Contrary to conventional wisdom, putting together a Thanksgiving Day menu is not particularly challenging. After all, the fundamentals of the holiday meal are hardly open to debate.

Over the Millennia civilization has progressed and so has breakfast cereal. Among the earliest of modern cereals was granola, still a staple today, although these days you have to be careful with granola because some of it is little more than cookies masquerading as health food.

Though candy corn is available year round, 75% of its annual sales occur around Halloween. Thus each Halloween Americans buy some 35 million pounds of candy corn which works out to about 9 billion kernals.

Where would you find the most authentic Chicken Kiev? Probably Ukraine. The definitive Peking Duck? Certainly Beijing. The perfect Swedish Meatballs? Obviously Sweden. Or maybe Ikea. And where would you go to find the ultimate Greek yogurt? That’s not so easy a question to answer.

The Ritz cracker was a considerable improvement over previous crackers. Not pale or square but golden and round the Ritz was the result of leaving out the leavening and adding more shortening to make a crisper, more buttery product.

Though watercress has been an English tradition at high tea and even in school lunches for years and years, the truth is, relatively speaking, the Brits are newcomers to the plant.

Even before people thought of putting it in food, lavender was casting its spell. It has been cultivated since the beginning of recorded time.

Though it was not part of the last Olympics, olive oil wrestling is the national sport of Turkey, where an annual tournament has been held since 1346, making it the oldest continuously running, sanctioned sporting competition in the world.

Whipped cream, after all, is one of the most decadent preparations of all time. For that matter, even when not whipped, cream, as an ingredient, cannot be beat.

The cast-iron skillet, an implement with ancient roots, that has made a comeback in contemporary kitchens.