The History of Jarlsberg Cheese

Jarlsberg (Norwegian pronunciation: [²jɑːɭsbærɡ];English: /ˈjɑːrlzbɜːrɡ/ ) is a mild cow’s-milk cheese with large regular holes, that originates from Jarlsberg, Norway. Although it originated in Norway, it is also produced in Ohio and Ireland under licenses from Norwegian dairy producers.

Description

Jarlsberg cheese has a yellow wax rind (outer layer) and a semi-firm yellow interior. It is a mild, buttery cheese. The flavor has been described as “clean and rich, with a slightly sweet and nutty flavour”. It is an all-purpose cheese, used for both cooking and eating as a snack. It has a characteristic smooth, shiny-yellow body, and a creamy supple texture. It is aged a minimum of one year and is distinguished by medium to large holes. It is usually produced in 10 kg wheels with an approximate diameter of 330 mm and a height of 95-105 mm. The characteristic holes or “eyes” are the result of the action of the bacteria Propionibacterium freudenreichii which naturally occurs in milk and is added back to the cheese during production according to a closely guarded secret formula.

History

The history of this cheese can be traced back to the middle 1850s. Anders Larsen Bakke (1815–1899), a farmer and pioneer in Norway’s dairy industry, produced cheese in the village of Våle in what was then the county of Jarlsberg and Larviks Amt (now Vestfold), 80 km (50 mi) south of Oslo. The cheese shares similarities with Emmental, introduced to Vestfold by Swiss cheese makers during the 1830s. The cheese was first noted in the annual county report of Jarlsberg and Larviks Amt in 1855. After several years of popularity marked by a large volume of production Jarlsberg disappeared from the market.

Modern Jarlsberg cheese was developed in 1956 by Ole Martin Ystgaard of the Dairy Institute at the Agricultural University of Norway. Ystgaard’s interest was sparked by the thesis of a dairy sciences student, Per Sakshaug, on the cheese historically made in Vestfold. It was named for a Norwegian nobleman Count Wedel Jarlsberg (or the eponymous county) who owned land near Oslo in an area where an earlier version of the cheese was produced in the early 1800s. The recipe was developed from formulae originating with Swiss cheesemakers who moved to Norway in that time.

Text from Wikipedia

Soda & Soft Drink Saturday – Mezzo Mix

Mezzo Mix  is a product of The Coca-Cola Company,
first introduced in Germany in 1973.

Mezzo Mix is sold and produced only officially in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Its slogan, translated into English, is “Cola Kisses Orange”. It is basically standard Coca-Cola with a light orange flavor, much like a Spezi, which is usually Coke mixed with orange Fanta. In Spain it is called Fanta Mezzo Mix Naranja & Cola. In Sweden it is called Fanta Mezzo and was released in late January 2017 as a limited edition, connected to the music event called Melodifestivalen (Swedish qualifications to Eurovision Song Contest).

Mezzo Mix was previously one of eight international soda flavors featured and available for tasting at Club Cool in Epcot.

There were two kinds of Mezzo Mix in the 1990s: orange and lemon. The latter was unpopular and was discontinued, but a lemon flavored Coke entered the market again in 2003. In July 2007, Mezzo Mix Zero was introduced in Germany as a low-calorie variant. Early 2013 around Valentine’s Day, ‘berry love’ was introduced in Germany. Instead of an orange-like flavour it tastes somewhat like raspberry mixed with coke. It’s a limited edition, being available only in February.

The History of Gravlax

Gravlax is a Nordic dish consisting of raw salmon, cured in salt, sugar, and dill. Gravlax is usually served as an appetizer, sliced thinly and accompanied by hovmästarsås (literally maitre d’s sauce, also known in Sweden as gravlaxsås and in Denmark as rævesovs, literally fox sauce), a dill and mustard sauce, either on bread, or with boiled potatoes.

History

Gravlax literally means “buried salmon,” and that is how it was made in the hard old days. To store the abundance of summer for a long time without using much salt or other (at that time) expensive preservatives, the fish was wrapped in birch bark and buried in the ground, where a wet, cold environment and a lack of oxygen made it ferment but not rot. Made that way, it was more a culinary extreme sport than what we normally think of as “food”: Imagine an unpasteurized Camembert cheese in the form of a fish, made by desperate Vikings.

