstruction era.

They came up with all sorts of spurious and very dangerous cures for such ill-defined diseases as neuralgia and dyspepsia, which seemed epidemic in that unsettled time.

Early soft drinks were sold and marketed as patent medicine. An 1892 advertisement for Coca-Cola was typical of the genre the carbonated potion was recommended as “the Ideal Brain Tonic for Headache & Exhaustion.”

Coffee substitutes were originally promoted in much the same way. As late as 1951, the Federal Trade Commission was investigating the Post Company for running ads for its Postum beverage claiming that drinking coffee discourage marriage or that it results in “divorces, business failures, factory accidents, juvenile delinquency, traffic accidents, fire or home foreclosures.”

Since 1970s and the latest presents a picture that hasn’t change much. But two thirds of the TV commercial on Saturday morning TV were foods.

Over half of these commercials were for breads cereal, rice and pasta and the next largest category (28%) were fast food outlets.

The strong rise of food advertising was closely related to the emergence of brand names and the transformation of the retail sector.

In pre-industrial society the production and purchase of consumer goods were mostly locally oriented.

The range of available goods was limited and their quality depended on their region and the preferences of the retailer. From the second half of the 19th century onwards, industrial mass production of consumer goods, including food products, increased rapidly.

Producers needed to sell to a wider market and to provide the customers with information about the product.

Advertising offered the obvious means to this end. This led the manufacturers to package their products and complete them with a brand name.

Advertising are major influences on American food consumption patterns. Food marketers are the nation’s largest advertisers, with around $30 billion per year is for food products after automobiles. About 70% of food advertising is for food products, principally packaged foods, snacks and soft drinks and another 28% for food service especially fast foods.
Modern Food Advertising

History of sugar icing

2011-12-14T21:49:00.001-08:00

Sugar is the major component of icing. Sugar icing was invented during the 17th century, but for a long time it remained a luxury available only to the wealthy.

When Charles II returned from exile in France to reclaim the English throne in 1660, he brought with him a love of French cooking and some of his favorite French pastry chefs. It was these men who suggested that the cake should be iced with a crust of sugar.

In 19th century, Queen Victoria’s own wedding cake decorated with royal icing which was measured 36 cm deep, 2.8 m and over 7 feet high, It consisted of multiple tiers, only the bottom was real cake, while the top tiers consisted of pastillage and real icing.

Royal icing is made of confectioner’s sugar and egg white, and its consistency is ideal for piping. The generations during that time, tended to cover every surface and fill every niche with imaginary of some kind, whether wall stenciling, stained glass or statuary. Layer upon layer of sugar icing was trowelled on the cake.

History of sugar icing

The use of bacteria for commercial

2011-12-01T18:04:00.001-08:00

Bacteria in combination with yeast and molds have been used for thousands of years to produce fermented foods such cheese, beer, wine and yoghurt.

As such bacteria are a key element for the food industry. The earliest aspect of using bacteria in food commercial evolved with the global development of fermented foods and beverages. Along with salted and dried foods, fermented foods represent the first processed foods.

The ingestion of lactic acid bacteria in fermented food such as milk products, bread, fish, meat and numerous vegetables and fruits, dates back thousands of years in the belief that they have health benefits. It often linked to tradition and culture.

Production of fermented foods involves the use of microorganisms which alters such properties of the raw material such as taste, texture, digestibility, nutritional value and shelf life.

Egyptians bakers as early as 2100 BC obtained their yeast from the settling of beers vats, whereas the Greeks and Romans used yeas from wine vats, and later the English used brewer’s yeast.

The microorganisms are too small to be seen and were not recognized as a living things at the time. Very small organisms were first observed when the microscope was developed in the 17th century.

Ellie Metchnikoff, in the early twentieth century, first related to consumption of probiotic bacteria to health effects and longevity.

The expression ‘lactic antagonism’ was used in the early 1900s for foods that contained high numbers of actively growing lactic acid bacteria, which retarded the growth of both spoilage and food poisoning bacteria.
The use of bacteria for commercial

History of biotechnology in agriculture

2011-11-24T05:36:00.001-08:00

For thousands of years, biotechnological process have been used in the creation of agriculture products.

Biotechnology can be define as the application of science or technology to biological systems, therefore biotechnology started 10000 years ago, when human first decided to put down roots and modify their surroundings to meet their needs.

Microorganisms were used thousands of years ago in the Middle East for leaven bread, brewing beer, and produce wine, but they are too small to be seen.

Other type of food fermentation practiced for thousands of years include the transformation of milk into chesses and fermentation of soybeans.

The first biotechnology experiments were carried out between 6000 BC and AD 1700 when people selectively bred agricultural animals and plants for beneficial characteristics in a process called selective breeding.

