1.
Ginger
–
Ginger is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or simply ginger, is widely used as a spice or a folk medicine. It is a perennial which grows annual stems about a meter tall bearing narrow green leaves. Ginger is in the family Zingiberaceae, to also belong turmeric, cardamom. Ginger originated in the tropical rainforest in Southern Asia, although ginger no longer grows wild, it is thought to have originated on the Indian subcontinent because the ginger plants grown in India show the largest amount of genetic variation. Ginger was exported to Europe via India in the first century AD as a result of the spice trade and was used extensively by the Romans. The distantly related dicots in the genus Asarum are commonly called wild ginger because of their similar taste. But this may be Sanskrit folk etymology, and the word may be from an ancient Dravidian name that produced the Tamil and Malayalam name for the spice, inchi-ver. The word probably was readopted in Middle English from Old French gingibre, ginger produces clusters of white and pink flower buds that bloom into yellow flowers. Because of its appeal and the adaptation of the plant to warm climates. It is a perennial plant with annual leafy stems, about a meter tall. Traditionally, the rhizome is gathered when the stalk withers, it is scalded, or washed and scraped, to kill it. The fragrant perisperm of the Zingiberaceae is used as sweetmeats by Bantu, ginger produces a hot, fragrant kitchen spice. Young ginger rhizomes are juicy and fleshy with a mild taste. They are often pickled in vinegar or sherry as a snack or cooked as an ingredient in many dishes and they can be steeped in boiling water to make ginger tisane, to which honey is often added, sliced orange or lemon fruit may be added. Ginger can be made into candy, or ginger wine, which has been made commercially since 1740, mature ginger rhizomes are fibrous and nearly dry. Fresh ginger can be substituted for ground ginger at a ratio of six to one, although the flavors of fresh, powdered dry ginger root is typically used as a flavoring for recipes such as gingerbread, cookies, crackers and cakes, ginger ale, and ginger beer. Candied ginger, or crystallized ginger, is the root cooked in sugar until soft, fresh ginger may be peeled before eating. For longer-term storage, the ginger can be placed in a plastic bag, in Indian cuisine, ginger is a key ingredient, especially in thicker gravies, as well as in many other dishes, both vegetarian and meat-based
2.
Honey
–
Honey /ˈhʌni/ is a sugary food substance produced and stored by certain social hymenopteran insects. It is produced from the secretions of plants or insects, such as floral nectar or aphid honeydew, through regurgitation, enzymatic activity. The variety of honey produced by bees is the most well-known, due to its worldwide commercial production. Honey gets its sweetness from the monosaccharides fructose and glucose, and has about the relative sweetness as granulated sugar. It has attractive properties for baking and a distinctive flavor that leads some people to prefer it to sugar. Most microorganisms do not grow in honey, so sealed honey does not spoil, however, honey sometimes contains dormant endospores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can be dangerous to babies, as it may result in botulism. People who have an immune system should not eat honey because of the risk of bacterial or fungal infection. Although some evidence indicates honey may be effective in treating diseases and other conditions, such as wounds and burns. Providing 64 calories in a serving of one tablespoon equivalent to 1272 kj per 100 g. Honey is generally safe, but may have various, potential adverse effects or interactions with excessive consumption, existing disease conditions, or drugs. Honey use and production have a long and varied history as an ancient activity, depicted in Valencia, in cold weather or when other food sources are scarce, adult and larval bees use stored honey as food. By contriving for bee swarms to nest in man-made hives, people have been able to semidomesticate the insects, Bee digestive enzymes - invertase, amylase, and diastase - and gastric acid hydrolyze sucrose to a mixture of glucose and fructose. The bees work together as a group with the regurgitation and digestion for as long as 20 minutes until the product reaches storage quality. It is then placed in honeycomb cells left unsealed while still high in content and natural yeasts. The bees then cap the cells with wax to seal them, as removed from the hive by a beekeeper, honey has a long shelf life and will not ferment if properly sealed. Another source of honey is from a number of species, such as the wasps Brachygastra lecheguana and Brachygastra mellifica. These species are known to feed on nectar and produce honey, Honey is collected from wild bee colonies, or from domesticated beehives. The honey is stored in honeycombs, wild bee nests are sometimes located by following a honeyguide bird
3.
Molasses
–
Molasses, or black treacle, is a viscous by-product of refining sugarcane or sugar beets into sugar. Molasses varies by amount of sugar, method of extraction, sugarcane molasses is agreeable in taste and aroma, and is primarily used for sweetening and flavoring foods in U. S. Canada and elsewhere, while sugar beet molasses is foul-smelling and unpalatable, so it is used as an animal feed additive in Europe and Russia. It is a component of fine commercial brown sugar. Sweet sorghum syrup may be colloquially called sorghum molasses in the southern United States, similar products include treacle, honey, maple syrup, corn syrup, and invert syrup. Most of these alternative syrups have milder flavors, cane molasses is a common ingredient in baking and cooking. To make molasses, sugar cane is harvested and stripped of leaves and its juice is extracted, usually by cutting, crushing, or mashing. The juice is boiled to concentrate it, promoting sugar crystallization, the result of this first boiling is called first syrup, and it has the highest sugar content. First syrup is usually referred to in the Southern states of the U. S. as cane syrup, second molasses is created from a second boiling and sugar extraction, and has a slightly bitter taste. The third boiling of the sugar syrup yields dark, viscous blackstrap molasses, the majority of sucrose from the original juice has crystallized and been removed. The caloric content of blackstrap molasses is mostly due to the remaining sugar content. Blackstrap is also a source of potassium. Blackstrap molasses has long been sold as a dietary supplement, blackstrap molasses is significantly more bitter than regular molasses. It is sometimes used in baking or for producing ethanol, as an ingredient in cattle feed, the term black-strap or blackstrap is an Americanism dating from 1875 or before. Its first known use is in a book by detective Allan Pinkerton in 1877, Molasses made from sugar beets differs from sugarcane molasses. Only the syrup left from the final stage is called molasses. Intermediate syrups are called high green and low green, and these are recycled within the plant to maximize extraction. Beet molasses is 50% sugar by dry weight, predominantly sucrose, beet molasses is limited in biotin for cell growth, hence, it may be supplemented with a biotin source
4.
Cloves
–
Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, Syzygium aromaticum. They are native to the Maluku Islands in Indonesia, and are used as a spice. Cloves are commercially harvested primarily in Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Madagascar, Zanzibar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, cloves are available throughout the year. The clove tree is an evergreen that grows up to 8–12 m tall, with large leaves, the flower buds initially have a pale hue, gradually turn green, then transition to a bright red when ready for harvest. Cloves are harvested at 1. 5–2.0 cm long, and consist of a calyx that terminates in four spreading sepals. Cloves are used in the cuisine of Asian, African, and the Near and Middle East countries, lending flavor to meats, curries, cloves may be used to give aromatic and flavor qualities to hot beverages, often combined with other ingredients such as lemon and sugar. They are an element in spice blends such as pumpkin pie spice. In Mexican cuisine, cloves are best known as clavos de olor and they are also used in Peruvian cuisine, in a wide variety of dishes as carapulcra and arroz con leche. A major component of clove taste is imparted by the chemical eugenol, and it pairs well with cinnamon, allspice, vanilla, red wine and basil, as well as onion, citrus peel, star anise, or peppercorns. The spice is used in a type of cigarette called kretek in Indonesia, clove cigarettes have been smoked throughout Europe, Asia and the United States. Starting in 2009, clove cigarettes must be classified as cigars in the US, because of the bioactive chemicals of clove, the spice may be used as an ant repellent. Cloves can be used to make a fragrance pomander when combined with an orange, when given as a gift in Victorian England, such a pomander indicated warmth of feeling. Cloves are used in Indian Ayurvedic medicine, Chinese medicine, and western herbalism, cloves are used as a carminative, to increase hydrochloric acid in the stomach and to improve peristalsis. Cloves are also said to be a natural anthelmintic, the essential oil is used in aromatherapy when stimulation and warming are needed, especially for digestive problems. Topical application over the stomach or abdomen are said to warm the digestive tract, applied to a cavity in a decayed tooth, it also relieves toothache. Because the herb is so warming, it is contraindicated in any persons with fire symptoms, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration has reclassified eugenol, downgrading its effectiveness rating. The FDA now believes not enough evidence indicates clove oil or eugenol is effective for toothache pain or a variety of types of pain. Studies to determine its effectiveness for fever reduction, as a mosquito repellent and it remains unproven whether clove may reduce blood sugar levels
5.
