1.
Pudding
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Pudding is a kind of food that can be either a dessert or a savory dish. The word pudding is believed to come from the French boudin, originally from the Latin botellus, meaning small sausage, in the United Kingdom and some of the Commonwealth countries, the word pudding can be used to describe both sweet and savory dishes. Unless qualified, however, the term in everyday usage typically denotes a dessert, in the UK, savory dishes include Yorkshire pudding, black pudding, suet pudding and steak and kidney pudding. In Commonwealth countries these puddings are known as custards if they are egg-thickened, blancmange if starch-thickened, Pudding may also refer to other dishes such as bread pudding and rice pudding, although typically these names derive from the origin as British dishes. The most famous examples still surviving are black pudding, which was a favourite of King Henry VIII, Yorkshire pudding and haggis. The original pudding was formed by mixing various ingredients with a product or other binder such as butter, flour, cereal, eggs, and/or suet. These puddings are baked, steamed or boiled, depending on its ingredients, such a pudding may be served as a part of the main course or as a dessert. Boiled or steamed pudding was a main course aboard ships in the Royal Navy during the 18th and 19th centuries. Pudding was used as the dish in which daily rations of flour. Steamed pies consisting of a completely enclosed by suet pastry are also known as puddings. These may be sweet or savory and include such dishes as steak, the second and newer type of pudding consists of sugar, milk, and a thickening agent such as cornstarch, gelatin, eggs, rice or tapioca to create a sweet, creamy dessert. These puddings are made either by simmering on top of the stove in a saucepan or double boiler or by baking in an oven, often in a bain-marie. These puddings are easily scorched on the fire, which is why a double boiler is used, microwave ovens are also now often used to avoid this problem. Creamy puddings are typically served chilled, but a few, such as zabaglione and rice pudding, instant puddings do not require boiling and can therefore be prepared more quickly. Rice pudding The proverb The proof of the pudding is in the dates back to at least the 14th century. The phrase is attributed to the Spanish author Cervantes in his novel The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote. The phrase is often stated as the proof is in the pudding. Pink Floyds Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2 ends with the voice of a Scottish-accented schoolmaster shouting, If you dont eat your meat, how can you have any pudding if you dont eat your meat
2.
Wheat
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Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region but now cultivated worldwide. In 2016, world production of wheat was 749 million tonnes, making it the second most-produced cereal after maize, since 1960, world production of wheat and other grain crops has tripled and is expected to grow further through the middle of the 21st Century. This grain is grown on land area than any other commercial food. World trade in wheat is greater than for all other crops combined, globally, wheat is the leading source of vegetal protein in human food, having a protein content of about 13%, which is relatively high compared to other major cereals and staple foods. The archaeological record suggests that wheat was first cultivated in the regions of the Fertile Crescent around 9600 BCE. In a small part of the population, gluten – the major part of wheat protein – can trigger coeliac disease, non-coeliac gluten sensitivity, gluten ataxia. Cultivation and repeated harvesting and sowing of the grains of wild grasses led to the creation of domestic strains, in domesticated wheat, grains are larger, and the seeds remain attached to the ear by a toughened rachis during harvesting. In wild strains, a more fragile rachis allows the ear to easily shatter, as the traits that improve wheat as a food source also involve the loss of the plants natural seed dispersal mechanisms, highly domesticated strains of wheat cannot survive in the wild. Cultivation of wheat began to spread beyond the Fertile Crescent after about 8000 BCE, jared Diamond traces the spread of cultivated emmer wheat starting in the Fertile Crescent sometime before 8800 BCE. Archaeological analysis of wild emmer indicates that it was first cultivated in the southern Levant with finds dating back as far as 9600 BCE, Genetic analysis of wild einkorn wheat suggests that it was first grown in the Karacadag Mountains in southeastern Turkey. Dated archeological remains of wheat in settlement sites near this region, including those at Abu Hureyra in Syria. With the anomalous exception of two grains from Iraq ed-Dubb, the earliest carbon-14 date for einkorn wheat remains at Abu Hureyra is 7800 to 7500 years BCE. Remains of harvested emmer from several sites near the Karacadag Range have been dated to between 8600 and 8400 BCE, that is, in the Neolithic period and these remains were dated by Willem van Zeist and his assistant Johanna Bakker-Heeres to 8800 BCE. They also concluded that the settlers of Tell Aswad did not develop this form of emmer themselves, the cultivation of emmer reached Greece, Cyprus and India by 6500 BCE, Egypt shortly after 6000 BCE, and Germany and Spain by 5000 BCE. The early Egyptians were developers of bread and the use of the oven, by 3000 BCE, wheat had reached the British Isles and Scandinavia. A millennium later it reached China, the oldest evidence for hexaploid wheat has been confirmed through DNA analysis of wheat seeds, dating to around 6400-6200 BCE, recovered from Çatalhöyük. The first identifiable bread wheat with sufficient gluten for yeasted breads has been identified using DNA analysis in samples from a dating to approximately 1350 BCE at Assiros in Macedonia. From Asia, wheat continued to spread throughout Europe, in the British Isles, wheat straw was used for roofing in the Bronze Age, and was in common use until the late 19th century
3.
Milk
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Milk is a pale liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the source of nutrition for infant mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mothers antibodies to its young and it contains many other nutrients including protein and lactose. As an agricultural product, milk is extracted from non-human mammals during or soon after pregnancy, Dairy farms produced about 730 million tonnes of milk in 2011, from 260 million dairy cows. India is the worlds largest producer of milk, and is the leading exporter of skimmed milk powder, the ever increasing rise in domestic demand for dairy products and a large demand-supply gap could lead to India being a net importer of dairy products in the future. The United States, India, China and Brazil are the worlds largest exporters of milk and milk products, China and Russia were the worlds largest importers of milk and milk products until 2016 when both countries became self-sufficient, contributing to a worldwide glut of milk. Throughout the world, there are more than six billion consumers of milk and milk products, over 750 million people live in dairy farming households. The term milk comes from Old English meoluc, milc, from Proto-Germanic *meluks milk, there are two distinct types of milk consumption, a natural source of nutrition for all infant mammals and a food product for humans of all ages that is derived from other animals. In almost all mammals, milk is fed to infants through breastfeeding, the early milk from mammals is called colostrum. Colostrum contains antibodies that provide protection to the baby as well as nutrients. The makeup of the colostrum and the period of secretion varies from species to species, for humans, the World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for six months and breastfeeding in addition to other food for at least two years. In some cultures it is common to breastfeed children for three to five years, and the period may be longer, fresh goats milk is sometimes substituted for breast milk. This introduces the risk of the child developing electrolyte imbalances, metabolic acidosis, megaloblastic anemia, in many cultures of the world, especially the West, humans continue to consume milk beyond infancy, using the milk of other animals as a food product. Initially, the ability to digest milk was limited to children as adults did not produce lactase, Milk was therefore converted to curd, cheese and other products to reduce the levels of lactose. Thousands of years ago, a chance mutation spread in human populations in Europe that enabled the production of lactase in adulthood and this allowed milk to be used as a new source of nutrition which could sustain populations when other food sources failed. Milk is processed into a variety of products such as cream, butter, yogurt, kefir, ice cream. Modern industrial processes use milk to produce casein, whey protein, lactose, condensed milk, powdered milk, whole milk, butter and cream have high levels of saturated fat. The sugar lactose is found only in milk, forsythia flowers, the enzyme needed to digest lactose, lactase, reaches its highest levels in the small intestine after birth and then begins a slow decline unless milk is consumed regularly
4.
Egg as food
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Eggs are laid by female animals of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and fish, and have been eaten by humans for thousands of years. Bird and reptile eggs consist of an eggshell, albumen. The most popular choice for egg consumption are chicken eggs, other popular choices for egg consumption are duck, quail, roe, and caviar. Egg yolks and whole eggs store significant amounts of protein and choline, due to their protein content, the United States Department of Agriculture categorizes eggs as Meats within the Food Guide Pyramid. Despite the nutritional value of eggs, there are potential health issues arising from egg quality, storage. Chickens and other egg-laying creatures are widely kept throughout the world, in 2009, an estimated 62.1 million metric tons of eggs were produced worldwide from a total laying flock of approximately 6.4 billion hens. There are issues of variation in demand and expectation, as well as current debates concerning methods of mass production. In 2012, the European Union banned battery husbandry of chickens, bird eggs have been valuable foodstuffs since prehistory, in both hunting societies and more recent cultures where birds were domesticated. The chicken was probably domesticated for its eggs before 7500 BCE, chickens were brought to Sumer and Egypt by 1500 BCE, and arrived in Greece around 800 BCE, where the quail had been the primary source of eggs. In Thebes, Egypt, the tomb of Haremhab, built about 1420 BCE, shows a depiction of a man carrying bowls of ostrich eggs and other large eggs, presumably those of the pelican, as offerings. In ancient Rome, eggs were preserved using a number of methods, the Romans crushed the shells in their plates to prevent evil spirits from hiding there. In the Middle Ages, eggs were forbidden during Lent because of their richness, the word mayonnaise possibly was derived from moyeu, the medieval French word for the yolk, meaning center or hub. Egg scrambled with acidic fruit juices were popular in France in the 17th century, the dried egg industry developed in the 19th century, before the rise of the frozen egg industry. In 1878, a company in St. Louis, Missouri started to transform egg yolk and white into a light-brown, the production of dried eggs significantly expanded during World War II, for use by the United States Armed Forces and its allies. In 1911, the egg carton was invented by Joseph Coyle in Smithers, British Columbia, early egg cartons were made of paper. Bird eggs are a food and one of the most versatile ingredients used in cooking. They are important in many branches of the food industry. The most commonly used bird eggs are those from the chicken, duck and goose eggs, and smaller eggs, such as quail eggs, are occasionally used as a gourmet ingredient in western countries
5.
Western Europe
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Western Europe, or West Europe, is the region comprising the western part of Europe. Below, some different geographic and geopolitical definitions of the term are outlined, prior to the Roman conquest, a large part of Western Europe had adopted the newly developed La Tène culture. This cultural and linguistic division was reinforced by the later political east-west division of the Roman Empire. The division between these two was enhanced during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages by a number of events, the Western Roman Empire collapsed, starting the Early Middle Ages. By contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire, mostly known as the Greek or Byzantine Empire, survived, in East Asia, Western Europe was historically known as taixi in China and taisei in Japan, which literally translates as the Far West. The term Far West became synonymous with Western Europe in China during the Ming dynasty, the Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci was one of the first writers in China to use the Far West as an Asian counterpart to the European concept of the Far East. In his writings, Ricci referred to himself as Matteo of the Far West, the term was still in use in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Post-war Europe would be divided into two spheres, the West, influenced by the United States, and the Eastern Bloc. With the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain, behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Although some countries were neutral, they were classified according to the nature of their political. This division largely defined the popular perception and understanding of Western Europe, the world changed dramatically with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. The Federal Republic of Germany peacefully absorbed the German Democratic Republic, COMECON and the Warsaw Pact were dissolved, and in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Several countries which had part of the Soviet Union regained full independence. Although the term Western Europe was more prominent during the Cold War, it remains much in use, in 1948 the Treaty of Brussels was signed between Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It was further revisited in 1954 at the Paris Conference, when the Western European Union was established and it was declared defunct in 2011, after the Treaty of Lisbon, and the Treaty of Brussels was terminated. When the Western European Union was dissolved, it had 10 member countries, six member countries, five observer countries. The CIA divides Western Europe into two smaller subregions, regional voting blocs were formed in 1961 to encourage voting to various UN bodies from different regional groups. The European Union is an economic and political union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe, some Western and Northern European countries of Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein are members of EFTA, though cooperating to varying degree with the European Union
6.