Through early biotechnology farmers were able to select the best suited and high yield crops to produce enough food to support a growing population.

Very small organism were first observed when the microscope was developed in the 17th century.

The discovery of the gene function on the 1960s made possible the first genetic engineering research in 1973. By the start of the 20th century the role of microorganisms in the decay and nitrogen cycles became clearer and viruses were discovered.

Biotechnology has helped to catalyze the growth of the pharmaceuticals, food, agriculture processing and specialty product sectors of the global economy.
History of biotechnology in agriculture

The history of cinnamon

2011-11-19T22:45:00.001-08:00

Cinnamon is one of the oldest spices known. It was used in ancient Egypt not only as a beverage flavoring and medicinal herb, but also as an embalming mixture.

Cinnamon was found in ancient Chinese texts on herbal medicines dating back about four thousand years, cinnamon has been used for a variety of purpose including medicinal, culinary and practical.

In ancient Egypt, because of its flavor and its scarcity, cinnamon was worth as much as fifteen times the value of silver. Cinnamon was used as a flavor in drinks and also as a preservative in their embalming process.

In the Bible, Moses used it in holy anointing oil.

The Greeks and Romans used it as a wine flavoring and an ingredient in incense. Funeral rotes also included the burning of incense to appease the Gods of the dead. Nero Emperor of Rome in the first century AD, burned a years’ supply of cinnamon at a ceremony for the death of his wife, Poppaea Sabina.

As early as 2000 BC, Cinnamon was imported to Egypt from China. Among Arabs, especially cinnamon was seen as an emblem of wealthy. Arab merchants controlled the lucrative trade in spices throughout antiquity and well beyond the Middle Ages.

Until the Middles Ages, the source of cinnamon was unknown to Europeans because it was concealed by the traders. This means that all the reported cinnamon until the Middles Ages may have been different origins.

Cinnamon was one of the first spices to be sought during the explorations of the ‘new world’ in the 15th and 16th centuries.

A cinnamon was prized in medieval Europe as a preservative and also as a staple in cooking. Meals including both meat and fruit were prepared in a single pot, and cinnamon along with ginger, helped the flavors blend together.
The history of cinnamon

Earliest Written History of Herbs

2011-11-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

Of the first known herbal, said to have been written by the legendary Chinese emperor. Shen Nung, nearly 5000 years ago, only part of the text survived long enough to be recorded by subsequent writers though many later Chinese herbals base upon on it.

Shen Nung, was the father of agriculture and herbal medicine. He was given credit for authorship of the first native herbal, the Sheng Nung Pen Ts’ao on the basis of his own experiment.

During Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), physician Tuo Hua collected various herbal formulas for beauty, including powders, ointments and pastes.

Sumerian clay tablets gave us a literature in the form of small clay tablets. Dated from the late fourth millennium BC, they are the earliest known written records about plants in Western civilization.

Other herbal text from early times include Egyptian papyri recording the medicinal uses of herbs, dating from 2800 BC.

The latter mention about marjoram, mint, juniper and other familiar herbs, together with aromatic gums such as frankincense, spices such as cinnamon and cassia and unguents and ointments made by expressing the oil from herbs or by macerating them in fatty oils such as castor oil.

The Egyptians imported herbs and spices along with the knowledge of their use from Babylon and India.

In Egypt the dividing line between medicinal and cosmetic recipes was often blurred and the priests, who generally controlled the manufacture of the substances, were also in-charge of offering of incense and fragrant oils in the temples and the precious ointments that were used for embalming the bodies of the high ranking Egyptians.

Father of modern medicine Hippocrates listed hundred of herbal varieties all taken together to prove and establish the significance , importance and usage of herbs as a means to cure various disease.

In about 500 BC, Herodotus listed about 700 herbs and their uses, many of which remain valid today. In the first century AD, Dioscorides produced a herbal guide, which is still reference on the practice of natural medicines.
Earliest Written History of Herbs

History of wedding cakes

2011-11-09T17:45:00.000-08:00

Wedding cakes date as far as the Roman Empire, around 400 BC. Bread was initially used, but wedding cakes have elaborated into sweeter pastry over time.

For ancient people wheat was a symbol of fertility and bountiful harvest. Guests in ancient Rome pitching grains of wheat at the bride and groom, to encourage fertility in their union. As the custom evolved, bringing small wheat cakes to the wedding banquet became common practice.

As early as 100 BC in Rome, a piece of dense fruit cake or sweet bread was eaten by the groom and the remainder of the cake was crumbled over the bride’s head so that she would be blessed by the gods with fertility and fulfilling life. The guest ate the crumbs which were believed to be good luck.