It is not safe to eat fish that has been buried in the ground, although the slightly acidic birch bark would bring down the pH and thus present a certain barrier against spoilage. When a 15th-century Norwegian or Swede ate gravlax, considerable risk was involved; weighed against the certain dangers of starvation, it was worth it.

It is reasonable to suppose that the dish simply grew up, evolved to its modern form and conquered the world. But back in its place of origin, something very close to the first gravlax still exists. Rakfisk is its nearest modern-day relative. It hails from the mountain regions and is most often made with trout
.

The word gravlax comes from the Scandinavian word gräva/grave (“to dig”; modern sense “to cure (fish)”) which goes back to the Proto-Germanic *grabą, *grabō (“hole in the ground; ditch, trench; grave”) and the Indo-European root *ghrebh- “to dig, to scratch, to scrape”, and lax/laks, “salmon”.

Gravlax is usually cured with sugar, salt and dill, but lemon juice, beetroot, aquvit or portwine can be added. The fish is often eaten on rye bread.

Today fermentation is no longer used in the production process. Instead the salmon is “buried” in a dry marinade of salt, sugar, and dill, and cured for a few days. As the salmon cures, by the action of osmosis, the moisture turns the dry cure into a highly concentrated brine, which can be used in Scandinavian cooking as part of a sauce. This same method of curing can be employed for any fatty fish, but salmon is the most commonly used.

We tend to think of food in terms of being either “raw” or “cooked.” As French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss pointed out, those antonyms are two of our guiding concepts to help us distinguish between edible and non-edible, wild and cultured. Rakfisk and gravlax cannot easily be categorized in such a way.

The History of HP Sauce

HP Sauce is a brown sauce originally produced by HP Foods in the United Kingdom, now produced by the H. J. Heinz Company in the Netherlands. It was named after London’s Houses of Parliament. Since its first appearance on British dinner tables, HP Sauce has become an icon of British culture.  It was the best-selling brand of brown sauce in the UK in 2005, with 73.8% of the retail market.

HP Sauce has a tomato base, blended with malt vinegar and spirit vinegar, sugars (molasses, glucose-fructose syrup, sugar), dates, cornflour, rye flour, salt, spices and tamarind. It is used as a condiment with hot and cold savoury food, and as an ingredient in soups and stews. It is also popular in Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.

Early history

The original recipe for HP Sauce was invented and developed by Frederick Gibson Garton, a grocer from Nottingham. He registered the name H.P. Sauce in 1895. Garton called the sauce HP because he had heard that a restaurant in the Houses of Parliament had begun serving it.  For many years the bottle labels have carried a picture of the Houses of Parliament. Garton sold the recipe and HP brand to Edwin Samson Moore for the sum of £150 and the settlement of some unpaid bills. Moore, the founder of the Midlands Vinegar Company (the forerunner of HP Foods), subsequently launched HP Sauce in 1903. In 2013, nearly 140 years since it was established, the Midland Vinegar Company Limited returned to the originators family, with Nigel Britton, great great grandson of the founders, now being the owner.

For many years the description on the label was in both English and French. The factory in Aston, Birmingham, was once bisected by the A38(M) motorway and had a pipeline, carrying vinegar over the motorway, from the Top Yard to the main Tower Road factory site. The Top Yard site was subsequently closed, and vinegar was not brewed on the Aston site during the last few years of production there.

Wilson’s gravy

HP Sauce became known as “Wilson’s gravy” in the 1960s and 1970s after Harold Wilson, the Labour Prime Minister. The name arose after Wilson’s wife, Mary, gave an interview to The Sunday Times in which she claimed “If Harold has a fault, it is that he will drown everything with HP Sauce”.

Heinz takeover

The brand was passed from the Midlands Vinegar Company to Smedley HP Foods Limited, acquired by a division of Imperial Tobacco, then sold to the French Groupe Danone SA in 1988 for £199 million.

In June 2005, Heinz purchased the parent company, HP Foods, from Danone. In October of that year the United Kingdom Office of Fair Trading referred the takeover to the Competition Commission, which approved the £440 million acquisition in April 2006.