Medieval cuisine
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Medieval cuisine includes the foods, eating habits, and cooking methods of various European cultures during the Middle Ages, a period roughly dating from the 5th to the 15th century. Barley, oat and rye among the poor, and wheat for the classes, were eaten as bread, porridge, gruel. Fava beans and vegetables were important supplements to the diet of the lower orders. Meat was more expensive and therefore more prestigious, game, a form of meat acquired from hunting, was common only on the nobilitys tables. The most prevalent butchers meats were pork, chicken and other fowl, beef. Cod and herring were mainstays among the populations, dried, smoked or salted they made their way far inland. Slow transportation and food preservation techniques made long-distance trade of many very expensive. Because of this, the food of the nobility was more prone to influence than the cuisine of the poor, it was dependent on exotic spices. A type of refined cooking developed in the late Middle Ages that set the standard among the nobility all over Europe and these, along with the widespread use of sugar or honey, gave many dishes a sweet-sour flavour. Almonds were very popular as a thickener in soups, stews, the cuisines of the cultures of the Mediterranean Basin had since antiquity been based on cereals, particularly various types of wheat. Porridge, gruel and later, bread, became the basic food staple that made up the majority of calorie intake for most of the population, from the 8th to the 11th centuries, the proportion of various cereals in the diet rose from about 1⁄3 to 3⁄4. Dependence on wheat remained significant throughout the era, and spread northwards with the rise of Christianity. In colder climates, however, it was usually unaffordable for the majority population, the centrality of bread in religious rituals such as the Eucharist meant that it enjoyed an especially high prestige among foodstuffs. Only oil and wine had a value, but both remained quite exclusive outside the warmer grape- and olive-growing regions. In the oven of the Holy Ghost you were baked into Gods true bread, additionally, it was customary for all citizens to fast prior to taking the Eucharist, and these fasts were occasionally for a full day and required total abstinence. Both the Eastern and the Western churches ordained that feast should alternate with fast, in most of Europe, Fridays were fast days, and fasting was observed on various other days and periods, including Lent and Advent. Meat, and animal products such as milk, cheese, butter and eggs, were not allowed, the fast was intended to mortify the body and invigorate the soul, and also to remind the faster of Christs sacrifice for humanity. The intention was not to portray certain foods as unclean, during particularly severe fast days, the number of daily meals was also reduced to one
7.
Porridge
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Porridge is a dish made by boiling ground, crushed, or chopped starchy plants – typically grain – in water or milk. It is often cooked or served with such as sugar, honey, etc. to make a sweet dish, or mixed with spices, vegetables. It is usually served hot in a bowl, the term is often used specifically for oat porridge, which is eaten for breakfast with salt, sugar, milk, cream, or butter, and sometimes other flavorings. Oat porridge is also sold in ready-made or partly cooked form as an instant breakfast, other grains used for porridge include semolina, rice, wheat, barley, corn, triticale, and buckwheat. Many types of porridge have their own names, such as polenta, grits, porridge is a staple food in much of Africa, and historically was also a staple in much of Northern Europe and Russia. Porridge is easy to digest, so it is used traditionally in many cultures as a food for the sick, oat porridge, traditional and common in the English-speaking world, Germany and the Nordic countries. Oat porridge has been found in the stomachs of 5, 000-year-old Neolithic bog bodies in Central Europe, varieties of oat porridge include, Groats, a porridge made from unprocessed oats or wheat. Gruel, very thin porridge, often rather than eaten. Yod Kerch, an oat porridge from the north-west of France, primarily Brittany, made with oats, water or milk. Owsianka, an east European traditional breakfast made with hot milk, oats, porridge made from rolled oats or ground oatmeal is common in Scotland, England, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, North America, Finland and Scandinavia. It is known as simply porridge or, more commonly in the United States and Canada, rolled oats are commonly used in England, oatmeal in Scotland, and steel-cut oats in Ireland. Porridge – Anglophone Caribbean Also known as Pap, the most common type is corn meal, and they are always made with milk. Varieties include oatmeal, grated green plantain, barley, cream of wheat, oatmeal porridge is often flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar and/or almond essence. Stirabout – Irish porridge, traditionally made by stirring oats into boiling water Terci de ovăz, in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, cooks made burgoo for the men for breakfast, from coarse oatmeal and water. Maize porridge, Atole, a Mexican dish of corn flour in water or milk, champurrado, a Mexican blend of sugar, milk, chocolate and corn dough or corn flour. The Philippine dish tsampurado is similar, with instead of maize. Cir, Păsat, or Mămăligă are all Romanian maize porridges, cornmeal mush, a traditional dish in southern and mid-Atlantic US states. Gachas, a Spanish porridge of maize or grass peas, often garnished with roasted almonds and croutons of bread fried in olive oil
8.
Latin Language
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
9.
Peasant
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A peasant is a member of a traditional class of farmers, either laborers or owners of small farms, especially in the Middle Ages under feudalism, or more generally, in any pre-industrial society. In Europe, peasants were divided into three classes according to their status, slave, serf, and free tenant. Peasants either hold title to land in fee simple, or hold land by any of several forms of tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold. The implication of the term is that the peasant is uneducated, ignorant, the word peasant is also commonly used in a non-pejorative sense as a collective noun for the rural population in the poor and under-developed countries of the world. The word peasant is derived from the 15th century French word païsant, meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, Peasants typically made up the majority of the agricultural labour force in a pre-industrial society. The majority of the people in the Middle Ages were peasants, more generally, the word peasant is sometimes used to refer pejoratively to those considered to be lower class, perhaps defined by poorer education and/or a lower income. The open field system of agriculture dominated most of northern Europe during medieval times, under this system, peasants lived on a manor presided over by a lord or a bishop of the church. Peasants paid rent or labor services to the lord in exchange for their right to cultivate the land, fallowed land, pastures, forests, and wasteland were held in common. The open field system required cooperation among the peasants of the manor and it was gradually replaced by individual ownership and management of land. This process happened in a pronounced and truncated way in Eastern Europe. Lacking any catalysts for change in the 14th century, Eastern European peasants largely continued upon the original medieval path until the 18th and 19th centuries, even before emancipation in 1861, serfdom was on the wane in Russia. The proportion of serfs within the empire had decreased from 45-50 percent at the end of the eighteenth century. In Germany, peasants continued to center their lives in the well into the 19th century. They belonged to a body and helped to manage the community resources. In the East they had the status of serfs bound permanently to parcels of land, a peasant is called a Bauer in German and Bur in Low German. In most of Germany, farming was handled by tenant farmers who paid rents, Peasant leaders supervised the fields and ditches and grazing rights, maintained public order and morals, and supported a village court which handled minor offenses. Inside the family the patriarch made all the decisions, and tried to arrange marriages for his children. Much of the communal life centered on church services and holy days
10.
Almond
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The almond is a species of tree native to the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and North Africa. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree, within the genus Prunus, it is classified with the peach in the subgenus Amygdalus, distinguished from the other subgenera by corrugations on the shell surrounding the seed. The fruit of the almond is a drupe, consisting of a hull and a hard shell with the seed. Shelling almonds refers to removing the shell to reveal the seed, almonds are sold shelled or unshelled. Blanched almonds are shelled almonds that have been treated with hot water to soften the seedcoat, the almond is a deciduous tree, growing 4–10 m in height, with a trunk of up to 30 cm in diameter. The young twigs are green at first, becoming purplish where exposed to sunlight, the leaves are 3–5 inches long, with a serrated margin and a 2.5 cm petiole. The flowers are white to pink, 3–5 cm diameter with five petals, produced singly or in pairs. Almond grows best in Mediterranean climates with warm, dry summers and mild, the optimal temperature for their growth is between 15 and 30 °C and the tree buds have a chilling requirement of 300 to 600 hours below 7.2 °C to break dormancy. Almonds begin bearing an economic crop in the year after planting. Trees reach full bearing five to six years after planting, the fruit matures in the autumn, 7–8 months after flowering. The almond fruit measures 3. 5–6 cm long, in botanical terms, it is not a nut but a drupe. The outer covering or exocarp, fleshy in other members of Prunus such as the plum and cherry, is instead a thick, leathery, grey-green coat, inside the hull is a reticulated, hard, woody shell called the endocarp. Inside the shell is the seed, commonly called a nut. Generally, one seed is present, but occasionally two occur, the almond is native to the Mediterranean climate region of the Middle East, eastward as far as the Yamuna River in India. The wild form of domesticated almond grows in parts of the Levant, the fruit of the wild forms contains the glycoside amygdalin, which becomes transformed into deadly prussic acid after crushing, chewing, or any other injury to the seed. Selection of the type from the many bitter types in the wild marked the beginning of almond domestication. It is unclear as to which wild ancestor of the created the domesticated species. Zohary and Hopf believe that almonds were one of the earliest domesticated fruit trees due to the ability of the grower to raise attractive almonds from seed
11.
