There's a fish in my Ketchup!

Ketchup was originally a form of fish sauce. The recipe evolved to be made with many things from berries to mushrooms and eventually tomatoes. I learned about a recipe called Ketchup soup when I was tricked into eating it while working at a museum. The soup was fish based not tomato. I couldn't find the actual recipe but I found something similar from the 1840's. Mace you ask? in my food? Mace is an ingredient that comes from the outer shell of nutmeg. It tastes somewhere between cinnamon and pepper.

Anchovy Catchup

Ingredients

• 24 anchovies
• 10 shalots or very small onions, cut fine
• 1 handful of scraped horseradish
• 1/4 ounce of mace
• 1 lemon, cut into slices
• 12 cloves
• 12 pepper-corns
• 1 pint of red wine
• 1 quart of white wine
• 1 pint of water
• 1/2 pint of anchovy liquor

Instructions

Bone anchovies, and then chop them. Put to them the shalots and horseradish, with mace. Add lemon, cloves, and pepper-corns. Then mix together red wine, white wine, water and anchovy liquor. Put the other ingredients into the liquid, and boil it slowly till reduced to a quart. Then strain it, and when cold put it into small bottles, securing the corks with leather.

Source

Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches (1840).

I found this recipe on an amazing historical food blog called Vintage Recipes you can check it out here http://www.vintagerecipes.net/recipes/sauces_spreads/ketchups/

Cheerleading practice: no girls allowed!

Cheer leading began in the late 1800s as a males only activity. The young men attending sports games yelled organized cheers from the bleachers. A few years later a Princeton graduate moved to the university of Minnesota and started organized cheering there. Princeton announced three official cheer leaders in 1987, they were all men. Eventually an area of the bleachers was designated for cheer leaders. Women began joining cheer leading in the 1920s. During World War I and II, when large numbers of men were away at war, women became the primary cheer leaders. When men returned from war, their was a push to ban women from cheer leading at many schools. People argues that it was too masculine of a sport for women and promoted male qualities such as a loud voice and harsh language. The women were not daunted and continued to participate in cheer leading. Because of the feminine stereotype cheer leading had been changed from masculine and gallant to cute and feminine so many men left the sport. Throughout the rest of the 20th century cheer leading became progressively more dance oriented and in the 1980s ever more dangerous elements of gymnastics were incorporated.

How macho are your high heels?

I have met very few men who would be caught dead wearing heels, even if they are willing many profess the improbability of being able to walk in them at all without practice. Heel's started off with functionality in mind, but they weren't for walking. Small heels on the back of one's shoe were perfect for staying steady in stirrups. These heels made it much easier to stand and shoot a bow from horseback. European men and a few women adopted these heels for multiple reasons, they made one taller, they were a fad, but most of all they were not functional. The ability to wear frivolous footwear conveyed  status. In fact one of the men most well known for his stylish high heels was King Louis XIV. He was so obsessed with the shoes as a status symbol that he made it a law that only nobility could wear red heeled high heels. The shoes were completely impractical in the muddy streets of the time period. Women adopted high heels more popularly in the 1630s when they began adding masculine elements to their clothing.

What was an explosion?

The word explosion comes from the Latin explosio— the act of driving off by clapping. (this only makes me think that Monty Python must have known this) The first recorded use of the word in English takes place in the Glossographia in 1665; the word is defined as meaning “ a casting off or rejecting, a hissing a thing out.” The definitions of scorn or driving away with a loud noise are the only usages until the mid 1700s. The first time explosion is used to refer to something blowing up is in 1762 when the definition changed to,  “The action of ‘going off’ with a loud noise under the influence of suddenly developed internal energy; an instance of this; also used of electric discharges. Of a boiler, bomb, gun, etc.: The action of suddenly bursting or flying in pieces from a similar cause.” Oxford English Dictionary and Miriam Webster

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AIM-9_explodes_F-89_ground_target_1979.jpeg

Where did Memorial Day come from?

The origins of Memorial Day are a little hazy, more than 20 places claim the original Memorial Day occurred in their area. They all agree that is was to honor the fallen from the civil war. In 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson and Congress declared Waterloo, New York, held the original Memorial Day on May 5^th 1866. (Notice that would have made it the centennial)  Originally called Decoration Day, Memorial Day was to honor Civil War soldiers by decorating their graves. Some places in the South used the day to honor confederate soldiers specifically, or held a separate day just for them, but it was more widely used to honor soldiers from both sides. Virginia still calls the last Monday in May “Confederate Memorial Day”. Some time after World War I the day was extended to honor soldiers from all wars. In 1971, the day was declared as a national holiday. Why the last Monday in May? Many people suspect this date was chosen because flowers would be blooming all over the United States. In 2000, congress created an act encouraging all Americans “to pause at 3:00 pm on Memorial Day and hold a minute of silence to remember and honor those who have died in service to the nation.”

http://www.va.gov/opa/speceven/memday/history.asp?utm_source=3birds&utm_medium=Web&utm_campaign=AUBURNVW_Fun+Facts+About+Memorial+Day