The Surprising Origins of the Sunday-Dinner Tradition

Whether pot roast, baked chicken, or a simple stew bubbles in the pot, Sunday dinner is not so much about food as family and friends. This well-loved tradition is as American as apple pie, right?

The Surprising Origins of the Sunday-Dinner Tradition

Yes—and no. The practice actually originated centuries before the United States declared its independence, during the reign of King Henry VII. The Brits consumed a lot of meat back then. Now, Americans love a good steak, but the English appetite for beef was (please pardon the pun) a cut above. It earned them the national nickname of “Roast Beefs” from the French. The royal bodyguards became known as “Beefeaters,” a title they retain today, in the 15th Century.

Two theories exist on the British Sunday roast tradition. It either originated in the late 1400s or the late 1700s, depending on who you believe.

The first theory states that in medieval England, village serfs who served their squire six days each week could take Sundays off for church. Afterwards, they engaged in war games and feasted on an oxen roasted on a spit. A variation of this holds that after attending Sunday services, medieval English villagers would congregate around large communal ovens to roast meat (usually oxen) they’d hunted during the week. The villagers lacked large enough fireplaces to do this at home. Once the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century introduced enclosed ovens into homes, Sunday roast dinner took a more intimate form.

The second theory places the origin sometime after 1760, during the British industrial revolution. Before church, families could start a roast in the oven early, and then add in vegetables on their way out the door. This worked much like our modern slow cookers. They returned home to find dinner waiting and time to enjoy one another.

Whichever opinion is correct, it’s fun to continue this centuries-old tradition.

Gathering for Sunday dinner has become somewhat challenging in today’s far-flung world. No matter how few chairs are around the table, taking the time and trouble to reconnect with loved ones is always worthwhile. Cherishing our families and ourselves on Sunday creates peaceful interludes, which is all the more important in the hostile world in which we live.

I’ve recently begun following this tradition myself. Sometimes there are only two chairs at the table, but my husband and I still enjoying spending special time together. If you’d like to start or revive the Sunday-dinner tradition in your own household, let me know in the comments. Taste of Home features a collection of vintage recipes for Sunday dinners that look pretty amazing.

What’s New with Janalyn Voigt

Getting back to work after so much time off during the holidays is difficult, but I’m gaining momentum. If you also have trouble with transition, I’d love to know how you counter the inertia after a vacation. Or do you come back, recharged and raring to go? In December, we went to Leavenworth with family. If you don’t know, the town was remodeled by its residents to look like an alpine village in Bavaria. This was a tourist move, and it worked out. Leavenworth now draws upwards of a million international tourists per year. Not too shabby for a town that began as a frigid mountain community named “Icicicle.” This week, I’m moving back into regular office hours and am working on an editing project for a publisher. I’ll also plan future writing projects. It’s a time of prayer for direction. 

Learn more about Janalyn Voigt.

Fall in love with the Wild West. Discover Montana Gold.

A Victorian Christmas Dinner Menu

At Christmas, the line between past and present blurs. You notice it when carolers, ice skaters, and horse-drawn sleighs adorn greeting cards. It stands out as women in long dresses and men in elegant attire enjoy candlelit dinners, theater performances, and strolls through the park. You can't miss it whenever families gather for merriment, fond reflection, and good food. That's when it doesn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to picture yourself in Victorian times.

Back then, dinner highlighted Christmas day. Cooked from scratch, it provided guests with the very best a host could offer. Tradition took its place at the head of the table, decreeing favorite decorations and dishes to produce another memorable feast.

Evergreens, holly, and mistletoe bedecked dining rooms. Fine cloth, candles, and floral centerpieces adorned tables. At every place, floral boutonnieres or breast-knots awaited guests who sat down to the household’s finest china. An array of forks, knives, and spoons awaited them, along with a fine napkin, salt cellar, a bread plate, and the best stemware. Christmas dinner arrived in courses, planned well in advance. The following menu comes from “The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook,” popularly known as “The Fannie Farmer Cookbook,” first published in 1896.

A Menu for Christmas Dinner

· Consomme and Bread Sticks

· Olives, Celery, and Salted Pecans

· Roast Goose, Potato Stuffing, and Apple Sauce

· Duchess Potatoes, Cream of Lima Beans

· Chicken Croquettes with Green Peas

· Dressed Lettuce with Cheese Straws

· English Plum Pudding with Brandy Sauce

· Frozen Pudding, Assorted Cakes, and Bonbons

· Crackers and Cheese

· Café Noir.

