Posts Tagged With: popcorn

Stovetop Popcorn

Posted on July 8, 2021 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

STOVETOP POPCORN

 

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoons coconut, avocado, olive, peanut, or vegetable oil
½ cup popcorn kernels

1 tablespoon melted butter or to taste
½ teaspoon salt or to taste

Serves 4 Takes 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add oil to pot. Heat oil using medium-high heat. Put 3 kernels in pot. Cover with lid. Wait until you hear them all pop. Add popcorn kernels as evenly as you can. Cover pot. Remove pan from heat for 30 seconds. This brings all the kernels to the same temperature so that they will pop at about the same time.

Return pot to stove. Shake the pot gently once popping begins to ensure even heating. Remove pot from heat when the interval between popping reaches 3 seconds. Remove from heat. Wait for 15 seconds. (This prevents kernels popping up to your face.) Remove lid and pour popcorn into large serving bowl. Sprinkle popcorn with salt. Drizzle popcorn evenly with melted butter. Gently stir popcorn to ensure butter on all kernels.

TIDBITS

1) Mr. La Fong lived in Paducah, Kentucky in the early 20th century. He sold socks and loved stovetop popcorn. One Saturday he forgot to put the lid atop the pan with the popcorn. The absent minded Carl became the first human to really watch corn kernels pop. To his amazement nearly all of the popping occurred within a few seconds. During that flurry of activity, little kernels burst open to become much bigger popcorn. The thin layer of kernels on the pan erupted into a mountain of popcorn. Then popcorn flew out of the pan of the pan, rocketing to all corners of the kitchen.

2) Now, of course, La Fong possessed the rudimentary knowledge of Einstein’s equations necessary to any successful 20th century Kentuckian sock merchant. “Whoa ho,” said the worthy sock seller, “the universe itself must have started the very same way as this popcorn.” He wrote feverishly through the night to put down his The Big Popcorn Popping Theory of the Universe. He went to bed, exhausted yet proud. Unfortunately, his dog, Rex, ate his manuscript during the night. Later scientists would receive acclaim with the only slightly different Big Bang Theory. However, the eating of his theory, while unarguably bad for the Sock Man of Paducah, did give rise to the “Dog ate my homework excuse” which school kids have used ever since. So, some good came of it.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Shrimp Bisque

Posted on August 12, 2019 by pauldelancey

French Soup

SHRIMP BISQUE

INGREDIENTS

1 pound medium shrimp, shells on*
1 medium carrot
1 stick celery
1 garlic clove
1 small onion
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ tablespoon tomato paste
6 cups water
1 small bay leaf
½ tablespoon dry parsley
½ teaspoon salt
½ tablespoon dry thyme
1 tablespoon brandy or white wine
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1⅓ cups cream
croutons as desired
6 sprigs fresh parsley

* = To get the most authentic flavor, you need to buy shrimp with the heads on. This is difficult if you don’t live in a hopping culinary center. My Poway is like this. I feel your pain.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

colander with fine mesh

Makes 6 bowls. Takes 1 hour.

PREPARATION

Peel and devein shrimp. KEEP SHELLS. Dice carrot, celery, garlic, and onion. Add oil and shrimp shells and heads, if you could buy them, to 1st pot. Sauté at high heat for 5 minutes or until shells start to brown. Stir frequently. Add garlic and onion. Reduce heat to medium-high. Sauté for 5 minutes until garlic and onion soften. Stir frequently. Add carrot, celery, tomato paste, water, bay leaf, dry parsley, salt, and thyme. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer shrimp-shell stock for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally. Strain this stock through a colander and into a large bowl. Return clear stock and add brandy to 2nd pot.

While stock simmers, add butter to pan. Melt butter using medium heat. Add flour. Blend in flour. Stir frequently. Cook for 2 minutes or until flour turns golden brown.

Add golden-brown flour to 2nd pot. Blend with fork until golden-brown flour blends completely into stock. Strain stock again through colander into 2nd pot. Add cream to 2nd pot with stock. Stir in cream with spoon until well blended. Cook at medium heat. Add shrimp. Cook at medium heat or until shrimp turns orange. Garnish each bowl with croutons and fresh parsley sprigs.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe uses water.

2) Life uses water. Every organism needs water to live.

3) Unless, of course, you’re a bacterial endospore. Even then, you’d need water eventually.

4) I harbor doubts, though, that you are a bacterial endospore, BA.

5) For such endospores rely on a notoriously deficient system of public education. There’s no funding for it. None. So, BAs can’t read. But you can read. Therefore you are a human or possibly a very smart giraffe.