Later, a variation of the custom found its way to England, where guests brought small cakes to the ceremony. The cakes were put into a pile, and the bride and groom stood over the pile and kissed.

In Victorian times, there were usually three wedding cakes: one elaborate cake and two smaller ones for the bride and groom. Hers was white and his dark. Hers was cut into a many pieces as there were attendants often favors were baked inside for luck.

Until the eighteenth century, when refined flour and processed sugar became available, wedding cakes were usually dense fruitcakes baked in advance of the celebration and soaked in spirits to preserve them.

Multitiered cakes did not develop until the latter part of the nineteenth century, when at first the layers were simply laid one upon the other.

Today cakes are stacked generally in two or more layers, rather than separated in tiers held up by plastic pillars.

Modern designs have smooth sides, which are achieved with rolled fondant – a French term for confectionary icing that is rolled like pastry dough and produces a seamless finish.
History of wedding cakes

History of birthday cake

2011-11-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

Ancient Egyptians were the first to adopt the idea of birthday celebrations, which later became a part of Greek culture.

The custom of the birthday cake was observed in ancient Greece and the birthday cake began with Greeks who used to make honey cakes or bread.

Ancients Greek also was known used to make ‘birthday cakes’ to celebrate the moon. The cakes were round like the moon and candles were added to make them glow.

Others said that the birthday cake tradition was started in Germany in the Middle Ages where a sweetened bread dough was made in the shape of the baby Jesus in swaddling clothes and was used to commemorate his birthday.

In the last 200 years, a birthday cake has assumed an increasingly important role in birthday party food.

The song of ‘Happy Birthday’ was composed in 1893 as ‘Good Morning to All by Mildred and Patty Hill, both were kindergarten teachers. However, the original words were change is unknown.

Birthday candles originally were placed on cakes to bring birthday wishes up to God. In ancient times, people prayed over the flames of an open fire.

Some scholars claim that modern birthday cake, topped with candles, are related to those once created for Artemis. The lit candles are reminders of the sacred fires of this ancient Greek deities.

Artemis, goddess of the moon and the hunt, celebrate her birthday on the sixth day of every month by baking a large cake of flour and honey, topped with lighted candles.

Blowing out the candles and ‘making wish’ are obviously remnants of forgotten magical rituals – perhaps those performed to gain favor of Artemis.
History of birthday cake

History of Wheat in United States

2011-10-28T07:11:00.000-07:00

Wheat was brought to a New World by Spanish colonists. A slave of Cortez finding a few grains in some rice, sent from Spain, carefully preserved and planted them in 1529. From these, it is believed, the wheat’s of Mexico have been derived.

Wheat cultivation spread farther north in the 1660s, but did not grow well in the climate and soil of New England.

It was introduced into the Elizabeth islands of Massachusetts in 1602 an in 1611 into Virginia. In 1718 it was brought into the valley of the Mississippi.

Though wheat was grown in the United States during the early colonial years, it was not until the late nineteenth century that wheat cultivation flourished, owing to the importation of an especially hardy strain of wheat known as Turkey red wheat.

It was brought over by Russian immigrants who settled in Kansas. A large colony of Mennonite Russians, members of an Anabaptist sect founded by one Menno Simmons in 1506, settled in Kansas in 1873.

The devout emigrants has brought with them some sacks of a variety of wheat called Turkey Red which, when sown in America soil, proved superior to all other varieties previously cultivated.

Until the very late nineteenth century, wheat hardly figured as a major territorial crop. Not until 1896 did these farmers get a descent wheat harvest, but the following year’s production was remarkable .

In just twelve months, the acreage planted in wheat has doubled. The difference that made such a difference was the introduction of Turkey red wheat.

The development of the steam engine in the 1880s and the internal combustion engine in the 1920s allowed for still greater efficiency on planting and harvesting wheat, the size of farming operations increased.

The wheat crops of the United Sates in 1913, 1914, and 1915 were the largest in history, the average for the three years being almost 900,000,000 bushels.
History of Wheat in United States

The Early History of HACCP

2011-10-24T00:52:00.000-07:00

The programme of HACCP is to eliminate the risks of food consumption and reduce the number of reported food poisoning outbreaks.

HACCP enables the producer to achieve a safe product continuously.

The concept and reduction to practice of the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) system was directly related to the Pillsbury Company’s projects in food production and research for the space programme.

HACCP was developed originally as a microbiological safety system in the early days of US manned space programme, as it was vital to ensure the safety of food for the astronauts.

The pathway to the HACCP system started in 1959 when Pillsbury was asked to produce a food that could be used under zero gravity conditions in the space capsules.