Text from Wikipedia

Soda & Soft Drink Saturday – Pure Sodaworks

The story in their own words

2011: You Gotta Start Somewhere, Right?

In March of 2011, Matt and Tiffany Rogers had an idea to launch a soda brand. Of course, they didn’t know exactly what they were doing or how to accomplish that goal. Undaunted, they brought on their friend, Shawn Clouse, and put together a mobile soda fountain so that they could start selling sodas at local events in and around Chattanooga, Tennessee.

2012 – 2013: Kickstarter, The Makery, and Bottling. Oh my!

The response to our soda idea was overwhelmingly positive to say the least. As our fanbase grew, so did our desire to create a product that people could take home and share with friends and family. We decided to turn to Kickstarter (a relatively new crowd-funding platform at the time) to assist with raising the necessary funds to outfit a facility and purchase bottling equipment.

2014 – 2015: Today, Chattanooga. Tomorrow … THE WORLD! Or so we thought.

After spending two years on Chattanooga’s North Shore, we decided to make a move across town and focus on growth and distribution. Over the course of the next three years, we saw our sodas go all over the United States. At the same time, we were winning awards and getting recognition from some big names.

2016: It’s a Major Award … and a Major Change.

Throughout the first half of 2016, we continued promoting the Pure Sodaworks brand and our sodas, reaching as far and wide as we could. This culminated when we swept the awards at the 2016 Homer Soda Fest, winning both Best in Show and Best of Fest with our Apple Pie Soda… what a thrill! Needless to say, our team was riding high and feeling great about our future at that point.

However, the latter half of 2016 arrived with some major, unforeseen setbacks. First, our local supplier for glass moved away from our city. That change greatly impacted the minimum amount that we were required to purchase in order to make shipping costs worthwhile. Second, our bottling machine, which was actually built to bottle beer rather than soda (which, unfortunately for us in this case, has a much higher carbonation level than beer) started showing just how poorly suited it was for soda manufacturing. We knew right then that our current method of production was no longer sustainable.

That humbling one-two punch prompted us to take a step back and re-evaluate our product, our production methods, our costs, our pricing, our growth, our reach… basically every single aspect of the business. What we determined was that we needed to make some major changes in order to continue providing quality sodas to our loyal, ever-encouraging, soda-loving fans. It was time for a reboot.

2017: Learning Lessons. Looking Ahead. Moving Forward.

After 2016, we knew that we needed to change things in order to maintain the high quality of our product. At the beginning of 2017, we went through and addressed three main areas in order to improve both our product and our business.

That’s the story so far. We hope that you will come along for the ride as we continue on our soda-making journey. Be sure to follow us on social media and visit our site regularly for news and updates. We feel more confident than ever that, with the ongoing encouragement from our devoted fans, we will continue making Mighty Good Soda for years to come!

Visit Pure Sodaworks

History of Mustard as a Condiment

An article by Peggy Trowbridge Filippone 
published on The Spruce

As a condiment, mustard is ancient. Prepared mustard dates back thousands of years to the early Romans, who used to grind mustard seeds and mix them with wine into a paste not much different from the prepared mustards we know today. The spice was popular in Europe before the time of the Asian spice trade. It was popular long before pepper.

The Romans took the mustard seed to Gaul, where it was planted in vineyards along with the grapes. It soon became a popular condiment. French monasteries cultivated and sold mustard as early as the ninth century, and the condiment was for sale in Paris by the 13th century.

In the 1770s, mustard took a modern turn when Maurice Grey and Antoine Poupon introduced the world to Grey Poupon Dijon mustard.

Their original store still can be seen in downtown Dijon. 

In 1866, Jeremiah Colman, founder of Colman’s Mustard of England, was appointed as mustard-maker to Queen Victoria. Colman perfected the technique of grinding mustard seeds into a fine powder without creating the heat which brings out the oil.

The oil must not be exposed or the flavor evaporates with the oil.

