Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice: The History of Spices and Seasonings

If, like the average human being, you consume nutrients on a daily basis, typically in the format of three main meals, then you’ll probably appreciate just how important the subject of this posting is to level of enjoyment that you derive from those three meals a day.

Spices and seasonings!

These days, we’re so used to having such easy access to spices and seasonings to instantly make our foods look, smell, taste or feel better or different, that most of us hardly give a second thought to where they come from, what they are…or even what they look like!

Since most people consume spices in powdered forms, it’s highly likely that, unless you’re a chef, or a really ardent foodie, you’ve never even seen most spices in their raw forms.

In this posting, we’ll be looking at the most commonly used spices present in the world – their histories, uses, origins, and native forms.

So take a palette-cleanser…things are about to get spicy…

A Brief History of Spices

Spices of any variety have been around for literally thousands of years, but antiquity is no guarantee of accessibility. For much of human history, and well into the 1800s, spices were one of the rarest, most expensive things that money could buy – especially in places like Europe, and the Americas. The reason for this was because most spices grew in the Middle East, and Asia, and had to travel phenomenally long distances – hundreds, thousands of miles – by ship, by horseback, by mule-wagon and other things, as a result – just to reach the market of its destination. The time, effort, trouble, and danger involved in all this transport was what made spices phenomenally expensive, and why anything but the most sparing use of said spices, was a show of real wealth and luxury.

Due to the long journeys involved, and the time taken, not all spices could be enjoyed fresh when they arrived in Europe. For example, ginger was almost always either dried, or powdered. Fresh ginger root was nigh impossible to obtain outside of Asia in an age before fast, industrial transport, as it would have rotted by the time it arrived in England from say, India, or China.

It was for all these reasons that spices were so expensive, and why any liberal use of them by anybody apart from the stinking rich, would’ve been rare. It wasn’t until the later 1800s when mechanical means of transporting spices in days or weeks, rather than months, did they become much more readily available around the world.

Black Pepper


Black pepper is supposed to be the most commonly used spice in the world. And looking at any restaurant dining-table that you’re ever likely to come across, who would doubt it? But what’s its story?

Black pepper, or Piper Nigrum is actually a flowering vine, and the peppercorns that we find inside our pepper-mills are grown as clumps or strands of corns on these vines, which are native to the Kerala regeion of India. Peppercorn vines can grow up to 30ft high!!

The corns are harvested, dried, broken apart into individual pepercorn kernals, and then sold. While there are three types of pepper – black, white, and green – they all come from the same plant. The difference in colour is due to when, and how the vines of peppercorns are harvested and processed, which effects the end taste and colour.

Cinnamon

Aaah cinnamon. It’s good for cookies, cakes, rolls, and even kooky internet challenges. But what is cinnamon, really?

MMmmmm!! Cinnamon! God, I can smell it already…

Cinnamon comes from a tree which is native to Ceylon, India, and Burma. Specifically, cinnamon is the bark of the Ceylon cinnamon tree, which is native to the island and surrounding countries. The bark is peeled off, rolled into tubes, or ‘quills’, and is then dried. It’s these sticks or quills of cinnamon bark which we buy at the supermarket, and it’s these quills which are crushed and ground up into a powder for cooking with. The strong, sweet, pungent taste made cinnamon a valued spice for centuries, and the price of this rarest and most desirable of spices was astronomical in Europe during the Middle Ages.

Saffron

Sweet, pungent, aromatic, and with that beautiful rich red colour, saffron is, has been, and always will be – the King of Spices.

Since ancient times, saffron has been prized above all other spices. Above pepper, above cinnamon, above nutmeg, above just about everything else. It is the most expensive spice in the world, and one of the most expensive items by weight ever produced.

Saffron is the stigmas (the little antennae-tip-things) that grow in the center of the Saffron Crocus flower. Their bright red colour make them stand out vividly against the purple tint of the flower-petals, and it’s these little stigmas which saffron growers hunt down.

Saffron stigmas and a purple saffron flower

The problem is that each saffron flower only grows three stigmas. And they only grow for about a month every year. To get enough stigmas to dry out to make ONE gram of saffron, you need 150 flowers.

So to get enough saffron to sell it in commercial quantities, you would need entire fields of flowers.

The problem is, because they are flowers, you can’t just harvest saffron any old way. It must be done BY HAND. The delicate stigmas won’t stand up to the aggression of machine harvesting, or even rough hand-tools, so every single little red follicle must be picked manually.

And as I said – it takes 150 flowers to produce ONE GRAM of saffron. So to get one kilo of saffron therefore takes about 150,000 flowers.

Imagine if you had to pick 150,000 flowers in just four weeks. By hand.

Now imagine how much goddamn money you would want for all that effort for something so tiny.

Now you know why saffron costs as much as it does.

Saffron has been harvested the same way today as it has been for centuries. Once it’s harvested, it’s dried, and once dried, it’s packaged, and sold. Saffron has been used as a fabric dye, as a medicine, but most notably as a food flavoring for everything from desserts and tarts in Europe, to curries and rice-dishes in Asia. Is it worth its weight in gold? Not quite. But of all the spices on this list – it’s the one the gets the closest!

Sugar

Mmmm sugar! Sweet, sweet, delicious sugar. Mankind has had a love-hate, mutually destructive relationship with sugar, and it’s one that goes back centuries. Although not actually a spice, and rather a sweetener, I’m including it here as it is a flavour enhancer, nonetheless.

Sugar has been known about for centuries, for thousands of years, although it was little understood at the time. Early cultures called sugar ‘white honey’, since honey – the most common sweetener for much of history – was the only substance that most people could compare it to.

Sugar was originally produced from the sap or juice of the sugarcane plant. Sugarcane was difficult to grow, had to be harvested by hand, and was extremely labour-intensive to process. It had to be crushed to extract the juice inside the cane, then the juice had to be boiled to extract the sugar, and then the sugar had to be refined to remove the impurities. The sweet, dark, sticky syrup that comes from the extraction and refining processes is also used as a sweetener – we call it ‘molasses’.

The biggest drawback to early sugar-production, however – was where it was done. Sugarcane really only grows in tropical regions such as Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean. This meant that the places where sugar could be grown and processed on a large scale were small, and the distances it had to travel to reach its desired markets were immense!

Sugar plantations in places like the Deep South of the USA, and in the Caribbean in the 1600s, 1700s and early 1800s were largely slaveholding plantations, where the backbreaking work of harvesting and extraction was done by African slaves. It wasn’t until the late 1700s and the early 1800s that farmers discovered the ability to extract sugar from sugar-beets as well – which were easier to grow in a larger variety of areas – which caused the price of sugar, once so hard to produce and transport – to plummet – and for sugar-consumption in the U.K. alone, to rise by orders of magnitude just within the lifetime of Queen Victoria.

Mace & Nutmeg

Mmm. Nutmeg. Used on almost everything from the Middle Ages onwards, it’s popular on desserts, baked goods, savory dishes and so much more! But what is it?

Believe it or not, mace and nutmeg are (almost) the same thing! Or at least – they both come from the same plant.

Nutmeg comes from the seeds or nuts of the nutmeg tree, which is native to Indonesia.

So much for the nutmeg! Mace, on the other hand, is the outer covering, husk, or ‘aril’ that surrounds nutmeg seeds. To get nutmeg and mace, the seeds are harvested from the tree, and then the aril (outer covering) is peeled off the seed. The husks are dried for several days, changing colour in the process and these dried husks are what becomes mace.

To use nutmeg, all you have to do is to grate or crush the nutmeg to use it in cooking, baking, or flavouring food. Nutmeg was extremely popular in Europe and America, but its price and rarity meant that it was used sparingly.

An antique, sterling silver nutmeg grater. Both sides of the box are hinged. When not in use, the nutmeg nut is stored inside the box, and when it is being used, it’s grated over the rasp and the powder collects inside before it’s used, then the nut is put back into the box and the whole thing is closed up for storage

The spice was so prized that it was even stored inside purpose-made nutmeg boxes, which usually had built-in rasps or graters used to scrape off the necessary amounts of powder from the physical nut, so that it could be used to flavour food. Often made of solid silver, nutmeg grater-boxes are some of the most expensive antiques for their size in the world, and were usually made in all kinds of whimsical shapes and styles.

Ginger

Everybody loves ginger! From roast meats to curries, from sauces and soups to…gingerbread! Yay!!

Ginger is the rhizome or root of the zingibe officinale flowering plant. It’s use in food and medicine goes back centuries and centuries and centuries, and was first mentioned in text by the legendary Chinese scholar Kong Fuzi...does that name sound familiar? In English, it’s translated as…Confucius.

Yes. THAT Confucius! Confucius says!