Nutmeg
–
Nutmeg is one of the two spices – the other being mace – derived from several species of tree in the genus Myristica. The most important commercial species is Myristica fragrans, a tree indigenous to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas of Indonesia. The first harvest of nutmeg trees takes place 7–9 years after planting, Nutmeg is usually used in powdered form. This is the tropical fruit that is the source of two different spices, obtained from different parts of the plant. Several other commercial products are produced from the trees, including essential oils, extracted oleoresins. The common or fragrant nutmeg, Myristica fragrans, is native to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas, other species used to adulterate the spice include Papuan nutmeg M. argentea from New Guinea, and M. malabarica from India. In the 17th-century work Hortus Botanicus Malabaricus, Hendrik van Rheede records that Indians learned the usage of nutmeg from the Indonesians through ancient trade routes, Nutmeg trees are dioecious plants which are propagated sexually and asexually, the latter being the standard. Sexual propagation by seedling yields 50% male seedlings, which are unproductive, epicotyl grafting, approach grafting, and patch budding have proved successful, with epicotyl grafting being the most widely adopted standard. Air-layering, or marcotting, is an alternative though not preferred method because of its low success rate, Nutmeg and mace have similar sensory qualities, with nutmeg having a slightly sweeter and mace a more delicate flavour. Mace is often preferred in light dishes for the bright orange, Nutmeg is used for flavouring many dishes, usually in ground or grated form, and is best grated fresh in a nutmeg grater. In Indonesian cuisine, nutmeg is used in dishes, mainly in many spicy soups, such as some variant of soto, konro, oxtail soup, sup iga, bakso. It is also used in gravy for meat dishes, such as beef stew, ribs with tomato, to European derived dishes such as bistik, rolade. Sliced nutmeg fruit flesh could be made as manisan, either wet, in Penang cuisine, dried, shredded nutmeg rind with sugar coating is used as toppings on the uniquely Penang ais kacang. Nutmeg rind is also blended or boiled to make iced nutmeg juice, in Indian cuisine, nutmeg is used in many sweet, as well as savoury, dishes. It is also added in quantities as a medicine for infants. It may also be used in quantities in garam masala. Ground nutmeg is also smoked in India, in Middle Eastern cuisine, ground nutmeg is often used as a spice for savoury dishes. In traditional European cuisine, nutmeg and mace are used especially in dishes and in processed meat products, they are also used in soups, sauces
6.
Cinnamon
–
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
7.
Sugar
–
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
8.
Ginger snap
–
A ginger biscuit, ginger nut or ginger snap is a globally popular biscuit based snack food, flavoured with ginger. Ginger biscuits are flavoured with powdered ginger and a variety of spices, most commonly cinnamon, molasses. There are many recipes for ginger nuts, in the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, Australia, and New Zealand and most of the former British Empire, they are often called ginger nuts. Ginger nuts are not to be confused with pepper nuts, which are a variety of gingerbread, somewhat smaller in diameter, mcVities ginger nuts was listed as the tenth most popular biscuit in the UK to dunk into tea. Ginger nuts are the most popular biscuit in New Zealand, normally attributed to its tough texture which can withstand dunking into liquid, leading biscuit manufacturer Griffins estimates 60 million of them are produced each year. This has become the title of a book,60 Million Gingernuts, cloves, cinnamon and cardamom are important ingredients of these, and the actual ginger taste is not prominent. Allspice was used formerly to season ginger biscuits, but cloves replaced it later, in the United States, the usual term is ginger snaps, and they are generally round drop cookies, usually between 3 mm and 6 mm thick, with prominent cracks in the top surface. One recipe for these cookies contains maple syrup
9.
Gingerbread man
–
A gingerbread man is a biscuit or cookie made of gingerbread, usually in the shape of a stylized human, although other shapes, especially seasonal themes and characters, are common. Gingerbread dates from the 15th century, and figural biscuit-making was practiced in the 16th century, the first documented instance of figure-shaped gingerbread biscuits was at the court of Elizabeth I of England. She had the gingerbread figures made and presented in the likeness of some of her important guests, most gingerbread men share a roughly humanoid shape, with stubby feet and no fingers. Many gingerbread men have a face, though whether the features are indentations within the face itself or other candies stuck on with icing or chocolate varies from recipe to recipe. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the world’s largest gingerbread man was made by the staff of the IKEA Furuset store in Oslo, Norway, the gingerbread man weighed 1435.2 pounds. The Gingerbread Man is a tale about a gingerbread man who comes to life, outruns an elderly couple and various animals. Gingy is a gingerbread man character in the Shrek series of animated movies. He is derived from the fairy tale The Gingerbread Man, in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskys famous ballet The Nutcracker, the eponymous hero leads an army of gingerbread men against the Mouse King and his fellows. The Gingerbread People are the characters in the game Candy Land. The Gingerbread Men were featured in The Muppet Show, in the Don Knotts episode, the Gingerbread Men sing the song Sweet Gingerbread Man as the opening number. The lead Gingerbread Man is a hand-rod Muppet performed by Frank Oz while the full-bodied Gingerbread Men were performed by Jim Henson, Dave Goelz, Richard Hunt, in the film The Brothers Grimm, a nightmarish twist on the Gingerbread Man appears. A young child is splashed with mud and the mud steals the eyes, nose. It then forms a small mud body with the childs stolen features for a face, the creature grabs the child and absorbs her into itself. It runs off yelling, You cant catch me, Im the Gingerbread Man
10.
Royal icing
–
Royal icing is a hard white icing, made from softly beaten egg whites, icing sugar, and sometimes lemon or lime juice. It is used to decorate Christmas cakes, wedding cakes, gingerbread houses and it is used either as a smooth covering or in sharp peaks. Glycerine is often added to prevent the icing from setting too hard, when placing icing on cakes, Marzipan is usually used under the royal icing in order to prevent discoloration of the icing. Usual proportions are 2 egg whites to 1 teaspoon of lemon juice,1 teaspoon of glycerine, as well as coating cakes and biscuits, royal icing is used to make decorations such as flowers and figures for putting on the cake. The Royal Icing is piped into shapes which are allowed to harden on a non-stick surface and these can then be arranged to create edible decorative effects on a variety of sweet foods. The Glycerine must be omitted for this purpose, Royal Icing is often used to create snow scenes but is also used as an edible adhesive - particularly for gingerbread houses. Royal icing is prepared with fresh egg whites. Although highly unlikely, there is a small chance of salmonella poisoning from improperly stored and handled eggs
11.
Latin
–
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
12.
Old French
–
Old French was the Gallo-Romance dialect continuum spoken from the 9th century to the 14th century. In the 14th century, these came to be collectively known as the langues doïl. The mid-14th century is taken as the period to Middle French. The areal of Old French in contemporary terms corresponded to the parts of the Kingdom of France, Upper Burgundy. As part of the emerging Gallo-Romance dialect continuum, the langues doïl were contrasted with the langue doc, in these examples, we notice a clear consequence of bilingualism, that sometimes even changed the first syllable of the Latin words. Pope estimated that perhaps still 15% of the vocabulary of modern French derives from Germanic sources, at the third Council of Tours in 813, priests were ordered to preach in the vernacular language, since the common people could no longer understand formal Latin. The second-oldest document in Old French is the Eulalia sequence, which is important for reconstruction of Old French pronunciation due to its consistent spelling. The Capetians langue doïl, the forerunner of modern standard French, did not begin to become the common speech of all of France, however, until after the French Revolution. In the Late Middle Ages, the Old French dialects diverged into a number of distinct langues doïl, during the Early Modern period, French now becomes established as the official language of the Kingdom of France throughout the realm, also including the langue doc-speaking territories in the south. Old French gives way to Middle French in the mid-14th century, the earliest extant French literary texts date from the ninth century, but very few texts before the 11th century have survived. The first literary works written in Old French were saints lives, the Canticle of Saint Eulalie, written in the second half of the 9th century, is generally accepted as the first such text. The first of these is the area of the chansons de geste. More than one hundred chansons de geste have survived in three hundred manuscripts. The oldest and most celebrated of the chansons de geste is The Song of Roland, a fourth grouping, not listed by Bertrand, is the Crusade cycle, dealing with the First Crusade and its immediate aftermath. Jean Bodels other two categories—the Matter of Rome and the Matter of Britain—concern the French romance or roman, around a hundred verse romances survive from the period 1150–1220. From around 1200 on, the tendency was increasingly to write the romances in prose, the most important romance of the 13th century is the Romance of the Rose which breaks considerably from the conventions of the chivalric adventure story. The Occitan or Provençal poets were called troubadours, from the word trobar to find, lyric poets in Old French are called trouvères. By the late 13th century, the tradition in France had begun to develop in ways that differed significantly from the troubadour poets
13.