Mustard Species

There are about 40 species of mustard plants. The three species that are used to make mustard are the black, brown and white mustards. White mustard, which originated in the Mediterranean, is the antecedent of the bright yellow hot dog mustard we are all familiar with. Brown mustard from the Himalayas is familiar as Chinese restaurant mustard, and it serves as the base for most European and American mustards. Black mustard originated in the Middle East and in Asia Minor, where it is still popular. Edible mustard greens are a different species of mustard. The history of cultivation of mustard centers on the seeds, not the greens, which have been credited with originating both in China and Japan.

Mustard’s Medicinal History

Long ago, mustard was considered a medicinal plant rather than a culinary one. In the sixth century B.C., Greek scientist Pythagoras used mustard as a remedy for scorpion stings. A hundred years later, Hippocrates used mustard in medicines and poultices. Mustard plasters were applied to treat toothaches and a number of other ailments.

Mustard’s Religious History

The mustard seed is a prominent reference for those of the Christian faith, exemplifying something that is small and insignificant, which when planted, grows in strength and power.

Pope John XII was so fond of mustard that he created a new Vatican position—grand moutardier du pape (mustard-maker to the pope—and promptly filled the post with his nephew. His nephew was from the Dijon region, which soon became the mustard center of the world.

Mustard in Modern Culture

We all know that losers and quitters can’t cut the mustard (live up to the challenge), and perhaps the reason ballpark mustard is so popular is because pitchers apply mustard to their fastballs to get those strikeouts. The disabling and even lethal chemical weapon known as mustard gas is a synthetic copy based on the volatile nature of mustard oils.

Soda &Soft Drink Saturday – Surge & Urge

Urge is a citrus flavoured soft drink produced by Coca Cola Norway. It is the Norwegian equivalent of Surge. It was originally introduced in Norway in 1996 as a test product. Surge was launched in the United States in 1997. Surge and Urge are no longer sold anywhere else, but after a steady decline, Urge sales increased greatly in Norway, reaching a market share near 10%, despite receiving no marketing since its initial launch. Urge was originally available in Norway in 0.5L and 1.5L bottles, and later also in 0.33L cans, but in the beginning of 1999 the 1.5L bottles were taken off the market, due to unsatisfactory sales. The cans also silently vanished from the market a few years later, leaving only the 0.5L bottles. It has a high sugar content at 68 grams per 0.5L bottle.

Urge 1.5L bottles was re-launched to the Norwegian market on September 1 2008. The re-launch is credited to a massive campaign by the consumers on the internet community Facebook.

An energy drink version, Urge Intense, was launched in the beginning of 2009. A raspberry flavoured version (“Red Sting”) was released in April 2010.

Sales in Denmark and Sweden ceased in 2001.

The History of Quality Street

Quality Street is a popular selection of individual tinned or boxed toffees, chocolates and sweets, produced by Nestlé. Quality Street was first made in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England in 1936. It was named after a play by J. M. Barrie.

History

In 1890 John Mackintosh and his wife opened a shop in Halifax, where they created a new kind of sweet by mixing hard toffee with runny caramel. These toffees were made from inexpensive local ingredients such as milk, sugar beets and eggs. They were so successful that in 1898 they expanded the operation to build the world’s first toffee factory. It burned down in 1909 so John bought an old carpet factory and converted it into a new facility. When John Mackintosh died his son Harold inherited the business and in 1936 he invented Quality Street.

The name was inspired by a play of the same name by J. M. Barrie. In the early 1930s only the wealthy could afford boxed chocolates made from exotic ingredients from around the world with elaborate packaging that often cost as much as the chocolates themselves. Harold Mackintosh set out to produce boxes of chocolates that could be sold at a reasonable price and would, therefore, be available to working families. His idea was to cover the different toffees with chocolate and present them in low-cost yet attractive boxes.

Rather than having each piece separated in the box, which would require more costly packaging, Mackintosh decided to have each piece individually wrapped in coloured paper and put into a decorative tin. He also introduced new technology, the world’s first twist-wrapping machine, to wrap each chocolate in a distinctive wrapper. By using a tin, instead of a cardboard box, Mackintosh ensured the chocolate aroma burst out as soon as it was opened and the different textures, colours, shapes and sizes of the sweets made opening the tin and consuming its contents a noisy, vibrant experience that the whole family could enjoy.

