Food & drink takeaways – 21 September
A 210-year-old celebration of international comradery (with beer), a 757-year-old tradition of regional abundance (with crab apples) and ‘extravagant use of flour in puddings’ means a severe punishment at sea.
Just some of the food & drink ingredients that make up 21 September.
Click on the links for extra helpings.
A curated taster menu of every day’s food & drink associations
Food and drink events
Today marks the first day of the famous Munich Oktoberfest {header photo}, which will this year run until 6 October.
“People come together from all different countries and cultural backgrounds to celebrate comradery, hearty food, and traditional beer. Oktoberfest is more than a way to quench your thirst. This event symbolizes the significance of German beer garden culture in creating a sense of community.”
Meanwhile in England, the third Saturday in September means it's the 2024 Egremont Crab Fair – traditionally to celebrate the crab apple harvest in Cumbria.
"Egremont Crab Fair was first held in 1267. It is believed that the fair was founded when the Lord of Egremont started a tradition of giving away crab apples. This remains a central part of the modern-day fair, with the
Parade of the Apple Cart, {photo below} where apples are thrown to the crowds who line the Main Street."
Food in diaries and journals
1726
“This morning our steward was brought to the geers and whipped, for making an extravagant use of flour in the puddings, and for several other misdemeanors” – on-this-day entry in the journal of US Founding Father Benjamin Franklin en route to Philadelphia aboard the Berkshire
1798
“Dined at the ordinary. . . soup, boiled meat and stewed vegetables, roasted meat or fowls, salad, fowls with stewed plumbs, veal with stewed pears, beef with apple sauce” - traveller and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth writes on this day of her visit to Hamburg with brother William, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and John Chester.
Food History Almanac: Over 1,300 Years of World Culinary History, Culture, and Social Influence by Janet Clarkson (Rowman and Littlefield)
Food art of the day
Mother Mushroom with her Children by Polish Symbolist painter Edward Okun – born on this day in 1872.