Lebkuchen
–
Lebkuchen, or Pfefferkuchen, is a traditional German baked Christmas treat, somewhat resembling gingerbread. The etymology of Leb- in the term Lebkuchen is uncertain, proposed derivations include, from the Latin libum, from the Germanic word Laib, and from the Germanic word lebbe. Another likely possibility is that comes from the old term Leb-Honig, the rather solid crystallized honey taken from the hive, folk etymology often associates the name with Leben, Leib, or Leibspeise. The forerunner of todays Lebkuchen was called the honey cake, and its history can be traced back to the Egyptians, the Greeks, and they believed that honey, the only sweetener widely available to them, was a gift of the deities and had magical and healing powers. Honey cakes were also worn as a talisman in battle or as protection against evil spirits, Lebkuchen was invented by monks in Franconia, Germany in the 13th century. Lebkuchen bakers were recorded as early as 1296 in Ulm, and 1395 in Nürnberg, the latter is the most famous exporter today of the product known as Nürnberger Lebkuchen. Historically, and due to differences in the ingredients, Lebkuchen is also known as honey cake or pepper cake, traditionally, the cookies are usually quite large and may be 11.5 cm in diameter if round, and larger if rectangular. Since 1808, a variety of Nürnberg Lebkuchen made without flour has been called Elisenlebkuchen and it is uncertain whether Elise was the daughter of a gingerbread baker or the wife of a margrave. Her name is associated with some of the Lebkuchen produced by members of the guild, since 1996, Nürnberger Lebkuchen is a protected designation of origin, meaning that it must be produced within the boundaries of the city. Lebkuchen range in taste from spicy to sweet and come in a variety of shapes with round being the most common. The ingredients usually include honey, spices such as aniseed, coriander, cloves, ginger, cardamom, and allspice, nuts including almonds, hazelnuts, in Germany, types of Lebkuchen are distinguished by the kind of nuts used and their proportions. Salt of Hartshorn and potash are used for raising the dough. Lebkuchen dough is placed on a thin wafer base called Oblate. This was an idea of the monks, who used unleavened communion wafer ingredients to prevent the dough from sticking, typically, they are glazed or covered with very dark chocolate, but some are left uncoated. Lebkuchen is usually soft, but a type of Lebkuchen is used to produce Lebkuchenherzen, usually inscribed with icing. They are also sold as souvenirs at the Oktoberfest and are inscribed with affectionate, another form is the witchs house, made popular because of the fairy tales about Hansel and Gretel. The closest German equivalent of the man is the Honigkuchenpferd. The Nuremberg type of Lebkuchen is also known as Elisenlebkuchen and must contain no less than 25 percent nuts, the finest artisanal lebkuchen bakeries in Nuremberg boast close to 40% nut content
14.
Nicopolis
–
Nicopolis or Actia Nicopolis was the capital city of the Roman province of Epirus Vetus. It was located in the part of the modern state of Greece. The city was founded in 29 BC by Caesar Augustus in commemoration of his victory in 31 BC over Antony and it was soon made the major city of the wider region of Epirus region. Many impressive ruins of the ancient city may be visited today, although today the old city is associated with the name Preveza, see main page, Battle of Actium. This foundation echoed a tradition dating back to Alexander the Great, symbolically, the new city represented one example of his successful unification of the Roman Empire under one administration. Geographically, it constituted a major transportation and communications link between the eastern and western halves of the Mediterranean and it also established an important commercial centre and port at this strategic position on the Mediterranean sea routes. This monument was adorned with the rams of captured galleys, in further celebration of his victory he instituted the quadrennial Actian games in honour of Apollo Actius. In 27 BC, Octavian implemented an Empire-wide administrative reform, the new polis was considered capital of the territories of southern Epirus including Ambracia, most of Akarnania, and western Aetolia. Many inhabitants of the surrounding areas – Kassopaia, Ambracia, parts of Acarnania, among other things, it obtained the right to send five representatives to the Amphictyonic Council. As a city in a province, Nicopolis began minting its own copper coins. The citys western gate was connected by a road to the Ionian harbour Komaros, the city eventually occupied a site of around 375 acres. e. A polis, free and autonomous, having the characteristics of civitas libera and civitas foederata, germanicus, nephew and adopted son of Augustus, visited the city en route to Syria and celebrated his second consulship there in 18 AD. In 30-31, the Roman consul Poppaeus Sabinus visited Nicopolis, in the winter of 65-66, the Apostle Paul decided to spend the winter at Nicopolis and in his Epistle to Titus 3,12 invited his co-worker Titus to join him there from Crete. Apparently a Christian community was in existence in the city, in 66, in the wake of a terror campaign and financial constraints in Rome, Emperor Nero made a more modest trip to Greece in lieu of a planned great journey to the east. He visited Nicopolis during his tour of Greece to take part in the Actian games and was crowned winner of the chariot race, around 93, Emperor Domitian expelled philosophers from Rome including the prominent Stoic philosopher Epictetus of Hierapolis, who went to Nicopolis. He founded his own school, and in the reign of Trajan counted Arrien among his students and he died there around AD135. Around 110, under Emperor Trajan, the Roman government carved out the province of Epirus from parts of Macedonia and Achaia, a procurator Augusti headquartered at Nicopolis governed Epirus. The new province of Epirus included Acarnania to the south as far as the Achelous, but not Apollonia to the north, plus the Ionian Islands – Corfu, Leukas, Ithaca, Cephalonia, and Zacynthus
15.
Pithiviers
–
Pithiviers is a commune in the Loiret department in north-central France. It is twinned with Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, England and its attractions include a cinema, a theatre and a preserved steam railway. During World War II, Pithiviers was the location of the infamous Pithiviers internment camp, the pithivier, a kind of pie, is said to originate here. Steve Marlet footballer with CM Aubervilliers and he was born here in 1974. Marie Ndiaye novelist and playwright who was here in 1967. Siméon Poisson mathematician born here in 1781 and died in 1840, louis Lebègue Duportail French military leader during the American Revolutionary War, born here in 1743. Communes of the Loiret department Ary Bitter
16.
Sweden
–
Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
17.
Guild
–
A guild /ɡɪld/ is an association of artisans or merchants who control the practice of their craft in a particular town. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of tradesmen and they were organized in a manner something between a professional association, trade union, a cartel, and a secret society. A lasting legacy of traditional guilds are the guildhalls constructed and used as meeting places, an important result of the guild framework was the emergence of universities at Bologna, Oxford and Paris, they originated as guilds of students as at Bologna, or of masters as at Paris. Usually the founders were free independent master craftsmen who hired apprentices, there were several types of guilds, including the two main categories of merchant guilds and craft guilds but also the frith guild and religious guild. In many cases became the governing body of a town. The Freedom of the City, effective from the Middle Ages until 1835, gave the right to trade, Trade guilds arose in the 14th century as craftsmen united to protect their common interest. The occasion for these oaths were drunken banquets held on December 26, gregory of Tours tells a miraculous tale of a builder whose art and techniques suddenly left him, but were restored by an apparition of the Virgin Mary in a dream. Michel Rouche remarks that the story speaks for the importance of practically transmitted journeymanship, in France, guilds were called corps de métiers. According to Viktor Ivanovich Rutenburg, Within the guild itself there was little division of labour. Thus, according to Étienne Boileaus Book of Handicrafts, by the century there were no less than 100 guilds in Paris. In Catalan towns, specially at Barcelona, guilds or gremis were a basic agent in the society, a shoemakers guild is recorded in 1208. In England, specifically in the City of London Corporation, more than 110 guilds, referred to as companies, survive today. Other groups, such as the Worshipful Company of Tax Advisers, have been formed far more recently, membership in a livery company is expected for individuals participating in the governance of The City, as the Lord Mayor and the Remembrancer. The guild system reached a state in Germany circa 1300 and held on in German cities into the 19th century. In the 15th century, Hamburg had 100 guilds, Cologne 80, the latest guilds to develop in Western Europe were the gremios of Spain, e. g. Valencia or Toledo. Not all city economies were controlled by guilds, some cities were free, in order to become a Master, a Journeyman would have to go on a three-year voyage called Journeyman years. The practice of the Journeyman years still exists in Germany and France, in Ghent, as in Florence, the woolen textile industry developed as a congeries of specialized guilds. The appearance of the European guilds was tied to the emergent money economy, before this time it was not possible to run a money-driven organization, as commodity money was the normal way of doing business
18.
Vadstena Abbey
–
The Abbey of Our Lady and of St. Bridget, more commonly referred to as Vadstena Abbey, situated on Lake Vättern, in the Diocese of Linköping, Sweden, was the motherhouse of the Bridgettine Order. The abbey started on one of the farms donated to it by the king and it was active from 1346 until 1595. The daughter of Saint Bridget, Saint Catherine, on arriving there in 1374 with the relics of her mother and they chose Catherine as their abbess. She died in 1381, and it was not until 1384 that the abbey was blessed by the Bishop of Linköping, the first recognized Abbess was Ingegerd Knutsdotter, granddaughter of Saint Bridget. The canonization of Saint Bridget in 1391 and the translation of her remains to the Abbey Church in 1394 added greatly to the fame, in 1400 Duke Eric of Pomerania was invested at Vadstena by his great-aunt, Queen Margaret, as King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The grave of his wife, Queen Philippa, and that of Catherine, bridgetine literature consisted mostly of translations into Swedish of portions of the Bible or of the legends of the saints. Such writings as are extant have been published for the most part by the Svenska fornskriftsällskapet of Stockholm, the manuscripts are held in the Royal Library, Stockholm, and at the University Libraries of Uppsala, and Lund. The abbey was a monastery, with both a male section of 25 monks and a female section of 60 nuns. The monks were organised under the General Confessor and the nuns under a prioress, while the abbey as a whole was organised under an Abbess, who was elected by both the monks and the nuns. The abbey was greatly favored by the house and nobility. The abbey was known to manage a hospital and retirement home, early on, Vadstena Abbey supported Beghards and Beguines, the latter often aristocratic women, who had a poor reputation among Church authorities. In 1412, the abbey was ordered to them. In 1436, the rebel Jösse Eriksson sought asylum in the abbey and it kept in contact with other monasteries, performed inspections of them and sent both nuns and monks to them when they were lacking in members. After the introduction of the Reformation in Sweden in 1527, monastic communities in Sweden were effectively ended by the ban against accepting new novices. The existing members were allowed to stay until their death, to be supported by an allowance from the property of the monastery. Vadstena Abbey, however, was exempted from this ban and allowed to accept novices even after the Reformation and this regulation was directed to Bishop Hans Brask by King Gustav Vasa in 1527 after an elopement by a novice the previous year. The Abbey had a position because of its international fame and because of its strong ties with the Swedish nobility. Many of the monks and nuns were from the nobility, including the Kings own sister and it also served as a burial ground for many noble families
19.