In the mid- to late 1930s, Britain was still feeling the effects of the economic crash and Mackintosh realised that in times of economic hardship and war, people crave nostalgia. Quality Street chocolates were, therefore, packaged in brightly coloured tins featuring two characters wearing Regency era dress, known affectionately as Miss Sweetly and Major Quality. ‘The Major’ and ‘Miss’, inspired by the play’s principal characters, appeared on all Quality Street boxes and tins until 2000. The original models for the pair were Tony and Iris Coles, the children of Sydney Coles who designed the advertising campaign that first appeared on a front page newspaper advertisement in the Daily Mail on 2 May 1936.

The brand was acquired by Nestlé when they bought Rowntree Mackintosh in 1988

Individual larger versions of the more popular chocolates are now manufactured and sold separately, as an extension to the brand, such as a bar based on the Purple One.

In Western Norway, Quality Street is called “Shetlandsgodt” or more commonly “Shetland Snoop” (snoop is Norwegian slang for sweets), because it often was brought home by fishermen visiting Shetland. In Iceland it is traditionally known as “Mackintosh”.

Quality Street gained the implied endorsement of Saddam Hussein when the Iraqi dictator was reported to have offered them to visiting British politician George Galloway in 2002. Nestlé were initially positive, but then chose to backtrack about the connection.

Text from Wikipedia

Soda & Soft Drink Saturday – Dr Nut

Dr. Nut was a soft drink produced by New Orleans-based World Bottling Company (and later by another New Orleans company, Wright Root Beer). It was introduced in the 1930s and was produced until the late 1970s. Dr. Nut had a distinct almond flavor, similar to Amaretto liquor, and bottles were characterized by their plain logo depicting a squirrel nibbling on a large nut. In the 1940s it was marketed at a competitive price, was known for its slogans, and for having a man in a running costume who ran with the Mardi Gras parades.

The drink was made famous to a new generation in John Kennedy Toole’s novel A Confederacy of Dunces, in which it is a favorite drink of the main character Ignatius Reilly. His copious consumption of the drink is a comic example of the discrepancies between Ignatius’ purportedly ascetic medieval values and his undisciplined, gluttonous lifestyle.

By the time the novel saw print, the beverage was already out of production. A different company attempted to revive the product, but the taste of the new drink lacked the almond flavor of the original and was not well-liked by consumers.

Dr. Nut advertising used to feature a man on the beach, wearing half a nutshell as a bathing suit, and a squirrel as his friend. Many people dressed as this amusing figure during the New Orleans’ Mardi Gras parades.

Green Peppers with Salmon Filling / Grønn Paprika med Laksefyll

A starter/lunch recipe found in “How To Eat Canned Salmon”
published by Alaska Packers’ Association in 1900

The Alaska Packers’ Association (APA) was a San Francisco based manufacturer of Alaska canned salmon founded in 1891 and sold in 1982. As the largest salmon packer in Alaska, the member canneries of APA were active in local affairs, and had considerable political influence. The Alaska Packers’ Association is best known for operating the “Star Fleet,” the last fleet of commercial sailing vessels on the West Coast of North America, as late as 1927.

Part of the fleet in Oakland Creek in March 1923

Marmite: A Potted History of the British-Born Spread

An article by Danielle Hayden posted
on BBC New 14 October 2016

Panic spread across the UK as it emerged that the much-loved yeast extract Marmite was at risk of being removed from the nation’s supermarket shelves. But what is the story behind this most British of brands?

The product that has been loved and hated around the world for more than 100 years was actually discovered by chance by a German scientist called Justus Liebig.

In the late 19th Century Liebig stumbled across the delicious realisation that brewer’s yeast could be concentrated then eaten. Yum. Not long after, in 1902, the Marmite Food Company was founded in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire – a place where the raw ingredients were readily available from the town’s many breweries.

Proving its international status, the controversial condiment was named after a French cooking pot, because British Marmite was originally supplied in earthenware vessels of a similar shape.

Since the 1920s, Marmite has been sold in its distinctive bulbous glass jars, with a picture of a marmite pot on the red and yellow label a reminder of the origins of its name.

The brand is more popular now than it ever has been, but it had its heyday when it first came out because it was the only food at the time that could give people vitamin B.”

