ABigSlice Journal

July 17 : National Peach Ice Cream Day

The botanical name of the peach is prunus persica. I am no botanist but this would lead me to believe that this wonderful, sunset colored fruit is actually a persian prune! Neither of which is entirely correct, of course. The peach is actually native to China where it was hailed in writings as old as the 10th Century. The Emperors of China started a royal love affair with the fruit that was to cross, the ages as well as national borders.

Once discovered cultivation of the peach spread to the Middle East and Persia. From there it was introduced into the Roman Empire and of course Europe. Hence we get the "persica" part of the name - the persian apple as they called it. France and Spain became the first European countries to cultivate the peach and the French soon shortened the name to "peche" and from there it is a short step to peach. Louis XIV's patronage resulted in several new varieties being developed all of which were named after women due to their remarkable beauty. The loveliest was given the title Teton de Venus, or Nipple of Venus.

The Spanish brought the peach to America, and it thrived in the American Southeast. American Indians are credited with spreading cultivation westward and now, even though Georgia is called the Peach State, California is actually the nation's largest producer. In fact, after the apple, peaches represent the second largest commercial fruit crop in America.

So here's to the peach, the fruit in the beautiful fuzzy coat. Keep reading for a great peach ice cream recipe!

July 6 : National Fried Chicken Day

Fried chicken, when it’s done well, is one of my favorite dishes. Sometimes I absolutely crave it, calories be damned! Being from the south, I grew up with aunts, uncles, and cousins crowded around the Sunday dinner table feasting on a pile of heavenly fried chicken. So it could very well be that the cravings are not solely a matter of hunger, maybe I am longing for those long past Sunday dinners.

Fried chicken probably came to America with the Scottish immigrants. There was a tradition of frying chicken in fat in Scotland that was unique in the British Isles . The English preferred boiled or baked chicken. But the African slaves took the dish and made the dish their own. Typically they were not allowed many possessions, but they were allowed to keep chickens. On special occasions, the chickens were deep fried and served steaming hot. But what set their dish apart from the Scots was the introduction of spices and herbs which added to the flavor of the chicken. Sunday dinner and fried chicken continue to go hand in hand in the south. And because it is delicious hot or cold, fried chicken has become a picnic and Fourth of July staple.

A little fried chicken trivia:
Kentucky Fried Chicken's consumers eat enough chickens for them to be laid end to end and circle the equator eleven times. The same amount of chickens would also equal the distance from earth to over 50,000 miles past the moon.

Keep reading for a wonderful Southern Fried Chicken recipe, and Tips for Perfect Fried Chicken every time!

June 21 : The Summer Solstice

June 21 is the official first day of summer – although the temperature outside might convince you otherwise! Summer begins (so we are told) on what is called the summer solstice. A solstice occurs twice a year, June and December. Due to the fact that the earth’s axis of rotation tilts, in June, the northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, while in December it is the southern hemisphere that gets the most direct rays.

The word solstice come from the latin noun sol, meaning sun and the verb sistere or to stand still. During a solstice, the hours of daylight for the sun tilted hemisphere, is at its maximum. The sun seems to stand still in the sky. In other words before June 21 the hours of daylight grow, after, they get shorter.

Have you ever looked at a globe and wondered what are those strange lines called the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn? These lines mark the extent of the path of the sun on the respective solstices. This means that if you were standing on the Tropic of Cancer during the summer solstice, the sun would be directly overhead. However, these “tropics” are no longer correctly named. Due to what is called the processions of equinoxes (slight variations that occur between the actual day of the solstice and the calendar) these lines should more correctly be called the Tropic of Taurus and the Tropic of Sagittarius! There’s a little trivia for you!

Ancient agricultural societies built huge structures used in part to determine the solstice. Stonehenge is one such structure. On that day, celebrations featuring dances and bonfires, marked the beginning of summer and more importantly, the growing season. Cultures that depended on a plentiful harvest for survival needed to be sure that when the seed was planted, there would be no more days of frost. The summer solstice meant warmer days ahead, and safe planting.