Nun
–
A nun is a member of a religious community of women, typically one living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The term nun is applicable to Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Anglicans, Lutherans, Jains, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus, Mother Teresas Missionaries of Charity, lives an active vocation of both prayer and service, often to the needy, ill, poor, and uneducated. All Buddhist traditions have nuns, although their status is different among Buddhist countries, fully ordained Buddhist nuns have more Patimokkha rules than the monks. The important vows are the same, however, as with monks, there is quite a lot of variation in nuns dress and social conventions between Buddhist cultures in Asia. Chinese nuns possess the full ordination, Tibetan nuns do not. In Thailand, a country never had a tradition of fully ordained nuns. However, some of them have played an important role in dhamma-practitioners community. There are in Thai Forest Tradition foremost nuns such as Mae Ji Kaew Sianglam, the founder of the Nunnery of Baan Huai Saai, who is believed by some to be enlightened as well as Upāsikā Kee Nanayon. At the beginning of the 21st century, some Buddhist women in Thailand have started to introduce the bhikkhuni sangha in their country as well, dhammananda Bhikkhuni, formerly the successful academic scholar Dr. Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, established a controversial monastery for the training of Buddhist nuns in Thailand. The relatively active roles of Taiwanese nuns were noted by some studies, researcher Charles Brewer Jones estimates that from 1952 to 1999, when the Buddhist Association of the ROC organized public ordination, female applicants have outnumbered males by about three to one. He adds, All my informants in the areas of Taipei and Sanhsia considered nuns at least as respectable as monks, in contrast, however, Shiu-kuen Tsung found in Taipei county that female clergy were viewed with some suspicion by society. She reports that while outsiders did not necessarily regard their vocation as unworthy of respect, wei-yi Cheng studied Luminary order in southern Taiwan. Based on studies of Luminary order, Cheng concluded that the order in Taiwan was still young and gave nuns more rooms of development. Gelongma ordination requires the presence of ten fully ordained people keeping exactly the same vows, because ten nuns are required to ordain a new one, the effort to establish the Dharmaguptaka bhikkhu tradition has taken a long time. It is permissible for a Tibetan nun to receive ordination from another living tradition. Based on this, Western nuns ordained in Tibetan tradition, like Thubten Chodron, the ordination of monks and nuns in Tibetan Buddhism distinguishes three stages, rabjung-ma, getshül-ma and gelong-ma. The clothes of the nuns in Tibet are basically the same as those of monks, hokke-ji in 747 was established by the consort of the Emperor. It took charge of provincial convents, performed ceremonies for the protection of the state, aristocratic Japanese women often became Buddhist nuns in the premodern period
20.
Window
–
A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof or vehicle that allows the passage of light and, if not closed or sealed, air and sound by using sheet glass. Modern windows are glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent material. Windows are held in place by frames, many glazed windows may be opened, to allow ventilation, or closed, to exclude inclement weather. Windows often have a latch or similar mechanism to lock the window shut, the Romans were the first known to use glass for windows, a technology likely first produced in Roman Egypt, in Alexandria ca.100 AD. Paper windows were economical and widely used in ancient China, Korea, in England, glass became common in the windows of ordinary homes only in the early 17th century whereas windows made up of panes of flattened animal horn were used as early as the 14th century. In the 19th century American west, greased paper windows came to be used by itinerant groups, modern-style floor-to-ceiling windows became possible only after the industrial plate glass making processes were perfected. The English language-word window originates from the Old Norse vindauga, from vindr – wind and auga – eye, the Danish word is pronounced fairly similarly to window. Window is first recorded in the early 13th century, and originally referred to a hole in a roof. Window replaced the Old English eagþyrl, which literally means eye-hole, many Germanic languages however adopted the Latin word fenestra to describe a window with glass, such as standard Swedish fönster, or German Fenster. The use of window in English is probably because of the Scandinavian influence on the English language by means of loanwords during the Viking Age, in English the word fenester was used as a parallel until the mid-18th century. Fenestration is still used to describe the arrangement of windows within a façade, as well as defenestration, in the 13th century, the earliest windows were unglazed openings cut in a roof to admit light during the day. Later, windows were covered with animal hide, cloth, or wood, shutters that could be opened and closed came next. Over time, windows were built that both protected the inhabitants from the elements and transmitted light, using small pieces of translucent material set in frameworks of wood. In the Far East, paper was used to fill windows, the Romans were the first known to use glass for windows, a technology likely first produced in Roman Egypt. It would be over a millennium before a window glass became transparent enough to see through clearly, over the centuries techniques were developed to shear through one side of a blown glass cylinder and produce thinner rectangular window panes from the same amount of glass material. This gave rise to tall narrow windows, usually separated by a vertical support called a mullion, mullioned glass windows were the windows of choice among European well-to-do, whereas paper windows were economical and widely used in ancient China, Korea and Japan. In England, glass became common in the windows of homes only in the early 17th century whereas windows made up of panes of flattened animal horn were used as early as the 14th century. Modern-style floor-to-ceiling windows became possible only after the plate glass making processes were perfected
21.
Market Drayton
–
Market Drayton is a market town in north Shropshire, England, close to the Welsh and Staffordshire border. It is on the River Tern, between Shrewsbury and Stoke-on-Trent, and was known as Drayton in Hales and earlier simply as Drayton. Market Drayton is on the Shropshire Union Canal and on Regional Cycle Route 75, the A53 road by-passes the town. The counties of Staffordshire and Cheshire are both close by, in 1245 King Henry III granted a charter for a weekly Wednesday market, giving the town its current name. The market is held every Wednesday. An electoral ward in the name exists. In 1965, sausage maker Palethorpes built a new factory employing 400 people in the town, purchased by Northern Foods in 1990, the company was merged with Bowyers of Trowbridge, Wiltshire and Pork Farms of Nottingham to form Pork Farms Bowyers. The sausage brand was sold in 2001 to Kerry Group, and it produces various meat based and chilled food products, under both the Pork Farms brand and for third parties, including Asda. Müller Dairy have a factory making yogurts, the town is also the home of Tern Press, a highly respected and collectible small press publisher of poetry. Image on Food also makes local gingerbread, recent developments in the local service industry include the retailers Argos, Wilkinsons and B & M which have all brought new employment to the town. It is widely considered to be the Home of Gingerbread, supplied by a pure water source running under the town, two breweries operated in the town during the early 20th century. In 2000, Steve Nuttall started a microbrewery, Joules Brewery Ltd, the new company bought the 16th century Red Lion, a pub that formerly belonged to the earlier company, where the brewery was built, completed in 2010. It produces three core ales on the site as well as a number of seasonal beers, the church stands on the top of a prominent outcrop of red sandstone rock above the River Tern. The Domesday Book describes A Priest in Drayton, and there was likely a wooden Saxon church on the site prior to the construction of the present Norman stone building. In 1201 Pope Innocent III forbade the weekly market which had taken place in the churchyard after the Sunday morning service. As a result, the market moved northwards a few hundred yards, in the 1320s major building work was undertaken in the church. In the Georgian era galleries and box pews were added, the church boasts some fine stained glass. The west window, depicting Queen Victoria, is by Shrigley, the east window, showing the Resurrection of Jesus, is by Charles Eamer Kempe
22.
Arlon
–
Arlon is a Walloon municipality of Belgium located in and capital of the province of Luxembourg. With a population of just over 28,000, it is the smallest provincial capital in Belgium, Arlon is also the capital of its cultural region, the Arelerland. The municipality consists of the following sub-municipalities, Arlon proper, Autelbas-Barnich, Bonnert, Guirsch, Heinsch, the local population adapted relatively easily to Roman culture. The Germanic invasions of the 3rd century destroyed most of these early advances, during most of the Middle Ages, the population still used the earlier buildings such as the thermae. In 1060, Waleran I of Limburg, Count of Arlon, in the 13th century, the only womens Cistercian abbey known to date was built in Clairefontaine. The Duchy of Luxembourg itself, of which Arlon was dependent, after Charles Vs abdication of his empire to his son Philip II of Spain in 1556, a troubled period started for the whole region as continuous wars opposed France, Spain, and the Southern Netherlands. In 1558, nearly half of the city, including its castle, was destroyed by the French troops of Duke François of Guise. In the 17th century, Capuchin monks built a convent on the ruins of the castle, an accidental fire destroyed a large part of the city again in 1785. On 9 June 1793 the French Revolutionary troops opposed the Austrians just outside Arlon, the French emerged victorious and occupied the city. They expelled the Capuchin monks and used their convent as a hospital, after the Battle of Waterloo, Arlons history is entwined with that of Belgium. Arlon was one of the first victims of the German invasion in 1914 as 121 inhabitants were executed on 26 August and its territory was again among the first to be invaded at the onset of World War II. During the war, the mayor of Arlon, Paul Reuter collaborated with the occupying Germans, one of the largest industrial employers is the Ferrero Rocher chocolate factory. All International express trains make a stop in Arlon, as it is the last station on the main Brussels—Luxembourg City railway line, Arlon is best known for holding one of the richest archeological museums in Belgium. It houses numerous examples of Roman sculpture and Merovingian funerary art, a fragment of the Gallo-Roman defensive wall that was built in the 3rd century still stands in Arlon. The Gaspar Museum is well known for its furniture, paintings, ceramics, saint Donats church now stands on the Knipchen hill, where Waleran I of Limburg once built his castle and the Capuchin monks built their convent. Arlon cemetery has the largest Jewish section of all Walloon cemeteries, the carnival of Arlon takes place at mid-Lent. It includes the traditional handing of the city keys to the carnival prince, the Maitrank is the citys most popular refreshment. It is made of wine in which a local flower
23.