Zante currant
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Zante currants, Corinth raisins, or Corinthian raisins, also called simply currants, are dried berries of the small, sweet, seedless grape cultivar Black Corinth. The name comes from the Anglo-French phrase raisins de Corinthe and the Ionian island of Zakynthos and it is not related to black, red or white currants, which are berries of shrubs in the Ribes genus and not usually prepared in dried form. The currant is one of the oldest known raisins, the first written record was in 75 AD by Pliny the Elder, who described a tiny, juicy, thick-skinned grape with small bunches. The next mention is a later, when the raisins became a subject of trade between Venetian merchants and Greek producers from Ionian coasts. Gradually, the name got corrupted into currant, however, by the 17th century, trade shifted towards the Ionian islands, particularly Zakynthos, at which time it was named Zante currant. The first attempts to introduce the Black Corinth cultivar in the United States date back to 1854, the first successful vineyards of White and Red Corinth, were established in California in 1861 by Colonel Agoston Haraszthy. Around 1901, David Fairchild of USDA imported high-quality black currant cuttings from the Greek village of Panariti, a renowned producer, the plantings reached 3,000 acres by 1936, which is approximately its current level. In wild grapes, the species is dioecious, the sexes grow on vines with male flowers on one plant. Black Corinth is an almost male variety in that the flowers have well-developed anthers, clusters of Black Corinth are small, averaging 6.3 oz and ranging from 3.2 to 9.5 oz. They are cylindrical, with prominent shoulder or winged, the berries are very small 0. 012–0.021 oz, round, and of a reddish black color. The skin is thin, and the flesh is juicy. It is practically seedless, except in a large berry. When dried, the raisins weigh 0. 0032–0.0049 oz and are brown or black. Leaves are medium-sized, heart-shaped, and oblong and they are five-lobed with deep sinuses. To yield sufficient fruit, Black Corinth grapes need to be carefully managed, historically, Black Corinth stock was probably kept for its pollen-producing abilities, so other female flowered varieties would set full crops. The Black Corinth cultivar is also reputed to be prone to powdery mildew. Greece is still the producer of currants, amounting to about 80% of total world production, with California, South Africa. The fresh fruit of zante currants are very small and sweet, Black Corinth, White Corinth, and Red Corinth are often marketed under the name Champagne grapes in U. S. specialty stores, but despite the name, they are not used for making Champagne
12.
Sugar
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Sugar is the generic name for sweet, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. There are various types of derived from different sources. Simple sugars are called monosaccharides and include glucose, fructose, the table sugar or granulated sugar most customarily used as food is sucrose, a disaccharide of glucose and fructose. Sugar is used in prepared foods and it is added to some foods, in the body, sucrose is hydrolysed into the simple sugars fructose and glucose. Other disaccharides include maltose from malted grain, and lactose from milk, longer chains of sugars are called oligosaccharides or polysaccharides. Some other chemical substances, such as glycerol may also have a sweet taste, low-calorie food substitutes for sugar, described as artificial sweeteners, include aspartame and sucralose, a chlorinated derivative of sucrose. Sugars are found in the tissues of most plants and are present in sufficient concentrations for efficient commercial extraction in sugarcane, the world production of sugar in 2011 was about 168 million tonnes. The average person consumes about 24 kilograms of sugar each year, equivalent to over 260 food calories per person, since the latter part of the twentieth century, it has been questioned whether a diet high in sugars, especially refined sugars, is good for human health. Sugar has been linked to obesity, and suspected of, or fully implicated as a cause in the occurrence of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, macular degeneration, the etymology reflects the spread of the commodity. The English word sugar ultimately originates from the Sanskrit शर्करा, via Arabic سكر as granular or candied sugar, the contemporary Italian word is zucchero, whereas the Spanish and Portuguese words, azúcar and açúcar, respectively, have kept a trace of the Arabic definite article. The Old French word is zuchre and the contemporary French, sucre, the earliest Greek word attested is σάκχαρις. The English word jaggery, a brown sugar made from date palm sap or sugarcane juice, has a similar etymological origin – Portuguese jagara from the Sanskrit शर्करा. Sugar has been produced in the Indian subcontinent since ancient times and it was not plentiful or cheap in early times and honey was more often used for sweetening in most parts of the world. Originally, people chewed raw sugarcane to extract its sweetness, sugarcane was a native of tropical South Asia and Southeast Asia. Different species seem to have originated from different locations with Saccharum barberi originating in India and S. edule, one of the earliest historical references to sugarcane is in Chinese manuscripts dating back to 8th century BC that state that the use of sugarcane originated in India. Sugar was found in Europe by the 1st century AD, but only as an imported medicine and it is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, and it crunches between the teeth. It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut, sugar is used only for medical purposes. Sugar remained relatively unimportant until the Indians discovered methods of turning sugarcane juice into granulated crystals that were easier to store, crystallized sugar was discovered by the time of the Imperial Guptas, around the 5th century AD
13.
Saffron
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Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the saffron crocus. Saffron crocus grows to 20–30 cm and bears up to four flowers, the styles and stigmas, called threads, are collected and dried to be used mainly as a seasoning and colouring agent in food. Saffron, long among the worlds most costly spices by weight, is native to Southwest Asia and was probably first cultivated in or near Greece. As a genetically monomorphic clone, it was slowly propagated throughout much of Eurasia and was brought to parts of North Africa, North America. Saffrons taste and iodoform or hay-like fragrance result from the chemicals picrocrocin and it also contains a carotenoid pigment, crocin, which imparts a rich golden-yellow hue to dishes and textiles. Its recorded history is attested in a 7th-century BC Assyrian botanical treatise compiled under Ashurbanipal, Iran now accounts for approximately 90% of the world production of saffron. A degree of uncertainty surrounds the origin of the English word saffron and it might stem from the 12th-century Old French term safran, which comes from the Latin word safranum or from Arabic, az-zafaran, having unknown origin. Safranum comes from the Persian intercessor zafarān, the domesticated saffron crocus, Crocus sativus, is an autumn-flowering perennial plant unknown in the wild. Its progenitors are possibly the eastern Mediterranean autumn-flowering Crocus cartwrightianus, which is known as wild saffron. The saffron crocus probably resulted when C. cartwrightianus was subjected to artificial selection by growers seeking longer stigmata. C. thomasii and C. pallasii are other possible sources, a corm survives for one season, producing via this vegetative division up to ten cormlets that can grow into new plants in the next season. Corms also bear vertical fibres, thin and net-like, that grow up to 5 cm above the plants neck, the plant grows to a height of 20–30 cm, and sprouts 5–11 white and non-photosynthetic leaves known as cataphylls. These membrane-like structures cover and protect the crocuss 5 to 11 true leaves as they bud and develop. The latter are thin, straight, and blade-like green foliage leaves, which are 1–3 mm in diameter, C. sativus cataphylls are suspected by some to manifest prior to blooming when the plant is irrigated relatively early in the growing season. Its floral axes, or flower-bearing structures, bear bracteoles, or specialised leaves, that sprout from the flower stems, after aestivating in spring, the plant sends up its true leaves, each up to 40 cm in length. The flowers possess a sweet, honey-like fragrance, upon flowering, plants average less than 30 cm in height. A three-pronged style emerges from each flower, each prong terminates with a vivid crimson stigma 25–30 mm in length. The saffron crocus, unknown in the wild, probably descends from Crocus cartwrightianus, if C. sativus is a mutant form of C. cartwrightianus, then it may have emerged via plant breeding, which would have selected for elongated stigmata, in late Bronze Age Crete
14.
Pottage
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Pottage is a thick soup or stew made by boiling vegetables, grains, and, if available, meat or fish. It was a food from neolithic times to the Middle Ages. The word pottage comes from the same Old French root as potage, the result was a dish that was constantly changing. Pottage consistently remained a staple of the diet throughout most of 9th to 17th-century Europe. When people of higher rank, such as nobles, ate pottage. The pottage that these people ate was much like modern day soups and this is similar to the Welsh cawl, which is a broth, soup or stew often cooked on and off for days at a time over the fire in a traditional inglenook. In Nigeria the words pottage and porridge are synonymous, and it is consumed as a main meal, nigerian yam pottage/porridge includes tomatoes and other culinary vegetables along with the yam. It may also have fish and/or other meat and it was often served, when possible, with bread. Brown soup Casserole Lancashire hotpot Lentil soup List of soups List of stews Mess of pottage Pease pudding Potted meat Food portal
15.
Venison
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Venison is the meat of a deer. Venison can be used to refer to any part of the deer, so long as it can be consumed, including the flesh, venison, much like beef, is categorized into specific cuts, including roast, sirloin, and ribs. The word derives from the Latin venari and this term entered English through Norman in the 11th century, following the Norman invasion of England, and the establishment of Royal Forests. Venison originally described meat of any game animal killed by hunting, and was applied to any animal from the families Cervidae, Leporidae, and Suidae, in Southern Africa, the word venison refers to the meat of antelope. There are no native Cervidae in sub-Saharan Africa, venison may be eaten as steaks, tenderloin, roasts, sausages, jerky and minced meat. It has a reminiscent of beef, but is richer. Venison tends to have a texture and is leaner than comparable cuts of beef. However, like beef, leaner cuts can be tougher as well, organ meats of deer are eaten, but would not be called venison. This is supposedly the origins of the phrase humble pie, literally a pie made from the organs of the deer, venison is widely considered by modern nutritionists to be a very healthy meat. Since wild deer are not confined to limited spaces and eat a diet, their meat is natural. Venison is higher in moisture, similar in protein and lower in calories, cholesterol and fat than most cuts of grain-fed beef, pork, when considering the environmental effects that result from raising livestock, deer meat is also a low-impact food. Farmers have had tests developed especially for the species they raise to obtain better results than those used on cattle. Venison jerky can be purchased in grocery stores or ordered online. Some deer breeders have expressed an interest in breeding for an animal that displays more marbling in the meat. Historically, venison was considered to be a symbol among many Europeans. In England, for example, hunting rights were restricted in an effort to preserve property rights, as a result, the possession and sale of venison was tightly regulated under English law. Venison is widely available in European supermarkets through the hunting season. The main cuts available to European consumers are derived from the saddle, in the United States, venison is less common at retail due to the requirement that the animal be first inspected by USDA inspectors
16.
Porpoise
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Porpoises are a group of fully aquatic marine mammals that are sometimes referred to as mereswine, all of which are classified under the family Phocoenidae, parvorder Odontoceti. There are six extant species of porpoise and they are small toothed whales that are very closely related to oceanic dolphins. The most obvious difference between the two groups is that porpoises have shorter beaks and flattened, spade-shaped teeth distinct from the conical teeth of dolphins. Porpoises range in size from the 1.4 metres and 54 kilograms vaquita, several species exhibit sexual dimorphism in that the females are larger than males. They have streamlined bodies and two limbs that are modified into flippers, Dalls porpoise is one of the fastest cetaceans discovered, with the ability to travel at 41 knots. Porpoises have the ability to produce biosonar and it is their primary sensory system, some species are well adapted for diving to great depths. They have a layer of fat, or blubber, under the skin to keep warm in cold water. Porpoises are not very widespread, with many specialising near the polar regions, porpoises feed largely on fish and squid, much like the rest of the odontocetes. Males typically mate with multiple females every year, but females only mate every two to three years, calves are typically born in the spring and summer months and females bear all the responsibility for raising them. Some porpoises produce a variety of clicks and whistles, which are thought to be primarily for social purposes, a few species, like the harbour porpoise, are highly sociable, but pods generally do not exceed ten individuals for most species. Porpoises were, and still are, hunted by some countries by means of drive hunting, some species are attributed with high levels of intelligence. At the 2012 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, support was reiterated for a bill of rights. Besides drive hunting, they face threats from bycatch, competition. Porpoises are sometimes kept in captivity and trained to perform tricks, porpoises, along with whales and dolphins, are descendants of land-living ungulates that first entered the oceans around 50 million years ago. During the Miocene, mammals were fairly modern, meaning they seldom changed physiologically from the time, the cetaceans diversified, and fossil evidence suggests porpoises and dolphins diverged from their last common ancestor around 15 Mya. The oldest fossils are known from the seas around the North Pacific, with animals spreading to the European coasts and Southern Hemisphere only much later. ORDER ARTIODACTYLA Infraorder Cetacea Parvorder Odontoceti toothed whales Superfamily Delphinoidea Family Phocoenidae – porpoises Genus †HaborophocoenaH, toyoshimai Genus Neophocaena N. phocaeniodes – finless porpoise Genus †NumataphocoenaN. Porpoises have a head, no external ear flaps, a non-flexible neck, a torpedo shaped body, limbs modified into flippers
17.