6) People are not allowed to take giraffes to sporting events, not even as a comfort animal. People behind would be forever yelling, “Down in front.”

7) Giraffes can be surly and are apt to smack your head with their strong, necks if you try to make them leave a ball game, particularly if you didn’t ask them nicely. Manners are always in fashion.

8) Yes, the best way to get a giraffe to leave a Cubs/Cardinals game is for the security guard to say, “Excuse me please, Mr. Giraffe, would join me in eating some popcorn just outside?” This will work nine times out of ten, for giraffes love popcorn. Yay!

9) But how does popcorn pop? There’s a little bit of water inside every corn kernel. Yes, staying hydrated is important for everyone whether you be a human being or a future corn plant.

10) When you heat the kernel sufficiently, pressure builds up as the water in the middle turns to steam. But the kernel’s solid shell prevents steam from seeping out. Eventually, there’s enough pressure to rip apart the shell. Et voilà, you have popcorn.

11) Admiral Halsey contemplated this very fact while munching on popcorn in early 1943. “If only we could have harnessed the explosive power of popcorn during the Battle of Midway. We could have launched our planes so much quicker.”

12) And what the Admiral wanted, the Admiral got. Plane after plane would be launched by exploding popcorn. American fighters got to the Japanese Zeros so fast that they could not respond in time. America would thrash Japan in every carrier battle. We would win the war.

13) At first, the carriers’ crews poured melted butter over the popcorn left behind by the launches. But although the sailors would eat every tasty popcorn kernel, the remaining melted butter would leave the flight deck extremely slick. The returning American planes skidded off the buttery carriers and into the sea. This is why the U.S. Navy has banned buttered popcorn.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Yellow Pea Soup With Pork (Ärter med fläsk)

Posted on November 30, 2015 by pauldelancey

Swedish Soup

YELLOW PEA SOUP WITH PORK
(Ärter med fläsk)

INGREDIENTSYellowPeaSoup-

1¼ pounds yellow split peas
6½ cups water
8 ounces salt pork
1 carrot
1 large yellow onion
¾ teaspoon fresh ginger (about ⅔”)
3 cloves
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon marjoram
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon thyme
¼ teaspoon white pepper

Makes 8 bowls. Takes 3 hours in addition to the time spent soaking peas overnight.

PREPARATION

Rinse peas in colander to remove grit. Add peas to large pot. Add enough water to cover with 1″ to spare. Let peas soak overnight.

Drain and rinse peas. Add peas and 6½ cups water back to large pot. Add pork to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Let boil for 2 minutes. Stir occasionally, enough to keep peas from sticking to bottom of pot. Reduce heat to warm, cover, and simmer for 1 hour. Stir gently and occasionally. Skim off any form and pea skins.

While peas and pork simmer, dice carrot. Mince ginger. Divide onion in three. Stick cloves into each onion third. Add carrot, onion, ginger, bay leaf, and cloves. Let soup simmer for another 1 hour. Stir occasionally. Add bay leaf, marjoram, salt, thyme, and white pepper. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 30 minutes more or until peas are completely soft. Stir occasionally.

Remove pork and onion from pot using slotted spoon. Dice about ¼th of the pork. Cut remaining pork into slices ¼” thick. Remove cloves from onion. Mince onion. Return diced pork and minced onion back to pot.. Stir with whisk until well blended. Remove bay leaf.

Add ⅛th of the pork slices to each serving bowl. Ladle soup from pot into serving bowls. This soup goes well with potatoes and Swedish mustard.

TIDBITS

1) The light emitted from stars appears to be red. That means they are moving away from us. Scientists used this knowledge to formulate the Big Bang Theory.

2) The Big Bang Theory holds that everything in the universe started from a teeny, tiny point, then pow! it exploded like an egg in the microwave.

3) Or like popping popular popcorn in a popcorn popper without the popcorn popper’s lid on.

4) I did that experiment in my college dorm. While I found that the kernels did indeed pop outward, they did not travel far and certainly not fast enough to exhibit a red shift.

5) Which would have been cool, although I wonder about the damage to the dorm walls caused by popcorn traveling at 100,000 miles per second. Probably would have gotten me kicked out of college.

6) On the other hand, NASA certainly would have contacted me. I mean they spend billions and billions on launch rockets that can only achieve about 7 miles per second.

7) Of course, sending a manned space station to the outer reaches of our galaxy at such a terrifying speed would require a really big popcorn popper.

8) But America is a land of ingenuity, and a relentless dedication to innovation. If we want to build a popcorn popper that can fling a space station into outer space at 100,000 miles, we will do so. After all, we have invented sliced peanut butter.