High Street
–
High Street is a metonym for the concept of the primary business street of towns or cities, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth of Nations. To distinguish it from centres of nearby places it is frequently preceded unofficially by the name of its settlement, in a town it implies the focal point for business, especially shops and street stalls in town and city centres. The equivalent in the United States and some parts of Canada, as well as some Northern English, the smallest High Street in Britain is located in a small market town in Devon called Holsworthy. The street itself is no more than 100 yards long and there are three shops located on Holsworthys High Street. High Street is the most common name in the UK. Already in Middle English the word denoted a metaphorical meaning of excellence or superior rank. High also applied to roads as they improved, highway was a new term taken up by the church, High Street gradually adopted a narrower meaning to describe thoroughfares with significant retail in large villages and towns. In the United Kingdom geographic concentration of goods and services has reduced the share of the economy contributed to by workers in the high street, High street refers to only a part of commerce. The town centre in many British towns combines a group of outdoor shopping streets, the continued vitality of towns is predicated on a number of different variables. The way that consumers perceive and use town centres has also fundamentally changed, in order to address the issues threatening the sustainability of towns it is increasingly important to consider consumer behaviour and customer experience. High Streets are less seen in Ireland. Neither of Dublins two main shopping streets carry this name, nor does its main thoroughfare, while Dublin has a High Street near Christchurch, it is not a shopping street. The city of Corks main shopping street is St. Patricks Street, Limericks, Main Street is used in many smaller towns and villages. For example, the OSI North Leinster Town Maps book lists sixteen Main Streets, similarly, the OSI Dublin Street Guide lists twenty Main Streets and only two High Streets. Killarney and Galway are two of the few large Irish towns in which the streets are named High Street. Nonetheless, the high street is often used in the Irish media to refer generically to shopping streets. The phrase High Street banks is used to refer to the banking sector in the United Kingdom. The equivalent in the United States, sometimes in Canada and Ireland is Main Street, in Jamaica, North East England and some sections of Canada and the United States, the main commercial district is Front Street
24.
American Cookery
–
American Cookery, by Amelia Simmons, is the first known cookbook written by an American, published in Hartford, Connecticut in 1796. Until then, the printed and used in the Thirteen Colonies were British. This book was popular and was printed, reprinted and pirated for 30 years after its first appearance. Only four copies of the first edition are known to exist, the only biographical information known about the author is from the cover and title pages of her cookbook that list her as Amelia Simmons, An American Orphan, all else is by inference. American Cookery is her only published work. The preface reads, The candor of the American Ladies is solicitously intreated by the Authoress, as she is circumscribed in her knowledge and this indicates that she probably lacked formal education. Based on other quotes from her preface, she was most likely a domestic laborer and she wrote of those females who have parents, or brothers, or riches, and how female orphans may be reduced to the necessity of going into families in the line of domestics. Culinary historian Karen Hess says that because. the first edition is from Hartford and this assumption is bolstered by the inclusion of southern New England specialties such as Indian pudding and johnnycakes. However, many of the editions were published from a cluster around the Hudson River Valley. Also, several Dutch words appeared in her work, words that would have more likely come from that region, so a case can be made that Simmons more likely came from the Hudson Valley region. Karen Hess also referred to Miss Simmons as a good cook, noting the generous use and variety of herbs. Simmons also showed the use of English extraordinarily fine roasting techniques in her recipes, there were 13 known editions of this book published between 1796 and 1831. American Cookery has also reprinted in several editions and formats in the 20th Century. The first edition was published in 1796 by Hudson & Goodwin of Hartford, the words For the Author on the title page likely indicate that Simmons paid the printing costs herself. The book was issued without hard covers, the page also served as the front cover. The second edition was published in 1796, but by Charles R. and George Webster of Albany. The second edition consists of 64 pages, in 1808, Lucy Emerson plagiarized Simmonss book by renaming part of the title and copying verbatim most of the rest of it. She changed the words American Cookery to The New-England Cookery, published in Montpelier, VT in 1808
25.
Cookie
–
A cookie is a baked or cooked good that is small, flat, and sweet, usually containing flour, sugar and some type of oil or fat. It may include ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips or nuts. In most English-speaking countries except for the US and Canada, crisp cookies are called biscuits, chewier biscuits are sometimes called cookies even in the UK. Some cookies may also be named by their shape, such as squares or bars. Cookies or biscuits may be mass-produced in factories, made in bakeries or home-made. Cookies are often served with such as milk, coffee or tea. Factory-made cookies are sold in stores, convenience stores and vending machines. Fresh-baked cookies are sold at bakeries and coffeehouses, with the latter ranging from small business-sized establishments to multinational corporations such as Starbucks, in most English-speaking countries outside North America, including the United Kingdom, the most common word for a crisp cookie is biscuit. The term cookie is used to describe chewier ones. However, in many regions both terms are used, in Scotland the term cookie is sometimes used to describe a plain bun. Cookies that are baked as a layer on a sheet pan and then cut. According to the Scottish National Dictionary, its Scottish name derives from the form of the word cook, giving the Middle Scots cookie. It also gives an etymology, from the Dutch word koekje, the diminutive of koek. There was much trade and cultural contact across the North Sea between the Low Countries and Scotland during the Middle Ages, which can also be seen in the history of curling and, perhaps, golf. Cookies are most commonly baked until crisp or just long enough that they remain soft, Cookies are made in a wide variety of styles, using an array of ingredients including sugars, spices, chocolate, butter, peanut butter, nuts, or dried fruits. The softness of the cookie may depend on how long it is baked, a general theory of cookies may be formulated this way. Despite its descent from cakes and other sweetened breads, the cookie in almost all its forms has abandoned water as a medium for cohesion. Water in cakes serves to make the base as thin as possible, in the cookie, the agent of cohesion has become some form of oil
26.
Biscuit
–
Biscuit is a term used for a diverse variety of baked, commonly flour-based food products. The term is applied to two products in North America and the Commonwealth of Nations and Europe. The North American biscuit is typically a soft, leavened quick bread and this article covers the other type of biscuit, which is typically hard, flat and unleavened. In Commonwealth English and Hiberno-English, a biscuit is a baked product that would be called either a cookie or a cracker in the United States. Biscuits in the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and Ireland are hard and may be savoury or sweet, such as biscuits, digestives, hobnobs, ginger nuts, rich tea, bourbons. In the Commonwealth Nations and Ireland, the term typically refers to only one type of biscuit, however. In the United States and some parts of English Canada, a biscuit is a bread, somewhat similar to a scone. Leavening is achieved through the use of baking powder or when using buttermilk baking soda, biscuits are usually referred to as either baking powder biscuits or buttermilk biscuits if buttermilk is used rather than milk as a liquid. A Southern regional variation using the term beaten biscuit is closer to hardtack than soft dough biscuits, the Old French word bescuit is derived from the Latin words bis and coquere, coctus, and, hence, means twice-cooked. This is because biscuits were originally cooked in a process, first baked. This term was adapted into English in the 14th century during the Middle Ages, in the Middle English word bisquite, to represent a hard. The Dutch language from around 1703 had adopted the word koekje to have a meaning for a similar hard. When continental Europeans began to emigrate to colonial North America, the two words and their same but different meanings began to clash, the words cookie or cracker became the words of choice to mean a hard, baked product. Further confusion has been added by the adoption of the word biscuit for a small leavened bread popular in the United States, according to the American English dictionary Merriam-Webster, a cookie is a small flat or slightly raised cake. In modern Italian usage, the term biscotto is used to refer to any type of hard twice-baked biscuit, and not only to the cantuccini as in the past. The need for nutritious, easy-to-store, easy-to-carry, and long-lasting foods on long journeys, however, this took up additional space on what were either horse-powered treks or small ships, reducing the time of travel before additional food was required. This resulted in early armies adopting the style of hunter-foraging, the introduction of the baking of processed cereals including the creation of flour provided a more reliable source of food. Egyptian sailors carried a flat, brittle loaf of bread called dhourra cake while the Romans had a biscuit called buccellum
27.