---

The early 20th Century saw Marmite become a classic British savoury treat as it was included in World War One rations. It would remain popular among troops and civilians alike in World War Two and beyond – it was sent out to homesick British troops in Kosovo in 1999.

The original recipe for Marmite contained yeast extract, salt, spices and celery. Later, folic acid, vitamin B12, thiamin and riboflavin – vitamins that occur naturally in some foods – were added in high concentrations, but the exact composition of the spread remains a trade secret.

The yeast extract became so popular the Burton factory could not keep up, so the company converted a former brewery in Vauxhall in London into a second plant. The smell from the site was said by one resident to be “disgusting” although the tangy whiff of Marmite-making is no longer an issue as the factory closed in the 1960s.

Today, the Marmite plant in Burton produces about 50 million jars a year, most of which are consumed domestically. While beloved of Brits – if not those who live within smelling distance of its production – the brand is not so popular in other parts of the world.

In 2011, Marmite was banned in Denmark because it fell foul of the country’s law restricting products fortified with added vitamins.

It can be almost impossible to find on the shelves of many foreign countries’ shops, and has been named as one of the top food items British people take abroad with them.

In 2000, as Marmite entered its third century of dividing opinion, the brand, which had been bought by CPC International Inc, merged with international goods supplier Unilever. But despite its status as being part of a vast multinational company’s portfolio, even today this most British of products is still made in Burton.

Residents remained so proud of the spread that in 2010 a monument, nicknamed the “Monumite”, was put up in the centre of the town, making Marmite quite literally an iconic product.

Mr Liebig, the lovers of Marmite salute you. Here’s to 100 more years of a love-hate relationship.

Soda & Soft Drink Saturday – Virgin Cola

Virgin Cola is a carbonated cola soft drink produced by Silver Spring and part of the Virgin Group. It was launched in 1994.

History

Virgin Cola was set up during the early 1990s in conjunction with Cott, a Canadian company that specialises in bottling own-label drinks. Cott was looking for a major international brand that could have global appeal. Virgin founder, Richard Branson was looking to widen the Virgin name and to rival Coca-Cola and Pepsi brands.

Virgin Cola began to hit international shores within its first year. The UK first served the drink on Virgin Atlantic flights, on-board shops on Virgin Trains and also at Virgin Cinemas. The Gulliver’s Kingdom chain of theme parks in the UK also sold post mix Virgin cola. This led Virgin Cola to agree a distribution deal with British supermarket retailer Tesco in 1994.

From 1996, the 500 ml bottles were marketed as “The Pammy”, as their curves were designed to resemble Pamela Anderson who was at the height of her popularity in the UK at the time. It went on to be launched in France, Belgium and South Africa.

In 1998, Branson himself attended the USA launch of Virgin Cola, driving a tank into New York City’s Times Square as part of the launch. It subsequently agreed distribution channels with US retailers such as Target. Virgin Drinks USA, the company dealing in Virgin Cola’s US market closed in April 2001, having managed to establish just a 0.5% share of the market by volume.

In 1999 a bottle of Virgin Cola can be seen on the coffee table in Monica and Rachel’s apartment during the February 4th US airing of the Friends episode entitled “The one with Joey’s bag”. Richard Branson had previously appeared in an episode and was said to be a fan of the show.

In 2002, a vanilla cola called Virgin Vanilla was launched in the UK, ahead of the launch of a similar product from rival Coca-Cola. In 2004, it was announced that Virgin Vanilla would be discontinued in order to focus on the teenage market.

In 2007, Silver Spring acquired the UK licence from Princes limited. However, in 2012 the company fell into administration and ceased production. No company acquired the UK Virgin Cola licence in its place.

Countries in which Virgin Cola is sold

Today, despite the collapse of Virgin Cola in the United Kingdom, Virgin Cola is still sold in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, France, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Malta, Nigeria, China, Switzerland, Tunisia, and Philippines. Virgin Drinks has since fallen, but bottling companies in these countries have acquired the licence.