Consomme and Bread Sticks

Soup or salad? This dinner includes both, but it begins with soup. Some Victorians preferred oyster bisque, which neatly combined two courses for those who considered a fish course essential. Fannie Farmer dispensed with the fish course entirely, which no doubt catered to those who felt that cooking a lot of courses didn’t suit Christmas day.

Consomme, or clarified broth, is time-consuming to make. The broth might be made from a variety of meats--chicken, beef, veal, lamb, pheasant, or even turtle. It required the cook to boil the broth with a “clearmeat” of egg whites, cut vegetables, and ground meat. The result was a beautiful concentrated soup with superior flavor. Today, you can buy canned consommé, but that is often broth with gelatin added. You can find instructions for homemade consommé in the Fannie Farmer cookbook.

Olives, Celery, and Salted Pecans

Some Victorians served small delicacies at this point, while others offered them alongside the salad. Other tasty morsels included pickles, radishes, melon spiced with nutmeg, sweet- pickled grapes, and beets on a bed of mayonnaise-dressed lettuce.

Roasted Goose, Potato Stuffing, and Applesauce

Fannie Farmer’s menu is simple compared to others of the day. Besides roasted goose, a Christmas table might groan under the weight of a standing rib of beef, a turkey with cranberry sauce, and a boar’s head or ham. Goose is quintessential Christmas fare, of course. Just ask Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Whatever the main dish(es), the host carving the meat before his guests was a cherished tradition.

Applesauce needs no introduction, but potato stuffing was new to me. According to some, serving potato stuffing makes mashed potatoes redundant. I can get behind anything that eases that last-minute scramble to get everything to the table while it’s warm. I’m no expert, but a recipe at the New England website looks promising.

Duchess Potatoes and Cream of Lima Beans

Any overachiever should love Duchess Potatoes, or Pommes Duchesse as the French call them. The recipe has been around since it first appeared in La Nouvelle Cuisinière Bourgeoise (1746). In her Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, Fannie Farmer suggested piping the potato-egg mixture into interesting shapes—baskets, roses, pyramids, crowns, leaves, and the like. What’s not to love?

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m looking forward to trying Cream of Lima Beans. Read the comments to the recipe and you might want to make them too. The dish sounds easy and surprisingly delicious.

Other vegetables graced Victorian Christmas feasts: sweet potatoes, salsify, rice, creamed spinach, minced cabbage, creamed tomatoes, cauliflower au gratin, to name a few.

Chicken Croquettes with Green Peas

Victorians liked to make a dish that combined bits of meat, fruit, bread, grains, and/or vegetables in a fried crust. Croquettes were a thrifty way to use up leftovers or cuts that otherwise might not be eaten (such as brain or sweetmeat), Chicken croquettes with peas sound fairly safe, and might even get children to eat their peas.

Dressed Lettuce with Cheese Straws

By this point in the meal, diners were slowing down but anticipating dessert. One more course remained before that happy event. Wise cooks offered a simple salad course of lettuce with French dressing, enlivened by cheese straws and a few small delicacies (perhaps radishes, beets, and nuts) on the side.

English Plum Pudding with Brandy Sauce

At last arrived the grand finale. Plum pudding, or Christmas pudding, originated in the Middle Ages. At first a savory dish, it had transformed into its present sweet form by the Victorian era. Plum pudding has concluded traditional English Christmas dinners for centuries. Doused with brandy and set alight, it would be carried by the hostess into the dining room amid cheers and applause.

Despite its name, this pudding contains no plums. It features raisins, which used to be called “plums.” Currants, figs, and citron are included in Fannie Farmer’s English Plum Pudding recipe. Suet (a kind of beef fat) was chopped fine and incorporated into the batter. Although suet is an unfamiliar ingredient to Americans, cooking with it is not that different from using lard or shortening.

To buy suet in the United States, check with a butcher. If you want to experiment with a substitute, the Times Colonist website has advice for you, It also offers a pudding recipe that doesn’t call for suet. The steamed cranberry pudding with raisins, currants, and walnuts contains no alcohol and takes about twenty minutes to prepare. It cooks in under two hours. Victoriana Magazine has a selection of Christmas pudding recipes.

If you use shortening in your pudding, please make it a healthy version with no transfats. Butter has a lower melting point, so the texture will vary, but I did notice comments stating that it turns out delicious.