Elizabeth I of England
–
Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was executed two and a half years after Elizabeths birth. Annes marriage to Henry VIII was annulled, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate, edwards will was set aside and Mary became queen, deposing Lady Jane Grey. During Marys reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels, in 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister to the throne and set out to rule by good counsel. She depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers, led by William Cecil, one of her first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. This Elizabethan Religious Settlement was to evolve into the Church of England and it was expected that Elizabeth would marry and produce an heir to continue the Tudor line. She never did, despite numerous courtships, as she grew older, Elizabeth became famous for her virginity. A cult grew around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, in government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father and half-siblings had been. One of her mottoes was video et taceo, in religion, she was relatively tolerant and avoided systematic persecution. Elizabeth was cautious in foreign affairs, manoeuvring between the powers of France and Spain. She only half-heartedly supported a number of ineffective, poorly resourced military campaigns in the Netherlands, France, by the mid-1580s, England could no longer avoid war with Spain. Englands defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 associated Elizabeth with one of the greatest military victories in English history, Elizabeths reign is known as the Elizabethan era. Some historians depict Elizabeth as a short-tempered, sometimes indecisive ruler, towards the end of her reign, a series of economic and military problems weakened her popularity. Such was the case with Elizabeths rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, after the short reigns of Elizabeths half-siblings, her 44 years on the throne provided welcome stability for the kingdom and helped forge a sense of national identity. Elizabeth was born at Greenwich Palace and was named after both her grandmothers, Elizabeth of York and Elizabeth Howard and she was the second child of Henry VIII of England born in wedlock to survive infancy. Her mother was Henrys second wife, Anne Boleyn, at birth, Elizabeth was the heir presumptive to the throne of England. She was baptised on 10 September, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the Marquess of Exeter, the Duchess of Norfolk, Elizabeth was two years and eight months old when her mother was beheaded on 19 May 1536, four months after Catherine of Aragons death from natural causes. Elizabeth was declared illegitimate and deprived of her place in the royal succession, eleven days after Anne Boleyns execution, Henry married Jane Seymour, who died shortly after the birth of their son, Prince Edward, in 1537
28.
Parkin (cake)
–
Parkin or Perkin is a gingerbread cake traditionally made with oatmeal and black treacle, which originated in northern England. Often associated with Yorkshire, particularly the Leeds area, it is widespread and popular elsewhere. Parkin is baked to a hard cake but with resting becomes moist, in Hull and East Yorkshire, it has a drier, more biscuit-like texture than in other areas. Parkin is traditionally eaten on Guy Fawkes Night,5 November and it is baked commercially throughout Yorkshire, but is mainly a domestic product in other areas. The origin of the word parkin is unknown, the first published dated reference to parkin was collected from 1728 from the West Yorkshire Quarter Sessions when Anne Whittaker was accused of stealing oatmeal to make parkin. The Lancashire weaver Tim Bobbin describes tharf cake in 1740- and this is recognisable as a parkin, the tharf cake is of ancient Teutonic origin, as tharf or theorf meant unleavened, un-fermented, solid tough or sodden in Old English. John Wycliffe in his translation of the Bible in 1389 calls unleavened bread a tharf loove Parkin is virtually unknown south of the Humber and it is eaten in an area where oats rather than wheat was the staple grain for the poor. It is closely related to tharf cakes - an unsweeted cake cooked on a rather than baked. The traditional time of the year for tharf cakes to be made was directly after the oat harvest in the first week in November, for festive occasions, the cake would be sweetened with honey. In the seventeenth century sugar started to be imported from Barbados-, molasses was first used by apothecaries, to make a medicine theriaca, from which name the word treacle is derived. As molasses became plentiful, or treacle as it called at that time. In Northern Europe honey was used as a medicine, for cakes and making mead. Honey cakes had a special festive significance and they were baked to be hard, but after storage for a couple of weeks they regained their moisture becoming soft and even sticky. German Lebkuchen and Pfefferkuchen were other examples of hygroscopic holiday ginger-breads and they too were baked hard in summer and allowed to moisten for consumption at Christmas. Though parkin and tharf cake appear to be synonymous- generally all parkins were sweet tharf cakes, Parkin and tharf cake were used interchangeably in Lancashire and South Yorkshire until 1900. Over the 500 years the recipe and taste of these cakes have changed considerably and it was the food of the poor. Ovens were rare in the houses of the poor, and they generally had no access to public bakers before the 1820s, the best parkin was made with fresh oatmeal, which fixes the date around the first week in November. In southern Lancashire, and West Yorkshire parkin is inextricably linked to the Guy Fawkes Night celebration, Jennifer Stead, in her study Prodigal Frugality, identifies the link between Guy Fawkes and parkin as the bonfire
29.
Netherlands
–
The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
30.
Belgium
–
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie
31.
Ontbijtkoek
–
An ontbijtkoek or peperkoek is a Dutch spiced cake. Rye is its most important ingredient, coloring the cake in light brown and it is often spiced with cloves, cinnamon, ginger, succade and nutmeg. Several parts of the Netherlands have their own recipe, of which the most famous is Oudewijvenkoek which is mostly eaten in the northern regions. Ontbijtkoek is traditionally served at breakfast with a layer of butter on top. However, due to its taste it is also served as a snack. Originally called peperkoek it was made from breadcrumbs and other left over bakery products stored in an attic and these ingredients were periodically collected and pressed to create the peperkoek which was augmented with black pepper to conceal the age of the resulting thick bread, hence its name. Pepper being historically one of the most valuable Dutch East India Company trading products, it was used in many Dutch food products
32.
Dunking (biscuit)
–
To dunk or to dip a biscuit or some other food means to submerge it into a drink, especially tea, coffee, or milk. Dunking releases more flavour from confections by dissolving the sugars, while also softening their texture, Dunking can be used to melt chocolate on biscuits to create a richer flavour. Dunking is a way of enjoying biscuits in many countries. A popular form of dunking in Australia is the Tim Tam Slam, the physics of dunking is driven by the porosity of the biscuit and the surface tension of the beverage. A biscuit is porous and, when dunked, capillary action draws the liquid into the interstices between the crumbs, Dunking is first reported with ancient Romans softening their hard unleavened wafers in wine. The most popular biscuit to dunk in tea in the United Kingdom is McVities chocolate digestive, in the US, Oreos are frequently dunked in milk, while the Dunkin Donuts franchise is named for the practice of dunking doughnuts into coffee. In South Africa and in India, rusks are a food for dunking in both tea and coffee. In the Netherlands, stroopwaffels are commonly dunked in tea or coffee, Dunking is also used as a slang term for intinction, the Eucharistic practice of partly dipping the consecrated bread, or host, into the consecrated wine, by the officiant before distributing. Different cultures have different attitudes toward biscuit dunking, historically in British high society, dunking was frowned upon and generally seen as childrens or working class fashion. Physicist Len Fisher of the University of Bristol presented some light-hearted discussion of dunking on National Biscuit Dunking Day in the UK, Fisher appeared to be somewhat taken aback by the large amount of media attention, ascribing it to a hunger for accessible science. Fisher also described his astonishment at journalists interest in one equation used in the field, Washburns equation, writing in Nature, he says the equation was published in almost every major UK newspaper. The journalists who published it took care to get it right. In Marcel Prousts novel In Search of Lost Time one of the childhood memories sets in while tasting a madeleine dunked in tea. The soft, spongy consistency of the madeleine could seem like an odd choice as dunking is more common with crisp baked products, in fact, draft versions of Prousts manuscript reveal that the author initially had the narrator dunk a piece of toasted bread. In the British comedy-drama film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Evelyn Greenslade, one of the main characters, media related to Food dunking at Wikimedia Commons dunk debunked. Cooled cuppa with full-fat milk plus a Rich Tea biscuit makes perfect dip, finds scientific investigation
33.
Port wine
–
Port wine is a Portuguese fortified wine produced exclusively in the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. It is typically a sweet, red wine, often served as a wine, though it also comes in dry, semi-dry. Fortified wines in the style of port are also produced outside Portugal, most notably in Australia, France, South Africa, Canada, India, Argentina, under European Union Protected Designation of Origin guidelines, only the product from Portugal may be labelled as port or Porto. Port is produced from grapes grown and processed in the demarcated Douro region, the fortification spirit is sometimes referred to as brandy but it bears little resemblance to commercial brandies. The wine is stored and aged, often in barrels stored in a Lodge as is the case in Vila Nova de Gaia. The Douro valley where port wine is produced was defined and established as a region, or appellation in 1756, making it the third oldest, after Chianti. The reaches of the valley of the Douro River in northern Portugal have a microclimate that is optimal for cultivation of olives, almonds, the demarcation of the Douro River Valley includes a broad swath of land of pre-Cambrian schist and granite. Beginning around the village of Barqueiros, the valley extends eastward nearly to the Spanish border, the region is protected from the influences of the Atlantic Ocean by the Serra do Marão mountains. The area is sub-divided into 3 official zones-the Baixo Corgo, the Cima Corgo, Baixo Corgo – The westernmost zone located downstream from the river Corgo, centred on the municipality of Peso da Régua. This region is the wettest port production zone, receiving an average of 900 mm, the grapes grown here are used mainly for the production of inexpensive ruby and tawny ports. Cima Corgo – Located further upstream from the Baixo Corgo, this region is centred on the town of Pinhão, the summertime average temperature of the regions are a few degrees higher and rainfall is about 200 mm less. The grapes grown in this zone are considered of higher quality, being used in bottlings of Vintage, Reserve, aged Tawny, Douro Superior – The easternmost zone extending nearly to the Spanish border. This is the least cultivated region of Douro, due in part to the difficulties of navigating the river past the rapids of Cachão da Valeira and this is the most arid and warmest region of the Douro. The overall terrain is flat with the potential for mechanization. Over a hundred varieties of grapes are sanctioned for port production, Touriga Nacional is widely considered the most desirable port grape but the difficulty in growing it and the small yields cause Touriga Francesa to be the most widely planted grape. White ports are produced the way as red ports, except that they use white grapes—Donzelinho Branco, Esgana-Cão, Folgasão, Gouveio, Malvasia Fina, Rabigato. While a few shippers have experimented with Ports produced from a variety of grapes. Grapes grown for port are generally characterised by their small, dense fruit which produce concentrated and long-lasting flavours, in 2013, there were 8.7 million cases of port sold,3. 6% less than the previous year, at a value of $499 million
34.
