Fibbing Friday XVII

Pensitivity101 gives us some food for thought in this old Fibbing Friday list.  Food and lies??! – I’m overqualified!  😎

How did tartar sauce get its name?
This spicy condiment was developed by a food engineer with a stutter.  He only intended to say that it was a tart sauce, but introduced it to his boss as a tar…tar…tart sauce, and the name stuck – the same way the stuff gets stuck to your clothing if you’re not careful.  When I go to Red Lobster, I always get a lobster bib, even if I’m just having sole.

Why is Mardi Gras (aka Shrove Tuesday) also known as Pancake Day?
It all began in Duluth, where the epicures of Minnesota did not have access to fine, upscale dining establishments like Shoney’s.  IHOP, the International House Of Pancakes opened a restaurant to fill the gap.  Their grand opening happened to coincide with Shrove Tuesday.  They ran an advertising campaign that said, “Don’t be in a flap, Jack.  Celebrate Shrove Tuesday by making it a Pancake Tuesday, with an endless stack of hotcakes.”

The mostly Lutheran, Swedish-Americans didn’t understand this Catholic Shrove Tuesday thing, but they understood cheap inexpensive food, and came in droves.  IHOP repeated the sale for several anniversaries, and soon they were busing in from as far away as Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.  Then the Scots heard about the great food deal, and in no time the Pancake Tuesday term had spread worldwide.

Why do so many people eat fish during Lent?
It’s a way to feel good, and believe that you’re fooling God into thinking that you’re actually giving something up for a week or so.  There may be less fish eaten now, since a Canadian Coast Guard cutter put a few .50 caliber rounds into a trespassing Portuguese fishing trawler a few years ago.

What is the difference between sushi and sashimi?
Sashimi is thinly sliced strips of raw fish flesh, also known in civilized countries as BAIT, to get other fish to bite.  Sushi is thinly sliced strips of raw fish flesh, wrapped around vegetables, and coated with sticky rice, to get pretentious Hipsters to bite.

What is noodling?
That’s how half the University and College students get through their semesters without starving to death – some packs of ramen here, a few boxes of macaroni and cheese there.

How do you clean a fish?
I can’t tune a piano, but I can tuna fish.  To clean a fish, you can put it in the dishfishwasher.  Be sure to remove any detergent and rinse-agent, inserting instead, some butter and lemon juice.  By the time the heated dry cycle is finished, the fish should be ready to serve.

What are Swedish fish?
This is a plot by the Swedish candy industry to destroy America.  They are little fish-shaped gummies.  They are promoted as having NO FAT, and good for you, but are loaded with sugars, mineral oil, which is a lubricant/laxative, and carnauba wax, which puts a great shine on your automobile.

What is a Bishop’s Mitre?

In chess, the bishops may only move at 45-degree angles.  The Bishop’s Mitre is a handy-dandy tool to plot your proposed progress out.

What was the movie, The Shoes of the Fisherman about?
This was the sad but true tale of a dedicated angler with a bass-boat.  His wife would not allow his bilge-flavored footwear in the house, even in the mud room.  He had to take them off and store them in a sealed plastic bag out in the toolshed, and hope that skunks or rats didn’t get at them.

What is the first day after Lent known as?
It has not been officially accepted anywhere, but it is widely known as – SCREW THE NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION DAY.  I’ve been good for three or four months – the last week or so, especially.  I’ve eaten more fish than a seagull.  I want a bacon double-cheeseburger and onion rings!  🌯

Flash Fiction #287

PHOTO PROMPT © Brenda Cox

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

After Richard got his Business degree at Louisiana U., he was thrilled to get an entry position in Chicago.  He loved the South, but revelled in the global culture in the North, especially the food.  When his friend, BillyJoeBob flew up to visit, he excitedly took him to the Market, to sample the foreign fare.

Bubba said, “Ain’t none too sure ’bout this Chink food.  I hears they eats funny meat, and stuff that grows in ditches and swamps.”

Astounded, Richard replied, “Bubba, you’re so narrow-minded, your ears rub together.  Don’t y’all remember chitlins, gator steak, poke salad, and crawfish?”

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If you’d like to join the Friday Fictioneers fun, go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

There Are No Words To Describe It

When I claimed that there is no English language, John, our jovial trivial videographer asked, “How do they know English has no original words?”