The History of Canned Milk

An article by Peggy Trowbridge Filippone posted on The Spruce

Depending on your age and perhaps gender, you may have never partaken of evaporated or condensed milk, at least not knowingly. Chances are your grandmother or great-grandmother made at least one heirloom comfort food using one or the other. In the early part of the 1900s, both were used more than fresh milk because they were more shelf-stable and posed less of a health risk than fresh milk. Of course, this was before the government had laws in effect to insure the safety of fresh milk, not to mention refrigerators as standard equipment in every kitchen.

Those in the armed forces are familiar with both of these milk staples. Today, low-fat, skim and non-fat versions are available with recipe applications not limited to sweets and desserts. Learn more about evaporated and condensed milk before trying the canned milk recipes.

Canned milk history

Prior to the nineteenth century, drinking milk was an iffy situation with regard to health risks. Milk straight from the cow was loaded with bacteria. Milk not consumed within a matter of hours in summer soon spoiled in the heat. Illness allegedly derived from contaminated milk consumption was referred to as “the milksick,” “milk poison,” “the slows,” “the trembles,” and “the milk evil.” Granted some of these illnesses (considering modern-day knowledge of lactose intolerance) were probably not due to the milk or milk alone, but the stigma persisted. The idea for a portable canned milk product that would not spoil came to Gail Borden during a transatlantic trip on board a ship in 1852.

The cows in the hold became too seasick to be milked during the long trip, and an immigrant infant died from lack of milk. Borden realized his goal in 1854. His first condensed milk product lasted three days without souring. He first thought the condensing process of the milk made it more stable but later on realized it was the heating process that killed the bacteria and microorganisms that cause spoilage.

Borden was granted a patent for sweetened condensed milk in 1856. The sugar was added to inhibit bacterial growth. Skim milk devoid of all fat was used. Use of this early version lacking in nutrients as a mainstay for young working-class children has been blamed for contributing to a rash of rickets cases in 1905. The Borden Company issued this press release in 1924, extolling the virtues of its product “in relief work among war refugees and in the treatment of public school children of New York”.

Early canned milk was spurned

Borden’s new condensed milk product was not well-received in its early days. In those days, customers were used to watered-down milk, with chalk added to make it white and molasses added for creaminess. Borden had begun commercial production in 1857 in Burrville, Connecticut. When the dubious practice of feeding New York cows on distillery mash by competing fresh milk suppliers was exposed by Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Borden’s condensed milk business greatly benefited. In 1861, the Union Army purchased Borden’s condensed milk for use in field rations, further bolstering its success.
It was John Baptist Meyenberg who first suggested canned evaporated milk to his employers at the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Co.

in Switzerland in 1866. Since the company was already so successful producing sweetened condensed milk, the idea was rejected. Meyenberg emigrated to the United States and began his own company, Helvetia Milk Condensing Co. (Pet Milk), eventually marketing unsweetened condensed milk in 1890.

Although Borden received his patent in 1854, unsweetened condensed milk was not successfully canned until 1885 by competitor John Meyenberg. Borden added evaporated milk to the product line in 1892. In 1899, Elbridge Amos Stuart came up with a new process for canned, sterilized, evaporated milk. With help from evaporated milk pioneer Meyenberg, Stuart began successful mass production of canned evaporated milk. Evaporated milk manufacturers pioneered the use of homogenization (redistribution of fat globules so they are imperceptibly distributed), but dairies producing fresh milk were slow to follow the homogenization trail.

With all the talk these days of irradiating foods to eliminate microorganisms that cause foodborne illness, you may think it a relatively new procedure. Not at all. In 1934, Pet Milk Co. introduced the first evaporated milk products to be fortified with vitamin D via irradiation processing. Nowadays, less than two percent of the United States milk production is evaporated or condensed.

More Than Chicken Soup: Food Remedies

An article by Stephanie Butler posted in
Hungry History at history.com June 2015

It’s likely you’ve heard the adage “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” and everyone knows about the reputed healing powers of a steaming bowl of chicken soup. But would you think to place potato slices on a fever-stricken patient’s forehead? Or shampoo with mayonnaise to give your mane that healthy shine? Foods have been used as medicine since our Neolithic ancestors ate mosses with antibiotic properties to help heal wounds. It’s a long road from healing mosses to zinc lozenges, so let’s take a look at the world of food remedies.