Ashkenazi Jews
–
The traditional diaspora language of Ashkenazi Jews is Yiddish, with Hebrew used only as a sacred language until relatively recently. Throughout their time in Europe, Ashkenazim have made important contributions to philosophy, scholarship, literature, art, music. Ashkenazim originate from the Jews who settled along the Rhine River, in Western Germany, there they became a distinct diaspora community with a unique way of life that adapted traditions from Babylon, The Land of Israel, and the Western Mediterranean to their new environment. The Ashkenazi religious rite developed in such as Mainz, Worms. The eminent French Rishon Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki would have a significant impact on the Jewish religion, in the late Middle Ages, the majority of the Ashkenazi population shifted steadily eastward, moving out of the Holy Roman Empire into the Pale of Settlement. The genocidal impact of the Holocaust devastated the Ashkenazim and their culture, immediately prior to the Holocaust, the number of Jews in the world stood at approximately 16.7 million. Statistical figures vary for the demography of Ashkenazi Jews, oscillating between 10 million and 11.2 million. Sergio DellaPergola in a calculation of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. Other estimates place Ashkenazi Jews as making up about 75% of Jews worldwide, genetic studies on Ashkenazim—researching both their paternal and maternal lineages—suggest a significant proportion of Middle Eastern ancestry. Ashkenazi Jews are popularly contrasted with Sephardi Jews, who are descendants of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, there are some differences in how the two groups pronounce certain Hebrew letters, and in points of ritual. The name Ashkenazi derives from the figure of Ashkenaz, the first son of Gomer, son of Khaphet, son of Noah. The name of Gomer has often been linked to the ethnonym Cimmerians, the intrusive n in the Biblical name is likely due to a scribal error confusing a waw ו with a nun נ. In Jeremiah 51,27, Ashkenaz figures as one of three kingdoms in the far north, the others being Minni and Ararat, perhaps corresponding to Urartu, called on by God to resist Babylon. Ashkenaz is linked to Scandza/Scanzia, viewed as the cradle of Germanic tribes and his contemporary Saadia Gaon identified Ashkenaz with the Saquliba or Slavic territories, and such usage covered also the lands of tribes neighboring the Slavs, and Eastern and Central Europe. In modern times, Samuel Krauss identified the Biblical Ashkenaz with Khazaria, sometime in the early medieval period, the Jews of central and eastern Europe came to be called by this term. In conformity with the custom of designating areas of Jewish settlement with biblical names, Spain was denominated Sefarad, France was called Tsarefat, Rashi uses leshon Ashkenaz to describe German speech, and Byzantium and Syrian Jewish letters referred to the Crusaders as Ashkenazim. Given the close links between the Jewish communities of France and Germany following the Carolingian unification, the term Ashkenazi came to refer to both the Jews of medieval Germany and France. Outside of their origins in ancient Israel, the history of Ashkenazim is shrouded in mystery, the most well-supported theory is the one that details a Jewish migration from Israel through what is now Italy and other parts of southern Europe
35.
Lekach
–
Lekach, or Jewish honey cake in English, is a honey-sweetened cake. It is one of the symbolically significant foods traditionally eaten by Ashkenazi Jews at the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah in hopes of ensuring a sweet New Year. Lekach is usually a dense, loaf-shaped cake, but some versions are similar to cake or pound cake, with the addition of honey. Other versions are more like gingerbread, Pain dépices, or lebkuchen, the Jewish tradition of honeyed cakes may date back to basbousa, an ancient Egyptian cake, variations of which are still enjoyed throughout the Middle East. It also has an amount of eggs, vegetable oil, salt
36.
Rosh Hashanah
–
Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. The biblical name for this holiday is Yom Teruah, literally day shouting/blasting and it is the first of the Jewish High Holy Days specified by Leviticus 23, 23–32, which usually occur in the early autumn of the Northern Hemisphere. Rosh Hashanah is a celebration, which begins on the first day of Tishrei. Tishrei is the first month of the Jewish civil year, according to one secular opinion its origin is in the beginning of the economic year in the ancient Near East, marking the start of the agricultural cycle. Rosh is the Hebrew word for head, ha is the definite article, thus Rosh HaShanah means head the year, referring to the Jewish day of new year. The term Rosh Hashanah in its current meaning does not appear in the Torah and these same words are commonly used in the Psalms to refer to the anointed days. In the Siddur and Machzor Jewish prayer-books Rosh Hashanah is also called Yom Hazikaron, the Hebrew Rosh HaShanah is etymologically related to the Arabic Ras as-Sanah, the name chosen by Muslim lawmakers for the Islamic New Year. Rosh Hashanah marks the start of a new year in the Hebrew calendar and it is the new year for people, animals, and legal contracts. The Mishnah also sets this day aside as the new year for calculating calendar years, shmita, Jews are confident that Rosh Hashanah represents either figuratively or literally Gods creation ex nihilo. However, according to Rabbi Eleazar ben Shammua, Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of man, the earliest origins of the Hebrew New Year are connected to the beginning of the economic year in the agricultural societies of the ancient Near East. The New Year was the beginning of the cycle of sowing, growth, and harvest, the Mishnah contains the second known reference to Rosh Hashanah as the day of judgment. The names of the righteous are immediately inscribed in the book of life, the intermediate class are allowed a respite of ten days, until Yom Kippur, to reflect, repent and become righteous, the wicked are blotted out of the book of the living forever. In Jewish liturgy, Rosh Hashanah leads to Yom Kippur, which is described as the day of judgment, the assumption is that everyone was sealed for life and therefore the next festival is Sukkot that is referred to as the time of our joy. The shofar is traditionally blown each morning for the month of Elul. The sound of the shofar is intended to awaken the listeners from their slumbers, the shofar is not blown on Shabbat. In the period leading up to the Yamim Noraim, penitential prayers, Rosh Hashanah is also the day of Yom Hadin, known as Judgment day. The final judgment is not done from Yom Hadin before the start of Yom Kippur, additionally, Karaites believe the adoption of Rosh Hashanah in place of Yom Teruah is the result of pagan Babylonian influence upon the Jewish nation. The first stage in the transformation was the adoption of the Babylonian month names, in the Torah the months are numbered as First Month, Second Month, Third Month, etc
37.
Norwegian language
–
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken mainly in Norway, where it is the official language. Along with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants. These Scandinavian languages, together with Faroese and Icelandic as well as extinct languages. Faroese and Icelandic are hardly mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them, as established by law and governmental policy, the two official forms of written Norwegian are Bokmål and Nynorsk. The official Norwegian Language Council is responsible for regulating the two forms, and recommends the terms Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk in English. Two other written forms without official status also exist, one and it is regulated by the unofficial Norwegian Academy, which translates the name as Standard Norwegian. Nynorsk and Bokmål provide standards for how to write Norwegian, no standard of spoken Norwegian is officially sanctioned, and most Norwegians speak their own dialects in all circumstances. Thus, unlike in other countries, the use of any Norwegian dialect. Outside Eastern Norway, this variation is not used. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Danish was the written language of Norway. As a result, the development of modern written Norwegian has been subject to strong controversy related to nationalism, rural versus urban discourse, historically, Bokmål is a Norwegianised variety of Danish, while Nynorsk is a language form based on Norwegian dialects and puristic opposition to Danish. The unofficial form known as Riksmål is considered more conservative than Bokmål, Norwegians are educated in both Bokmål and Nynorsk. A2005 poll indicates that 86. 3% use primarily Bokmål as their written language,5. 5% use both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and 7. 5% use primarily Nynorsk. Thus, 13% are frequently writing Nynorsk, though the majority speak dialects that resemble Nynorsk more closely than Bokmål. Broadly speaking, Nynorsk writing is widespread in western Norway, though not in major urban areas, examples are Setesdal, the western part of Telemark county and several municipalities in Hallingdal, Valdres, and Gudbrandsdalen. It is little used elsewhere, but 30–40 years ago, it also had strongholds in rural parts of Trøndelag. Today, not only is Nynorsk the official language of four of the 19 Norwegian counties, NRK, the Norwegian broadcasting corporation, broadcasts in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and all governmental agencies are required to support both written languages. Bokmål is used in 92% of all publications, and Nynorsk in 8%
38.
Swedish language
–
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken natively by more than 9 million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, where it has equal legal standing with Finnish. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish, along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It is currently the largest of the North Germanic languages by number of speakers, Standard Swedish, spoken by most Swedes, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the rural dialects still exist. The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages, V2, Swedish morphology is similar to English, that is, words have comparatively few inflections. There are two genders, no cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are inflected according to gender, number. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes, complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles, the prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme. Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages, by many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had some changes. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, the dialects of Old East Norse that were spoken in Sweden are called Runic Swedish while the dialects of Denmark are referred to as Runic Danish. The dialects are described as runic because the body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, from 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. An early change that separated Runic Danish from the dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain, there was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr dead
39.