I responded that, “I know, because I’ve historically researched it for years, especially when I was tracing my ‘Scottish’ roots.  The results of that search are at It’s In The Jeans, if you’re interested.

Let’s start 2000 years ago, when what would later become England, was sparsely settled, and the language was the various dialects of Celtic tribes, like the Iceni, whose Queen Boudicca (Boadicea) was so badly treated by the invading Romans.

The Romans added many words to the mix, including much Latin, but only the officers were “Romans.”  The spear-carriers and their polyglot languages came from all around the Mediterranean.  Traders from far and wide visited the shores also.  Christ’s uncle, Joseph 0f Arimathea, supposedly traded along the western coast, bringing Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

Around 900 AD, the Germanic Jutes, Angles, and Saxons arrived, making themselves and their languages at home.  The Jutes somehow just disappeared, but the Angles and Saxons became “Anglo-Saxon.”   The ‘Angle land’ kingdoms became the ‘England’ of today.  Their language mixed with the Romano-Celtic, with additions from Scottish Picts, Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, and Welsh, becoming Old English, a term only applied today.

A hundred years later, William the Conqueror, invaded the island.  He was the king of the French province of Breton, bringing the term ‘Britain’ to the language.  Many new words and terms were added.  Although consumption was in French, production was still in ‘English.’  Veau, boeuf, porc, and poulet were eaten by French nobles as veal, beef, pork, and poultry, while peasants still raised ‘English’ calves, cows, pigs, and chickens.

Norse Vikings, whose language also carried much Germanic influence, began raiding, and settling, adding some of their words to the olio.  The rise of the British Empire brought back words from all over the globe, Asia (Hong Kong), and hundreds from India.

The Kings and Queens of Europe were all inter-related, bringing in words from Spain, France, Italy, Poland and Russia.  The British Royal Family were German Battenbergs until WW I forced them to become English Mountbattens.

As new words were added, old terms fell out of use.  Some old English words are still in dictionaries as archaic.  Shewed and shewn became showed and shown, and thee, thou, thy and thine became you, your and yours.

It’s like trying to nail fog to a tree. There never was (and still isn’t) a time when there was a true English language.  It all came from somewhere else.  It is the tongue of immigrants, traders and conquerors – and a most excellent tool for communication.

Word is, that there will be another, fascinating post here in two days.  I will use these immigrant words to describe how elated I am that you visit.  😀

’21 A To Z Challenge – S

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week, on the Cooking With Archon Show, we will be featuring a comfort food recipe.  This is one that was taught to me by my Father, although, with typical 1940s/50s male entitlement, he made sure that it was my Mother who prepared it.  Ladies and gentlemen, we’re talking about that comfort in a cup – or mug, or bowl, or even on a plate.

SLUMGULLION

Now the term slumgullion actually has a rash of related meanings.
a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.
a beverage made weak or thin, as watery tea, coffee, or the like.
the refuse from processing whale carcasses.
a reddish, muddy deposit in mining sluices.

But it’s that delicious, nutritious dish….  Who are we kidding?  Often there was barely enough food value to keep body and soul together.

The word started as an 1840s-50s Americanism, coined by poor Scottish/Irish immigrants.  It took the Celtic term gullion – a quagmire, or cesspool, and added the term slum, which was where it was common.  The first definition says that it was a stew with meat, but there was often little or no meat.

It was one short step up from stone soup, a warm, filling, often vegetable, stew.  There is no “recipe.”  My Dad referred to it as an empty the fridge meal.  Boil a beef bone for stock if you have one, and chop up and add all the leftovers.  Serve with a piece of bread if you have some, to sop up the last drops.

I recently viewed a video where, for the first time ever, I heard someone actually use the word ‘kludge.’ This is a kludge dish!  It ain’t pretty.  It ain’t fancy.  It ain’t gourmet.  It’s just jammed together from whatever is on hand – but it works.  I’ll probably still be licking my spoon when you return in a few days for the next course.

Bread And Water

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

By reading this post, you are sentenced to eat whatever you had at your last meal, for the next 14 days.

What was it?
Ignoring the calories, can you take it for two weeks?
Did you like it?
Do you wish that you had read this yesterday?
Or tomorrow?
Do you regret having lunch at Harry’s Hot-Dog Stand?