Lent
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Lent is a solemn religious observance in the Christian liturgical calendar that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends approximately six weeks later, before Easter Sunday. The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer through prayer, doing penance, mortifying the flesh, repentance of sins, almsgiving and this event is observed in the Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, and Roman Catholic Churches. Some Anabaptist and evangelical churches also observe the Lenten season, in Lent, many Christians commit to fasting, as well as giving up certain luxuries in order to replicate the sacrifice of Jesus Christ’s journey into the desert for 40 days. Many Christians also add a Lenten spiritual discipline, such as reading a daily devotional or praying through a Lenten calendar, the Stations of the Cross, a devotional commemoration of Christs carrying the Cross and of his execution, are often observed. Throughout Christendom, some adherents mark the season with the abstention from the consumption of meat. The English word Lent is a form of the Old English word lenten, meaning spring season. A dated term in German, lenz, is also related, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the shorter form seems to be a derivative of *laŋgo- long. And may possibly have reference to the lengthening of the days as characterizing the season of spring. The origin of the -en element is clear, it may simply be a suffix, or lencten may originally have been a compound of *laŋgo- long. In languages spoken where Christianity was earlier established, such as Greek and Latin, in modern, Greek the term is Σαρακοστή, derived from the earlier Τεσσαρακοστή, meaning fortieth. In other languages, the name used refers to the activity associated with the season, thus it is called fasting period in Czech, German, and Norwegian, and it is called great fast in Polish and Russian. The terms used in Filipino are kuwaresma and Mahál na Araw, various Christian denominations calculate the 40 days of Lent differently. The way they observe Lent also differs, in the Roman Rite, the definition of Lent varies according to different documents. Lent ends on either Holy Thursday or Good Friday, though some sources try to reconcile this with the phrase forty days by excluding Sundays and extending Lent through Holy Saturday no official documents support this interpretation. The day for beginning the Lenten fast is the following Monday, the special Ash Wednesday fast is transferred to the first Friday of the Ambrosian Lent. The period of Lent observed in the Eastern Catholic Churches corresponds to that in churches of Eastern Christianity that have similar traditions. In the Byzantine Rite, i. e. the Eastern Orthodox Great Lent is the most important fasting season in the church year, Great Lent is broken only after the Paschal Divine Liturgy. The Eastern Orthodox Church maintains the traditional Churchs teaching on fasting, the rules for lenten fasting are the monastic rules
18.
Entremet
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An entremet or entremets is in modern French cuisine a small dish served between courses or simply a dessert. Originally it was a form of entertainment dish common among the nobility and upper middle class in Europe during the later part of the Middle Ages. By the end of the Middle Ages, it had evolved almost entirely into dinner entertainment in the form of inedible ornaments or acted performances, often packed with symbolism of power, in English it was more commonly known as a subtlety and did not include acted entertainment. For modern pastry chefs, an entremet is a multi-layered mousse-based cake with various complementary flavors, dishes that were intended to be eaten as well as entertain can be traced back at least to the early Roman Empire. In his Satyricon, the Roman writer Petronius describes a dish consisting of a rabbit dressed to look like the mythical horse Pegasus, the function of the entremet was to mark the end of a course, met, of which there could be several at a banquet. It punctuated each stage of a banquet, prepared the diners for the next serving, the earliest recipe for an entremet can be found in an edition of Le Viandier, a medieval recipe collection from the early 14th century. An even simpler dish, like millet boiled in milk and seasoned with saffron, was considered to be an entremet. The most noticeable trait of the early entremets was the focus on vivid colors, elaborate models of castles made from edible material was a popular theme. In the 14th century entremets began to not just eye-catching displays of amusing haute cuisine. In 1306, the knighting of the son of Edward I included performances of chansons de geste in what has been assumed to be part of the entremets. During the course of the 14th century they would take on the character of theatrical displays, complete with props. At a banquet held in 1378 by Charles V of France in honor of Emperor Charles IV, actors portraying the crusader Godfrey of Bouillon and his knights then sailed into the hall on a miniature ship and reenacted the capture of Jerusalem in 1099. From the late 14th century on in England, entremets are referred to as subtleties and this English term was derived from an older meaning of subtle as clever or surprising. The meaning of subtlety did not include entertainment involving actors, those were referred to as pageants. The four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie, in the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence, has its genesis in an entremet presented to amuse banquet guests in the 14th century and this extravaganza of hospitality was related by an Italian cook of the era. “Live birds were slipped into a pie shell through a hole cut in its bottom. ”The unwary guest would release the flapping birds once the upper crust was cut into. Chiquart, cook to Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy, described an entremet entitled Castle of Love in his 15th-century culinary treatise Du fait de cuisine and it consisted of a giant castle model with four towers, carried in by four men. The battlements of the castle were adorned with the banners of the Duke and his guests, manned by miniature archers, and inside the castle there was a fountain that gushed rosewater and spiced wine
19.
Poor Robin
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Poor Robin was an English 17th and 18th-century satirical almanac series, appearing as Poor Robins Almanack from 1663. Other similar writings by the pseudonymous Poor Robin were published later, in American, the earliest volume published under the pseudonym of Poor Robin was an almanac calculated from the meridian of Saffron Walden, which is said to have been originally issued in 1661 or 1662. It was taken over by the Stationers Company, and was continued annually by various hands, Poor Robin offered deadpan prognostications of the obvious, and substituted parodic saints days under the Fanatic rubric. From the turn of the 18th century, the satire becomes blunted and it observes the continued use of cucking stools in 1746. Thomas Danson,1677, Poor Robins Intelligence Revivd,1678, Four for a Penny,1678, A Scourge for Poor Robin,1678, Poor Robins Prophecy,1678, in the 18th century editors included Thomas Peat. James Franklin This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Winstanley. Works by or about Poor Robin at Internet Archive
20.
Sheep shearing
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Sheep shearing is the process by which the woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the wool is called a shearer. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year, the annual shearing most often occurs in a shearing shed, a facility especially designed to process often hundreds and sometimes more than 3,000 sheep per day. Sheep are shorn in all seasons, depending on the climate, management requirements, ewes are normally shorn prior to lambing, but consideration is typically made as to the welfare of the lambs by not shearing during cold climate winters. Shorn sheep tolerate frosts well, but young sheep especially will suffer in cold, in this event they are shedded for several nights until the weather clears. Some sheep may also be shorn with stud combs which leave more wool on the animal, Sheep shearing is also considered a sport with competitions held around the world. The wealth of ancient Knossos, Europes oldest city, derived from its wool industry. The largest group of Linear B tablets is the great archive principally of shearing records though also of sheep breeding, the medieval English wool trade was one of the most important factors in the English economy. The main sheep-shearing was an annual event in medieval England culminating in the sheep-shearing feast. It had always been conventional practice to wash sheep, Australias fine wools In Australia, up until the 1870s, squatters washed their sheep in nearby creeks prior to shearing. Later some expensive hot water installations were constructed on some of the stations for the washing. Australian growers were influenced by the Spanish practice of washing their very fine wool after shearing, Wool in Australia was carted by bullock team or horse teams and charged by weight. Washed wool was lighter and did not cost as much to transport, the practice of washing the wool rather than the sheep evolved from the fact that hotter water could be used to wash the wool, than that used to wash the sheep. When the practice of selling wool in the grease occurred in the 1890s, Australia and New Zealand had to discard the old methods of wool harvesting and evolve more efficient systems to cope with the huge numbers of sheep involved. Shearing was revolutionized by the invention of an Australian sheepgrower, Frederick York Wolseley and his machines made in Birmingham England by his business The Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company were introduced after 1888, reducing second cuts and shearing time. By 1915 most large sheep station sheds in Australia had installed machines, Shearing tables were invented in the 1950s and have not proved popular, although some are still used for crutching. In the US, the shortage of shearers is becoming a consideration for those wanting to expand wool production. With sheep numbers declining in that country the profession sees significantly less interest in becoming a qualified shearer, importing labour during the Australian off-season has also become problematic because of delays in obtaining work visa and because shearers numbers are limited worldwide
21.
The Forme of Cury
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The Forme of Cury is an extensive collection of medieval English recipes from the 14th century. Originally in the form of a scroll, its authors are listed as the chief Master Cooks of King Richard II and it is among the oldest English cookery books, and the first to mention olive oil, gourds, and spices such as mace and cloves. The scroll was written in late Middle English on vellum and contains about 200 recipes with many of the recipes as Ancient Cookery. The Forme of Cury may have been partly to compete with Le Viandier of Taillevent. This supports the idea that banquets were a symbol of power and prestige for medieval lords, the name The Forme of Cury was given to the manuscript by Samuel Pegge, who published an edition of it in 1780 for the curator of the British Museum, Gustavus Brander. This name has come into usage for almost all versions of the original manuscript even though they differ from each other. It is one of the best-known medieval guides to cooking, in the preamble, the authors explain the recipes are meant to teach a cook how to make both common dishes as well as unusual or extravagant banquet dishes. They also note that the recipes were written with the advice of the best experts in medicine and philosophy. Compared to another book of medieval cuisine, Le Viandier, The Forme of Cury uses much more sugar, about 31% of the recipes use sugar. The Forme of Cury is the first known English cookery book to certain ingredients such as cloves, olive oil, mace. Many recipes contain what were at the rare and valuable spices, including nutmeg, caraway, ginger, pepper. There are recipes for preparing many different types of animals, including whale, crane, curlew, heron, seal and porpoise. There are about 10 vegetable recipes, including one for a vinaigrette salad, there are also several pasta dishes, evidence of Italian influence. Some recipes in The Forme of Cury appear to be influenced by the Liber de Coquina, for example, the recipe for mawmenee corresponds to the Arabic mamuniyya. The confectionery-like payn ragoun confirms the connection with Sicily, as it uses the Arab technique of cooking in soft ball syrup, the following is an example of a recipe taken from the modern critical edition of the text, Sawse madame. Take galytyne and grece and do in a possynet, add thereto powder of galangal, powder-douce and salt and boil the sauce and dress the Geese in dishes and lay the sauce onward. The Café at the Rylands, in Manchesters John Rylands Library, cooked Tart in Ymber Day, Compast, Payn Puff, Frumenty and Gingerbrede, accompanied by Piment, apicius - a collection of Roman cookery recipes Curye on Inglysch, English culinary manuscripts of the fourteenth century. Further notes on The Forme of Cury et al. additions and corrections, bulletin of the John Rylands Library
22.
Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
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Dinner by Heston Blumenthal is a restaurant in London, England. Opened in January 2011, it gained a Michelin star within a year and it received a second Michelin Star in the 2014 Guide. The restaurant is headed by former Fat Duck head chef Ashley Palmer-Watts, menu options are based on historical British dishes, which were researched by food historians and through the British Library. The restaurants opening drew interest within the industry, and reviews have been positive, particular dishes have received praise, including the meat fruit, a chicken liver mousse created to look like a mandarin orange. The opening of Dinner was announced in August 2010, to open in early 2011 to replace the Michelin starred restaurant Foliage at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park. The opening was planned for 1 December, but delays occurred. The decision was made to back the opening until after the Christmas period was over. Reservations began to be accepted on 1 December 2010 for the opening on 31 January 2011. There were 42 phone lines set up on the day of reservations. Prior to opening, the first three months were solidly booked, a Valentines day booking was sold on auction site eBay, which went for £250. While overseen by Heston Blumenthal, the chef in the kitchen is Ashley Palmer-Watts. Palmer-Watts has previously worked with Blumenthal since 1999, and for five years was head chef at Blumenthals other restaurant, the two chefs researched historical menu choices with help from the British Library and food historians. This was further enhanced as he filmed Hestons Feasts for Channel 4, in which he created a variety of feasts from different historical eras including Tudor, Medieval and Victorian. Despite being called Dinner, the restaurant is open for lunch as the meaning of the name is intended to be the main meal of the day. The interior of the restaurant was designed by Adam Tihany, and it features a pulley system based on a 16th-century design used for the British Royal Court. The brand identity items such as the logo and the menus were designed by design agency Seymourpowell, a £70,000 clockwork spitroast cooks pineapples for one of the restaurants desserts. The restaurant intends to change the menu every three months, each menu containing historical dishes ranging from the 14th to 19th centuries. Prior to opening, rumours were abound regarding the dishes to be served at Dinner, dishes that do appear include scallops and peas with cucumber ketchup and bergamot cured mackerel salad
23.
Workhouse
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In England and Wales a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment. The earliest known use of the dates from 1631, in an account by the mayor of Abingdon reporting that wee haue erected wthn our borough a workehouse to sett poore people to worke. The New Poor Law of 1834 attempted to reverse the trend by discouraging the provision of relief to anyone who refused to enter a workhouse. Some Poor Law authorities hoped to run workhouses at a profit by utilising the free labour of their inmates, who generally lacked the skills or motivation to compete in the open market. Most were employed on such as breaking stones, crushing bones to produce fertiliser, or picking oakum using a large metal nail known as a spike. Life in a workhouse was intended to be harsh, to deter the able-bodied poor, although workhouses were formally abolished by the same legislation in 1930, many continued under their new appellation of Public Assistance Institutions under the control of local authorities. It was not until the National Assistance Act of 1948 that the last vestiges of the Poor Law disappeared, the Poor Law Act of 1388 was an attempt to address the labour shortage caused by the Black Death, a devastating pandemic that killed about one-third of Englands population. The resulting laws against vagrancy were the origins of state-funded relief for the poor, supporting the destitute was a problem exacerbated by King Henry VIIIs Dissolution of the Monasteries, which began in 1536. They had been a significant source of relief, and provided a good deal of direct and indirect employment. The Poor Relief Act of 1576 went on to establish the principle that if the poor needed support. The Act for the Relief of the Poor of 1601 made parishes responsible for the care of those within their boundaries who. The Act essentially classified the poor into one of three groups and it proposed that the able-bodied be offered work in a house of correction, where the persistent idler was to be punished. The workhouse system evolved in the 17th century, allowing parishes to reduce the cost to ratepayers of providing poor relief and it put the number of parish workhouses in England and Wales at more than 1800, with a total capacity of more than 90,000 places. The growth in the number of workhouses was also bolstered by the Relief of the Poor Act 1782, the able-bodied poor were instead either given outdoor relief or found employment locally. Relatively few Gilbert Unions were set up, but supplementing inadequate wages under the Speenhamland system did become established towards the end of the 18th century. So keen were some Poor Law authorities to cut costs wherever possible that cases were reported of husbands being forced to sell their wives, by the 1830s most parishes had at least one workhouse, but many were badly managed. In his 1797 work, The State of the Poor, Sir Frederick Eden, wrote, The workhouse is an inconvenient building, with windows, low rooms. It is surrounded by a wall, that gives it the appearance of a prison
24.
Wynnere and Wastoure
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Wynnere and Wastoure is a fragmentary Middle English poem written in alliterative verse sometime around the middle of the 14th century. The poem occurs in a manuscript, British Library Additional MS. 31042, also called the London Thornton Manuscript, the poem can be dated with some confidence due to its prominent reference to William Shareshull, Chief Justice of the Kings Bench, who left the post in 1361 and died in 1370. It also appears to reference to the Treason Act 1351. Wynnere and Wastoure is written in a four-stress unrhymed alliterative line, usually thought to be a development, or perhaps revival. Wynnere and Wastoure is the earliest datable poem of the so-called Alliterative Revival, the poem begins with a brief reference to the legend, derived from Geoffrey of Monmouths Historia Regum Britanniae, of the founding of Britain by Brutus, the great-grandson of Aeneas. The poet then goes on to speak of the marvels and disorder currently seen in the land, commenting that Doomsday must surely be approaching. Wandering by himself, the poet lies down by a tree and has a dream vision. Inside the pavilion is a richly-dressed, brown-bearded king, who has been identified as Edward III of England. One army is led by Wynnere, a figure representing monetary gain and financial prudence, the other by Wastoure, a figure representing prodigality and excess. The king, after sending his herald to intervene between the two armies, agrees to listen to Wynnere and Wastoures complaints against each other and to give his judgement on them. There follows a lengthy debate between Wynnere and Wastoure, each giving complex arguments against the other and about the effects on society of the principles they represent. At the end, the King gives his judgement, though the poem breaks off, at line 503, though his subject is the feudal economy, the poets themes are essentially moralistic. It also has something in common with the genre of the chanson daventure, in which the solitary, Wynnere and Wastoure also has some form of relationship to the Piers Plowman tradition. The writer of Wynnere and Wastoure was clearly a very sophisticated poet, however, we know nothing about the authors identity other than what can be deduced from the poems language. Modern opinion identifies the dialect, and therefore the author, as originating from the north-west Midlands, the academic Thorlac Turville-Petre has proposed that the kings herald in the poem can be identified as Sir John Wingfield, steward of the Black Princes lands around Chester in 1351. This complaint could indicate a certain conservatism on the part, though it could also be merely conventional. It has been argued that the similar alliterative work The Parlement of the Thre Ages, which shares the same dialect,31042, is by the same author, although there is no conclusive evidence
25.
Pheasant
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Pheasants are birds of several genera within the subfamily Phasianinae, of the family Phasianidae in the order Galliformes. The familys native range is restricted to Asia, Pheasants are characterised by strong sexual dimorphism, males being highly decorated with bright colors and adornments such as wattles. Males are usually larger than females and have longer tails, males play no part in rearing the young. Pheasants typically eat seeds and some insects, the best-known is the common pheasant, which is widespread throughout the world in introduced feral populations and in farm operations. Various other pheasant species are popular in aviaries, such as the golden pheasant and this list is ordered to show presumed relationships between species. Madge and McGowan, Pheasants, Partridges and Grouse ISBN 0-7136-3966-0 Videos of pheasants in the Internet Bird Collection
26.
Rum
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Rum is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane byproducts, such as molasses, or directly from sugarcane juice, by a process of fermentation and distillation. The distillate, a liquid, is then usually aged in oak barrels. The majority of the rum production occurs in the Caribbean. Rums are produced in various grades, light rums are commonly used in cocktails, whereas golden and dark rums were typically consumed straight or neat, on the rocks, or used for cooking, but are now commonly consumed with mixers. Premium rums are also available, made to be consumed straight or iced. Rum plays a part in the culture of most islands of the West Indies as well as in The Maritimes and this beverage has famous associations with the Royal Navy and piracy. Rum has also served as a medium of economic exchange, used to help fund enterprises such as slavery, organized crime. The origin of the rum is generally unclear. In an 1824 essay about the origin, Samuel Morewood. He wrote, As spirits, extracted from molasses, could not well be ranked under the name whiskey, brandy, or arrack, it would be called rum, given the harsh taste of early rum, this is unlikely. Morewood later suggested another possibility, that it was taken from the last syllable of the Latin word for sugar, saccharum, other etymologists have mentioned the Romani word rum, meaning strong or potent. These words have been linked to the ramboozle and rumfustian, both popular British drinks in the mid-17th century, however, neither was made with rum, but rather eggs, ale, wine, sugar, and various spices. The most probable origin is as a version of rumbullion or rumbustion. Both words surfaced in English about the time as rum did. This is a far more convincing explanation, and brings the image of men fighting in entanglements at island tippling houses. Another claim is the name is from the large drinking glasses used by Dutch seamen known as rummers, from the Dutch word roemer, other options include contractions of the words iterum, Latin for again, a second time, or arôme, French for aroma. A short time later in May 1657, the General Court of Massachusetts also decided to make illegal the sale of strong liquor whether knowne by the name of rumme, strong water, wine, brandy, etc. In current usage, the used for a rum is often based on its place of origin
27.
Thomas Hardy
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Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the status of rural people in Britain. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of such novels as Far from the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the dUrbervilles, and Jude the Obscure. During his lifetime, Hardys poetry was acclaimed by poets who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden, Two of his novels, Tess of the dUrbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBCs survey The Big Read. Jemima was well-read, and she educated Thomas until he went to his first school at Bockhampton at the age of eight, for several years he attended Mr. Lasts Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester, where he learned Latin and demonstrated academic potential. Because Hardys family lacked the means for a university education, his formal education ended at the age of sixteen, when he apprenticed to James Hicks. Hardy trained as an architect in Dorchester before moving to London in 1862 and he won prizes from the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association. He joined Arthur Blomfields practice as assistant architect in April 1862 and worked with Blomfield on All Saints parish church in Windsor, a reredos, possibly designed by Hardy, was discovered behind panelling at All Saints in August 2016. Hardy never felt at home in London, because he was conscious of class divisions. During this time he became interested in reform and the works of John Stuart Mill. He was also introduced by his Dorset friend Horace Moule to the works of Charles Fourier, after five years, concerned about his health, he returned to Dorset, settling in Weymouth, and decided to dedicate himself to writing. In 1870, while on a mission to restore the parish church of St Juliot in Cornwall, Hardy met and fell in love with Emma Gifford. In 1885 Thomas and his wife moved into Max Gate, a designed by Hardy. In 1914, Hardy married his secretary Florence Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years his junior, however, he remained preoccupied with his first wifes death and tried to overcome his remorse by writing poetry. In 1910, Hardy had been awarded the Order of Merit and was also for the first time nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and he would be nominated for the prize eleven years later. His funeral was on 16 January at Westminster Abbey, and it proved a controversial occasion because Hardy had wished for his body to be interred at Stinsford in the grave as his first wife
28.
