Ben Wenberg was a wealthy sea captain who sailed between Cuba and New York in the late 19th century engaged in the fruit trade. A gastronome, when ashore he often dined at New York’s Delmonico’s Restaurant. One evening in 1876 he walked into the restaurant and announced that he had learned a new way to cook lobster. Summoning a chafing dish to his table he proceeded to concoct an extravagant preparation of lobster chunks, cream, eggs, butter, sherry, and a little cayenne pepper. When the dish

Betty Crocker, Mrs. Butterworth, and Chef Boyardee : there are so many culinary icons that have been invented purely for marketing purposes that you could be excused for assuming that all three of these names are fictitious. Betty Crocker clearly is, even though at one time she was named by Fortune magazine as the second most popular woman in America after Eleanor Roosevelt. Likewise, even though she has her own Facebook page, Mrs. Butterworth is not real and for that matter, neither is her

I have much for which to thank the nuns of the Catholic Church. After all, one of them taught me how to read. But I’m almost equally grateful to Roman Catholic nuns for their role in inventing and perfecting some of the most heavenly pastries on earth. Collectively called convent sweets because they originated in the convents of Italy, Spain, and particularly Portugal as far back as the 15th century, they ultimately made their way far beyond the Iberian peninsula. The best of these creations

What do award-winning cookbook author Rick Bayless , Food Network Iron Chef Bobby Flay, nationally acclaimed pastry chef Gale Gand , and Chloe, my granddaughter, have in common? They all began their culinary education by slaving over a hot light bulb. Chloe, just like those three celebrity chefs when they were youngsters, has been the recipient of an Easy-Bake oven, which, famously, can produce cakes, cookies, pies, and other goodies using only the heat generated by an ordinary 100-watt

While he was Tsar of Russia, Peter the Great had his ambassador deliver a gift of fine caviar to Louis XV, King of France. When, with great ceremony, the young monarch tasted his first mouthful of the precious stuff, he became nauseated and promptly spit it out on the carpet at Versailles. These days even a royal might think twice about such unmannerly behavior, for caviar is, as Inga Saffron notes in her detailed history of those fabulous fish eggs, “the world’s most coveted delicacy.” Thus, as

Though Southeast Missouri's muggy summer climate may occasionally test it, I've always held the conviction that there's something special about alfresco dining. Whereas Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, one of the high priests of gastronomy, put it, the universe is your drawing room and the sun your lamp. Perhaps it's because the great outdoors enhances the appetite and produces, as Brillat-Savarin observed, "a vivacity unknown indoors." Whatever the reason, I don't think I've ever been to a picnic

I have a confession to make. For years I have been making a chocolate cake that everybody raves over. Once I took it to a committee meeting and one of the committee members said it was absolutely the best chocolate cake he had ever tasted. Another time I took it to a party and people actually fought over the last slice. Without fail, whenever I serve it, somebody asks for the recipe. Well, the cake does contain some flavorful ingredients— Kahlua , sour cream, and almost a pound of chocolate. But

I enjoy baking cookies. It gives me great satisfaction to see how my family and friends enjoy the results of my efforts. But the truth is I really do it for the dough. Let’s face it. It’s hard enough to keep your hands out of the cookie jar, but what’s really difficult is keeping your fingers out of the mixing bowl. In fact, the practice of eating raw cookie dough has become so popular that many people buy packaged cookie dough from the grocery store with absolutely no intention of ever baking

Perhaps you've seen the promo on the Weather Channel in which a meteorologist presents a lesson about tornadoes. He fills a blender container with yogurt and milk and blends it on progressively higher speeds. Finally, a student in the class blurts out, "So a tornado is mother nature's way of making a smoothie!" I don't know how apt the comparison is for meteorological purposes but one thing's for sure -- smoothies have become so popular, they're popping up as frequently as tornadoes in Kansas

Every time I visit Athens I come away with a renewed appreciation for the contributions of the ancient Greeks to human civilization. No, I'm not talking about democracy, the theater or even the Olympics. I'm talking about feta cheese. To me, feta cheese -- sometimes referred to as the princess of cheeses -- is every bit as admirable as any other Greek invention, and it is surely just as ancient. It is likely as old as Greece itself. In his epic work, "The Odyssey," written thousands of years ago