Food & drink takeaways - 29 August
A curated taster menu of every day’s food & drink associations
A brilliant bartender who made drinks for royalty, politicians and stars; a bit of hooey over chop suey and why some believers won’t be eating round food or from a flat plate today.
Just some of the titbits that 29 August brings to the food and drink table.
Click on the links for extra helpings.
Food birthdays
1875
Harry Craddock {header photo}
Legendary English bartender at London’s Savoy Hotel, creator of the Corpse Reviver and White Lady cocktails, author of the revered The Savoy Cocktail Book
“Craddock was a prolific creator of cocktails. He once invented three new drinks for a journalist in one day and claimed to have created 240 cocktails in his life.”
1915
American scientist, nutritionist and creator of the Pritikin Diet, believed that moderate exercise combined with a diet low in fat and high in unrefined carbohydrates reversed his own heart disease
1976
American chef and restaurant owner
1981
Lebanese-American Chef, cookbook author, presenter and beauty pageant titleholder
1990
English celebrity chef and author, Too Good To Share, Cooking up a Storm, Eat Vegetarian
Food firsts (or not)
1896
History (or at least some versions of it) has it that Chop Suey was created for the first time on this day. However, food historian Janet Clarkson is among the dissenters on her website The Old Foodie:
“A very important Chinese-American event happened in New York on this day in 1896. Contrary to popular myth however, this was not the invention of ‘Chop-Suey’.”
Instead,
it was the first time in the history of the Waldorf in New York that Chinese chefs had prepared Chinese dishes in Chinese pots, pans, and skillets - to entertain the Viceroy of China, Li Hung Chang.
Celebration days
Feast Day of the Beheading of St John the Baptist
“His feast day is always observed with strict fasting, and in addition, many pious Orthodox Christians will not eat food from a flat plate, use a knife, or eat round food on this day. Why? It’s to help us remember the story of St John’s beheading, as his head was served on a platter and given to Herodias’ daughter, according to the Scriptures. By avoiding a knife, plate, and round things, we are avoiding serving anything that resembles a head on a platter.”
Unofficial
USA: Chop Suey Day
USA: Lemon Juice Day
USA: More Herbs, Less Salt Day