And Confucius says – a lot! In particular, he said that he ate ginger with almost all his meals, that it was a digestive aid, and that ginger was imported to China from the South Pacific. In particular, from Oceania, and specifically – from Indonesia and the islands surrounding it. Ginger’s pungent taste made it a popular flavouring, and it has been used in Asian cooking (and traditional medicines) for literally thousands of years. Ginger made its way to Europe in the first century A.D., and was mentioned in the writings of Ancient Roman statesman, Pliny the Elder – who – unlike his nephew – Pliny the Younger – did not survive the 79A.D. eruption of Mount Vesuvius near the Roman town of Pompeii.

Unfortunately, ginger root could not be transported fresh to Europe all the way from Southeast Asia – it would never survive the journey without going mouldy – so the spice was often dried, or even powdered, before transport, so that it could arrive in places like Italy or England in a usable, if not exactly fresh – state. Ginger’s most famous use in European cooking is in gingerbread! The dense, sweet, sticky paste made from flour, ginger, nutmeg, honey and citrus peel was often so viscous that it could be shaped into almost anything – like gingerbread men – or, if your dough was strong enough – even a full-blown model gingerbread house – just like Hansel and Gretel. Gingerbread, just like almost anything sweet and/or spicy in medieval times, was a luxury, and only royalty or nobility could normally afford to enjoy this treat, since the ingredients that made the gingerbread…eh…gingery…cost such astronomical amounts of money.

Cloves

Mmmm!! Cloves! Popular in Asian and Western dishes for centuries, cloves are the dried flower-buds that come from the tree Syzygium Aromaticum – a type of myrtle tree. The tree is – you guessed it!…native to Indonesia! They weren’t called the ‘Spice Islands’ for nothing! Cloves are used in sweet and savory dishes, and clove extract (or ‘clove oil’) is a popular natural medicine, which nowadays is being explored to understand its potential medicinal effects and uses.

Star Anise


Aren’t star anise cute!? These spiky, usually eight-sided spices come from a tree in southern China and have been used for medicine, cooking, flavouring and even cosmetics – for centuries. The name comes from its star-like shape, and because its flavour is similar to the anise flower, from which we get aniseed – another popular flavouring agent. In fact, because star anise tastes so similar to actual aniseed, it’s become a popular flavouring agent in baking, and cooking, and is widely used in things like toothpastes and perfumes, as a cheaper alternative to aniseed.

Cardamom

Originating in India, cardamom is a spice related to ginger, and is grown in the form of pods or seeds of the cardamom plant. Today, it’s more often found in Malaysia and Guatemala than India, but it remains a popular spice in Indian (and other southeast-Asian) cuisines.

Apart from its culinary uses, cardamom is also used as a drug or medicine – it can even be smoked! As medicine, its most common use is as a digestive aid, but it can also be drunk in tea-form to lower blood-pressure, or to help treat fatty-liver disease – sounds mighty useful for something that you might use when you’re busy baking desserts!

Vanilla

Yes, believe it or not, but that thing which flavours your custard tarts, ice cream and other desserts – is a spice!

Raw, dried vanilla beans

Vanilla comes from the pods, or ‘beans’ of the Vanilla Orchid, which is native to Mexico. Believe it or not, but on the “spice rarity scale”, true vanilla flavouring is actually the second-rarest and second-most-expensive spice in the world!…which one is first? That’s right – Saffron!

But how could a spice that’s used in all kinds of desserts, not to mention incalculable quantities of ice-cream – be so rare!?

Like saffron, it’s because real vanilla is bloody hard to grow!

See, for the vanilla beans or pods to sprout, the vanilla flower which produces them, has to be pollinated. If this was left up to nature, it would take forever, and we’d never get the chance to ever enjoy the stuff – but fortunately for us, there are other ways to stimulate a vanilla plant. The first method was discovered in 1837 by a Belgian botanist named Charles Morren. His research led him to the realisation that the vanilla orchid is pollinated by the rare melipone bee, which is native to South America. The problem is that waiting for bees to pollinate the flowers could take forever! Morren tried to speed up the process, but was unsuccessful, and his method failed to bear fruit!…or in this case…uh…vanilla pods.

Surprisingly, the person who DID discover how to grow vanilla wasn’t Belgian, and wasn’t even a scientist! He was a 12-year-old African slave-boy named Edmond Albius! Like Morren before him, Albius discovered that you didn’t need cute little bees to pollinate vanilla flowers – that it could be done by hand. The problem was that Morren’s method was too haphazard to work properly. Albius’s breakthrough was using a stem or stick, or even a blade of grass, to manipulate the flower so that the pollen from the stamen inside the flower could be transferred to the stigma – thereby pollinating the flower!

Nearly two centuries later, and vanilla orchids are still pollinated in this exact same way as little Edmond had done, way back in 1841! The method is easy, and quick, but because it’s so delicate, it’s an operation which can only be done by hand – this is why real, true, authentic vanilla pods are so rare, and expensive – because every single flower has to be fertilised by hand.

Conclusion

And this concludes our foray into the delicious world of spices. Are these all the spices in the world? Certainly not, but they are among the most commonly used. These days, people are so used to getting their spices in powders and packets, containers and bottles, that they tend to forget what they look like, where they come from, or even, how rare and difficult they used to be to obtain. Hopefully this posting has been an informative, entertaining and educational look at how our spices came to be, where they came from, and why they were once among the most valuable commodities in the world.

 

Vintage-Style Brass Tiffin Carrier

Antique brassware has been one of my most popular areas of collecting for as long as I can remember. I just love the golden glow of brass, the aging, the patina…it’s something you don’t usually get with the flat, white, sterile look of steel – stainless, or otherwise.

Brass, for those who don’t know, is an alloy metal – a mixture of copper, and zinc, with a majority of copper, and minority of zinc. The zinc gives the copper strength, but also the famous, glossy, golden shine that brass is famous for.

For centuries, brass had been the metal of choice for manufacturing all kinds of things, from doorknobs to cookware, fire-irons to padlocks and keys. The reason for this is quite simple – brass doesn’t rust.

This robust and relatively easily-maintained metal was therefore ideal for a wide range of applications where steel or iron was inappropriate. It’s why, for example, you see a lot of brassware on old ships – porthole frames, bells, wheelhouse mechanisms, etc – because it could be exposed to the wet and cold out at sea, without rusting like steel would. All that had to be done to keep it serviceable was the occasional polish.

It was all these qualities of brass – its strength, it’s ability to resist rust, and its relatively low maintenance to achieve a beautiful, glossy shine, that made brass the ideal material for manufacturing food containers – in particular – tiffin carriers.

What is a Tiffin Carrier?

A tiffin carrier, or tiffin box, is a food storage and transport container made out of stackable compartments, held together in a rigid frame with a carry-handle on top. They’re usually made of brass, or enameled steel (or in modern times, also stainless steel). They’re descended from the stackable bowls and baskets (made of bamboo) used in China for centuries, for storing, transporting, and even cooking food.

The modern tiffin carrier was invented in the 1800s, and is named after the Anglo-Indian slang word for ‘lunch’ or ‘afternoon tea’ – ‘Tiffin’! That’s because these stackable metal containers became popular as lunchboxes for transporting things like curry, rice, noodles, dumplings and other delicious treats safely and comfortably when going to work. The separate compartments kept the various food-components apart from each other – after all, you don’t want your naan bread or roti getting soggy from the curry, and you don’t want your sweet tarts smelling like last night’s leftover beef, do you?

Tiffin carriers ranged in size, from one or two compartments, to up to half a dozen or more! The standard size is between 3-4 compartments, with three being the most common.

My New Brass Tiffin Carrier!

I’ve always wanted a brass tiffin carrier that I could always – y’know – use! I just find the steel ones so boring, and the enamel ones aren’t always as attractive as I’d like them to be. After weighing up my options between buying an antique and getting one new, I decided to bite the bullet and get a new one instead. For what is, essentially – an old lunchbox – antique tiffin carriers – either in brass, or enameled steel – are surprisingly expensive! $200-$300+ (and that doesn’t include the postage!) is really common for the old brass ones…and easily 3-4 times that price for the enamel ones!

All stacked, locked, and in one piece.

After a bit of digging, I found a website that sold really, really nice Indian-made domestic brassware products. In case you don’t know, India is really famous for making brassware. If you ever want nice brassware – bowls, cups, candlesticks, etc…buy it from India. Antique Indian brassware is also really nice – but like I said – can also be really expensive! So I went modern, instead. The site was also having a big end-of-year sale, so I ended up with a nearly 70% discount!

The carrier I ended up buying was identical to the antique brass tiffin carriers made in India 100+ years ago, in every single respect – so I got an antique-quality piece of brassware with the benefit of modern manufacturing – and for a fraction of what it would’ve cost to buy it secondhand! Having bought an antique brass one in the past, I know how much they cost!

The Parts of the Carrier

So, what are the various component parts of the tiffin carrier? How are they used?

