Spain has given many gifts to gastronomy, like paella, manchego cheese, and the world’s greatest ham. But no less noteworthy are churros, or Spanish donuts. Fritter-like pastries made from cylinders of ridged batter and sprinkled with sugar, churros, not unlike American hushpuppies and French beignets, testify to the virtues of fried dough. As such they are among the oldest forms of cooking known to humankind, going back thousands of years to the invention of pottery which, of course, by making

I like to visit Southern California in February...escaping Missouri's winter weather. But good weather isn't the only advantage attendant to being in California. I think the biggest advantage may be that the strawberry season there begins in January and is practically year-round. Coastal California's unique setting makes it the perfect place to grow strawberries. In fact, the strawberry yield per acre there surpasses that of any other growing area. No wonder the state supplies more than 85% of

They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. It's a truth worth contemplating, especially around Valentine's Day. After all, the genius of love and the genius of hunger are the two driving forces behind all living things. Biblically, as the London Independent remarked, "Food and sex have been bedfellows ever since Adam and Eve tasted the forbidden fruit." The search for foods that foster romance is age old. They're called aphrodisiacs after Aphrodite, who not coincidentally was

What’s the one item you’re likely to find on nearly every menu in Italy? If you said spaghetti and meatballs, your answer is plausible, but it’s wrong. Spaghetti and meatballs is actually an American dish, invented, it is true, by Italian immigrants to this country, but invented here nonetheless. These days you can find spaghetti and meatballs on the menu in Italy, but more often than not at tourist traps. In contrast, the one item you are almost always assured to find on any restaurant menu

It is not true, as the humor website Cracked satirically suggests, that oatmeal was invented by a research scientist at Britain's Royal Academy of Adhesives and Sealants during an experiment in search of new forms of industrial glue. But if your idea of oatmeal is the pasty variety made in a microwave from a packet, the story can seem plausible. In Scotland they know better. Their oatmeal, or porridge, is a hallowed dish, celebrated every year at the World Porridge Making Championship in the

Ever been in a sticky situation? We all have. But probably none as sticky as the Great Molasses Flood, sometimes called the Molasses Massacre, which hit Boston in 1919. The tragedy occurred when over 2 million gallons of molasses stored in a 50-foot tall tank at the Purity Distilling Company burst forth, when the temperature rose from below zero one day to 40 degrees the next. A wall of molasses estimated to be as high as 30 feet swept down Boston's Atlantic Avenue at the rate of 25-35 miles per

The non-violent overthrow of Czechoslovakia's communist government in 1999 was called the Velvet Revolution; growing up in St. Louis, the preferred ice cream of my youth was called Velvet Freeze; and the late crooner Mel Torme was called the Velvet Fog (or to those who weren't fans, the Velvet Frog.) But to me the most deserving object of the designation "velvet" is red velvet cake -- a rich relative of devil's food cake only with a distinctive red color and frosted with white icing for contrast

Every culture feeds on the belief that eating certain dishes on New Years Day brings good fortune. Perhaps the Chinese have the most New Years food rituals. They take two weeks to ring in the new year and during that time literally everything eaten is considered auspicious. Having first domesticated the pig the Chinese consider pork to be a lucky food but they are hardly alone in that. The pig is a symbol of good fortune around the world. Perhaps because a family who owns one is guaranteed to

Over seventy-five years ago Irving Berlin wrote what has become the most recorded song of all time: "White Christmas." It’s easy to understand how Berlin, born in a town near Siberia, could feel nostalgic about a winter snowfall. Even those of us who grew up in temperate climates typically long for a white Christmas. I know I do. In my case, however, I am never disappointed. That’s because regardless of the weather I know my Christmas will be a white one, a white chocolate one, that is. Now I

On Christmas Eve not even mice will be stirring, stockings will be carefully hung by chimneys, and children will be snugly nestled in their beds. Moreover, dancing in their heads will be visions of sugar plums. I must've read the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" hundreds of times - I even had to memorize it for a school play when I was in the first grade. And yet, despite all those readings, I never thought much about what sugar plums are, let alone why they were dancing. It turns out, that the