Several hundred years before Alexander Fleming discovered the benefits of penicillin, European housewives kept moldy loaves of bread hidden in their kitchen cabinets. When a family member got a cut or scrape, they would break off bits of the moldy bread, mix it with water to form a paste and paint it over wounds. This method was hardly a cure-all, since it depended on the natural presence of penicillium or other antiseptic molds to be beneficial. But when it did work, the bread treatment must have seemed like a godsend in a world lacking even a basic understanding of how diseases spread.

These medical dark ages lasted far too long for many patients. From the medieval era all the way up through World War I, wartime was especially harrowing for patients and doctors. During the Civil War, for instance, more men died from disease than on the battlefield. People resorted to food- and plant-based remedies because demand for more scientific medicines far outstripped supply. For example, both Northern and Southern troops placed poultices of cooked onions and garlic on their chests to combat croup and congestion. In 1863, Alabama’s Mobile Register gave a delicious-sounding recipe for blackberry cordial that promised to “alleviate the suffering and perhaps save the lives of many of our soldiers” who were sickened by drinking typhus-contaminated water. Baking soda was administered to treat upset stomachs, and sprained limbs were often soaked in salt solutions, a practice that continues today. For amputations, unlucky soldiers were often given wooden spoons—not to cook with, of course, but to clench in their teeth.

At the same time, an ocean away, England was experiencing a true golden age of food remedies. Modern medical breakthroughs like pasteurization (in 1862) and the stethoscope (in 1852) were finally beginning to catch up with kitchen cures, creating a uniquely British blend of folk wisdom and scientific method—the apothecary shop. Modern treatments like morphine, laudanum and chloroform found places on apothecary shelves right next to rosemary tinctures and essence of sage. Receipt books from the period show a real appreciation for the healing powers of lard, which could soothe chapped hands, ease inflammations and help repair burns. Herbs were used liberally in the Victorian home: Dill water could calm a colicky baby, lovage and peppermint were brewed into teas to cure upset stomachs and rosemary-infused alcohol was used for pain. Looking through Victorian medical books, we can see many treatments still familiar to us today. Add two handfuls of oats into a warm bath, for instance, and eczema and chickenpox sufferers would itch no more.

But what about the proverbial apples and chicken soup? Do they really work as well as folk wisdom seems to dictate? While an apple a day certainly won’t guarantee perfect health, apple extract has been shown to decrease cancer cell growth dramatically. Just don’t forget to eat the peel—that’s where most of the beneficial nutrients are found. And a 2000 study demonstrated that chicken soup does indeed have anti-inflammatory properties that help reduce cold symptoms. As for lard salve and onion poultices, however, the jury’s still out.

Soda & Soft DrinkSaturday – Mason’s Old Fashioned Root Beer

Mason’s Old Fashioned Root Beer is an American brand of root beer. It is owned by the Monarch Beverage Company of Atlanta, Georgia, but is not widely distributed.

The Monarch Beverage Company was founded in Atlanta in 1965 by Frank Armstrong, an advertising executive who had spent years working with an international soft drink company. Armstrong’s experience opened his eyes to an untapped market of smaller, regional soft drink brands, each of which had a distinct personality and a loyal following. He envisioned a beverage company that would capitalize on this market – and The Monarch Beverage Company was born.

Mason’s Root Beer was first manufactured in 1947 by Mason & Mason, Inc. of Chicago, Illinois. During its early years, Mason’s Root Beer and flavors line were widely distributed in the Midwest as well as some Southern states.

In 1970, the Rheingold Corporation entered the soda pop business with the purchase of Grapette, changing the company’s name to Flavette. The Flavette division subsequently purchased the Dr. Wells soda pop brand and Mason & Mason, Inc. In 1975, Rheingold and its Flavette division were purchased by Pepsi Co, Inc. in a hostile takeover. The Federal Trade Commission felt that PepsiCo owned too many brands and forced it to divest several of its brands. By 1978, Mason’s Root Beer had been acquired by Monarch Beverage Company but was mostly shelved in favor of the higher-volume Dad’s brand of root beer, which Monarch acquired in 1986.

Text from Wikipedia