Every tiffin carrier has three basic components: The compartments, the lid, and the rack, or frame, that holds it all together. The compartments, or bowls, are recessed, so that they stack neatly, one on top of the other. In most instances, which order you stack the compartments in is irrelevant, but in some models (such as mine), there is a specific top-compartment, which always goes on last (what order you stack the other ones in really doesn’t matter).

The reason for this is because second component, the lid, has to be firmly fitted on top. On mine, the lid was flat, but on some carriers, the lids also held little storage compartments of their own (usually used for things like spices or chili sauce, etc). Most tiffin carrier lids are designed to be flipped over so that you can use them as plates!

The third component of any good tiffin carrier is the frame or rack that holds everything together. These vary greatly in design, depending on the age and style of the carrier. Mine was made up of a simple circular base-plate, and two hinged brass straps on the side, with a hinged handle on top, and a hinged pin and latch to hold everything shut.

The frame with the latch open. The pin goes through the large hole, the latch holds both parts of the handle together, and then a padlock goes through the smaller hole underneath (which also goes through the handle) to lock everything super-securely. Padlocks are optional.

For extra security, the latch that holds the frame shut even comes with a set of holes punched through it – this is for you to slip a padlock around the frame, or even just tie some string or a piece of wire to hold the latch shut. You don’t need to, of course, and the frame holds together just fine without it, but this padlock-hole in the security latch is a common feature in a lot of antique tiffin carriers.

I mean hey, you don’t want some jackass stealing your candy-bar, do you?

How Do You Use It?

It’s easy, really. You swing out the latch, you open the frame, and then you take out the compartments and fill them with food. Tiffin carriers are designed to carry “bulk” foods – stuff like rice, pasta, and noodles. If your carrier is large enough, you can also put sandwiches and stuff in there, but they’re not really designed for that. But if you’re taking leftover spaghetti and meatballs, or leftover Chinese food or last night’s sushi for lunch at the office – a tiffin carrier is great for that!

The brass sides of the frame unlatched and folded down to access the compartments inside.

You fill each compartment with food until it’s just below the top, stack it into the frame, and then pop the other compartments on top, put the lid on and then close it. Just keep in mind that tiffin carriers can be heavy, even before you fill it with lunch! Mine weighed 1.44kg (approx 3lbs) completely empty!

Purchasing Antique Brass Tiffin Carriers

For my early Christmas present, I bought myself a brand-new brass carrier, built to antique specifications and with a solid tin lining on the interior, just like grandma used to make! Mmm-mmm!

But – what if you actually want to buy a REAL antique brass tiffin carrier – like the ones that grandma actually used? Can you do that, too?

Hell yeah! But there’s a lot of things to consider, first.

First and foremost – the price. Antique tiffin carriers are expensive! $200 – $500+, depending on condition, style, how fancy they are. And that doesn’t include postage (remember, these things are heavy!).

Antique, brass tiffin carrier, made in India. As you can see, it’s quite literally identical to mine in every way, except that this one is about 130 years older and pretty beat up.

Just like bored kids in the schoolyard playground, our ancestors were also huge fans of pimping up their lunchboxes, and you better bet they did a good job of it! That extra decorations (which can be anything from engravings to flowery embossing, or even painting or gold-leafing on the fancy enamel carriers) can drive the prices WAAAY up because of how rare they can be. The more elaborate the decorations, the more expensive the carrier becomes.

Most modern steel carriers cost a pittance. You can find them in shops all over Asia=, and they can be bought online for a song. As I’ve already proven – you can buy a modern brass carrier for a fraction of what the antique ones cost! So if you do want to buy an antique one – be prepared to spend. A lot!

The second most important thing to pay attention to is the condition of the brass itself.

The good thing about brass is that it doesn’t rust, but it can, in rare instances, corrode. This is usually caused by ammonia, or by acids, and in really bad cases, brass can flat-out just crack and shatter!…you don’t want that.

If your brass has cracked, then it’s best to keep searching.

Another really common condition issue is denting. Remember, antique brass tiffin carriers were used every single day – for decades. They were, quite literally – used hard, and put away wet. Because of this, denting is a really common problem. Fortunately, brass is fairly malleable. With a few good hammer-strikes and the right amount of padding, most dents that you can hit, you can pop back out or smooth over. Ideally you want to avoid doing this at all, but if you don’t mind it, then the prices can drop a bit.

The third thing to pay attention to is the frame or rack that holds the carrier together. These are often just made of bent flat strips of brass or steel, which have been shaped into position. The problem is that just as easily as they can be bent into shape, they can also be bent out of shape!

Make sure that any antique brass tiffin carriers you buy have frames which are in good condition. No cracking, no warping, bending or kinking. If the frame isn’t centered and straight, then it’s not going to hold everything together properly, and the last thing you want is the whole damn thing falling apart the moment you pick it up – that’s generally not a good sign. Some frames can be bent back into shape if they’ve been a little kinked-up, but severe damage should be avoided.

The final thing to pay attention to is the interior lining.

The interior with its tin lining. Even the underside of the lid is lined in tin. If your antique brass tiffin carrier doesn’t have a lining like this, then you should think twice before buying it, if you’re intending to use it.

As I said – brass tiffin carriers are always lined inside the compartments with a solid coating of inert metal – almost always either tin, or nickel. This is to prevent the brass from corroding when in contact with acidic foods, and leeching out unpleasant toxins. So long as the lining is intact, the carrier is safe to eat from. If it isn’t, or if it’s wearing really thin, then it’s time to either keep searching, or else – if you want to – pay to the get the lining redone.

Can you re-tin antique brassware all on your own? Absolutely! In fact, here’s an Instructable on how to do it, if you can find all the materials that you’ll need.

In short: Any antique brass tiffin carrier you buy should be in solid, workable condition. All the pieces should fit together smoothly, the frame should hold everything together without rattling or shaking, and should be straight and without damage. The inside of the brass containers should be solidly lined with tin. If they aren’t, either keep searching, or purchase the antique carrier with a view to getting the interiors re-tinned.

Concluding Remarks

So – what are my final thoughts on this latest addition to my brassware collection?

Well: It’s solid, well-built, is really robust, and is large enough to hold a decent amount of food without being excessively bulky. It opens easily, but also closes really securely, and has the option of being locked, if you want it – which isn’t a feature found on most modern tiffin carriers – or on modern lunchboxes in general!

It has all the vintage styling that one could want, with none of the disadvantages of buying an actual antique, such as high prices, restoration, or checking for damage. And even when it isn’t being used, it’s still a really nice piece of home decor – which is not something you could say of…say…a thermos flask.

All in all, a great product.


 

A Delicious History of Yum Cha

If you’ve ever grown up in a country, or a city, with a large ethnic Chinese population, or been invited out for lunch by Chinese friends, then you might well have experienced the Chinese custom known as “yum cha”.

But what is Yum Cha, where does it come from, what does it mean, and what are the customs and traditions that surround this most Chinese of Chinese meals? Today, we find out together.

What is Yum Cha?

Literally, “Yum Cha” means “Drink Tea”, in the Chinese dialect of Cantonese, spoken largely in southern China and Hong Kong. In a broader context, “yum cha” refers to a late-morning or early-afternoon meal, eaten with friends and family, which comprises of loads of dumplings, small dishes, light meals and pots of Chinese loose-leaf tea. In this respect, “yum cha” is similar to the British traditions of Elevenses, Brunch, Morning Tea, Luncheon, or Afternoon Tea, in that it is a meal taken with tea, shared with friends, and made up of loads of little snacks and dishes.

A word commonly associated with “yum cha” is “dim sum”. What is it?

Various dim sum dishes in their round, bamboo steamer-baskets. Almost all dim sum are either steamed, or fried, because it’s faster to cook.


Dim sum refers to the small dishes served to diners in yum cha restaurants, usually in bamboo steamer-baskets. Most people think that “dim sum” refers to dumplings, but actually it can refer to any of these small dishes served in this manner, which accompanies the tea. Together, tea and dim sum = yum cha.

Where did Yum Cha come from?

The tradition of dim sum, light snacks (the words ‘dim sum’ translate to ‘barely fill your stomach’) eaten during late morning or early afternoon, date back centuries, and are believed to go as far back as the Song Dynasty in the 1000s or 1100s A.D. At this time, tea and dim sum remained separate entities, and there was not yet a meal which combined them both. This remained the case for centuries. The combination of tea and dim sum, to create the meal known today as “yum cha”, is believed to have started in Canton Province (Guandong Province today) in the 19th century.

Originally, the focus of the establishments which served tea and dim sum was still on the service of tea, and were still identified largely as tea-houses. However, as the 1800s progressed, it made more sense to combine service of tea and dim sum together, in a purpose-built restaurant – this became known as yum cha.

One of the first mentions of yum cha in literature was by the Xianfeng Emperor of China, who ruled during the mid-1800s, when he wrote of “one cent houses”, referring to how a cheap meal comprised of tea and dim sum could be purchased at special restaurants.