I had baked bone-in ham, scalloped potatoes, buttered green beans, broccoli salad, and a warm, deep-dish brownie with coconut-flavored whipped cream on top.  It’s a good thing that I didn’t discover this prompt the day before I did, when we had beef and bean burritos.  I could have put Alberta out of the natural gas business.  😯

It was a delicious meal, I loved it, and I could eat it every day for two weeks, but variety is the spice of life, and I love a variety of well-spiced foods.

“Tomorrow” was a Monday.  We have fallen into the habit of having the same type of food, each separate day of the week.  Monday would have been breakfast for supper – bacon or sausage, and eggs of some sort – oatmeal and toast.  There are a lot of combinations.  I can take it every Monday, but I think that I’d tire of it quickly, 14 consecutive days.  😳

I never regret eating at the hot-dog stand.  I never get a hot-dog.  I could eat good French-fries 14 days in a row, if it weren’t for the wife’s Imperial Edict of ‘only once a week.‘  Damn the cholesterol!  Full fries ahead.  I’m pretty sure I could survive being sentenced to two weeks at Taco Bell, but, while places like Bar Burrito, and Quesada are filling, they’re not fun.

I have to wipe the grease off my fingers, and go visit Rochelle’s site to see if I can write a Flash Fiction while I’m this full.  Stop back Friday to find out.  Oh – and has anyone got some malt vinegar you could spare??   😉

’20 A To Z Challenge – Q

My mind grinds fine, but exceeding slow.

The lesson for today is taken from the Second Book of Archon, Chapter II: Verse 6.  Words beginning with the letter Q, while a bit more plentiful than those with X, Y, or Z, are not thick on the ground.  The word of the day is

QUERN

a primitive, hand-operated mill for grinding grain.

The first time the wife and I went to Charleston, SC, we continued on past to visit the Middleton Plantation.  Yankee troops burned the original mansion down.  All that remains are the stone and concrete veranda, and the slaves’ quarters at one end.  These now comprise a small museum, and the living quarters of the current owners.

Still, the building is larger than many homes in upscale, gated communities.  I can only imagine how grand and epic the original structure must have been.  Included in the museum are three Faberge eggs – one complete, and two missing their internal hidden treasures.

The plantation sits beside a long stretch of slow, shallow, river.  The biggest cash crop was rice, but, up on the flats, cotton was grown as well, along with fruits and vegetables for sale, and to feed the residents.

Huge amounts of corn flour and corn meal were required to supply annual dietary needs.  The river could not be used to drive a mill, so dried corn was fed into small hand mills – querns – and ground down.  Adult and adolescent slaves were needed for other plantation tasks.  This job usually fell to Negro tweens.  A hardwood dowel handle was inserted into the upper mill half, and children spent ten or twelve hours a day – alternating arms, turning and turning and turning….

Not to downplay the evils of slave ownership, but poor white folks – and free Negroes in the North – used to face mind-numbing, and body breaking, drudgery to keep themselves alive and fed.  The modern motorized technology has replaced most of these types of onerous tasks, but has made many first-world citizens physically soft and weak.  To achieve what honest labor used to provide, it has been replaced by ‘The Gym.’  Run 5K on a treadmill – but don’t actually get anywhere.   😯

Garbage Picker

I remember the first time that I ate out of a garbage can. 😯 It was in the late 1940s, and Kellogg’s was trying a new marketing scheme.

Their cereals came in small and large boxes, but they began offering them in tiny, serving-size boxes. The equivalent of a large box would get you 10 or 12 of these, all wrapped together. The fronts had an H-shaped perforation. You peeled back the two cardboard wings, and did the same with the waxed-paper liner inside. You poured milk right into the box, and ate the cereal right from it.

This was one of the first “labor-saving devices.” Working mothers didn’t have bowls to wash. The extra labor and packaging material made them more expensive, so they didn’t do well in my cheap, dirt-poor little town.

Kellogg’s produced them in every flavor that they made. They also made a ‘Variety Pack”, with some of each. The tiny, independent grocery carried them for a while. It sat beside a laneway to another street. There was a garbage pail right beside – not a dumpster – nobody could afford to throw that much away. Somehow, one of the sampler packs came apart. Unable to sell it, the grocer just gathered the pieces up, and dropped it into the garbage pail beside his building.