9) Sweden, however, is certainly way ahead of America in the race to invent the near-light speed popcorn popper.

10) Look at the title of this recipe. Look at the above picture. The Swedes like yellow split peas. This means they prefer this color of split peas over green ones. Or . . .

11) Swedish have discovered a way to hurl their split peas at such a prodigious rate that the light emanating from their legumes appears yellow. That’s not quite as impressive as a red shift sure, but it’s some million times faster than the speediest military jet.

12) Sweden has not been at war for 200 years, even though two world wars raged all around it in the twentieth century. Why?

13) Sure Germany and Russia built impressive tanks, fighter planes and bombers. But no country’s military stands a chance against a nation that can fling hot, nearly molten split-pea soup toward it at over 100,000 miles an second.

14) Or even 50,000 miles a second. And Kaiser Wilhelm II, Hitler, and Stalin knew it. So they left it alone, even though that happy Nordic land has such wonderful pastries.

15) You can order this tasty soup when visiting Sweden, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Soup that travels that fast is impossible to eat. Best try making yellow pea soup from this recipe. Just be sure to buy yellow split peas that are stationary. Doing so isn’t always obvious. You might have to read the packaging for the peas.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Costa Rican Pork Casado

Posted on October 7, 2014 by pauldelancey

Costa Rican Entree

PORK CASADO

INGREDIENTSCasado-

8 tablespoons orange juice
4 tablespoons orange zest
2 teaspoons garlic salt
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin

¼ head cabbage
1 small carrot
1 small tomato
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup basmati or white rice
1 onion (1 additional onion later)
2 red bell peppers
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (5 additional tablespoons later)

2 plantains
5 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 onion
4 pork loins

1 15-ounce can black beans

PREPARATION MARINADE

Coat pork loins throughly in orange juice, orange zest, garlic salt, chili powder, and cumin.. Let marinate for 30 minutes. Keep marinade.

PREPARATION – SALAD

Shred cabbage. Dice carrot and tomato. Add cabbage, carrot, tomato, pepper, and salt to mixing bowl. Mix with fork.

PREPARATION – RICE

Add rice to pot. Cook rice according to instructions on package. While rice cooks, mince 1 onion and red bell peppers. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Keep rice and onion/bell pepper mix warm.

PREPARATION – PLANTAINS

Peel plantains. Slice plantains in half lengthwise. Add 5 tablespoons vegetable oil and plantain to pan. Sauté on medium heat for 5 minutes or until plantains become tender and turn golden brown. Drain and keep warm.

PREPARATION – PORK

Cut onion into four slices. Grill onion and pork loins on barbecue grill at high or 450 degrees. Grill onions for 10 minutes or until they start to char. Turn them over once. Grill pork for 20 minutes or until it is cooked through (white inside) or starts to brown. Turn over every 5 minutes. Brush with marinade each time.

PREPARATION – FINAL

Put beans in pot. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until sauce begins to bubble. Add pork to plate with grilled onion slice on top. Add rice to side and top with onion/red pepper mix. Add 2 plantains to the side. (Lots of sides, aren’t there?) Add cabbage to a remaining spot on plate and top with carrot and tomato.

(snarky comment. ☜ Weeks later: I was interrupted by a melee in the house, plate tectonics, or something, so I typed “snarky comment” as a place filler. Clearly, I had hoped to come back in a jiffy with a brilliant thought intact. However, my brilliance was as fleeting as the perfect ripeness of an avocado. So let this be a cautionary tale to everyone; write down your thoughts if you suspect a bout of plate tectonics coming on.)

Enjoy!

TIDBITS

1) This recipe is made with orange zest. As far as I know there are no movies titles with the word zest in them.

3) But there is a classic movie called “Lust for Life” starring Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn. It’s about the life of Vincent Van Gogh.

4) Van Gogh was an artist. So am I. I had a vase displayed in the Gemente Museum in the The Hague, Netherlands.

5) I am much more into cooking now. The upcoming movie about my life is likely to be called, “Lust for Zest.”

6) Any dish I create gets eaten.

7) You are not allowed to eat paintings in art museums, particularly so at the Louvre in Paris.

8) Not even if you bring the correct spices and wine. However, you can eat popcorn at the movies. As of press time, however, few movie theaters serve gourmet dinners and fine wine. It’s a hard world out there.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Caramel Corn and Staying Alive at the Movies

Posted on April 15, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

CARAMEL CORN

INGREDIENTSCaramelCorn-

6 tablespoons popcorn kernels
1/2 cup butter
1cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup light-colored corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

SPECIAL UTENSIL

popcorn popper

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Pop popcorn according to instruction on bag or from popcorn popper. Remove all unpopped popcorn. (Peter Piper popped a peck of popcorn.) Put popcorn in large mixing bowl.

