Your 31 October food & drink takeaways
What foods make Halloween, a UK Sausage Week feast day for the patron saint of butchers and the man behind probably the first book written about salads.
Just some of food & drink delights for which we give thanks to 31 October.
Click on the links for extra helpings.
A curated taster menu of every day’s food & drink associations
Celebration days
The Great British Chefs website asks: "Have you ever wondered why pumpkins are so synonymous with Halloween? Or why we go trick-or-treating? Get spooky with us as we delve into the importance of food at Halloween and suggest some recipes to try this 31st October."
UK Sausage Week (24 Oct – 3 Nov)
Feast Day of Thomas Bellacci, patron saint of butchers
International Carignan Day (last Thursday of October)
To raise awareness of a grape variety that originated in Spain but is more commonly found in French wines
Unofficial
USA: Caramel Apple Day
Food art of the day
The Milkmaid by Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer, born on this day in 1632.
Food and drink birthdays
1620
Writer, diarist, gardener, and ‘salad enthusiast extraordinaire’. He authored probably the first book about salads.
The Old Foodie writes: "It was the golden age of the English kitchen garden when Evelyn published “Acetaria: A discourse on sallets” in 1699. He listed 73 main salad ingredients, plus “sundry more” (including tulip bulbs), which he said should be “exquisitely cull’d, and cleans’d” and blended “like the Notes in Music, in which there should be nothing harsh or grating”. The dressing should be made with smooth, light oil from Lucca olives, the best wine vinegar infused with herbs and flowers, the brightest Bay grey-salt, the best (Tewkesbury or Yorkshire) mustard, sugar and pepper, “the yolks of fresh and new-laid eggs, boil’d moderately hard”, and various other “Strewings and Aromatizers”."
1831
German physiologist whose work on metabolism helped establish modern nutritional science
1917
English cookery writer, Plats Du Jour, Honey From A Weed, The Centaur’s Kitchen
1932
French chef best known for being head chef at his three Michelin-starred restaurant Maison Pic in Valence, France. Son of chef Andre Pic and father of chefs Alain and Anne-Sophie Pic
He is credited with inventing numerous dishes including an orange and Grand Marnier iced soufflé.
1969
Australian chef
1972
Retired English rugby union international, TV presenter and winner of the first BBC Celebrity Masterchef 2006