The basics were developed by Pillsbury Company with the cooperation and participation of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA). The Natick Laboratories of the US Armed Forces, and the US Air Force Space Laboratory Project group.

It was based on the engineering system, Failure, Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA), which looks at what could potentially go wrong at each stage in an operation together with possible causes and the likely effect.

The HACCP system as the people know today took form at the 1971 National Conference on Food Protection.

Around that time hazard analysis procedures were adopted to plan critical control points designed to control the hazards in the food system.

It started with the fact that no one really knew how foods and especially particulates might act in zero gravity. The initial conservative approach to solve this problem was to produce bite sized foods covered with flexible edible coating to prevent crumbling and consequently atmospheric contamination.
The Early History of HACCP

History of CAFOs

2011-10-22T21:56:00.000-07:00

During the past 60 years, livestock agriculture has changed significantly. Over the course of the 20th century, meat production shifted from a local small scale practice to an industrial, large scale practice.

It is during the 20th century that the increasing industrialization of agriculture, including consolidation of farms, and the introduction of confined animal feeding operations or CAFOs.

Modern CAFOs or Confined Animals Feeding Operations became popular in the decades following World War II.

During 1920s, chicken meat was not an industry but a byproduct of egg-laying flocks. However, it changed when Mrs. Cecile Steele, a resident of eastern Maryland by mistake received a shipment of 500 chicks, instead of animal order only 50.

Rather than returning the chicks, she decided to capitalize on her error by building a small shed for the birds and raising them indoors for their meat.

This CAFOs quickly proved to be profitable in the 1920s.

In the 1930s John Tyson was developing the vertical integration of feed, hatchery and chick distribution, outsource growing, slaughter and processing. By 1950s and 1960s the company ownership contracting out of the growing process to famers.

CAFOs is the most successful system in the history of the world in maximizing food production while minimizing labor. Consumers have benefited from this productivity in lower food prizes.

As late as 1950s Americans spent about 22% of their disposable income on food, while today they spend about 7%.
History of CAFOs

Origin of Raspberry

2011-10-19T21:12:00.000-07:00

There are three kinds of raspberry. The red raspberry and the black raspberry are the types which are most often grown. The yellow raspberry is cultivated only to a limited extent and more as a novelty than as a staple variety.

The raspberry has long been one of the important bush fruits of Europe. The world plant is native to Europe, and it was named Rubus Idaues by Linnaeus from Mt. Ida in Greece.

Pliny wrote that they called the raspberry ‘idaues’ because it grew thickly on the slopes of Mount Ida. The first people known to have cultivated raspberry were the ancient Greeks. The first recorded raspberry harvest was from Mt. Ida in AD 45.

Some have suggested that the Ide mountains in Turkey were the actual place of origin.

Record were found in 4th century writing of Palladius, a Roman agriculturist and seeds have been discovered at Roman forts in Britain; hence, the Romans probably spread cultivation throughout Europe. They also used raspberry for medicinal purpose throughout of Europe.

The British popularize and improved raspberries throughout the middles ages, and exported the plants to New York by 1771.

New York State Experiment Station began a breeding program for raspberry in the late 1800s. By 1925, 415 varieties were available and many thousands of acres of raspberries were grown throughout northeastern United States.
Origin of Raspberry

Anise during ancient Roman

2011-10-14T03:10:00.000-07:00

Anise (Pimpinella anisum) is one do the oldest medicines and seed spices originating in the Mediterranean region.

The Romans widely cultivated anise for its fragrance, flavor and medicinal uses. Pythagoras, the six century BC mathematician and philosopher, had reportedly extolled the used of root, leaf and seeds of anise an urged its consumption, both raw an cooked. He thought that holding anise could prevent epileptic seizures.

Anise was used by Hippocrates. Hippocrates discovered a more plausible use for anise, to treat coughs. It is also mentioned by Pliny and Dioscorides.

Roman used anise to aid digestion. During Roman’s time women could expect the immediate easing of labor pain after just a whiff, and a puree of anise seed cooked with milk and barley was guaranteed to restore mother’s strength after delivery.

Dioscorides included anise in his books, recognizing it as an effective remedy for coughs, and bronchial infections, asthma, and as a carminative.

Apicius, the Roman gastronome, left a delicious recipe for pork with anise, and he may have been among those who called anise the ‘unavoidable’ herb.

In ancient Rome, wedding celebration customarily ended with the little spiced cakes called mustacae – which included anise, served to aid digestion may have been the origin of the spices weeding cakes that is served today.

During that time, Rome citizens could pay their taxes in anise seed, which the government used as a n international currency.
Anise during ancient Roman