Of course, most of these celebrations are in our distant past. In fact by the time June 21st rolls around I am usually thinking, “Hasn’t summer already started? Can it get any hotter?” Well, it can and certainly will. So find a cool tree, a nice beverage (see below), and a fan. It’s hot as sin, and not even summer yet!

May 13, 2007: Mother's Day

As with most holidays the lineage of our modern American Mother’s Day has its roots in ancient pagan rituals. The Greeks had a custom of mother worship that was specifically dedicated to the goddess Cybele, the personification of the fertile mother earth. A little late, the Romans pretty much adopted Greek religion lock, stock, and barrel. They celebrated a similar feast dedicated to Juno called Matronalia on March 1, which was, coincidentally, the first day of their new year. On this day women would receive gifts from their husbands and daughters, a tradition that, amazingly, seemed to catch on.

Our present holiday was more recently derived from the British holiday called Mothering Sunday. Taking the British custom as her starting point, activist Julia Ward Howe issued a call for woman to become the instruments of peace in this post Civil War era. The author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” penned a Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870 calling for peace and disarmament. Howe never succeeded in getting official recognition of Mother’s Day. That was up to the Appalachian mother/daughter team of Ann and Anna Jarvis. In 1914, largely through their efforts, President Woodrow Wilson declared the first National Mother’s Day. Now it has grown to become one of the most commercially successful holidays in the US. And, according to the National Restaurant Association, the most popular day of the year to dine out!

History of the Christmas Tree

When you really stop to think about it, the idea of bringing a live tree indoors, festooning it with delicate glass ornaments, and tiny colorful lights, seems a little ridiculous. A tradition that odd must have its roots in the ancient past. And now we do it because, well, we've always done it. I, for one, won't settle for that explanation. So I did a little digging. Here is a brief glimpse into the evolution of the Christmas Tree.

Some Cool Thanksgiving Facts

There are a lot of misconceptions about the first thanksgiving. The image that we grew up with was a bunch of pilgrims, clad in black with hats and large buckles on their shoes. They gathered around a table laden with pumpkin pies and turkeys and joined the indians in giving thanks for the bountiful harvest. This does paint a pretty picture, but not a very factual one. Here are the facts.

1621 is but the first of many holidays
Fact : Actually the first thanksgiving feast was not repeated. It was not the beginning of a long tradition of family meals. What's more the puritans would not have called the day "Thanksgiving." That term would have been applied to a religious holiday and such a day would have been spent in the church and not at a table feasting. Journals from the time tell of dancing, singing and playing games all of which would not have been allowed in a religious celebration. So the first Thanksgiving was secular in nature and therefore, in the minds of the pilgrims, it would not have been considered a day to give thanks to God.

The first Thanksgiving was the fourth Thursday in November
Fact : Although the exact date of the first Thanksgiving is not known, it probably occurred sometime between September 21 and November 11. More than a meal, the first Thanksgiving was really a festival lasting three days. The English had a centuries old tradition of harvest festivals and the first Thanksgiving was an extension of those. It wasn't until 1817 that New York State adopted Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom. Slowly other states began to do the same. In 1863 Abraham Lincoln assigned the last Thursday in November as a National Day of Thanksgiving. But it was not official and was up to each subsequent president to renew the appointment. Not until FDR was the date officially set. In 1939, the fourth Thursday in November was approved by the president as the official date of Thanksgiving. Congress ratified in 1941. So in the big scheme of things, Thanksgiving is actually a very modern tradition.

Pilgrims wore big buckles on their shoes
Fact : It was not until much later into the 17th Century that buckles came into fashion. As English Puritans the pilgrims only wore black and white on Sunday and formal occasions.

The feast included pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes
Fact : Of course, no one knows exactly what was on the menu at that first feast but, it is known that pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes were not there. It is almost certain that the pilgrims had no pies and no sweets on the table. They came to america with a limited amount of flour and sugar. After their first year in America the supplies of both were probably long exhausted. There were no ovens so breads and cakes, as we know them, were impossible. What it certain from written sources is that the pilgrims did enjoy lots of venison and wild fowl. According to Puritan custom, the first feast would have been eaten in shifts. In Pilgrim households the adults ate first while the children and servants stood by.