And yum cha culture flourished from there!

Yum Cha flourished, especially in southern China through the late 1800s into the 1910s, 20s and 30s. The growing Civil War, the Sino-Japanese War, and the Second World War forced many refugees to flee mainland China, settling in Taiwan, and Hong Kong, where they could live beyond the grip of the communists. These refugees also fled to British colonies in Southeast Asia, particularly Malaya and Singapore (where they were known as “Sinkeh” or “New Guests”).

Where-ever it was that they ended up – they brought their yum cha culture and expertise with them, and established yum cha restaurants in these new locations. Apart from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, war-refugees also fled to Australia, New Zealand and to the West Coast of the USA, where a large Chinese expat community (largely based around San Francisco) already existed, introducing western audiences to yum cha dining. When the wars ended in the 1940s and 50s, yum cha dining took off once more. It has remained popular ever since.

Yum Cha Customs

For yum cha virgins who have never attended (or attended very few) yum cha meals, there are certain traditions or customs which are followed to ensure a pleasant, comfortable and enjoyable dining experience. Here are the main ones to take note of. Not everybody follows them, and not all of them make sense, but they’re interesting to think about, nonetheless…

Keeping the Lid Up

“Fill ‘er up!”

While you can of course, order other drinks while enjoying yum cha, the traditional drink is, of course – tea. The meal wouldn’t be called “drink tea” without it, now would it?

When the pot is low on tea, pick up the teapot lid and flip it over, or close it halfway. This is the traditional way of getting a waiter’s attention that the pot is empty and needs refilling.

Tapping the Table

Another really common yum cha practice is finger or knuckle-tapping. This is done when somebody else at the table refills your teacup during the meal, but you can’t (or don’t want) to stop and thank them verbally. This is either because you’re eating, reaching for something to eat, or are busy talking, and don’t want to interrupt the conversation. Traditionally, it’s done by tapping the index and middle-finger together on the table, or the first knuckles of the same two fingers.

This practice is said to have originated in the 1700s during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, who ruled China for sixty-odd years between the 1730s-1790s. While traveling incognito around his kingdom, he insisted on pouring tea for his dining companions, like anybody else. As the emperor was deified by the Chinese people, this was seen as a gigantic honour for the recipient. The traditional way to acknowledge this was to kowtow in the emperor’s presence – something which would’ve of course, immediately blown his cover! Instead, the emperor asked his friends and companions to knuckle-tap instead. The bent fingers symbolised kneeling, and tapping the knuckles represented bowing to the floor.

Is this legend true? Not very likely, if at all. But it is a fun urban legend to spread around. The truth is that we may never know where the tradition of finger/knuckle-tapping came from, but what is true is that people still do it today.

A Group Affair

Yum Cha is always done with friends and/or family. I guess you could yum cha alone, but…that’d be pretty sad, wouldn’t it? Plus, you’ve got all that damn food to eat! Nah, yum cha is always done with others, and always in the late morning, or over lunchtime, into the afternoon. Nobody goes out to yum cha for dinner. It’s just not the done thing.

To Peel or Not to Peel, that is the Question…

…whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer from the bacteria and fungi, or by peeling, end them…

A popular staple of yum cha are steamed buns! Charsiew Bao (pork buns), or similar buns (usually served as part of dessert) come hot from the wok, all steamed, shiny, glossy and smooth on top! Some people will tell you that if you eat these buns, you should always peel away the shiny upper skin on top of the bun, to expose the soft, fuzzy under-pastry beneath, prior to eating.

Right?

Eeeehm…no.

The reasoning behind this practice dates back to the days when you could buy buns like these from street-vendors. The belief was that since you didn’t know who had handled the food, or how it was cooked or steamed, you should always peel the shiny layer of dough off the top of the bun, before eating the bun itself. This stopped you from getting all kinds of bacteria and nasty stuff in your food when you ate it. But is there any truth to this?

Hehehe…no.

The fact is, if there is anything on top, it’d be killed off during the steaming process, so eat that bun confidently, with pride, indulgence, and enjoyment!

BUT!

Do, please, make sure, that you peel off the PAPER LINER that is UNDERNEATH the bun, before you eat it. Or else, you’re going to look like an idiot trying to explain to people why you’re chewing on a sheet of paper with your meal. Or you could just tell them that it’s extra protein or whatever. I dunno. Yummy, yummy protein… Regardless, no, you don’t need to peel anything, except for the paper liner – which, by the way, is there to stop the bun from gluing itself to the bamboo steamer-basket during cooking.

Concluding Remarks

Anyway, that’s the end of this little look at one of Chinese cuisine’s most popular and famous creations: Yum cha! Now, go forth – eat, drink, and be merry. Or at least try to be, in our current global climate.

 

National Foods which Aren’t National! A Tasty History

We all love to eat. And we all have particular foods, or dishes that we hold dear to our hearts, out of nostalgic, sentimental or patriotic reasons. Every nation and culture on earth have dishes that they regard as sacred, and as being quintessentially part of their lives. But not all is what it seems. In this posting, I’ll be talking about just a few of the dishes and foods which have surprising backstories.

Let us begin!

Food: The Hamburger
Claimant: The USA.
Origin Country: Germany.

Aah, the hamburger! The quintessential fast-food menu staple! But why are they called hamburgers when there’s…no ham…inside them?

The original “Hamburger”, a Hamburg Steak, popularly eaten in Germany for centuries. Sandwich versions of this steak became the ‘Hamburger’ we know today.

Actually, hamburgers are named after the city of their origin – Hamburg, Germany! The original concoction was a simple ground beef sandwich. When the people of Hamburg (also called ‘Hamburgers’) moved to the USA, they took their “Hamburg Steak Sandwiches” along with them. Deciding that this was an even bigger mouthful than the sandwiches themselves, Americans shortened them to just ‘hamburger’, and later on, shorter still, to just ‘burger’.

Food: Fish and Chips
Claimant: The UK
Origin Country: Various.

Ah, fish and chips! We like fish and chips! As British as bad weather, hot tea, and more accents than you can shake a stick at, fish and chips has long been seen as a staple of British cuisine!

Right?

Wrong.

Actually, fish and chips only goes back to Victorian times, barely two hundred years ago! The idea of battered, crumbed fish, deep-fried in oil (or as was common in Victorian times – beef tallow…mmm…tallow!), actually comes, not from England, but from Russia! Observant Russian Jews would abstain from doing any useful work on the Sabbath Day, except that which was absolutely essential, as dictated by their religious teachings. This includes the kindling of flames.

Fish and chips! Mmm…

Since you can’t kindle flames on the Sabbath, you can’t cook. So instead, they would batter, crumb and fry their fish the night before, so that they would have a quick, convenient and delicious food to eat the next day. This custom of frying fish came to England with the immigration of Russian and Polish Jews in the 1800s when they fled pogroms in Eastern Europe.

The idea of chunks of potato being fried in a similar manner comes from Belgium. Unable to fish during the winter months, Belgians would dice up potatoes into slabs or blocks and deep-fry them in oil or tallow as a fish-substitute. This method of cooking potatoes is also what gave rise to the “french fry”, since they were created in the French-speaking area of Belgium. That said, American-style French-fries are much thinner than British/Commonwealth-style Chips.

The first fish-and-chip shop…or as most people affectionately call them – chippies! – dates back to around 1860 in Britain. Fish and chips were a fast, tasty, filling, and relatively cheap dish. The industrial revolution allowed for the widespread construction of railroad networks which allowed for fish, potatoes, and other foods and vegetables to be, for the first time, transported in-bulk across the country in a matter of hours, rather than days or weeks. This spike in the availability of fish meant that the price dropped and it was cheap enough to be fried up and served to the working-classes as a convenient and crispy lunchtime snack.

Food: Doughnuts!
Claimant: The USA
Origin: The Netherlands.

Mmmm. Doughnuts. The staple food of Homer Simpson, Garfield the Cat and most American children, the doughnut has long since been a popular sweet snackfood. Chocolate-stuffed, jam-filled, custard-pumped, cinnamon-dusted, sugar-glazed…the list of varieties goes on forever!

But where do they come from?

Despite their popularity in the ‘States, doughnuts actually come from the Netherlands, and were brought to what would eventually become Manhattan, with the Dutch immigration in the 17th century. The doughnut is directly descendant from the Dutch Oly Koek, literally ‘Oily Cake’, so-named because it was a sweet cake or bun that was cooked by being fried in oil (much as most doughnuts are still made today).

Variations of the Oly Koek remained popular in the area around what would become New York City for centuries, and are mentioned in the writings of early American writer, Washington Irving, who said that to find the genuine Dutch original, you had to find Old Dutch families who had been living in New York for generations!

Traditional Dutch ‘Oly Koeks’ or ‘Oily Cakes’, the precursor to the modern doughnut.