The pudding is steamed in a mold (available online). Good Housekeeping explains how to steam plum pudding. The traditional time to make plum pudding is the first Sunday of Advent. We’re a little late this year but early for the next.

Fannie Farmer’s cookbook has you covered for pudding sauces, by the way. If you're not into the traditional brandy sauce, you can choose another.

Frozen Pudding, Assorted Cakes, and Bon Bons

From what I can tell, Victorian “frozen pudding” was much like ice cream frozen in a mold. One example is Nesselrode pudding. A chef working for Russian Count Nesselrode created a decadent chestnut pudding and named it for his employer. A fancy dessert in Victorian times, Nesselrode Pudding remains popular today.

Victorians enjoyed a variety of cakes, as we do today. Folks are still raving over Mary Berry’s Christmas cake, a fruitcake-like confection.

Victorian bon bons were small candies, often covered in chocolate (because why not?). They were much like the boxes of chocolates we indulge in today. A list of homemade bon bons at Victorian Voices describes caramel walnuts, chocolate almonds, chocolate caramels, coconut ices, and something known as “American sweets,” which contained a variety of fillings.

Crackers and Cheese

“Salt after sweet!” an aunt of mine was fond of proclaiming. Her words had the ring of something she’d brought forward from childhood. I blame Grandma for instilling this mantra in her and, by osmosis, in me. I can’t eat a piece of cake without wanting potato chips. I’m kidding, mostly. Actually, crackers are considered a palate cleanser, and cheese contains casein, which strengthens tooth enamel and prevents acidic foods from damaging your teeth. They knew a thing or two in Victorian times.

Café Noir

Fannie Farmer’s Christmas dinner menu concludes with black coffee to let the meal “settle.” Many people believe that drinking coffee after a meal aids the digestion, and it does have certain beneficial effects. It is known to balance blood sugar after eating, which increases energy levels.

Conclusion

This menu is more attainable in terms of labor and resources than the Victorian Thanksgiving menu I wrote about last month. I do like the idea of hosting a Victorian Christmas dinner for friends and family. I'll try a few of the dishes this Christmas and next year go gung-ho. How about you?

What's New with Janalyn Voigt

I am enjoying a brief lull in my schedule to allow for the holidays. This is something I've wanted to do since my writing career blossomed. This is the first Christmas in a long while that it has worked out. I'm thankful for my blessings, and more time for my family and myself is one of them. Bedtime reading is in the picture again, and I couldn't be more ecstatic. My years judging literary contests and reading books for review meant that I read to a schedule. I can't think of anything more likely to kill a passion for reading. Fortunately, it's back, and I intend to guard it well. If you are struggling to read, I understand. One thing that helped me is getting excited about putting together a reading corner in my home. The plans, much delayed by Christmas, are in the works. Speaking of Christmas, have a lovely one. 

Janalyn Voigt is the author of the Montana Gold western historical fiction series and the Tales of Faeraven medieval epic fantasy series. Learn more about Janalyn Voigt.

Cookbooks and Sugar Rationing During WWII

By Marie Wells Coutu

During a recent visit to my hometown, my sister and I made our favorite dessert from childhood—chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Although we both have handwritten copies, we dug out Mother’s old cookbooks to find the original recipe.

The tattered pages of this 1945
cookbook are a testament to how
much my mother used it

It came from a cookbook produced for Lever Brothers’ Golden Jubilee in 1945 that promoted the use of Spry vegetable shortening. The cover of “10 Luscious New Cakes” touts that these recipes feature Spry’s “amazing new one-bowl method.” Spry’s spokesperson, the fictional character Aunt Jenny, is quoted as saying “It’s easy now to get lighter, more delicious cakes—even if you’re short on sugar.”

The first shortening made entirely from vegetable oil was introduced as Crisco by Procter & Gamble in 1911. It provided an alternative to lard, which is made from animal fats. Both helped cooks produce tender and flaky pie crusts, biscuits, and other baked goods.

Lever Brothers introduced Spry in 1936 as a competitor to Crisco, and within only three years it had gained 75% of Crisco’s market share. This success has been attributed to aggressive marketing using “Aunt Jenny.” I suspect the widespread distribution of numerous Aunt Jenny recipe books contributed, as attested to by the collection my mother had.

I don’t know how many of Aunt Jenny’s recipes she actually used, but the Fudge Bar Cake and Minute Fudge Frosting became our family’s favorite. In our home, chocolate cake automatically meant this cake and frosting, and it was always requested for birthdays and other special occasions. [Confession: in her later years, Mother would use a cake mix, but she always made the frosting from this recipe.]