The Mayor of Casterbridge
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The Mayor of Casterbridge, subtitled The Life and Death of a Man of Character, is a novel by British author Thomas Hardy. It is set in the town of Casterbridge. The book is one of Hardys Wessex novels, all set in a fictional rural England, Hardy began writing the book in 1884 and wrote the last page on 17 April 1885. Within the book, he writes that the events took place before the century had reached one-third of its span. Literary critic Dale Kramer sees it as being set somewhat later—in the late 1840s, at a country fair near Casterbridge, Wessex, a young hay-trusser named Michael Henchard gets drunk on rum-laced furmity and argues with his wife, Susan. He decides to auction off his wife and baby daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, to a sailor, Mr. Newson, sober the next day, he is too late to recover his family. When he realises that his wife and daughter are gone, he not to touch liquor again for as many years as he has lived so far. Eighteen years later, Henchard is now a grain merchant and Mayor of Casterbridge. Henchard has avoided explaining the circumstances of the loss of his wife, on a visit to Jersey on business, Henchard falls in love with Lucette Le Sueur, who nurses him back to health after an illness. Although Henchard never tells Lucetta exactly how he lost his wife, he tell her he has a wife who is probably dead. Besotted, Lucetta develops a relationship with him despite the risk, the book implies that they have a sexual relationship, and Lucettas reputation is ruined. Henchard returns to Casterbridge, leaving Lucetta to face the consequences of their fling. To rejoin polite society Lucetta would have to him, although Henchard is already technically married. Yet just as Henchard is about to send for Lucetta, Susan unexpectedly appears in Casterbridge with her daughter, Newson appears to have been lost at sea, and without means to earn an income Susan is looking to Henchard again. Susan believed for a time that her marriage to Newson was perfectly legitimate. Only recently, just before Newsons disappearance, had Susan begun to question whether or not she was legally married to Henchard. Just as Susan and Elizabeth-Jane arrive in town, a Scotsman and he has experience as a grain and corn merchant, and is on the cutting edge of agricultural science. He befriends Henchard and helps him out of a bad situation by giving him some timely advice
29.
Lewis Carroll
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Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English writer, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon, and photographer. He is noted for his facility at word play, logic, There are societies in many parts of the world dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works and the investigation of his life. Dodgsons family was predominantly northern English, with Irish connections, conservative, most of Dodgsons male ancestors were army officers or Church of England clergy. His great-grandfather, also named Charles Dodgson, had risen through the ranks of the church to become the Bishop of Elphin. His paternal grandfather, another Charles, had been an army captain, the older of these sons – yet another Charles Dodgson – was Carrolls father. He went to Westminster School and then to Christ Church, Oxford and he reverted to the other family tradition and took holy orders. He was mathematically gifted and won a double first degree, which could have been the prelude to a brilliant academic career, instead, he married his first cousin Frances Jane Lutwidge in 1830 and became a country parson. Dodgson was born in the parsonage at Daresbury in Cheshire near the towns of Warrington and Runcorn. When Charles was 11, his father was given the living of Croft-on-Tees in North Yorkshire, and this remained their home for the next 25 years. He was High Church, inclining to Anglo-Catholicism, an admirer of John Henry Newman and the Tractarian movement, Young Charles was to develop an ambiguous relationship with his fathers values and with the Church of England as a whole. During his early youth, Dodgson was educated at home and his reading lists preserved in the family archives testify to a precocious intellect, at the age of seven, he was reading books such as The Pilgrims Progress. He also suffered from a stammer – a condition shared by most of his siblings – that often influenced his life throughout his years. At the age of twelve, he was sent to Richmond Grammar School at nearby Richmond, in 1846, Dodgson entered Rugby School where he was evidently unhappy, as he wrote some years after leaving, I cannot say. That any earthly considerations would induce me to go through my three years again, I can honestly say that if I could have been. Secure from annoyance at night, the hardships of the daily life would have been comparative trifles to bear, scholastically, though, he excelled with apparent ease. I have not had a promising boy at his age since I came to Rugby. He left Rugby at the end of 1849 and matriculated at Oxford in May 1850 as a member of his fathers old college, after waiting for rooms in college to become available, he went into residence in January 1851. He had been at Oxford only two days when he received a summons home and his mother had died of inflammation of the brain – perhaps meningitis or a stroke – at the age of 47
30.
Through the Looking-Glass
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Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a novel by Lewis Carroll, the sequel to Alices Adventures in Wonderland. Set some six months later than the book, Alice again enters a fantastical world. Through the Looking-Glass includes such celebrated verses as Jabberwocky and The Walrus and the Carpenter, the mirror which inspired Carroll remains displayed in Charlton Kings. Climbing up on the mantel, she pokes at the wall-hung mirror behind the fireplace and discovers, to her surprise. In this reflected version of her own house, she finds a book with looking-glass poetry, Jabberwocky and she also observes that the chess pieces have come to life, though they remain small enough for her to pick up. Elsewhere in the garden, Alice meets the Red Queen, who is now human-sized, and this is a reference to the chess rule that queens are able to move any number of vacant squares at once, in any direction, which makes them the most agile of pieces. This is a reference to the rule of Promotion. Chapter Four – Tweedledum and Tweedledee, She then meets the fat twin brothers Tweedledum and Tweedledee, finally, the brothers begin acting out their nursery-rhyme by suiting up for battle, only to be frightened away by an enormous crow, as the nursery rhyme about them predicts. Chapter Five – Wool and Water, Alice next meets the White Queen, who is very absent-minded but boasts of her ability to remember future events before they have happened. Alice and the White Queen advance into the fifth rank by crossing over a brook together, but at the very moment of the crossing. Alice soon finds herself struggling to handle the oars of a small rowboat, unknown to Alice, these are standard terms in the jargon of rowing. Thus the Queen/Sheep was speaking in a logical and meaningful way. In the process, he introduces Alice to the concept of portmanteau words, in this chapter, the March Hare and Hatter of the first book make a brief re-appearance in the guise of Anglo-Saxon messengers called Haigha and Hatta. Escorting her through the forest towards the final brook-crossing, the Knight recites a poem of his own composition called Haddocks Eyes. Chapter Nine – Queen Alice, Bidding farewell to the White Knight, Alice steps across the last brook and she soon finds herself in the company of both the White and Red Queens, who relentlessly confound Alice by using word play to thwart her attempts at logical discussion. They then invite one another to a party that will be hosted by the newly crowned Alice—of which Alice herself had no prior knowledge. Chapter Ten – Shaking, Alice arrives and seats herself at her own party, Alice finally grabs the Red Queen, believing her to be responsible for all the days nonsense, and begins shaking her violently with all her might. By thus capturing the Red Queen, Alice unknowingly puts the Red King into checkmate, Chapter Twelve – Which dreamed it
31.
Parboiling
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Parboiling is the partial boiling of food as the first step in cooking. The word is a portmanteau of partial and boil used by Americans to describe Blanching, the word is often used when referring to parboiled rice. Parboiling can also be used for removing poisonous or foul-tasting substances from foodstuffs, the food items are added to boiling water and cooked until they start to soften, then removed before they are fully cooked. Parboiling is usually used to cook an item which will then be cooked another way such as braising, grilling. Parboiling differs from blanching in that one does not cool the items using cold water or ice after removing them from the boiling water, sometimes raw rice or paddy is dehusked by using steam. This steam also partially boils the rice while dehusking and this process generally changes the colour of rice from white to a bit reddish. This type of rice is eaten in the districts of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada of Karnataka state, in the state of Kerala, and in most parts of Tamil Nadu, Bihar, West Africa and the Afro-Caribbean diaspora are also accustomed to parboiling rice. Blanching Parbaking Parcooking The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language Kitchen Dictionary at Recipe*zaar
32.
Cinnamon
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Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus Cinnamomum. Cinnamon is used in sweet and savoury foods. The term cinnamon also refers to its mid-brown colour, Cinnamon is the name for perhaps a dozen species of trees and the commercial spice products that some of them produce. All are members of the genus Cinnamomum in the family Lauraceae, only a few Cinnamomum species are grown commercially for spice. The English word cinnamon, attested in English since the 15th century, derives from the Greek κιννάμωμον kinnámōmon, via Latin, the Greek was borrowed from a Phoenician word, which was similar to the related Hebrew qinnamon. The name cassia, first recorded in English around AD1000, was borrowed via Latin and ultimately derives from Hebrew qtsīʿāh, Cinnamon has been known from remote antiquity. It was imported to Egypt as early as 2000 BCE, the first Greek reference to kasia is found in a poem by Sappho in the seventh century BCE. According to Herodotus, both cinnamon and cassia grew in Arabia, together with incense, myrrh, and ladanum, the phoenix was reputed to build its nest from cinnamon and cassia. Herodotus mentions other writers who believed the source of cassia was the home of Dionysos, egyptian recipes for kyphi, an aromatic used for burning, included cinnamon and cassia from Hellenistic times onward. The gifts of Hellenistic rulers to temples sometimes included cassia and cinnamon, as well as incense, myrrh, Cinnamon was brought around the Arabian peninsula on rafts without rudders or sails or oars, taking advantage of the winter trade winds. Pliny also mentions cassia as a agent for wine. According to Pliny, a Roman pound of cassia, cinnamon, or serichatum cost up to 300 denarii, diocletians Edict on Maximum Prices from 301 AD gives a price of 125 denarii for a pound of cassia, while an agricultural labourer earned 25 denarii per day. Malabathrum leaves were used in cooking and for distilling an oil used in a sauce for oysters by the Roman gourmet Gaius Gavius Apicius. Malabathrum is among the spices that, according to Apicius, any good kitchen should contain, through the Middle Ages, the source of cinnamon was a mystery to the Western world. From reading Latin writers who quoted Herodotus, Europeans had learned that cinnamon came up the Red Sea to the ports of Egypt. Marco Polo avoided precision on the topic, Pliny the Elder wrote in the first century that traders had made this up to charge more, but the story remained current in Byzantium as late as 1310. The first mention that the spice grew in Sri Lanka was in Zakariya al-Qazwinis Athar al-bilad wa-akhbar al-‘ibad about 1270 and this was followed shortly thereafter by John of Montecorvino in a letter of about 1292. Indonesian rafts transported cinnamon directly from the Moluccas to East Africa, venetian traders from Italy held a monopoly on the spice trade in Europe, distributing cinnamon from Alexandria
33.