The first record of a ‘dough nut’ comes from the early 1800s, when it was mentioned in an English-language cookbook from 1803. By the end of the decade, the spelling of “doughnut” or “dough nut” had become accepted, and the original Dutch snack was slowly morphing into the treat we know today.

Doughnuts at this time were not as we would currently recognise them, however. The majority still resembled buns rather than circles of sweetness. Although debate seems to rage over this, it appears that the modern holed doughnut was invented in the mid-1800s as a way to make the doughnuts cook more evenly when they were deep-fried.

Food: Chop Suey
Claimant: N/A. Supposed origin: China.
Origin: The USA.

Any film, or book, set or written back in the 1800s or early 1900s in the USA that mentions Chinese culture or food is likely to mention this dish at one time or another. It’s mentioned in the 1936 film “San Francisco”, when two characters decide to go out for a meal of ‘chop suey’.

At the time, it was believed by unknowing Americans, that chop suey was a genuine Chinese dish. It isn’t, a fact more widely known today than it once was. The word ‘chop suey’ is a corruption of the Chinese words “Za Sui”, which basically means “Bits and Pieces”. This is because chop suey was usually made out of whatever food was available and served up to hungry people looking for a cheap meal. As such, it doesn’t really have a recognised ‘recipe’. These days, ‘chop suey’ is largely seen as a historical curiosity, but there was a time when most people with limited knowledge of Chinese cuisine literally didn’t know any better.

Food: The Croissant.
Claimant: France.
Origin: Austria & Germany.

Ah! La croissant! The Crescent! Leavened dough folded, folded, folded and refolded over and over sheets of butter, before being proofed, and baked, and coming out hot, savory, tangy and crunchy and soft and oh-so-rich…mmmmm.

Who doesn’t like croissants? They’re as French as the Eiffel Tower and beheading the nobility! But believe it or not…they’re not french at all!

The East-European Kifli, or Kipferl, the precursor to the modern croissant.

The croissant actually originated in Austria, created by Viennese bakers who were creating a type of bread roll known as a “Kipferl” (literally “Twisted” or “Curved”). The idea of a leavened-dough roll or bun in the shape of a crescent migrated to France with Austrian immigrants in the 1800s, but even then, it wasn’t a Frenchman who was responsible for the transition from Kipferl to Croissant!

Zang’s bakery (on the left) in Paris, photographed in 1909, after his death.

Again, it was an Austrian, a former army officer turned civilian baker, August Zang, who moved to Paris in the 1830s. In Paris, Zang set up the “Boulangerie Viennoise” (literally “The Viennese Bakery”), where he sold modified versions of his native Kipferl, which became known as the ‘Croissant’ we love today.

 

Grinding through History – Antique Brass Spice Mills

These are pretty neat, aren’t they?

I picked these up at my local flea-market before it closed for Christmas. The last market of the year – almost everybody was selling stuff off cheap. One last chance to make money before three weeks of nothing. As a result, these were going cheap!

“What the hell are they??” I hear you ask.

Well, they’re antique brass spice mills! Ain’t they just the cutest lil’ things you ever saw in your life??

OK, okay…ok…let’s be a bit more serious now…

What are they, really?

Well that’s a bit of a tricky question to answer, actually.

The short answer is that according to all the research I’ve done, they are spice mills, used for grinding up things like coffee, salt, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg and whatever else you can cram inside them. But that’s not entirely true. See, mills of this design were originally meant, not for spices, but coffee beans!

They originated with the Greek army because apparently Greek soldiers needed a lot of coffee to make it through a day’s fighting. The problem was that to get the coffee, they had to grind the beans, and grinding beans on the move was a problem, because of how chunky old-fashioned coffee-mills were. Have you seen those things? They’re huge!

To find a compact and portable alternative, some bright spark came up with these things!

Now, they do come in various sizes. All the way from well over a foot long, down to about five or six inches in height. The small mill is about 7.5in high, which makes it a medium, while the other mill is about 13in high, which makes a large! In fact, I don’t think any current manufacturers produce a mill this big!

“So what are they used for?”

As I said, originally these were coffee mills, but these days, people use them for all kinds of things. They’re very popular as spice-mills, for grinding pepper, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon…basically anything that you can cram inside it! The fineness of the grind is adjusted by the screw or nut inside the base of the grinder. A tighter nut means a finer grind (because the grinding-wheels are closer together) whereas a looser nut means a more coarse grind (from the wheels being further apart).

Mills like these have been popular for over a hundred years. And it’s not hard to see why – they’re beautifully made, extremely robust, and they have a huge capacity! They’re also pretty easy to clean.

“How do they work, then?”

The basic operation is pretty easy. You remove the handle, take off the dome-cap, and then you fill the mill with whatever spice you need to grind. You put the cap and the handle back on, and then start grinding.

As you turn the handle, the wheels grind, and the resultant ground-up spices are collected in the base. This stops them sprinkling and spraying all over the place and keeps things neat and tidy. It’s a ridiculously simple design, and I think, very effective and sensible.

“That thing looks COOL!…I want one! GIMME!”

What!? No! Bugger off! Gitcher own darn spice mill!

In all honesty, if you do want one of these things, they’re pretty easy to find. Spend enough time at your local flea-market and you’ll eventually find one. I’ve seen loads of them go through my market for years. I never bought one because I never saw their appeal until now. They’re usually pretty cheap – these two cost almost nothing – and once they’ve been cleaned and such, they’ll last a lifetime!

If you’re after a new one though, they are still made brand new – and you can buy them online. They’re manufactured in Greece, the country of their birth, by a company called Atlas. These might not carry the earth and heavens on their shoulders, but they can grind up a world of spices for you! And they’ll do it with style. Although I generally reckon – not with half as much style as the older ones do!

 

“Why Salt and Pepper?”

I found this highly entertaining YouTube video this morning. Was uploaded a few days ago by the channel ‘It’s OK to be Smart’:

Highly informative and mostly accurate, EXCEPT for the part about Medieval cooks putting pepper on rotten meat. That has been a persistent myth for centuries. It never happened. It never happened because pepper in the Middle Ages was EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE. No cook who wished to remain in his master’s employ would dared to have wasted such expensive spices on meat already past its prime.

Other than that, a fascinating look into the history of salt and pepper 🙂

 

Making a Meal of it – The History of our Meals and Their Times

Sailors in the Royal Navy received three “square meals” a day, served to them in a wooden, square tray, which wouldn’t slide and roll around on a rocking, creaking sailing ship.

Each morning, we break our evening fast, with the first meal of the day. At night, we dine upon dinner, or sup upon supper. We take dinner in the afternoon and supper at night, or lunch in the afternoon and dinner at night, and supper as a late-night snack. We have elevenses, morning tea, afternoon tea, Bruncheon, Tiffin, coffee-breaks, tea-breaks…Where did all our different meal-names and meal-times come from?

Get yourself something to eat while we sink our teeth into the history of our meals.

“Breakfast”

“We’ve had breakfast, yes! But what about second breakfast!?” 
“I don’t think he knows about second breakfasts, Pip…”LOTR

Breakfast! That meal that’s so important, hobbits have it twice a day!

In our modern lives, breakfast is our regular morning meal, eaten any time between daybreak and noon. But why do we call it ‘breakfast’? Why not sunmeal or upfeed or dawning snack?

The word ‘Breakfast‘ comes from the Middle Ages, when days often started at sun-up, with hard physical labour, working the land. Or started with morning prayers in a monastery or church. Most people would rise at dawn, and not eat until they had tilled fields, split firewood, fed the animals, prayed and handled the most important of household chores during the limited hours of daylight. It was only after this exertion that one could ‘break one’s fast’. Eventually, it just became known as ‘breakfast’.

Breakfast staples such as pancakes, bacon and eggs, toast, and porridge, developed over the centuries. In the days before Lent, people observed Collop Monday and Shrove Tuesday. The two days before Ash Wednesday.

During these days, people had to use up all their meat and perishable foodstuffs before the period of abstinence called Lent, since none of these things would last and would rot during the period of fasting.

So came about pancakes (which used up extra eggs, flour and dairy), and bacon and eggs, which used up excess eggs, and meat. A ‘collop‘ is a slice of meat, so basically ‘Meat Monday’.

Most countries around the world survived on porridge or pottage for breakfast, and every society has its own variation. Rice congee or porridge in Asia, oat or barley porridge in Europe, cornmeal porridge or gruel in the Americas.

In Samuel Johnson’s famous dictionary, the entry of “Oats” is hilariously defined as: “Eaten by people in Scotland, but fit only for horses in England“, to which a reply was typically: “What fine people, and what fine horses!

In England, the ‘Full English’ breakfast was typically the norm for those who could afford it, during the 19th century. Bacon, eggs, sausages, toast, beans, black pudding, and tea. A substantial amount of food to keep the body fueled during hard labour on the farm, or in one of the new manufacturing jobs that was popping up around England during the Victorian era.

