1000s: English peasants pay fees for the use of the
manor house's oven, having none of their own.
1000s: In present-day Mexico, chocolate has religious significance
and social prestige among Aztecs, but as a savory drink rather than as
a sweet candy.
1000s: St. Germain de Prés produces more than 500 hectolitres
of wine a year.
1100s: In Europe, heretical groups begin to spring up which for
the next few centuries advocate not only unpopular religious beliefs but
also a vegetarian diet.
1100s: Public “cookshops” in appear in London, as a sort of “take-out”
where customers can buy prepared food in case of surprise guests.
1150: Lady Tichborne of Hampshire, England, on her deathbed asks
her family to provide food charity to the local people after her death.
Ever since, her descendants have offered bags of flour sprinkled with holy
water to villagers who gather on March 25.
1200s: Saint Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary, gives grain to her
starving German neighbors and becomes the patron saint of bakers.
1200s: American Indians of the Upper Midwest feast on wild rice,
deer, and squash.
1200s: Venetian Marco Polo travels to China and witnesses banquets
with 140 dishes, some of which were stale and inedible, but which helped
create the image of sumptuousness.
1290: As for table manners, one Italian commentator urged “Let
thy hands be clean. Thou must not put either thy fingers into thine ears,
or thy hands to thy head. The man who is eating must not be cleaning by
scraping with his fingers at any foul part.”
1300s: Europeans adopt the Persian taste of rich meats bathed
in a creamy almond sauce.
1300s: In an effort to end Mongol rule in China, bits of paper
calling for revolt are hidden inside “mooncakes,” or round pastries filled
with bean paste or melon. No relation to the fortune cookie, which was
invented in America.
1300s: Edward III passes sumptuary laws that prohibited the English
from eating above or below their station in life. These were reissued by
subsequent rulers, with Henry VIII promising that anyone caught violating
the regulations would be “sent for to be corrected and punished at the
King’s pleasure to the example of others that shall enterprise any such
follies and sensual appetites hereafter.”
1300s: European banqueting halls cover their floors with rushes
and sweet smelling herbs so that the bones and scraps dinner guests throw
on the floor may be easily lost among them.
1390: The Forme of Cury appears, the earliest surviving cookbook
in English.
1397: King Wenceslas II of Bohemia came to visit Charles VI of
France and feasted so much on the delicious wine of the Champagne region
that he signed a rather unfortunate treaty that he regretted after sobering
up.
1400s: A pound of pepper costs two to three weeks wages for an
agricultural laborer.
1400s: At elaborate European banquets, wine glasses, dishes,
plates, and even playing cards were crafted from crisp modeled sugar called
“sugarplate.”
1400s: Germans celebrate special events with hot spiced wine
drunk in gold and silver cups and spit roasted oxen, spiced sausages and
blood puddings.
1492: Columbus makes contact with the New World, and soon after
such novelties as potatoes, corn, chilies, chocolate, vanilla, pumpkin,
cranberries, and tomatoes dramatically change European diets.
1500s: Meatless days become important in Europe to give a boost
to a suffering fishing industry and to restrict use of meat, which had
grown rare and expensive.
1533: Catherine de Medici arrives in Paris from Florence, bringing
with her cooks who are credited with having introduced artichokes, broccoli,
truffles, white beans, and pet its petits to the court, as well as cream
puffs, ices and the double boiler.
1566: The national shrine of Laos is built in the city Vientiane
and becomes the site of an annual religious festival in which worshipers
place balls of sticky rice into the baskets of monks whose vows of poverty
make them rely on such hospitality.
1600s: France begins to grow hot-house pineapples.
1600s: In England, eating meat on fish days was punishable by
fines and jail.
1602: The Dutch East India company first brought tea to the West
from Japan.
1644: William Penn is born. He arrived in the colony he founded
with a load of bordeaux wine and began to experiment with growing American
wine to rival European; his translator, Conrad Weiser, succeeded in establishing
the first successful vineyard.
1650: The first English coffee house opens in Oxford. These male
bastions often became the hot-bed of politics and reform. In France, coffeehouses
were an important center for revolutionaries.