Mortar and pestle
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A pestle and mortar is a kitchen device used since ancient times to prepare ingredients or substances by crushing and grinding them into a fine paste or powder. The mortar is a bowl, typically made of hard wood, the pestle is a heavy and blunt club-shaped object, the end of which is used for crushing and grinding. The substance to be ground is placed in the mortar and ground, mortars and pestles have been used in cooking up to the present day, they are frequently also associated with the profession of pharmacy due to their historical use in preparing medicines. They can also be used in masonry and in types of construction. Scientists have found ancient mortars and pestles that date back to approximately 35,000 B. C, the English word mortar derives from classical Latin mortarium, meaning, among several other usages, receptacle for pounding and product of grinding or pounding. The classical Latin pistillum, meaning pounder, led to English pestle, the Roman poet Juvenal applied both mortarium and pistillum to articles used in the preparation of drugs, reflecting the early use of the mortar and pestle as a symbol of a pharmacist or apothecary. The antiquity of these tools is well documented in writing, such as the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus of ~1550 BCE. Mortars and pestles were used in pharmacies to crush various ingredients prior to preparing an extemporaneous prescription. The mortar and pestle, with the Rod of Asclepius, the Orange Cross, for pharmaceutical use, the mortar and the head of the pestle are usually made of porcelain, while the handle of the pestle is made of wood. This is known as a Wedgwood mortar and pestle and originated in 1759, today the act of mixing ingredients or reducing the particle size is known as trituration. Mortars and pestles are used as drug paraphernalia to grind up pills to speed up absorption when they are ingested. Mortars are also used in cooking to prepare ingredients such as guacamole, gazpacho and pesto, the molcajete, a version used by pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cultures including the Aztec and Maya, stretching back several thousand years, is made of basalt and is used widely in Mexican cooking. Other Native American nations use mortars carved into the bedrock to grind acorns, many such depressions can be found in their territories. In Japan, very large mortars are used with wooden mallets to prepare mochi, a regular sized Japanese mortar and pestle are called a suribachi and surikogi, respectively. Granite mortars and pestles are used in Southeast Asia, as well as Pakistan, in India, it is used extensively to make spice mixtures for various delicacies as well as day to day dishes. With the advent of motorized grinders, use of the mortar and it is traditional in various Hindu ceremonies to crush turmeric in these mortars. In Malay, it is known as batu lesung, large stone mortars, with long wood pestles were used in West Asia to grind meat for a type of meatloaf, or kibbeh, as well as the hummus variety known as masabcha. In Indonesia and the Netherlands mortar is known as Cobek or Tjobek and it is often used to make fresh sambal, a spicy chili condiment, hence the sambal ulek/oelek denote its process using pestle
34.
Cattle
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Cattle—colloquially cows—are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, cattle are raised as livestock for meat, as dairy animals for milk and other dairy products, and as draft animals. Other products include leather and dung for manure or fuel, in some regions, such as parts of India, cattle have significant religious meaning. From as few as 80 progenitors domesticated in southeast Turkey about 10,500 years ago, according to an estimate from 2011, in 2009, cattle became one of the first livestock animals to have a fully mapped genome. Some consider cattle the oldest form of wealth, and cattle raiding consequently one of the earliest forms of theft. Cattle were originally identified as three species, Bos taurus, the European or taurine cattle, Bos indicus, the zebu, and the extinct Bos primigenius. The aurochs is ancestral to both zebu and taurine cattle and these have been reclassified as one species, Bos taurus, with three subspecies, Bos taurus primigenius, Bos taurus indicus, and Bos taurus taurus. Complicating the matter is the ability of cattle to interbreed with other related species. Hybrid individuals and even breeds exist, not only between taurine cattle and zebu, but also one or both of these and some other members of the genus Bos – yaks, banteng. Hybrids such as the breed can even occur between taurine cattle and either species of bison, leading some authors to consider them part of the genus Bos. However, cattle cannot successfully be hybridized with more distantly related bovines such as water buffalo or African buffalo, the aurochs originally ranged throughout Europe, North Africa, and much of Asia. In historical times, its range became restricted to Europe, breeders have attempted to recreate cattle of similar appearance to aurochs by crossing traditional types of domesticated cattle, creating the Heck cattle breed. Cattle did not originate as the term for bovine animals and it was borrowed from Anglo-Norman catel, itself from medieval Latin capitale principal sum of money, capital, itself derived in turn from Latin caput head. Cattle originally meant movable personal property, especially livestock of any kind, the word is a variant of chattel and closely related to capital in the economic sense. The term replaced earlier Old English feoh cattle, property, which today as fee. The word cow came via Anglo-Saxon cū, from Common Indo-European gʷōus = a bovine animal, compare Persian gâv, Sanskrit go-, Welsh buwch. The plural cȳ became ki or kie in Middle English, and a plural ending was often added, giving kine, kien. This is the origin of the now archaic English plural, kine, the Scots language singular is coo or cou, and the plural is kye
35.
Somerset
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Somerset is a county in South West England which borders Gloucestershire and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east and Devon to the south-west. It is bounded to the north and west by the Severn Estuary and its traditional border with Gloucestershire is the River Avon. Somerset is a county of rolling hills such as the Blackdown Hills, Mendip Hills, Quantock Hills and Exmoor National Park. There is evidence of occupation from Paleolithic times, and of subsequent settlement in the Roman. The county played a significant part in the consolidation of power and rise of King Alfred the Great, and later in the English Civil War, the city of Bath is famous for its substantial Georgian architecture and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Somersets name derives from Old English Sumorsǣte, short for Sumortūnsǣte, an alternative suggestion is the name derives from Seo-mere-saetan meaning settlers by the sea lakes. The Old English name is used in the motto of the county, Sumorsǣte ealle, adopted as the motto in 1911, the phrase is taken from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Somerset settlement names are mostly Anglo-Saxon in origin, but some hill names include Brittonic Celtic elements, for example, an Anglo-Saxon charter of 682 refers to Creechborough Hill as the hill the British call Cructan and we call Crychbeorh. Some modern names are Brythonic in origin, such as Tarnock, the caves of the Mendip Hills were settled during the Palaeolithic period, and contain extensive archaeological sites such as those at Cheddar Gorge. Bones from Goughs Cave have been dated to 12,000 BC, examples of cave art have been found in Avelines Hole. Some caves continued to be occupied until modern times, including Wookey Hole, the Somerset Levels—specifically dry points at Glastonbury and Brent Knoll— also have a long history of settlement, and are known to have been settled by Mesolithic hunters. Travel in the area was facilitated by the construction of one of the worlds oldest known engineered roadways, the Sweet Track, the exact age of the henge monument at Stanton Drew stone circles is unknown, but it is believed to be Neolithic. There are numerous Iron Age hill forts, some of which, like Cadbury Castle, on the authority of the future emperor Vespasian, as part of the ongoing expansion of the Roman presence in Britain, the Second Legion Augusta invaded Somerset from the south-east in AD47. The county remained part of the Roman Empire until around AD409, a variety of Roman remains have been found, including Pagans Hill Roman temple in Chew Stoke, Low Ham Roman Villa and the Roman Baths that gave their name to the city of Bath. After the Romans left, Britain was invaded by Anglo-Saxon peoples, by AD600 they had established control over much of what is now England, but Somerset was still in native British hands. The Saxon royal palace in Cheddar was used several times in the 10th century to host the Witenagemot. After the Norman Conquest, the county was divided into 700 fiefs, Somerset contains HM Prison Shepton Mallet, which was Englands oldest prison still in use prior to its closure in 2013, having opened in 1610. In the English Civil War Somerset was largely Parliamentarian, with key engagements being the Sieges of Taunton, in 1685 the Monmouth Rebellion was played out in Somerset and neighbouring Dorset
36.
Wiltshire
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Wiltshire is a county in South West England with an area of 3,485 km2. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, the county town was originally Wilton, after which the county is named, but Wiltshire Council is now based in the new county town of Trowbridge. Wiltshire is characterised by its high downland and wide valleys, Salisbury Plain is noted for being the location of the Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles and other ancient landmarks, and as a training area for the British Army. The city of Salisbury is notable for its mediaeval cathedral, important country houses open to the public include Longleat, near Warminster, and the National Trusts Stourhead, near Mere. The county, in the 9th century written as Wiltunscir, later Wiltonshire, is named after the county town of Wilton. Wiltshire is notable for its pre-Roman archaeology, the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age people that occupied southern Britain built settlements on the hills and downland that cover Wiltshire. Stonehenge and Avebury are perhaps the most famous Neolithic sites in the UK, in the 6th and 7th centuries Wiltshire was at the western edge of Saxon Britain, as Cranborne Chase and the Somerset Levels prevented the advance to the west. The Battle of Bedwyn was fought in 675 between Escuin, a West Saxon nobleman who had seized the throne of Queen Saxburga, in 878 the Danes invaded the county. Following the Norman Conquest, large areas of the country came into the possession of the crown, at the time of the Domesday Survey the industry of Wiltshire was largely agricultural,390 mills are mentioned, and vineyards at Tollard and Lacock. In the 17th century English Civil War Wiltshire was largely Parliamentarian, the Battle of Roundway Down, a Royalist victory, was fought near Devizes. The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry currently lives on as Y Squadron, based in Swindon, around 1800 the Kennet and Avon Canal was built through Wiltshire, providing a route for transporting cargoes from Bristol to London until the development of the Great Western Railway. Information on the 261 civil parishes of Wiltshire is available on the Wiltshire Community History website, run by the Libraries and this site includes maps, demographic data, historic and modern pictures and short histories. The local nickname for Wiltshire natives is moonrakers and this originated from a story of smugglers who managed to foil the local Excise men by hiding their alcohol, possibly French brandy in barrels or kegs, in a village pond. The officials took them for simple yokels or mad and left them alone, many villages claim the tale for their own village pond, but the story is most commonly linked with The Crammer in Devizes. Two-thirds of Wiltshire, a rural county, lies on chalk. This chalk is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group, the largest area of chalk in Wiltshire is Salisbury Plain, which is used mainly for arable agriculture and by the British Army as training ranges. The highest point in the county is the Tan Hill–Milk Hill ridge in the Pewsey Vale, just to the north of Salisbury Plain, the chalk uplands run northeast into West Berkshire in the Marlborough Downs ridge, and southwest into Dorset as Cranborne Chase. Cranborne Chase, which straddles the border, has, like Salisbury Plain, yielded much Stone Age, the Marlborough Downs are part of the North Wessex Downs AONB, a 1,730 km2 conservation area
37.