Cornflakes and other breakfast cereals started appearing in the late 1800s, in the years after the American Civil War. These were championed as healthfoods by such people as John Harvey Kellogg. J.H. Kellogg, along with his brother William Keith, were vegetarians, and believed strongly in a grain-based diet, without the eggs, meat, bacon, and sausages common on the breakfast tables of the 1800s.

One of the more interesting reasons as to why the Kellogg brothers developed cornflakes was due to their views on sex. As Seventh Day Adventists, they believed in sexual abstinence. Surely, a change in diet would distract people from their morning shag, and make them better, more holy people?

Not if you feed them a rich, healthy, carbohydrate breakfast which gives them lots of energy to enjoy their morning romp even more…

But then, Dr. J. Kellogg was a man who believed in the wholesome benefits of yoghurt enemas.

So much for the dietary views of Dr. Kellogg…

Throughout most of history, breakfast was eaten…whenever. It wasn’t until the 1700s that it started seriously becoming a morning meal. The long working-hours of farmers, industrialists, inventors and the landed gentry…okay maybe not the last one…meant that a meal in the morning before heading off to work was necessary, and it wasn’t practical to go home for a meal halfway through the day, so it was eaten as early as possible before heading off into the humdrum routine of the day. By the Victorian period, Breakfast was well and truly set as the morning meal.

Brunch!

We imagine brunch as a modern thing. Housewives have it with their friends. The rich and idle have it when they wake up late from drowning in their Egyptian cotton sheets. It’s the lazy dude’s meal. Right?

Wrong.

‘Brunch’ as we know it today, first arrived in the Victorian era of the 1890s. It was created as a joke in the popular comic magazine, ‘Punch‘, as a sort of long, Sunday lunch, to be enjoyed after weekend church-services, starting with breakfast foods and slowly morphing into heavier, more substantial luncheon-style foods in the afternoon, all enjoyed in a relaxed, lazy atmosphere.

Brunch has extended its reach and now exists in countries all over the world, from America to China. From enjoying a light meal at a country club, to a casual yumcha in Hong Kong.

“Luncheon”

Ah, lunch! Not everyone has lunch. Some people think it’s an essential component of life. Others enjoy long, lavish, relaxing luncheons, eaten with friends and colleagues. Some just skip it and survive on two meals a day. But what is it?

‘Lunch’ is the new kid on the block, as far as mealtimes are concerned. Originally, there was breakfast, taken in late morning or midday, and then dinner or supper, taken in the late afternoon. ‘Lunch’ as we know it today did not even exist.

But from the 1700s onwards, with breakfast getting earlier and work-hours forcing dinner further and further back into the evening, it was often several hours between meals. Imagine having breakfast at seven o’clock in the morning, or eight o’clock, and then starving for ten or twelve hours straight until dinnertime?

Something had to be done!

So, people started eating in the middle of the day.

Originally, nobody knew what to call this newfangled meal. ‘Noonings‘ was one suggestion, since it was eaten at midday. Another was ‘Nuncheon‘, a word which had survived from the 14th century, and which meant a light snack or refreshment. Eventually, mankind on a whole, settled on the word as being ‘Luncheon’. Or just ‘lunch’ for short.

Just as working habits had forced the creation of lunch, so had the time to prepare food forced the creation of a new item in the home – the lunchbox.

It was impractical to stop in the middle of the workday to go all the way home and make and eat lunch. And it was expensive to stop in the middle of the workday to go out and buy lunch all the time. It would be far more convenient to cook or make lunch at home, then bring it to work and eat it on the spot. To transport this new meal called ‘lunch’ came the lunchbox!

Lunchboxes were originally just whatever you could find to carry your lunch in – wooden crates, barrels, empty buckets with lids on top…but eventually, dedicated lunchboxes (typically made of cheap, pressed steel) came onto the market. These would hold two sandwiches, some snack-foods, and maybe a flask of hot coffee, tea, soup, or just ordinary drinking-water.

Tiffin

Lunch varies around the world, and the common or garden-variety lunchbox is not suitable for all situations. In Asia, where most people eat rice or noodle dishes instead of bread, it would be difficult to pack fried rice, dumplings or noodles into a conventional western-style lunchbox and take it to work, or school. Let’s introduce the tiffin-carrier:

My three-tier stainless steel tiffin-carrier

Tiffin‘ is an old English word for a light, refreshing luncheon. A relaxing meal taken in the middle of the day. Commonly used by British expats and colonials living in the Empire’s oriental extremities during the 1800s. It comes from the word ‘tiff‘ meaning a light drink or snack. Eventually, it evolved to mean something a lot more than tea and cucumber sandwiches, however.

The ‘Tiffin-carrier’ is a type of food-container invented in the 1800s for transporting the comestibles which typically made up the midday tiffin – curry, rice, noodles or flatbread, vegetables and soup. Tiffins typically came in two, three, four and five-tier arrangements (in some examples, six or more), but three or four was most common. This was to keep each food-component separate and to make access to the food much easier, by simply opening the carrier…

…and unstacking everything, bowl by bowl…

Until everything was neatly laid out in front of you:

Tiffin-carriers remain extremely popular in Asian countries, and they’re as common over there as thermos-flasks are in the Western world. People in western countries are starting to use tiffin-carriers, however. They find them useful for things like sandwiches, sushi, salad, leftover spaghetti, Chinese food and for storing snacks for lunch. You can still buy them brand-new, or you can buy vintage reproductions, or even fancy antique brass and copper ones at fairs and antiques shops.

“Dinner!”

Of all the meals we eat today, dinner is probably the one which has seen the most change over the centuries.

Dinner gets its name from the word ‘to dine’ or to eat. Since you eat all the time, ‘dinner’ was basically defined as the main meal of the day. First came your breaking of the evening fast, and then after several long hours, dinner, usually in the afternoon, much earlier than we’re used to today. Expensive firewood and candles meant that it was impractical to eat dinner at night.

Dinnertimes changed throughout history, as working-habits shifted and pushed dinner forwards or backwards on the 24-hour time-scale. In some lower-class households in England, or people who made up the servant-class, ‘Dinner’ was the midday meal, and ‘supper’ was had at night. This was because the demands of domestic service prevented servants from eating ‘dinner’ at night, since they had to cook and serve for their employers.

On a whole, though, dinner was pushed back further and further as time advanced. Originally eaten at midday or early afternoon, it moved to the late afternoon or early evening by the late 1500s. With the arrival of ‘Luncheon’ in the 1700s, ‘Dinner’ was forced back even further. It was now steadily in the late-afternoon, evening timeslot, and kept there by the new working-hours of office-clerks, lawyers, bankers, shopkeepers and other people now involved in the professions and trades brought about by the Industrial Revolution.

With candles becoming cheaper, and with new forms of lighting such as oil, gas and eventually, electricity, it was finally practical and comfortable, to eat dinner at night. Most people will typically have dinner between five and seven o’clock at night, depending on their work and time schedules.

“Supper”

When most people think of ‘supper’, they imagine a late-night snack or meal, but, as with ‘Dinner’, ‘Supper time’ differs depending on where you live and your general social background. Some people consider ‘Dinner’ the midday meal, and ‘supper’ to be the evening meal, while others consider ‘luncheon’ the midday meal and ‘dinner’ to be the evening one.

That being the case, where does supper fall?

The origin of the word ‘supper‘ in English comes from French and German, the words ‘Souper‘ and ‘Suppe‘. ‘Supper’ was originally the evening meal, but as workdays got longer, breakfast earlier and dinner later, which was backed up by ‘lunch’ at noon, Supper, like Dinner, was kicked back further and further. Most people now consider it to be an after-dinner meal. Usually something light, before retiring, or something enjoyed with friends and family after a night out. However, in some places, ‘supper’, ‘dinner’ and even ‘tea’ are all synonyms for the same thing – the main evening meal.

Morning Tea, Afternoon Tea & Elevenses

Anyone who grew up on a literary diet of the Famous Five, The Secret Seven, the Adventurous Four, Paddington Bear and The Wind in the Willows will probably have heard of such English meals as Morning Tea, Afternoon Tea and some mysterious snack called ‘Elevenses’.

What are they?

These typically light meals became popular among the English upper-and-middle classes during the Victorian era. Changing social and work-habits meant that mealtimes changed drastically. While their menfolk were out earning, women of the well-to-do classes would go visiting. It was the man’s job to earn a living. It was the woman’s job to make all the social connections to ensure that the wage or salary brought home would grow as time went on.

Morning tea and afternoon tea centered around tea, naturally. This beverage was once so rare and expensive, women kept their tea-caddies locked and had the keys with them at all times. But with the opening of China in the 1850s, the import of Chinese and Indian teas became cheaper and it was now available to a much wider range of people.

