Southern Artisanal Grocer: Southern Cuisine & History with French Techniques and Ethnic Influences.
Culinary researcher with lessons learned from a restaurant chef and on the homestead. Deviations into classical history, religion and mythology.
Know your history. Words have power. A short history lesson on the “America First,” movement with the help of prolific American author, political cartoonist, poet, animator, book publisher, and artist Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known simply as Dr. Seuss.
#KnowYourHistory #WordsHavePower
MENTAL ILLNESS & STIGMA
Stigma is a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. Never is this so acute in American society as when discussing mental illness, the boogeyman of all health conditions. I’m not going to try to bore you with statistics, but there are a few to understand to put this epidemic in perspective (Statistics provided by the National Institute of Mental Health and American Journal of Psychiatry):
• 43.8 million adults experience mental illness in a given year.
• 1 in 5 adults in America experience a mental illness.
• Nearly 1 in 25 (10 million) adults in America live with a serious mental illness.
• One-half of all chronic mental illness begins by the age of 14; three-quarters by the age of 24.
• 18.1% (42 million) of American adults live with anxiety disorders.
• 6.9% (16 million) of American adults live with major depression.
• 2.6% (6.1 million) of American adults live with bipolar disorder.
• 1 in 100 (2.4 million) American adults live with schizophrenia.
• Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, and is a major contributor to the global burden of disease.
• Serious mental illness costs America $193.2 billion in lost earning every year.
• 90% of those who die by suicide have an underlying mental illness. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S.
• Nearly 60% of adults with a mental illness didn’t receive mental health services in the previous year.
In 1838, Antoine Amedie Peychaud, owner of a New Orleans apothecary, treated his friends to brandy toddies of his own recipe, including his “Peychaud’s Bitters,” made from a secret family recipe. The toddies were made using a double-ended egg cup as a measuring cup or jigger, then known as a “coquetier” from which the word “cocktail” was derived.
By 1850, the Sazerac Cocktail, made with Sazerac French brandy and Peychaud’s Bitters, was immensely popular, and became the first branded cocktail. In 1873, the recipe for the Sazerac Cocktail was altered to replace the French brandy with American Rye whiskey, and a dash of absinthe was added.
In March 2008, Louisiana state senator Edwin R. Murray (D-New Orleans) filed Senate Bill 6 designating the Sazerac as Louisiana’s official state cocktail. The bill was defeated on April 8, 2008. After further debate, on June 23, 2008, the Louisiana Legislature agreed to proclaim the Sazerac as New Orleans’ official cocktail.
⅛ Teaspoon herbsaint or pernod liqueur
2 ounces rye whiskey
1 teaspoon simple syrup
3 or 4 dashes peychaud’s bitters
1 strip lemon peel
Pour the Herbsaint or Pernod into a small, chilled old-fashioned glass and swirl it along the sides of the glass before discarding the excess liquid, if desired.
Combine the rye, simple syrup, and bitters in a cocktail shaker filled with ice; shake well to combine.
Moisten the edge of the glass with the lemon peel. Strain the cocktail into the glass, and drop in the peel.
6 family-size tea bags
8 cups boiling water
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1½ cups sugar
Place the tea bags in a large glass pitcher, pour the boiling water over, and steep for 15 minutes. Stir in the baking soda to remove bitterness and sugar.
Remove the tea bags and discard. Place the pitcher in the refrigerator.
Enjoy!
Savannah’s Forsyth Park was designed after the French ideal of having a central public garden, and the fountain is said to be the garden’s centerpiece (although it isn’t at the center of the park).
However beautiful, the fountain is not unique. It was ordered from a catalogue.
Other cities fancied the catalogue spread, too. Similar fountains exist in New York, Peru and France.
MYTH: Christopher Columbus was the one who discovered America.
TRUTH: Even if you ignore the indigenous populations on the continent (you shouldn’t), the first European to land in America was technically Leif Erikson some 400 years earlier.
MYTH: Columbus discovered that the Earth was round when he sailed for India and ended up in America.
TRUTH: Believe it or not, it was generally accepted that the Earth was a sphere by the time Columbus embarked on his famous voyage. In fact, it had even been known to the ancient Greeks almost 2,000 years prior!
#Colombus #America #RoundEarth
It’s banned book week 2019. With that in mind I present you the 11 most banned and challenged books of 2018 according to the ALA (American Library Association). Of course the best way to get a bunch of people to read a book is to have it banned, people inevitably want to read what made people so upset the banned it…
#BannedBookWeek #Censorship
August 4th, 1964 civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney are found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21.
The three men: two Jews and an African-American, epitomize the long-gone period when members of these two groups worked together (they were registering black voters in Mississippi: a capital crime!). Eventually seven men were convicted of the murder, but none served more than six years.
Here’s the poster for Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney before, acting on a tip, police officers found their bodies buried in an earthen dam.
On June 24th, 1964 Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner, are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States, by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
In 2005 Edgar Ray Killen, who had previously been unsuccessfully tried for the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, is convicted of manslaughter 41 years afterwards (the case had been reopened in 2004).
#Mississippi #KKK #Goodman #Chaney #Schwerner
June 19th is Juneteenth, which has been celebrated, especially by the African-American community, for over 100 years, as it commemorates the announcment in Texas of the abolition of slavery throughout the U.S.—on June 19, 1865 (Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation).
On June 18, Union Army General Gordon Granger arrived at Galveston Island with 2,000 federal troops to occupy Texas on behalf of the federal government. The following day, standing on the balcony of Galveston’s Ashton Villa, Granger read aloud the contents of “General Order No. 3”, announcing the total emancipation of those held as slaves:
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
