History Of Chocolate chips Cookies

Who doesn't love chocolate chips cookie ? dipping with milk for midnight snacks :D mm .....

Cookie or hard wafer or kinda like biscuits, the cookie itself it's appear to have their origins in 7th century Persia, shortly after the use of sugar became relatively common in the region. They spread to Europe through the Muslim conquest of Spain. By the 14th century, they were common in all levels of society, throughout Europe, from royal cuisine to street vendors. but they were usually not sweet enough to be considered cookies by modern standards.

And the Genius Who Invented Chocolate Cookies is Ruth Graves Wakefield,   The chocolate chip cookie was accidentally developed by  in 1930.
Ruth Wakefield prepared the recipes for the meals served to the guests at the Inn and gained local notoriety for her deserts. One of her favorite recipes was for Butter Drop Do cookies. The recipe called for the use of baker's chocolate and one day Ruth found herself without the needed ingredient. She substituted a semi-sweet chocolate bar cut up into bits. However, unlike the baker's chocolate the chopped up chocolate bar did not melt completely, the small pieces only softened.

Ruth Graves Wakefield  owned the Toll House Inn, in Whitman, Massachusetts, a very popular restaurant that featured home cooking in the 1930s. The restaurant's popularity was not just due to its home-cooked style meals; her policy was to give diners a whole extra helping of their entrées to take home with them and a serving of her homemade cookies for dessert. Her cookbook, Toll House Tried and True Recipes, was published in 1936 by M. Barrows & Company, New York. It included the recipe "Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie", which rapidly became a favorite to be baked in American homes.

As it so happened the chocolate bar had been a gift from Andrew Nestle of the Nestle Chocolate Company. As the Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe became popular, sales of Nestle's semi-sweet chocolate bar increased. Andrew Nestle and Ruth Wakefield struck a deal. Nestle would print the Toll House Cookie recipe on its packaging and Ruth Wakefield would have a lifetime supply of Nestle chocolate.

Toll House Station

source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_chip_cookie , http://inventors.about.com/od/wstartinventors/a/Chocolate_Chip.htm

History Of Potato Chips

Crisp, crunchy, salty, yummy, thickly and lovely, i think potato chips is an "Genius Invention" cause i lllloooooove this food soo much, anyway this chips is invented in Saratoga Springs, NY on August 24, 1853, and it's invented accidental,  it begin with customer that send back his potatoes back and complaining that they were too thick and soggy (the patron sometimes identified as Cornelius Vanderbilt) resort hotel chef, George Crum decided to slice the potatoes even thinner. Contrary to Crum's expectation, the patron (sometimes identified as Cornelius Vanderbilt) loved the new chips and they soon became a regular item on the lodge's menu under the name "Saratoga Chips".

However, a recipe for fried potato "shavings" had been printed in the US in 1832, in a book explicitly derived from an even earlier English collection. “Claims that the product originated in Saratoga NY in 1853 may be looked at with appropriate skepticism.” 

In the 20th century, potato chips spread beyond chef-cooked restaurant fare and began to be mass produced for home consumption. At first, potato chips were packaged in barrels or tins, which left chips at the bottom stale and crumbled. Laura Scudder,[1] an entrepreneur in Monterey Park, California started having her workers take home sheets of wax paper to iron into the form of bags, which were filled with chips at her factory the next day. This pioneering method reduced crumbling and kept the chips fresh and crisp longer. This innovation, along with the invention of cellophane, allowed potato chips to become a mass market product and made Laura Scudder a household name. Today, chips are packaged in plastic bags, with nitrogen gas blown in prior to sealing to lengthen shelf life, and provide protection against crushin.

 

Thanks for Mr.Crum, who has cooked this superior chips, :D

source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_chip

POPCORN

Pop... Pop Pop Pop (umm.. sounds delicious) Who doesn't know popcorn the famous snack ever, fluffy, cruncy, what do you like? buttery, caramel, or marshmallow u can decide the taste that make you happy, but do you know popcorn is an ancient snacks, and cave people already eat popcorn before Christopher Colombus reached Americas, do you can imagine flintsone eat a popcorn, not a popstone hehe.... 

The Story Of "Pop"Corn

The oldest popcorn ever found was discovered in the "Bat Cave" of central New Mexico. It is thought to be about 5,600 years old. In tombs in Peru, archaeologists found ancient kernels of popcorn that are so well preserved that they can still pop.

Sometimes, conditions can preserve ancient popcorn so perfectly that it still looks fluffy and white when the dust is blown off of it. In a cave in southern Utah, researchers found surprisingly fresh-looking 1,000-year-old popcorn.

Popcorn was probably an important part of life in the ancient Americas. On a 1,700-year-old painted funeral urn found in Mexico, a corn god is shown wearing a headdress of popcorn. Decorated popcorn poppers from around the same time have been found in Peru.

Cortez, another European global explorer, wrote in his diaries Aztecs decorated ceremonial garb with popped corn. He noted it symbolized goodwill and peace and how the Aztecs made necklaces and other ornaments for the god's statues with the grain, especially that of the god Tialoc, the god of rain, fertility and maize (corn).

An amazingly clear documentation of popcorn comes from an early account of a Spaniard. He records observations of a ceremony honoring the Aztec god watching over fishermen. "They scattered before him parched corn, called momchitl, a kind of corn that bursts when parched and discloses its contents and makes itself look like a very white flower; they said these were hailstones given to the god of water."

French explorers, about 1612 in the Great Lakes region, made mention in their documents the use of popcorn by the Iroquois. This popcorn was popped in pottery with heated sand. The Frenchmen took part in an Iroquois dinner that included popcorn soup and popcorn beer. 

                                              credits Photo : http://adiastock.deviantart.com

Why This Corn Can "Pop"

A popcorn kernel is actually a seed. Like other seeds, inside it has a tiny plant embryo (a life form in its earliest phase). The embryo is surrounded by soft, starchy material that would give the embryo energy for growing into a plant. A hard, glossy shell protects the outside of the seed.

The soft, starchy material holds some water. When the kernel is heated to a high heat (400 degrees F), the water inside the kernel turns into steam. The pressure from the steam causes the kernel to explode. The soft starch inside bursts out at about 40 times its original size, turning the kernel inside out. This creates the fluffy white area of a popped kernel.

The ideal popcorn kernel contains about 14 percent moisture. If the popcorn is much drier, it will not pop. Popcorn kernels should be kept in a tightly sealed jar so that they will not dry out.

the articles is from two sources : http://www.factmonster.com/spot/popcorn1.html  and http://www.essortment.com/all/whatisthehist_rsdt.htm