Tea was designed to be light. No heavy roast beef or rice and pasta or noodles. Similar to the Chinese custom of Yumcha, tea was meant to be light, refined and relaxed. Enjoyed with close friends and relations, or business-partners and colleagues. Tea consisted of small cakes, biscuits, and sandwiches – stereotypically, the classic cucumber-sandwich. Light snacks not designed to fill you up, but to distract from hunger until the main meals of the day, such as luncheon, or dinner (depending on if it were morning, or afternoon tea). In some places around the world, ‘tea-time’ grew later and later, from its 2 or 3 o’clock position, to four, five, or even six o’clock at night, becoming synonymous with ‘dinner’.

Instead of morning tea, one might have ‘elevenses’, taken, as the name suggests, around ten or eleven o’clock in the morning. Since the Industrial Revolution forced people to wake up earlier and eat breakfast earlier (six or seven or eight in the morning), by midday, they could be especially hungry. Elevenses or morning tea was designed as a light snack, to be enjoyed halfway between breakfast and lunch. Depending on where around the world elevenses may take place, it might have coffee, or tea. But typically also comes with sandwiches or small cakes. But it shouldn’t be confused with ‘Brunch’ which generally concentrates on heavier, stomach-fillers to keep you going into the afternoon.

Time to Eat

Mealtimes and meal-names have changed and evolved over the centuries. Some have remained fashionable, such as the long, lazy, Sunday Brunch, or the exclusive, Friday or Saturday dinner out at a restaurant. Some have changed drastically, such as the time (and speed) at which we eat breakfast. Some names continue to change or evolve, depending on where you live and your social background. Dinner. Supper. Lunch. Tea. Tiffin…It changes and changes all the time. For more information, explore the fascinating documentary series’ below, which provided much of the information for this posting.

Hungry For More?

A lot of the information gleamed here came from episodes of…

The Supersizers“, presented by Giles Corran and Sue Perkins.

If Walls Could Talk“, presented by Dr. Lucy Worsley.

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner“, presented by Clarissa Dickson-Wright (of ‘Two Fat Ladies‘ fame).

 

The Long Slow History of Fast Food

Sweet, sugary, salty, greasy, filling, sinfully delicious and atrocious for your waistline.

Yeah, whatever…

Fast Food doesn’t have a good reputation. And ever since the 1950s, it’s been blamed for everything from heart-attacks, strokes, diabetes and an increasing global girth.

Delightful.

But just how long has fast food been around? Where did it come from? And how did it take on the form which we know today? Put down your milkshakes, pick up your burgers, and let’s find out…

What is “Fast Food”?

Fast food, by definition, is any food which can be prepared quickly, cheaply, and eaten on the go. Generally, such food ain’t too good for you, on account of the fact that it’s usually full of crap that you probably shouldn’t eat.

…but it tastes so good.

Given this definition, how far back can we trace fast food? Fifty years? A hundred? Two? Three? A thousand or more? Hmm.

The First Fast Food

Fast Food as we might know it today has ancient roots. Literally. Places where you went for quick, cheap bites to eat, which were open to the public, and which provided prompt service for a paltry fee are surprisingly old. Ancient, in fact.

The first people who we know for certain operated fast food outlets were the same people responsible for underfloor heating, sports stadiums, running water and Rent-A-Chariot services – The Ancient Romans!

The Romans were busy people. And when you’re a busy Ancient Roman, going out conquering ancient lands, bringing back animals for the Colosseum or trying to invade Germania, you need cheap, filling meals. Enter fast food.

We know the Romans had fast food because such fast-food establishments have been found in Ancient Roman settlements, most notably, the wonderfully preserved city of Pompeii. So, what did the busy Roman eat?

Forget burgers and fries, Roman fast food was far simpler, and far more alcoholic.

Staples of Ancient Roman fast food included fried fish (but no chips), sausages (but no hotdogs), fried eggs, and bread rolls. To add flavour to their food, the Romans used…ketchup!

No, not really.

Instead, they used a festering fish-based sauce called garum. Garum (which is, shall we say, a matured fish sauce), was added to almost anything. It was incredibly potent and the ancient Romans loved it. And like Heinz Ketchup today, it was carted all over the Empire.

Ancient Romans didn’t have soda or milkshakes to quench their thirsts. Instead, they had…wine! And they loved it!

If you should find yourself suddenly transported to Ancient Pompeii and looking for a quick feed, these fast-food establishments were called cauponae, and in case you couldn’t find any, just look for the signs.

No, not the Golden Arches, this dude:

Anyone who is a connoisseur of fine wine ought to know who this is.  And for those who don’t, meet Bacchus. Roman God of Wine! Along with his buddy Mercury (God of Commerce), paintings of this dynamic duo were often found in, or directly outside fast food joints in Ancient Rome. Praying to these Gods was seen as a way to ensure good business and fine wine.

Sadly, the glory days of Roman fast food died with the Empire. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 400s, almost everything that they had created was swept under the rug. Running water, paved roads, fancy robes, tiled rooves, central heating, indoor plumbing…even apartment-blocks! And for centuries, mankind had to survive on what he could grow, catch, kill or create. No quick and easy meals here.

At least, that was the case if you lived in the country.

If you were fortunate enough to live in a major city, such as London, Paris, Venice, or Rome, during the Middle Ages, you could still get fast food.

Don’t forget that during this period, cooking at home was relatively rare. If you were poor, you probably didn’t have a kitchen. Most people only had a fire, and a pot, and cooked whatever they could chuck into it. Actual kitchens were rare, and reserved for the wealthy. The money spent on building brick or clay stoves, the expense of firewood (which had to be bought if you couldn’t get it free), and the price of ingredients often made cooking at home prohibitively expensive.

The Increase of Fast Food

Fast Food of a sort has always been around in one form or another, because there will always be people who can’t, or won’t, cook for themselves. What constituted fast food depended on where you lived.

Coastal regions sold foods such as oysters. In fact, until the end of the 19th century, oysters were considered cheap, filling snacks in the United Kingdom. They were sold on the streets to working stiffs, or sold in public houses and taverns to the drunks. It wasn’t until uncontrolled pollution and over-fishing destroyed Britain’s oyster-beds that they started becoming the sought-after luxury item that we think of today.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, something happened called the Industrial Revolution. The massive increase in urban populations caused by the need for cheap labour to run factories and mills meant that suddenly, lots of people needed food! And most of these people couldn’t afford to cook at home. They either couldn’t, because they lived in tenements (which rarely had proper kitchens), worked long hours and slept whenever they could, or wouldn’t, because they didn’t know how.

To stop the masses of great cities like London from starving to death and dropping dead in the streets, fast-food vendors popped up all over town. People realised that a quick shilling could be made by selling cheap food to the masses. Welks, baked potatoes, oysters, sheep’s trotters, bowls of pease pudding, or pea soup, and other quick, cheap, hot, delicious, albeit, questionable delights were soon all over the place.

Questionable being the key word here. There were absolutely no food-safety laws in existence, and in 19th century Europe and America, a large amount of food sold to the unsuspecting public was adulterated, to make it last longer, increase bulk, or yield, or to make it look more appealing. Building-plaster was added to bread to increase its bulk and make it look really white. Paint was added to clumps of candlewax…toffee, anyone?

The Industrialisation of Fast Food

With the spread of railway networks in the 1800s, fast food got even faster, and cheaper. One of the most significant examples of this is Britain’s national dish – Fish and Chips.

For a long time, fish was rather expensive. It was expensive to catch, it was expensive to transport, it was expensive to store. But with the growth of railways, it was now possible for a fishing-boat to offload its catch, pack it into crates of ice, and send it to London by rail, where it would arrive within 24 hours!

This meant that the price of fish dropped significantly, and in 1860, England’s first fish-and-chip shop opened!

Once considered a poor man’s meal or a working stiff’s lunch, fish and chips gradually became acceptable fare for all classes of British society during the 19th and 20th centuries. In fact, by the 1900s, fish and chips were SO popular, that they were one of the FEW things UNRATIONED during the Second World War (other unrationed foods included vegetables). That said, fish was pretty hard to get during the war. So even if it was off-ration, it wasn’t easy to find. Chips, on the other hand, were freely available – you were limited only by the number of potatoes that you could grow in your ‘Victory Garden’.

It was during the 19th century and the Industrial Revolution that many of our most favourite and desirable fast foods were created. More about that, later…

The Fast Food Restaurant

The notion of a fast-food restaurant, of the kind that we might recognise today, did not arrive until the early 20th century. Most would trace its origins back to about 1902, with the opening of the first “automatic restaurant”, in New York City.

The ‘automat‘ served fresh, hot meals in glass-fronted cabinets. The hungry diner simply walked up to the case, selected the dish he wanted, and fed coins into the slot next to the door. Once the price was paid, the door fell open, and the meal could be retrieved. The door was then closed, and the slot was marked for refilling. The empty slot in the cabinet was refilled with another meal, prepared fresh in the kitchens behind the display-cabinets.