Add butter, sugar, corn syrup, and salt to skillet. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until mixture boils. Stir occasionally. Add baking soda and vanilla. Stir this syrup until well blended. Add popcorn evenly to baking pan. Pour syrup over popcorn. Bake in oven for 1 hour. Stir popcorn/syrup every 15 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) Everybody loves caramel corn, hard-working people and politicians too. However, not everyone likes to hear popcorn being eaten. In 2011, a Latvian movie goer was arrested for shooting another man dead for eating his popcorn too loudly during the film Black Swan. The dead man would have been safer eating caramel popcorn as it’s not nearly as crunchy as regular popcorn.

2) Or if you don’t wish to get shot during movies but still wish to munch on regular popcorn, may I suggest going to a comedy? The film goers’ laughter will mask the sound of your popcorn chomping.

3) As a public service to you popcorn lovers, here are my favorite all-time gun-shot-free-funny movies: Bananas, The Bank Dick, Bringing Up Baby, A Christmas Story, The Court Jester, Duck Soup, Father of the Bride, A Hard Day’s Night, It’s a Gift, Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, One, Two, Three, The President’s Analyst, She Done Him Wrong, A Shot in the Dark, Tight Little Island, Tootsie, and Unfaithfully Yours.

4) There, I am bringing peace to the world. I shall certainly be getting the Nobel Peace Prize soon. Taps foot.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Saudi Al Kabsa – chicken and rice

Posted on April 8, 2014 by pauldelancey

Saudi Entree

AL KABSA
(Chicken and rice)

INGREDIENTSAlKabsa-

3 pounds chicken breasts (or other parts)
2 carrots
5 garlic cloves
2 medium onions
3 Roma tomatoes
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup tomato puree
2 ½ cups water
1 ½ cups chicken stock
2 whole cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons kabsa spice mix (See Kabsa Spice Mix recipe if you can’t find the mix.)
2 cups basmati rice (Do not precook.)
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup slivered almonds

Serves 6

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Chop chicken into 12 pieces. Grate or dice carrots. Mince garlic cloves and onions. Dice Roma tomatoes. Add garlic, onion, and butter to Dutch oven. Sauté garlic and onion on medium-high heat or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add chicken, tomato puree, and chopped tomatoes, Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Add water, chicken stock, carrot, cloves, nutmeg, salt and kabsa spice mix. Bring to boil using high heat. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink inside. Remove chicken and bake for 25-to-30 minutes at 350 degrees or until it starts to brown.

Bring to boil. Stir in rice. Simmer for 30 minutes or until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed. Stir occasionally. Add raisins. Simmer for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Place rice on plate and top with 2 chicken pieces. Garnish with an equal amount of almonds.
TIDBITS

1) The Temple of Eve is supposedly located in the Saudi city of Jeddah. Cool.

2) Saudi Arabia is one of the driest countries in the world.

3) British humor is one of the driest in the world.

4) These tidbits are getting shorter, aren’t they?

5) Yes, they are. You can measure them.

6) Soon nothingness.

7)

8) And rebirth.

9) And so new, longer, vibrant tidbits come into being.

10) I feel like writing a haiku to tidbits.

11) Tidbits, o, tidbits.
Life was so sad when you were gone.
I’m glad you are back

12) Haikus are composed of three lines of five, seven, and five syllables respectively. They can evoke complex imagery within this restrictive space or they can display the elegant simplicity of the following effort:

Word, word, word, word, word
Word, word, word, word, word, word, word
Word, word, word, word, word

13) Speaking of using words to communicate information; all shops in Saudi Arabia are forbidden on Valentine’s day from selling anything red or with hearts on it. You may not wear anything red.

14) Movie theaters and beer are banned in Saudi Arabia. You must drive to Bahrain for these things, which depending on where you live could be anywhere from twenty minutes to twenty hours away. That movie had better be good.

15) And what if the beer you had made you sleepy and you fell asleep during the movie? That movie that took you twenty hours to get to? And twenty hours to get back?

16) If had to drive forty total hours for a beer, I would get the best, most expensive beer I could buy and really, really, really savor it.