Weston-super-Mare
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Weston-super-Mare /ˈwɛstən ˌsuːpər ˈmɛər/ is a town in Somerset, England, on the Bristol Channel 18 miles south west of Bristol between Worlebury Hill and Bleadon Hill. It includes the suburbs of Oldmixon, West Wick and Worle and its population at the 2011 census was 76,143. Since 1983, Weston has been twinned with Hildesheim, Germany, the growth continued until the second half of the 20th century, when tourism declined and some local industries closed. A regeneration programme is being undertaken with attractions including the Helicopter Museum, Weston-super-Mare Museum, Grand Pier, the Paddle Steamer Waverley and MV Balmoral offer day sea trips from Knightstone Island to various destinations along the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary. Cultural venues include The Playhouse, the Winter Gardens and Blakehay Theatre, owing to the large tidal range in the Bristol Channel, the low tide mark in Weston Bay is about 1 mile from the seafront. Although the beach itself is sandy, low tide uncovers areas of mud, hence the colloquial name. These mudflats are very dangerous to walk in and are crossed by the mouth of the River Axe, just to the north of the town is Sand Point which marks the lower limit of the Severn Estuary and the start of the Bristol Channel. It is also the site of the Middle Hope biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest, in the centre of the town is Ellenborough Park, another SSSI due to the range of plant species found there. Weston comes from the Anglo-Saxon for the west tun or settlement, prior to 1348 it was known as Weston-juxta-Mare. The name was changed by Ralph of Shrewsbury, who was the Bishop of Bath, Westons oldest structure is Worlebury Camp, on Worlebury Hill, dating from the Iron Age. Castle Batch was a castle once stood overlooking the town. The present site has a mound of 160 feet in diameter which is believed to be the remains of a motte. The parish was part of the Winterstoke Hundred, the medieval church of St John was demolished in 1824 and built anew on the same site, though a stump of the Medieval preaching cross survives by the exterior south wall. The former rectory is a 17th-century structure with later additions, though it remains adjacent to the church it has not been a parsonage house since the end of the 19th century. Today it is known as Glebe House and is divided into flats, the Old Thatched Cottage restaurant on the seafront carries the date 1774, it is the surviving portion of a summer cottage built by the Revd. The Pigott family of Brockley, who were the local Lords of the Manor, had a residence at Grove House. Weston owes its growth and prosperity to the Victorian era boom in seaside holidays, construction of the first hotel in the village started in 1808, it was called Reeves. Along with nearby Burnham-on-Sea, Weston benefited from proximity to Bristol, the first attempt at an artificial harbour was made in the late 1820s at the islet of Knightstone and a slipway built from Anchor Head towards Birnbeck Island
38.
Sultana (grape)
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The sultana is a white, oval seedless grape variety also called the sultanina, Thompson Seedless, Lady de Coverly, and oval-fruited Kishmish. It is assumed to originate from the Levant, which became part of the Ottoman Empire. These are typically larger than Zante currants, and the Thompson variety is smaller than many seeded raisins, Thompson sultana raisins are small and sweet, and have a golden colour. Another seedless grape variety from the former Ottoman Empire, the round-fruited Kishmish, is dried to make a larger sultana raisin. The sultana raisin was traditionally imported to the English-speaking world from the Ottoman Empire, Turkey and Australia are major producers. According to the U. S. Code of Federal Regulations, virtually all of California raisin production and roughly one-third of Californias total grape area is of this variety, making it the single most widely planted variety. The Ottomans took the grape variety to the island of Crete in the 19th century. In the US, most raisins, including those with the dark brown colour, are made from the sultana grape. The term sultana refers to golden-coloured dried grapes, which may also be called golden raisins, any kind of grape may be used to produce golden raisins, and any kind of golden raisins from any kind of grape may be marketed as sultanas. Moreover, the colour may come from a treatment with sulfur dioxide rather than traditional drying. Most nonorganic sultana grapes in California and elsewhere are treated with the plant hormone gibberellin. In other grapes, gibberellin is released by the seeds, in some jurisdictions, seedless dried grapes are classified as sultana and Thompson raisins according to the drying method used. Sultanas are steeped in a solution of water, potassium carbonate, Thompson raisins are not treated with this solution, but are dried naturally, thus they require more drying time than sultanas. Because of this, Thompsons are a darker colour than sultanas, the sultana grape is also used to make white wine, in which use it is known for its sweet blandness. It is referred to as a three-way grape because it is used as table grape, to make raisins, in the United States it is the base for wine generically called chablis. This wine is named for the Chablis region of France, in the EU, Chablis wine must be made from the Chardonnay grape produced in the region of the Yonne département. Sultana grape juice was fraudulently sold as being of Chardonnay grapes in Australia for wine making, the fraud was discovered in 2003 by the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation. It was considered the largest case of deception in Australian history
39.
Devizes
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Devizes /dᵻˈvaɪzᵻz/ is a market town and civil parish in the heart of Wiltshire, England. Standing on a hill at the east edge of the Vale of Pewsey, Devizes serves as a centre for banks, solicitors and shops and has an open market place where a market is held once a week. It has nearly five hundred listed buildings, some churches, a Town Hall. Its development has grown around the 11th century Norman castle, Devizes Castle was built by Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury in 1080, but the town is not mentioned in the Domesday Book. Because the castle was on the boundaries of the manors of Rowde, Bishops Cannings and Potterne it became known as the castrum ad divisas, on John Speeds map of Wiltshire, the towns name is recorded as The Devyses. The first castle on the site was of the motte and bailey form and was made of wood and earth. A new castle was built in stone by Roger of Salisbury, Devizes received its first charter in 1141 permitting regular markets. The castle changed several times during the civil war between Stephen of Blois and Matilda in the 12th century. The castle held important prisoners, including Robert Curthose, eldest son of William the Conqueror, the town has had churches since the 12th century and today has four Church of England parish churches. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the town of Devizes developed outside the castle with craftsmen, the first known market in Devizes was in 1228. The original market was in the space outside St Mary’s Church, rather than in the current Market Place. The chief products in the 16th and early 17th centuries were wheat, wool and yarn, with cheese, bacon, in 1643, during the English Civil War, Parliamentary forces under Sir William Waller besieged Royalist forces under Sir Ralph Hopton in Devizes. However the siege was lifted by a force from Oxford under Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester. Devizes remained under Royalist control until 1645, when Oliver Cromwell attacked and forced the Royalists to surrender, the castle was destroyed in 1648 on the orders of Parliament, a process known as slighting, and today little remains of it. From the 16th century Devizes became known for its textiles, initially white woollen broadcloth but later the manufacture of serge, drugget, felt and cassimere or Zephyr cloth. In the early 18th century Devizes held the largest corn market in the West Country of England and also traded hops, cattle, horses and various types of cloth. Before the Corn Exchange was built in 1857, the trade in wheat and barley was conducted in the open, with sacks piled around the market cross. Todays cross displays the salutary tale of Ruth Pierce, accused of cheating some buyers at the market, The coroner, John Clare, wool merchants were able to build prosperous town houses in St. Johns and Long Street and around the market place
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Distilled beverage
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This process purifies it and removes diluting components like water, for the purpose of increasing its proportion of alcohol content. As distilled beverages contain more alcohol, they are considered harder – in North America, as examples, this term does not include beverages such as beer, wine, sake, and cider, as they are fermented but not distilled. These all have relatively low alcohol content, typically less than 15%, brandy is a spirit produced by the distillation of wine, and has an ABV of over 35%. Other examples of distilled beverages include bourbon, vodka, gin, rum, tequila, mezcal, whisky, scotch, the term spirit refers to a distilled beverage that contains no added sugar and has at least 20% alcohol by volume. Distilled beverages bottled with added sugar and added flavorings, such as Grand Marnier, Frangelico, Distilled beverages generally have an alcohol concentration higher than 30%. The origin of liquor and its close relative liquid was the Latin verb liquere, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, an early use of the word in the English language, meaning simply a liquid, can be dated to 1225. The first use the OED mentions of its meaning a liquid for drinking occurred in the 14th century and its use as a term for an intoxicating alcoholic drink appeared in the 16th century. The term spirit in reference to alcohol stems from Middle Eastern alchemy and these alchemists were more concerned with medical elixirs than with transmuting lead into gold. The vapor given off and collected during a process was called a spirit of the original material. Distilled water was described in the 2nd century AD by Alexander of Aphrodisias, the Alexandrians were using a distillation alembic or still device in the 3rd century AD. The medieval Arabs learned the process from the Alexandrians and used it extensively. Freeze distillation involves freezing the alcoholic beverage and then removing the ice, the freezing technique had limitations in geography and implementation limiting how widely this method was put to use. The earliest evidence of distillation of alcohol comes from the School of Salerno in southern Italy during the 12th century. Again, the Chinese may not have been far behind, with evidence indicating the practice of distillation began during the 12th century Jin or Southern Song dynasties. A still has been found at a site in Qinglong, Hebei. Fractional distillation was developed by Taddeo Alderotti in the 13th century, the production method was written in code, suggesting that it was being kept secret. In 1437, burned water was mentioned in the records of the County of Katzenelnbogen in Germany and it was served in a tall, narrow glass called a Goderulffe. Claims upon the origin of specific beverages are controversial, often invoking national pride, but they are plausible after the 12th century AD and these spirits would have had a much lower alcohol content than the alchemists pure distillations, and they were likely first thought of as medicinal elixirs
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Tarhana
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As it is both acid and low in moisture the milk proteins keep for long periods. Tarhana is very similar to kinds of kishk. The Armenian tarkhana is made up of matzoon and eggs mixed with half of wheat flour, small pieces of dough are prepared and dried and then kept in glass containers and uses mostly dry soups, dissolving in hot liquids. The Greek trahana contains only cracked wheat or a cous cous-like paste, the Turkish tarhana consists of cracked wheat, yoghurt, and vegetables fermented then dried. In Cyprus, it is considered a specialty, and is often served with pieces of haloumi cheese in it. Hill and Bryer suggest that tarhana is related to Greek τρακτόν, dalby connects it to the Greek τραγός/τραγανός, described in Galens Geoponica 3.8. Weaver also considers it of Western origin, perry, on the other hand, considers that the phonetic evolution of τραγανός to tarhana is unlikely, and that it probably comes from Persian, ترخوانه tarkhwāneh. He considers the resemblance to τραγανός and to τραχύς coarse coincidental, tar تر in Persian means wet, soaked, and khwān خوان means dining place/table, food, large wooden bowl. Thus in Persian it would mean watered or soaked food, which matches the way the soup is made, tarhana must be soaked in water, Tarhana are cooked as a thick soup by adding them to stock, water, or milk and simmering. In Albania it is made with flour and yoghurt into small pasta-like chunks which are dried and crushed. In Cyprus it is common to add cubes of Halloumi cheese towards the end of cooking, elisabeth Luard, The Old World Kitchen, ISBN 0-553-05219-5 Kargı, Çorum, Regional foods, Tarhana Cyprus Food Virtual Museum, Τραχανάς
Cookbook: Frumenty 
Media: Frumenty