The indians were in attendance
Fact : This one is true. According to Edward Winslow in A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth: "many of the indians came amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some 90 men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted." However the myths have grown, it is clear that life for these settlers was grim at best. Many of them perished en route to America, and more were to die during that first harsh winter. Their diet would seem to us today as very heavy and fatty, but the pilgrims needed that additional protein for their strenuous lives. You may not know that the only furniture they brought with them on this voyage were storage chests and boxes. Everything that they needed was constructed once they arrived in the New World.

We have come a long way since that first festival and Thanksgiving has taken on a whole new meaning. We are truly blessed with plenty. The tables are piled high with all sorts of dishes as we come together as families to enjoy the food and fellowship. We don't depend on a successful harvest to get us through the winter and as such modern Thanksgiving has evolved. Today we allow ourselves this one day to slow down and gather around the family table. In our opinion, that spirit, in and of itself, is worthy of a holiday.

Ancient Autumn Celebrations

Spiritual rites that revolved around the harvest have been a part of humanity since agriculture was developed.

You have to remember that many of the phenomena that have been explained away by science were poorly understood by the ancients and therefore took on an aura of magic. Even before the advent of formal religious practices, mankind believed that the earth and their crops contained spirits. Appease the spirits and your crops would grow, anger them and you went hungry. Earliest cultures associated these spirits with animal imagery but as we developed a better sense of self so did our spirits. They began to resemble us in deed and thought and stories that explained the mysteries of nature in more human terms evolved. The Greek stories, or myths as we have dubbed them, are basic to Western Civilization. And their explanation of the seasons is one of the most beautiful ever written.

The ancient Greeks worshipped Demeter as the goddess of the bountiful earth. She provided humans with all of the necessary ingredients for survival. If Demeter was happy, humanity, it was believed, thrived. But one day Demeter's world came crashing down around her. Her beautiful daughter, Persephone, was out joyfully picking flowers when she was abducted by the enamored Hades and taken to the underworld to be his queen. Demeter was distraught and she bagan to neglect her earth-motherly duties. What was once fertile and fecund, became parched and dry. Zeus watch as his master creation began to starve and die. He beseeched his brother Hades to reconsider and allow Persephone to return to her mother and, consequently, save humanity. Hades remarked that it was out of his hands. Persephone had eaten the seed of the pomegranate, the fruit of the dead, and was duty bound to remain his queen. Zeus sought some sort of compromise, and finally one was reached. For nine months Persephone would be allowed to be with her mother, Demeter, but for three months of the year she must return to Hades and resume her position as Queen of the Underworld. When Persephone and Demeter are together the earth is fruitful and we have Spring, Summer and Fall. But when Persephone is with Hades, the sorrowful Demeter renders the earth barren and we have winter.

It was this idea of a bountiful harvest enabling winter survival that is at the root of almost every harvest celebration. The ancient Romans celebrated Cerealia in honor of their Goddess of Agriculture, Ceres (where we get the word for cereal). The Hebrews' harvest festival is called Sukkot and has been celebrated for over 3000 years. The name comes from Sukkah's, small temporary huts in which Moses and the Israelites lived as they wandered the dessert. On the first two nights of the eight day Sukkot, families eat their meals in these simple huts under the evening sky. The ancient Chinese harvest festival, called Zhong Qiu Jie, is the biggest festival of the year save for the Chinese New Year. There are many stories behind their autumn tradition but the loveliest is that of the beautiful moon fairy. The legend states that one day ten suns appeared at one time in the sky. The worried Emperor called for the greatest archer in all the land to come and shoot the nine extra suns down. The archer came and successfully completed his task. To reward the archer for his heroic deed the Goddess of the Western Heaven gave him a pill that once taken would make him immortal. But his wife found the pill and swallowed it herself. Angered by this, the Goddess banished the wife to the moon. It is there that she resides in her crystal castle. On the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, the moon is at its brightest and the archer's wife is at her greatest beauty. The Moon Festival is the celebration of that beautiful brightness.

Our modern Thanksgiving has a lot in common with these other celebrations and can be seen as an extension of them. The crops have been reaped, and winter survival is assured. We all share in the plentiful harvest and we are truly grateful.