The notation on the cover about the recipes being delicious “even if you’re short on sugar” made me curious about sugar shortages. Of course, I knew about World War II rationing, but I didn’t know the specifics about how sugar was affected. According to the National Park Service [Sugar: The First and Last Food Rationed on the World War II Home Front (U.S. National Park Service)], imports from Hawaii and the Philippines stopped following the Japanese invasion in December 1941, and German U-Boat attacks limited shipments from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Sales of sugar in the U.S. were halted in late April 1942, and rationing began. Even after the war ended, the global supply of sugar was limited due to disruptions from the war and low crop yields. Sugar rationing in the U.S. continued until June 1947.

In May 1945, the ration of sugar was cut to 15 pounds per person per year. The chocolate cake and frosting recipes each call for one cup of sugar for a single layer. Making a two-layer cake would have used nearly all the sugar ration for a family of four for one week. No wonder cakes were made during the war only for special occasions!

Mother saved a number of other free Spry cookbooks, including “Aunt Jenny Starts a Bride Off Right,” “Good Cooking Made Easy,” and “Enjoy Good Eating Every Day the Easy Spry Way.” I even found a copy of “Aunt Jenny’s Favorite Recipes” among Mother’s cookbooks. That one was reprinted under the public domain in 2018 and is also available to download from the Internet Archive.

If you want to try out any of the recipes, however, you’ll have to use Crisco or another brand of vegetable shortening, since Lever stopped producing Spry sometime in the 1970s.

Aunt Jenny offered recipes and
techniques for cooks during WWII

Multi-award-winning author Marie Wells Coutu finds beauty in surprising places, like undiscovered treasures, old houses, and gnarly trees. All three books in her Mended Vessels series, contemporary stories based on the lives of biblical women, have won awards in multiple contests. She is currently working on historical romances set in her native western Kentucky in the 1930s and 1940s. Her historical short story, “All That Glitters,” won honorable mention in the 2023 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest. You can find more about Marie and her novels at her website, MarieWellsCoutu.com.

Truth is messy. But will their shared secret destroy his political career—or sabotage their marriage? After a whirlwind romance, beautiful Shawna Moore marries Hunter Wilson, the governor of Tennessee. Now, she wonders if the governor ever loved her or only hoped to avoid a scandal.
In this modern re-imagining of the biblical story of Bathsheba and King David, an investigative reporter is asking questions. If he discovers the truth about Shawna’s baby, Hunter’s chances for reelection, as well as Shawna’s reputation, will be ruined. Will Hunter’s choice mean the end of his political career or his family?

What do Dutch Windmill Cookies have to do with Christmas?

If you’ve ever bitten into a home-baked speculaas, or Dutch windmill cookie, you need no convincing that every Christmas should include these tasty treats. What do Dutch windmills have to do with Christmas? More than it may seem. 

To understand the connection, let’s go back to the fourth century, when the real St. Nicholas gave away his substantial inheritance to feed people in need. Nicholas of Patara became Bishop of Myra, a town that was then in Greece but is now part of Turkey. Nicholas devoted himself to God at a time when that was dangerous. He suffered for his faith under the brutality of the Roman emperor Galerius, who wanted to stamp out Christianity. Nicholas’s many kindnesses became the stuff of legend and eventually inspired the modern-day Santa Claus.

Every year, In parts of northern Europe, folks celebrate the life of this noble man. On St. Nicholas Eve (December 5th), children put out letters for St. Nicholas and put out shoes, stockings, or plates in anticipation of the gifts that will fill them. Before retiring, they offer carrots or grass for St. Nicholas’s donkey or horse. The children wake on St. Nicholas Day to speculaas cookies, candies, and other gifts in the vessels they set out the night before or under their pillows.

But why bake windmill cookies for Christmas? 

According to tradition, Nicholas lived in a windmill by the sea. By this simple reminder, the people of Holland honor the memory of a noble man who sought to live humbly, like his Savior, who was born in a lowly manger. 

The history of speculaas cookies is wonderful, but I would bake them for the taste alone. If you’ve ever eaten a bland, commercially-baked windmill cookie, you don’t really know what true speculaas tastes like. 

Some people lump speculaas in with gingerbread cookies and some confuse the recipes. Speculaas does contain ginger, but its flavor is much more complex. The dough is laced by a centuries-old spice mixture known as speculaaskruiden (speculaas spices), which includes cinnamon, cloves, mace, ginger, pepper, cardamom, coriander, anise seeds and nutmeg. You read that right. Speculaas cookies contain pepper. Don't knock it before you try it. In telling you, these cookies are heavenly. 

