Frog legs

In 1940, fried frog legs featured in the Christmas Day menu of Louisville’s Brown Hotel.  More than seventy years later, they can still be found at state park restaurants.

Frog legs, considered a delicacy by the French in the seventeenth century were introduced into England by French chef.

A recipe for frog legs with saffron was published in The English edition of The French Cook by Francis Peter LaVarenne (1653) and subsequently English cookbooks included similar recipes.

The Dutch also ate frog legs and it is likely that Dutch settlers are ate them in New Amsterdam during colonial times, but English colonists associated the dish with the Frenchman and most colonial Americas were suspicious of French cookery.

Specifically, French food was dishonest the British believed as its sauces gravies and other dishes were designed to disguise the poor quality of French meat, poultry and fish.

Recipes for frog legs appeared in American cookbooks by the late 19th century, and they continue to be a delicacy today.

By the mid-nineteenth century, frog legs were sold in market in many Americana cities. New research suggests, the frog legs thought to be of French origin, there is now a surprising amount of evidence that the liking for frog legs may have actually originated in the area known today as England, perhaps as early as 7000 BC.
Frog legs

History of curry dish in India

Definition of curry is any dish, wet or dry, flavored with curry powder – a ready-made mixture that generally includes turmeric, cumin seed, coriander seed, chilies and fenugreek.

Henry Yule and A.C Burnell, in Hobson-Jobson (1886) explained that ‘curry’ was a savory dish made up of ‘meat, fish, fruit or vegetables cooked with a quantity of bruised spices and turmeric’ served to flavor the two staple foods of the east – bread and rice.

The Tamil word ‘kari’ means a spiced sauce, one of the sorts of dressing taken in South India with rice and soupy in consistency.

The traditional South Indian ‘kari’ does not have a fixed set of ingredients, but a typical mixture was: curry leaf, coriander, cumin and mustard seeds; red and black pepper; fenugreek; turmeric; and less certainly cinnamon, cloves, cardamom.

Curries are an integral part of the cuisine of South-East Asia and Indonesia. As early as the third century BC, Indian traders and Buddhist missionaries brought tamarind, garlic, shallots, ginger, turmeric and pepper to the region.

The oldest indication of Indian curry was cited by Athenaeus from Megasthenes:
Among the Indians, at a banquet, a table is set before each individual and on the table is placed a golden dish on which they throw, first of all boiled rice and then they add many sorts of meat dressed after the India fashion.

According to the historians curry powder was invented in the 17th century as an export commodity for East India Company employees to take or send back to England. Normally curry dish mixture always freshly prepared in India. The British becoming accustomed to it and wishing to have it available in Britain, created commercial ready-mixed curry powder.
History of curry dish in India  

History of nutmeg

Myristica fragrans, of the Myristicaceae family, the nutmeg, is a large tropical tree with small yellow flowers and large, very fragrant.

For many years, this spice has been used as an aromatic stimulant, abortifacient, antiflatulent and as a means to induce menses. Nutmeg has its origin in the Spice Islands of Indonesia. Arab traders brought nutmeg to India, then to Europe, and eventually it was taken to the Caribbean by the Spanish.

Around the year 1000 the Persian physician Ibn Sina or Avicenna the most remarkable man of his time, described the muchk as jansi ban, nut of Banda.

The first really authenticated nutmegs are thought to have arrived at the Byzantine court in the 16th century, coming by way of the Bedouins; the Greeks translated the Arab word mesk, from Persia muchk, as moskhos.

The Banda Islands were discovered by the Portuguese in 1512. There, they found the the nutmeg tree on the islands. Beginning in the 17th century, the Dutch controlled the Spice Islands, and they monopolized the spice trade until British obtained nutmeg seedlings from Banda Islands at the end of the 18th century.

During the Middle Ages, fashionable Europeans carried their own nutmegs and graters to eating establishments as a status symbol.

In 1819, 100,000 of nutmeg trees were transplanted by the British Government to Ceylon and Bengal but the plantations were not successful.

References to the central nervous system affects of nutmeg appeared in the first part of the 19th century when Purkinje developed lethargy after consuming three nutmeg nuts.

Nutmeg was taken to the Caribbean island of St. Vincent in 1802, and then to Grenada in 1843 where cultivation expanded.
History of nutmeg