Danish language
–
There are also minor Danish-speaking communities in Norway, Sweden, Spain, the United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina. Due to immigration and language shift in urban areas, around 15–20% of the population of Greenland speak Danish as their home language. Along with the other North Germanic languages, Danish is a descendant of Old Norse, until the 16th century, Danish was a continuum of dialects spoken from Schleswig to Scania with no standard variety or spelling conventions. With the Protestant Reformation and the introduction of printing, a language was developed which was based on the educated Copenhagen dialect. It spread through use in the system and administration though German. Today, traditional Danish dialects have all but disappeared, though there are variants of the standard language. The main differences in language are between generations, with youth language being particularly innovative, Danish has a very large vowel inventory comprising 27 phonemically distinctive vowels, and its prosody is characterized by the distinctive phenomenon stød, a kind of laryngeal phonation type. The grammar is moderately inflective with strong and weak conjugations and inflections, nouns and demonstrative pronouns distinguish common and neutral gender. As in English, Danish only has remnants of a case system, particularly in the pronouns. Its syntax is V2, with the verb always occupying the second slot in the sentence. Danish is a Germanic language of the North Germanic branch, other names for this group are the Nordic or Scandinavian languages. Along with Swedish, Danish descends from the Eastern dialects of the Old Norse language, Scandinavian languages are often considered a dialect continuum, where there are no sharp dividing lines between the different vernacular languages. Like Norwegian and Swedish, Danish was significantly influenced by Low German in the Middle Ages, Danish itself can be divided into three main dialect areas, West Danish, Insular Danish, and East Danish. Danish is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Swedish, both Swedes and Danes also understand Norwegian better than they understand each others languages. By the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had some changes. This language was called the Danish tongue, or Norse language. Norse was written in the alphabet, first with the elder futhark. From the 7th century the common Norse language began to undergo changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, most of the changes separating East Norse from West Norse started as innovations in Denmark, that spread through Scania into Sweden and by maritime contact to southern Norway
40.
Icelandic language
–
Icelandic /aɪsˈlændɪk/ is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. It is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages, historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the colonisation of the Americas. Icelandic, Faroese, Norn, and Western Norwegian formerly constituted West Nordic, Danish, Eastern Norwegian, modern Norwegian Bokmål is influenced by both groups, leading the Nordic languages to be divided into mainland Scandinavian languages and Insular Nordic. Most Western European languages have reduced levels of inflection, particularly noun declension. In contrast, Icelandic retains a four-case synthetic grammar comparable to, Icelandic is distinguished by a wide assortment of irregular declensions. Icelandic also has many instances of oblique cases without any governing word, for example, many of the various Latin ablatives have a corresponding Icelandic dative. The vast majority of Icelandic speakers—about 320, 000—live in Iceland, more than 8,000 Icelandic speakers live in Denmark, of whom approximately 3,000 are students. The language is spoken by some 5,000 people in the United States. Notably in the province of Manitoba, while 97% of the population of Iceland consider Icelandic their mother tongue, the language is in decline in some communities outside Iceland, particularly in Canada. Icelandic speakers outside Iceland represent recent emigration in almost all cases except Gimli, Manitoba, the state-funded Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies serves as a centre for preserving the medieval Icelandic manuscripts and studying the language and its literature. Since 1995, on 16 November each year, the birthday of 19th-century poet Jónas Hallgrímsson is celebrated as Icelandic Language Day, the oldest preserved texts in Icelandic were written around 1100 AD. Much of the texts are based on poetry and laws traditionally preserved orally, the most famous of the texts, which were written in Iceland from the 12th century onward, are the Icelandic Sagas. They comprise the historical works and the eddaic poems, the language of the sagas is Old Icelandic, a western dialect of Old Norse. Danish rule of Iceland from 1380 to 1918 had little effect on the evolution of Icelandic, though more archaic than the other living Germanic languages, Icelandic changed markedly in pronunciation from the 12th to the 16th century, especially in vowels. The modern Icelandic alphabet has developed from an established in the 19th century. The later Rasmus Rask standard was a re-creation of the old treatise, with changes to fit concurrent Germanic conventions. Various archaic features, as the letter ð, had not been used much in later centuries, rasks standard constituted a major change in practice. Later 20th-century changes include the use of é instead of je, apart from the addition of new vocabulary, written Icelandic has not changed substantially since the 11th century, when the first texts were written on vellum
41.
Latvian language
–
Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It was previously known in English as Lettish which remains the standard today in various forms in most other Germanic languages, there are about 1.3 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and 100,000 abroad. Altogether,2 million, or 80% of the population of Latvia, of those,1.16 million or 56% use it as their primary language at home. The use of the Latvian language in areas of social life in Latvia is increasing. Latvian is a Baltic language and is most closely related to Lithuanian, in addition there is some disagreement whether Latgalian and New Curonian, which are mutually intelligible with Latvian, should be considered varieties or separate languages. Latvian first appeared in Western print in the century with the reproduction of the Lords Prayer in Latvian in Sebastian Münsters Cosmographia Universalis. Latvian belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family and it is one of two living Baltic languages with an official status. The Baltic languages are of particular interest to linguists because they retain many archaic features believed to have present in the early stages of the Proto-Indo-European language. There is some evidence to suggest the existence of a Balto-Slavic language group after the break-up of Proto-Indo-European, there exist a number of Baltic words that are similar to Sanskrit or Latin and which lack counterparts in Slavic languages. Latvian, Lithuanian, Armenian, Albanian, Slavic and Indo-Iranian languages are grouped as satem languages, while the possession of many archaic features is undeniable, the exact manner by which the Baltic languages have developed from the Proto-Indo-European language is not clear. According to some speculations, the Eastern Baltic languages split from Western Baltic between 400 and 600. The differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after 800, with a period of being one language. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th century or 15th century and this process of consolidation started in the 13th century after the Livonian Crusade and forced christianization. These tribes came under Livonian rule thus forming a political, economic. The oldest known examples of written Latvian are from a 1530 translation of a made by Nikolaus Ramm. Until the 19th century, the Latvian language was influenced by the German language. In the middle of the 19th century the First Latvian National Awakening was started, led by “Young Latvians” who popularized the use of Latvian language, participants to this movement laid the foundations for standard Latvian and also popularized the Latvianization of loan words. However, in the 1880s, when Czar Alexander III came into power, during this period, some Latvian scholars even suggested adopting Cyrillic for use in Latvian
42.
Estonian language
–
Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken natively by about 922,000 people in Estonia and 160,000 outside Estonia. It belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family, Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages, along with Finnish, Karelian, and other nearby languages. The Uralic languages do not belong to the Indo-European languages, Estonian is distantly related to Hungarian and to the Sami languages. Estonian has been influenced by Swedish, German, and Russian, furthermore, the apocope of word-final sounds is extensive and has contributed to a shift from a purely agglutinative to a fusional language. The basic word order is subject–verb–object, modern standard Estonian has evolved on the basis of the dialects of Northern Estonia. The domination of Estonia after the Northern Crusades, from the 13th century to 1918 by Denmark, Germany, Sweden, the oldest written records of the Finnic languages of Estonia date from the 13th century. Originates Livoniae in Chronicle of Henry of Livonia contains Estonian place names, words, the earliest extant samples of connected Estonian are the so-called Kullamaa prayers dating from 1524 and 1528. In 1525 the first book published in the Estonian language was printed, the book was a Lutheran manuscript, which never reached the reader and was destroyed immediately after publication. The first extant Estonian book is a bilingual German-Estonian translation of the Lutheran catechism by S. Wanradt and J. Koell dating to 1535, an Estonian grammar book to be used by priests was printed in German in 1637. The New Testament was translated into southern Estonian in 1686, the two languages were united based on northern Estonian by Anton thor Helle. Writings in Estonian became more significant in the 19th century during the Estophile Enlightenment Period, the birth of native Estonian literature was in 1810 to 1820 when the patriotic and philosophical poems by Kristjan Jaak Peterson were published. His birthday on March 14 is celebrated in Estonia as the Mother Tongue Day, a fragment from Petersons poem Kuu expresses the claim reestablishing the birthright of the Estonian language, Kas siis selle maa keel Laulutuules ei või Taevani tõustes üles Igavikku omale otsida. In English, Can the language of this land In the wind of incantation Rising up to the heavens Not seek for eternity. Kristjan Jaak Peterson From 1525 to 191714,503 titles were published in Estonian, in modern times Jaan Kross and Jaan Kaplinski remain as two of Estonias best known and most translated writers. Writings in Estonian became significant only in the 19th century with the spread of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment, after the Estonian War of Independence in 1919, the Estonian language became the state language of the newly independent country. In 1945,97. 3% of Estonia considered itself ethnic Estonian, when Estonia was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union in World War II, the status of the Estonian language changed to the first of two official languages. As with Latvia many immigrants entered Estonia under Soviet encouragement, in the second half of the 1970s, the pressure of bilingualism intensified, resulting in widespread knowledge of Russian throughout the country. The Russian language was termed as ‘the language of friendship of nations’ and was taught to Estonian children, although teaching Estonian to non-Estonians in schools was compulsory, in practice learning the language was often considered unnecessary
43.
Switzerland
–
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
Cookbook: Gingerbread 
Media: Gingerbread