Finally dry from his immersion in the Niagara River, yours truly was busy skulking and gallivanting around town. I approached the store by the alley, from the next street. I stopped to look in the garbage pail, and couldn’t believe it. Someone was throwing perfectly good food away. There were little boxes of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Vim, Rice Krispies, All Bran, Shredded Wheat, Bran Flakes – several types that I’d like to try, but couldn’t afford to purchase a whole big (or small) box, in case I didn’t like them.

They were all “Good-For-You” cereals…. and all that Bran! You wouldn’t be just regular – more like steady. I don’t remember any Sugar Corn Pops, or Sugar Smacks, or Sugar Anything. Sugar hadn’t been invented yet – or perhaps it wasn’t off wartime rationing. That’s why old people like me are sour and bitter. They had nothing sugary to sweeten them up.

The pail was relatively new and clean. The bulk package cardboard was pristine. The small inner packs touched only it. I dug out most of the tiny boxes – as many as my little arms could carry, and quickly headed for home with them. I told my Mother that ‘someone was throwing them away,’ without mentioning the garbage can, and had a bowel-cleansing assortment of breakfasts for almost two weeks.

Even today, there are individuals and groups – and not just homeless people – who regularly comb supermarket dumpsters for food deemed unsalable – packaged meats, cheeses, bread products, even fruit and vegetables, past their ‘Best Before’ dates. They eat it themselves, or donate it to food banks, to be used today. It saves money, and reduces the amount going to landfill sites.

The son works a midnight shift. He leaves work at 7:30 AM, and reaches the nearby supermarket just as it opens at 8:00, to purchase a discount copy of the Toronto Sun newspaper. He has learned to look at the other discount racks. Stock that will be thrown out tomorrow, is on sale today, for 20%, 30% – 50% off. He often comes home with half-price ground beef, steaks, roasts, bread, and buns. What doesn’t become his 9:00 AM ‘midnight snacks’, or goes into his little apartment-sized freezer, often makes its way into the household larder.

Reduce Reuse Recycle! Waste not – Want not. Do you do anything like this, to aid your economy, and the Ecology?

’19 A To Z Challenge – T

Oh, to be able to eat like a teen-ager again: to put away food like we were eating Mom and Dad out of house and home: when my hyper-kinetic lifestyle and metabolism shed calories and pounds like Donald Trump going through White House advisors.

Once upon a time, the majority of people worked for a living. Nowadays, in the First World, the hardest work most of us do is tap a keyboard, whether in an office, or while watching a robot or automated machine do the heavy lifting. Weight loss/control has become an expanding business.

In the auto-parts plant, I moved 9 tons (almost 18,000 pounds) of material per day, by hand, and ate like it. A couple of hundred years ago, that would have been considered the opening act. Those guys needed FOOD to fuel their work. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you

TRENCHERMAN

Not a superhero who lays pipe or cable, but,

a person who has a hearty appetite; a heavy eater.
a person who enjoys food; hearty eater

Origin of trencher

1275–1325; Middle English trenchour something to cut with or on: Anglo-French; Middle French
New French – trancher – board or plank
a rectangular or circular flat piece of wood on which meat, or other food, is served or carved.

The heavy-eating manual laborers who could be described as trenchermen needed something for their food to be served on/in. They could hardly take fine china to their worksite, or even rude pottery. It was often too likely to be broken or lost, and Tupperware© and Rubbermaid© hadn’t been invented yet.

These rough-and-ready laborers got their meals served on rough-and-ready platters, chunks of lumber that didn’t go into the buildings that they were erecting – slivers and splinters just added needed fiber. The nearest modern equivalent is the cardboard pizza box. Although I’d like to, I can’t eat an entire pizza any more – even a small one. Fortunately, Ziploc© has invented plastic bags, in which to save the leftovers for another day.

He left us too soon, partly because of his trencherman actions, but funny-man John Pinette has an amusing YouTube clip, entitled Around The World In 80 Buffets. Drop back in a couple of days. Not too early though, I’ll be over at Shoney’s for their Early Bird Special.   😉

Because I Wrote About It

Because I wrote about it, because I slipped it into several posts, because I even had a post titled “Oleo Olio”, I felt that I should set the record straight, and honor a local almost-hero.  The following is a reprint of an article in the Waterloo Region Record about margarine in Canada.  It is presented without their knowledge or permission, so, if I suddenly open a Patreon account for bail and lawyers, I hope that you will contribute generously.