Various theories exist as to why Dutch windmill cookies are called speculaas, which probably came from the Latin “speculum,” which means mirror. Pressing the dough into wooden molds or imprinting it with an embossing roller does create a mirrored pattern. Those are two traditional practices, but you don’t need special equipment to make these time-honored treats. Using regular cookie cutters works just fine, as I can attest. Other options are to cut the dough with a knife, or form it with your hands. This year, I ordered a windmill mold which I’m a little nervous to try. Dusting the mold with rice flour before adding the dough does the trick At least, it did in the online video I watched.

I can’t recommend this speculaas recipe enough. I’ve used it for years. Baking the cookies makes my house smell like Christmas, and my family's eyes light when they come out of the oven. Why not add this delightful treat to your own Christmas celebration?

Over to You

What is your favorite Christmas cookie? What memories does it bring back for you?

What’s New with Janalyn Voigt

I’m almost finished shopping and decorating for Christmas. Between attending events and visiting with friends and family, I’m stealing away to read through the manuscript for The Whispering Wind one last time. My publisher gives me the opportunity to proofread my work after all editing changes are finished. Such careful scrutiny requires patience and the ability to focus. I’ll have more of both once the Christmas tasks are finished. Meanwhile, here’s me wishing you a very Merry Christmas. See you next month.

Janalyn Voigt

Explore faith, love and courage in the American West. 

 Discover Montana Gold

THE HUMBLE PLATE

 

By Mary Davis

Have you ever looked down at your plate and wondered from whence it came?

This simple invention is one of the best. We have dinner plates, bread plates, butter plates, and dessert plates.

People didn’t always eat off of such vessels. So when did this practice start? What were they made of? What did the first plates look like?

The earliest plates were those made by nature; a large leaf, a shell, a hunk of wood, most anything which could hold food. These early plates were communal dishes everyone ate from.

Early individual plates were known as trenchers and were made of two-three inch slices of bread that had been set out to dry for four days or so. The hardened bread made out of coarse flour would be piled with the food offerings for that meal and people ate it with their hands. The “plate” (hunk of bread) wasn’t eaten, but rather it was given to the dogs or the poor. The juices and such that had soaked into the bread had actually turned it into a semi-nourishing and filling meal.

These trenchers worked well until the invention of the fork near the end of the Middle Ages (mid-1400s-ish). As people stabbed at their food with this new utensil, the dry bread got punctured and the juices seeped through too quickly. This was solved by putting the bread on a wooden base. 

Eventually the bread trencher was discarded altogether, leaving the diner to eat off the wooden base. An indentation was carved in the wood to contain juices from the food. These wooden trenchers were sold in sets of twelve and painted with flower designs.

The wealthy didn’t like eating off of wood, so more expensive materials were used like silver, gold, and pewter. Dishes and flatware made of these precious metals were a sort of savings account. During hard times they could be sold or melted down. Even kings melted down their plates when they needed to raise funds in a hurry finance wars.

The trouble with pewter was it contained lead back in the day. With particularly acidic foods like tomatoes, the lead would leach out giving the diner lead poisoning. For a long time, people believed it was the tomatoes which were poisonous.

The poorer people eating off their wooden trenchers weren’t any better off. Wood can harbor bacteria on the best of days, and the custom was to not even wash them from one meal to the next. Between the bacteria from unhygienic practices and worms from the wood, people developed mouth sores.

Eventually, Europeans desired to set their tables with delicate porcelain china. Soon decorated china became coveted across Europe. By the 1850s, middle class people could afford china. For a bride in the 1860s, choosing a china pattern was a rite of passage.

Today, in addition to most of the previous materials, we have plates made out of clay, glass, plastic, and paper. Speaking of paper plates, in the early 1900s, Martin Keyes noticed workmen eating off of pieces of veneer, which gave him the idea to mold paper pulp into pie-plate shapes. He patented his idea and opened a small factory in 1904. With the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, the market for disposable plates exploded. The company continues to make disposable plates which include the Chinet brand that so many of us have used.

Now All 3 QUILTING CIRCLE Books are Available in Audio, as well as Kindle and paperback!