17) And I would get gourmet popcorn for the movie. A giant tub of it.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Lime-Chili Popcorn

Posted on December 3, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

LIME-CHILI POPCORN

INGREDIENTSLimeChiliPopcorn-

1/4 cup popcorn
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon chili powder

SPECIAL UTENSIL

air popcorn popper

PREPARATION

Put popcorn in popper. Put bowl underneath popper’s opening. Keep bowl in place until all the kernels have popped. Sprinkle lime juice and chili powder into bowl with popcorn. Stir with long spoon or fork.

TIDBITS

1) There is moisture in each kernel. This liquid turns to steam as the popcorn heats up. Water cannot escape the kernel shell. Pressure builds up until the kernel explodes.

2) Popcorn dating from 3000 B.C. has been found in New Mexican caves. People were happy.

3) The first permanent income tax for the United States was established in 1913. Americans became cranky. We fought a bloody war in Germany from 1917 to 1918. We greatly expanded our navy.

4) Charles Manley developed the first good electric popcorn popper in 1925 and sold it to theaters. Americans became happy again. Our economy boomed. It was the Golden Age of Comedy.

5) The Great Depression struck in 1929. Harrowing economic hardships resulted in fascist dictatorships in Germany, Italy, and Spain. America kept its democratic form of government.

6) Why? Popcorn. Popcorn was one of the few treats millions of Americans could afford to eat while watching their beloved movies.

7) The recent and relatively peaceful break up of the Soviet Union occurred because of the easy accessibility of popcorn in contrast to its popcornless Revolution of 1917.

8) The Wampanoag tribe brought popcorn to the colonists for that famous autumnal feast in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The grateful settlers called the meal, “Thanksgiving.” We are still grateful.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Koshary From Egypt

Posted on July 24, 2013 by pauldelancey

Egyptian Entree

KOSHARY

INGREDIENTSKoshary-

1 cup lentils
3 cloves garlic
2 onions
4 tomatoes
1 1/2 cups white rice
1 pound elbow macaroni

1/2 tablespoon olive oil (1-1/2 tablespoons more later)
1 15 ounce can chickpeas
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon salt

Makes 8 bowls. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Soak lentils in bowl for 1 hour. While lentils are soaking, mince garlic and onions. Dice tomatoes. Cook rice according to instructions on package. Cook elbow macaroni according to instructions on package. Cook lentils according to instructions on package. (Thank goodness for package instructions.)

Put olive oil and onion in skillet. Sauté on medium-high heat for 10 minutes or until onion begins to brown. Stir frequently. Remove onion and place on towel-covered plate. Add garlic to skillet. Sauté on medium-high heat for 2 minutes. Stir frequently. Remove garlic and place on towel-covered plate.

Add olive oil, chickpeas, tomato, cayenne pepper, cumin, black pepper, and salt to skillet. Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Put chickpea mixture into serving bowl.

Combine garlic, white vinegar, and red wine vinegar in mixing bowl.

Serve on plate with a spoonful each of: rice, macaroni, lentils, chickpea mixture, vinegar/garlic mixture, and top with a spoonful of sautéed onion.

TIDBITS

1) Chickpeas preserved the United States of America during its unpleasant Civil War of 1861-1865.
2) Rebel forces during this war often ran short of fun food to eat. Sausage pizzas were unheard of on the front lines as early as August, 1861. Quiche Lorraine disappeared by February, 1862. Caviar in April. Chicken parmigiana in August. And so it went. The Confederate forces had to subsist on chickpeas.

3) By September, 1862, the Confederacy was on the culinary ropes. General Robert E. Lee, command of the Army of Northern Virginia devised a daring invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania to secure vast supplies of ham so necessary to delicious recipes such as juice and sugar-glazed ham.

4) But it didn’t happen. Sometime in September, Union soldiers looking for fine Southern tobacco hit the Mother Lode, found three fine cigars wrapped in sheets of paper. These papers detailed General Lee’s invasion plans.

5) The Union scouts turned the plans over to General McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac. The Northern forces scurried, between epic banquets, to intercept the rebel foes. The worthy foes collided at Antietam, Maryland on September 17, 1862.

6) Fighting at Antietam’s cornfield was so hot that the kernels popped off the corn cobs. And so popcorn was invented while the South’s hopes for military victory melted as fast as ice cream on a charcoal grill.

7) But it needn’t have happened that way. If only Lee’s orders had been wrapped in a can of chickpeas. Those Northern scouts fresh off a meal of bacon cheeseburgers would surely have ignored orders surrounding a can of chickpeas.

8) And so, the South would eventually lose the Civil War. The Union would be preserved. Slavery would be abolished and bacon cheeseburgers would forever after dominate the nation’s culinary scene.

9) And so it goes.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

 

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