The Blue Plate Special is the name given to a special, inexpensive plated lunch or dinner served in American Diners and other inexpensive restaurants. The tradition of the blue plate special has been around since at least the 1920s and was a hearty and cheap meal perfect for the hardworking but money-strapped folks of the time. Read … Read more
Is barbecue French, Spanish, or something else entirely? Forget the ‘beard-to-tail’ myth. From the Taino ‘sacred fire pit’ to modern linguistic debates, discover the true indigenous origin of the word barbecue and why scholars are still fighting over its etymology.
The word grocery, used today to refer to the goods sold at a grocery store or supermarket, comes from the word grocer. While the word can mean anything sold at such a store, it usually refers to food items and other small items. Although today we think of a grocer as someone who owns and operates … Read more
Few everyday pantry staples have provoked the level of geopolitical desperation, cutthroat industrial espionage, state-sponsored economic warfare, and overall mythmaking that defined the invention of margarine. Long before it became a beige supermarket tub associated with mid-century heart-health fads, yellow food-coloring, and absurd internet rumors, margarine was an imperial military technology. In the late 1860s, … Read more
Is the word picnic actually racist? While a viral urban legend claims a dark connection to lynchings in the American South, the true picnic etymology tells a very different story. Discover the 17th-century French origins of this favorite outdoor tradition.
We Americans have the peculiar habit of calling a biscuit a cookie. At least according to British folks. Then, our biscuits are something else entirely. Where did we get the word cookie? It may seem logical to assume that the word cookie comes from the word cook, but, in fact, the two words are not related at … Read more