Book 1: THE WIDOW’S PLIGHT A single mother steps out of the shadows of abuse and into the sunshine. But will a secret clouding her past cost her the man she loves? Book 2: THEDAUGHTER’S PREDICAMENT (Placed 2nd in the Selah Awards) As Isabelle’s romance prospects are turning in her favor, a family scandal derails her dreams. Can a patient love win her heart? Or will a forced marriage be the end of her romantic dreams? Book 3: THE DAMSEL'S INTENT  Can Nicole learn to be enough of a lady to snag the handsome rancher? Nicole Waterby heads down the mountain to fetch herself a husband, not realizing women don’t wear trousers or carry a gun. She has a lot to learn. Book 4: THE DÉBUTANTE’S SECRET releases August 2021 

MARY DAVIS is a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (The Quilting Circle Book 3). The Quilting Circle Book 4, The Dèbutante's Secret, will release August of 2021. Some of her other recent titles include; "Holly and Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection, Courting Her Amish Heart, The Widow’s Plight, Courting Her Secret Heart , “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection , and Courting Her Prodigal Heart . 2019 titles include The Daughter's Predicament and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-six years and one cat. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at:

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The History of Peanut Butter & Jelly

By Kathy Kovach

As the children start to settle back into in-person school after this crazy time in our history—that will no doubt be the subject of a Heroes, Heroines, and History blog a hundred years from now—thoughts turn to this age-old question. What do we feed them?

Peanut Butter and Jelly, of course.

Which raises the issue: What did people do before this wondrous invention? Also, when did school children begin to enjoy these sweet/savory meals?

Take Laura Ingalls, for instance. The Little House on the Prairie gal with so much energy, she looked like a whirligig toy most of the time. What was her sustenance in the middle of the day at school? Probably corn cakes or hunks of salt-rising bread and butter. Maybe hard-boiled eggs and cheese. She might have a preserved fruit from Ma’s pantry or a vegetable from Pa’s garden. In an episode of the television show, she removes the cloth covering of her tin lunch pail and pulls out fried chicken.

My stomach is growling.

Moving beyond the 1870s an innovative food item was invented that changed Laura’s farm-fresh meal forever. In 1880, Dr. Ambrose Straub found a way to make peanut paste for his geriatric patients who had trouble chewing or swallowing. This belies the rumor that George Washington Carver invented peanut butter. He had merely included it in a series of brochures that highlighted the “300 Uses of Peanuts” to help sharecroppers with their overabundance of crops. 

Meanwhile, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (yes, that Kellogg) was the first to patent the process of manufacturing what he called peanut butter. He introduced it at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Back to Dr. Straub, he got a patent for what was now known as peanut butter, (which to me sounds more appealing than peanut paste, which I would assume had a touch of mint and made one’s teeth clean and white...or not.) He took the final product to the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904 and the rest is history. Literally. That’s why I’m writing about it.

Because of Straub, Carver, and Kellogg, we can thank these three men for the super food that was once a delicacy served on watercress in New York tea rooms, but now graces America’s lunch tables.

We move on to the jelly. The process of jams and jellies dates back to Greece in the first century after the death of Christ. But the one to take the credit for our contemporary obsession is Paul Welch. (Yes, that Welch.) In 1917, he secured a patent for turning Concord grapes into a puree and named it Grapelade (sounds like marmalade.)

The pairing didn’t become popular until 1941 when WWII soldiers found them in their rations. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich packs well and doesn’t spoil like lunch meats when marching through a sweltering South Pacific jungle. When they came home, they showed their loved ones how to make their favorite food and North America was hooked.

My disclaimer: I didn’t like “peany butter samiches” as I called them when I was a kid. Drove my mother near to the brink, trying to come up with food that wouldn’t spoil. But if Nutella had been invented. . .

A Bouquet of Brides Romance Collection
Meet seven American women who were named for various flowers but struggle to bloom where God planted them. Can love help them grow to their full potential?
"Periwinkle in the Park" by Kathleen Kovach

 
1910, Colorado

Periwinkle Winfield is a hiking guide helping to commission a national park. But a run-in with a mountain man who is determined to keep the government off his land may place her in great danger.


 

Kathleen E. Kovach is a Christian romance author published traditionally through Barbour Publishing, Inc. as well as indie. Kathleen and her husband, Jim, raised two sons while living the nomadic lifestyle for over twenty years in the Air Force. Now planted in northeast Colorado, she's a grandmother, though much too young for that. Kathleen is a longstanding member of American Christian Fiction Writers. An award-winning author, she presents spiritual truths with a giggle, proving herself as one of God's peculiar people.

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