THE MAN WHO MADE MARGARINE “SAFE”

Kitchener’s William Daum Euler championed butter substitute

Psst!  Want to buy some margarine?  Seventy years ago, that wasn’t a simple question.

As Canadians celebrate the legalization of marijuana this month, they may be forgetting that, just a few generations ago, this country was having a fierce debate about another controlled substance – that’s right, margarine.

Banned in Canada between 1886 and 1948, the oil-based butter substitute was once labelled a serious public health risk.  Its opponents vilified it, calling the spread a “compound of the most villainous character, which is often poisonous,” according to W.H.Heick, who wrote a book on the subject back in 1991.

Many people may remember mixing color packets into their margarine, since Ontario law used to require margarine only be sold in its natural white state.  But they may not know it was a tenacious politician from Waterloo Region who led the campaign to finally legalize it after the Second World War.

Margarine has had a complicated history since it was first created by French chemist Hippolyte Mėge-Mouriės in 1868, by churning beef tallow with milk.  Dairy producers, concerned about a cheaper, longer-lasting alternative to butter, lobbied hard to have it banned.

For decades, they succeeded, convincing law makers it was unsafe and unhealthy for consumers – and bad for their rural economy.  William D. Euler, a Liberal senator and former mayor of Kitchener, had the support of urban organizations like churches, unions and Boards of Trade, as he went to war for margarine.

As part owner of the Kitchener Daily Record, he pushed for editorials supporting the end of the ban.  In 1947, he introduced repeal legislation, and was met with fierce resistance from the dairy lobby.  He wrote letters to newspapers across Canada, pushing his position.  Polls suggested that half the country was behind him – and he leaned on women, veterans, and hospitals for support.

Many Canadians were already using and cooking with margarine, bought on the black market.  Often it was smuggled in from the Dominion of Newfoundland, where it was made from whale, seal and fish oil, by the Newfoundland Butter Company.

Newfoundland, which was still a British colony then, was busy churning out bootleg margarine at about half the price of butter.  Euler, who became the first chancellor of Waterloo Lutheran University, used legalization of margarine as a key bargaining chip in the negotiations with Newfoundland to enter into Confederation.

In November 1947, he got helped by a butter price increase, from 53 to 66 cents a pound, which only reinforced his campaign for a more affordable alternative.  In newspaper pages, town halls, and on Parliament Hill, the debate raged.  Senator James Murdoch accused the butter lobby of using “Communist tactics.”

“The wishes of 150,000 producers of milk had to give way to the desires of 13 Million consumers,” Heick wrote in his book, “A Propensity to Protect Butter – Margarine and the Rise of Urban Culture in Canada.”  The fight went to the Supreme Court, which struck down the ban, and left the control of margarine to the Provinces.  By this point, a poll suggested 68% of Canadians supported legalization – a shift in opinion owed in large part to Euler’s public relations campaign.

Ontario didn’t repeal its Oleomargarine Act until 1995, which made it illegal for companies to make or sell margarine that was colored yellow.  Quebec didn’t follow suit until 2008.  Margarine finally had equal footing with butter, at least in the eyes of the law.  And consumers had a senator from Kitchener to thank for it.

***

What??!  Businessmen would lie, and politicians would support them, for financial gain?  Tell me it ain’t so!  FAKE NEWS!  FAKE NEWS!  You can butter me up by stopping back again soon.  🙂

Flash Fiction #161

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

LOUD AND CLEAR

Uh-huh….
So your grandson got an interview for the assistant quality-control position.
Uh-huh….
It’ll be straight day-shifts, and Monday to Friday, and a raise.

Great!  Look, I’d love to stand and talk, but Hubby’s bringing home his boss and wife.  I’m a little tied up right now.  I’m trying to make her favorite salad to impress them.  It has kale and watercress and pine-nuts.

I have to run to the store to get balsamic vinegar.  I don’t know how it will taste, but it’ll look great in my crystal salad bowl.  Call me later.  I’ll tell you how it went.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.