1700s: English diners begin to use individual glasses at hosts’
homes, replacing the custom of the communal cup.
1784: Famous French chef Marie-Antoine Carême is born.
He identified five arts: “painting, sculpture, poetry, music, and architecture,
whose main branch is confectionery.”
1788: Scottish poet Robert Burns writes the words to our most
famous New Year's tradition, “Auld Lange Syne.”
1796: Amelia Simmons is the first American to publish a cookbook
and gives her readers such post revolutionary recipes as “Federal Pan Cake,”
made from rye and cornmeal.
1800s: The Japanese begin to celebrate the western New Year by
eating toshikoshi soba, buckwheat noodles in broth, just before midnight,
so that the last bit of broth is slurped at the stroke of 12. The noodles’
length symbolizes longevity.
1810: Mexico wins independence. Today, Mexico celebrates every
September 16th with a patriotic dish of red, green and white, the colors
of its flag: a stuffed fried poblano topped with a Mexican cream cheese
sauce and garnished with pomegranate seeds.
1812: Nicholas-Francois Appert is recognized by the French government
for revolutionizing the French diet and saving Napoleons starving army
by introducing the now standard hot water bath canning method to preserve
food for long periods.
1819: Francois Cailler opens the first Swiss chocolate factory.
1825: Brilliat-Savarin publishes his Physiology of Taste, a collection
of reflections on the art of dining. Number 18, of his twenty introductory
culinary aphorisms, says “A man who invites his friends to his table, and
fails to give his personal attention to the meal they are going to eat,
is unworthy to have any friends.”
1830s: In America, Sylvester Graham, for whom the graham cracker
is named, champions a vegetarian diet, which includes abstention from alcohol
and raw food where possible. By 1850 the American Vegetarian Society was
founded.
1852: In an ironic twist, Charles Francatelli, once the chef
of Queen Victoria, publishes A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes.
1860s: England adopts the custom of dining a la Russe (as the
Russians), having servants bring dishes from the side board as needed,
rather than placing them all on the table at once.
1864: George Washington Carver is born and goes on to develop
hundreds of peanut by-products including peanut butter and peanut shaving
cream.
1888: An elaborate dinner at Delmonico’s, including such dishes
as shrimp bisque, fish, lamb, veal, pheasant, sorbet, banana cake, petit
fours and bon-bons, costs $12.
1896: Fannie Farmer publishes The Boston Cooking-School Cook
Book while training young women in the food sciences, a growing movement
in the nineteenth century.
1898: The Berghoff opens its doors in Chicago.
1912: Oreo cookies are first made in Hoboken NJ.
1920s: Girl Scouts sell home-baked cookies at 25 cents per dozen.
1931: Irma Rombauer Becker writes The Joy of Cooking
in
St. Louis, Missouri.
1985: The first Médoc Marathon, a 26.2 mile race through
50 of Bordeaux’s most famous vineyards with stops at local chateaux where
runners are fed Medoc wines, cheeses, meats, fruits and even oysters. Winners
are awarded their weight in wine.
1985: Paint Me A Party Productions founded in Chicago by Sally
Schwartz, Queen Without a Country, to serve an international clientele
committed to communicating ideas in civilized societies.
1989: Feast of the Fields in Tottenham, Ontario, Canada is founded
to help fund organic agriculture and to spread the message of the importance
organic food.
1990s: Martha Stewart inspires Americans to devote themselves
to entertaining; launches successful IPO on Wall Street in 1999.
1990s: French bakers introduce le retro, an artisinal baguette,
to combat the industrialization of food and encourage a return to more
traditional foodways.
1990s: As the rainforest disappears, chocolate prices begin to
rise and scientists and manufacturers look for new growing methods and
new sources for chocolate.
1996: Harrods of London sells Tutankhamen Ale, brewed from a
3,250 year old recipe.
Founded in 1985 by Sally Schwartz, a veteran of the Chicago advertising
world, PMAPP serves companies who recognize the importance of consistent,
integrated marketing messages and positive bottom line impact of a professionally
planned and executed event.