A typical automat setup from the early 20th century

The automat remained one of the most popular forms of fast-food service in the United States until the 1960s. They eventually died out when it was no-longer economical to pay for full meals using loose change. Could you imagine trying to pay for a burger, fries, coke, chicken-nuggets and a slice of chocolate-cake by constantly feeding dimes or quarters into a machine, over, and over, and over again?

Branching off from the automat came the more familiar styles of fast-food restaurants which we know today.

The Burger Kings!

Fast-food restaurants which are familiar to us today had their origins in the early 20th century, and starting in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, many famous names were established, mostly in the United States.

In 1921, White Castle burger-restaurants opened their doors in the United States. The original Kentucky Fried Chicken opened its doors in 1930…in…Kentucky! But it would not become a franchise until 1952.

The most famous of all fast-food restaurants was opened in 1940. Originally run by a pair of brothers named Richard and Maurice McDonald.

I wonder what their restaurant was called?

The First McDonalds

Burger King was opened in 1954. Taco Bell and Subway followed in 1962, and 1965, respectively.

The Main Ingredients

Ask anyone the main components of a typical fast-food meal, and they’d probably say a burger, with fries, or a hotdog, or wedges, or pizza, or something of that nature. But where do they come from?

The Hamburger

The Hamburger comes from…Hamburg, Germany.

Or at least, the word itself does.

Originally “Hamburger” referred to someone from the German port city of Hamburg, just as how Londoner refers to someone from London, or Berliner, a person from Berlin.

The ancestors of the hamburger-sandwich date back almost to antiquity, but one of the first dishes to share the name, and not just some vague similarity, might be the “Hamburgh Sausage“. A recipe for this sausage is mentioned in a book written by English cook, Hannah Glasse, in her famous tome: “The Art of Cookery (Made Plain and Easy)“, from 1763. However, the resultant dish is more of a large sausage, rather than a meat-patty sandwich.

It’s believed that the hamburger may have another ancestor – the Steak Tartare! In this form, ground up, or minced beef recipes immigrated from Russia to the German port of Hamburg during the 1600s. However, neither England, Germany, nor Russia can lay claim to being the birthplace of the hamburger-sandwich.

No. The prize goes to the Americans.

Hamburg was a major port during the 19th century, and large numbers of German and European immigrants to the New World would board steamships departing from Hamburg, bound for ports such as New York. To make a quick buck off hungry German sailors who docked in America, American cooks started making “Hamburg-style” steaks, using the ground-up beef patties which the Germans had inherited from the Russians. They’re similar to the more familiar Salisbury Steaks, but with slightly different ingredients.

From a Hamburg Steak to a hamburger-sandwich was the simple step of…sandwiching…the ground up steak between two slices of bread, or in later years, two halves of a bun.

Exactly WHO created the hamburger as we know it today is unknown. There are loads of conflicting stories, but its creation in America is the one thing that we do know for certain.

French Fries!

Aah. French Fries! Viva La France!

Idiots…can’t have a burger without fries! But to get the authentic thing, you should go to Paris…right?

Wrong.

Sorry folks. French Fries are not actually French! They never were! French Fries actually have their origins in that little country just to the north of France. It’s called Belgium. Most people think that the Belgians only make chocolates, but no, they make fries, too!

But if they originate in Belgium…why are they called French Fries?

It’s believed that they received this name due to the manner in which thin slices or sticks of potato were prepared. They were fried in the “French Style”, meaning that they were cooked in a vat of hot, bubbling oil. Today, we’d call that deep-frying. Originally, they would’ve been “French-fried Potatoes”, meaning potatoes fried in the French manner. In time, the ‘potatoes’ was dropped off, and the term shortened, leaving us with just ‘French Fries’.

However, if you go to France, or Belgium, for that matter, and asked for French Fries, there is still a chance that people wouldn’t understand you. French Fries aren’t called French fries in Belgium. Or Belgian fries, for that matter. They’re called Flemish fries! Try getting your head around that mess…

Hotdogs!

Mustard? Ketchup? Onion-rings? Cheese? Relish?

What do you put on your hotdogs? Or do you eat them plain? Have you ever wondered where they came from?

Who invented the hotdog, a sausage wedged inside a bun, is unknown. But the sausages which make up the meat in these tubular sandwiches, like the Hamburger before them, came from Germany.

Not for nothing are sausages also called Frankfurters, or Wieners. That’s because the varieties of sausages used in hotdogs came from the German city of Frankfurt, or from the capital city of Austria, Vienna. Vienna also gave us another delicious nibble – the Wiener Schnitzel!

Although it is unknown who invented the hotdog, historical records tell us that they have existed since at least the last quarter of the 19th century, and were first sold in New York City, starting in the 1870s.

That said, hotdogs were not called hotdogs in the 1870s. Although ‘dog’ had been a common nickname for sausages since the 1880s, the complete phrase ‘hotdog’ did not make its first appearance in the English language until the 1890s. Fred Shapiro, the editor of a number of publications detailing the histories of famous quotes, words and phrases, could trace the word ‘hotdog’ back no further than 1892.

Milkshakes

I don’t care who you are. Everyone loves milkshakes! But where do they come from?

Milkshakes in their present form, being a drink made of milk, ice-cream/cream, sugar, fruits and other delicious additives, date back to roughly the same time as the hotdog, the 1880s-1900s. They received the name ‘milkshake’ because prior to the spread of easily-accessed electricity (and the subsequent invention of the electric blender/mixer), milkshakes were quite literally shaken by hand. The ingredients were added into a metal cup, which was then sealed. The whole concoction was then shaken up, much like a cocktail-shaker, and then the drink was served.

With the invention of proper milkshake blenders in the early 1900s, milkshakes became wildly popular, and there were (and still are) countless varieties out there. Peak time for milkshakes was during the postwar “Long Boom”, of the 1950s and 60s. Teenagers flocking to drugstores, corner shops, and cafes, theatres and drive-in cinemas made the drink extremely popular – a popularity that has never waned.

Ketchup!

Mmm, ketchup! Rich, sweet, tangy, slightly sweet sauce, that goes well with almost anything.

But what is it?

The word ‘ketchup‘ originally referred to any sort of slightly-thickened, slightly sweet table-sauce. It could be made out of almost anything! Mushroom ketchup, oyster ketchup…How about Banana ketchup? That was invented in the Philippines during the Second World War, when rationing made it impossible to obtain the necessary tomatoes. Sauce-makers simply removed the crushed tomatoes and added pureed bananas to the mix, instead!

Ketchup as we know it today, tomato ketchup, or tomato-sauce as it’s called outside the ‘States, is generally made of crushed tomatoes, vinegar, salt and sugar, thickened or flavoured with the addition of other spices or herbs.

But where does the word ‘ketchup’ come from?

Believe it or not, it’s Chinese.

‘Ketchup’ was originally a sauce used for flavouring fish-dishes. It was called “Gui Zhi“, in Chinese, or more familiarly – “Gwai-Zap“, in Cantonese. Eventually, the Cantonese pronunciation (from the south of China) won out, and the words eventually morphed from the Canto “Gwai-Zap”, to…Ketchup.

Ketchup was invented in China sometime in the 1600s. It migrated across Asia and Europe thanks to the Silk Road, arriving in England by the end of the century. Originally, it was called “Catchup”, but the more familiar ‘ketchup’ had replaced this spelling by the early 18th century.

Ketchup used to be homemade. And indeed, even after commercial varieties were available, some people continued to make it at home. There’s a memorable scene in the 1944 film “Meet Me in St. Louis” (set from 1903-1904), where Mrs. Smith and Katie the cook are trying to make up a batch of ketchup in the family kitchen – only for every other member of the Smith family to find some reason to suggest altering the recipe!

The most famous brand of ketchup is of course, Heinz Ketchup. 57 varieties of it! Heinz started making ketchup in 1876, and it became wildly popular. By the start of the 20th century, it was being exported all over the world.

The Rise of the Fast Food Restaurant

The “Long Boom” of the 1950s and 60s saw the number of fast-food restaurants rise dramatically, and spread around the world. Everything from corner drugstores and diners, to large, purpose-built fast-food outlets. The rise of institutions like drive-in cinemas and increased movie-watching also spurred on the rise of fast-food. Sales of pizza, fish-and-chips, burgers, fries, soft-drinks, ice-cream and hotdogs all shot up in popularity, all gradually contributing to the fast-food culture which we have in the 21st century. Whoever complained that fast food was a scourge of modern living, however, would be very wrong indeed. Fast Food in one way or another, has always existed, and probably always will.

Hungry for More?

http://www.globusjourneys.in/fast-food-in-pompeii.aspx

http://ancientstandard.com/2007/08/11/mcroman%E2%80%99s-happy-meal-fast-food-in-ancient-rome-1st-c-ad/