Portal:Food

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KFC (also commonly referred to by its historical name Kentucky Fried Chicken) was founded by Colonel Harland Sanders, an entrepreneur who began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky, during the Great Depression. Sanders identified the potential of restaurant franchising, and the first "Kentucky Fried Chicken" franchise opened in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1952. KFC popularized chicken in the fast-food industry, diversifying the market by challenging the established dominance of the hamburger. Branding himself "Colonel Sanders", the founder became a prominent figure of American cultural history, and his image remains widely used in KFC advertising. The company's rapid expansion made it too large for Sanders to manage, so in 1964 he sold the company to a group of investors led by John Y. Brown Jr. and Jack C. Massey.

KFC was one of the first fast-food chains to expand internationally, opening outlets in Britain, Mexico, and Jamaica by the mid-1960s. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, KFC experienced mixed success domestically, as it went through a series of changes in corporate ownership with little or no experience in the restaurant business. In the early 1970s, KFC was sold to the spirits distributor Heublein, which was taken over by the R. J. Reynolds food and tobacco conglomerate, which later sold the chain to PepsiCo. The chain continued to expand overseas, and in 1987 KFC became the first Western restaurant chain to open in China. (Full article...)

Soba (そば or 蕎麦, "buckwheat") are Japanese noodles made primarily from buckwheat flour, with a small amount of wheat flour mixed in. It has an ashen brown color, and a slightly grainy texture. The noodles are served either chilled with a dipping sauce, or hot in a noodle soup. They are used in a wide variety of dishes.

In Japan, soba noodles can be found at fast food venues to expensive specialty restaurants. Dried soba noodles are sold in stores, along with men-tsuyu, or instant noodle broth, to make home preparation easy. (Full article...)

Angolan cuisine has many dishes popular among nationals and foreigners, including funge (which is made from cassava or corn flour), mufete (grilled fish, plantain, sweet potato, cassava, and gari), calulu, moamba de galinha, moamba de ginguba, kissaca, and mukua sorbet. (Full article...)

Himalayan salt is rock salt (halite) mined from the Punjab region of Pakistan. The salt, which often has a pinkish tint due to trace minerals, is primarily used as a food additive to replace refined table salt but is also used for cooking and food presentation, decorative lamps, and spa treatments. The product is often promoted with unsupported claims that it has health benefits. (Full article...)

San Francisco Sourdough bread differs from other sourdough bread in being leavened with a culture prepared with fresh grapes. The multiplicity of strains of yeast (up to 16 according to the work of Robert K. Mortimer, professor emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology at U.C., Berkeley) produces a unique taste.

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Hannah Glasse (née Allgood; March 1708 – 1 September 1770) was an English cookery writer of the 18th century. Her first cookery book, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, published in 1747, became the best-selling recipe book that century. It was reprinted within its first year of publication, appeared in 20 editions in the 18th century, and continued to be published until well into the 19th century. She later wrote The Servants' Directory (1760) and The Compleat Confectioner, which was probably published in 1760; neither book was as commercially successful as her first.

Glasse was born in London to a Northumberland landowner and his mistress. After the relationship ended, Glasse was brought up in her father's family. When she was 16 she eloped with a 30-year-old Irish subaltern then on half-pay and lived in Essex, working on the estate of the Earls of Donegall. The couple struggled financially and, with the aim of raising money, Glasse wrote The Art of Cookery. She copied extensively from other cookery books, around a third of the recipes having been published elsewhere. Among her original recipes are the first known curry recipe written in English, as well as three recipes for pilau, an early reference to vanilla in English cuisine, the first recorded use of jelly in trifle, and an early recipe for ice cream. She was also the first to use the term "Yorkshire pudding" in print. (Full article...)

Georges Auguste Escoffier
B. 28 October 1846 – d. 12 February 1935

Georges Auguste Escoffier (French: [ʒɔʁʒ oɡyst ɛskɔfje]; 28 October 1846 – 12 February 1935) was a French chef, restaurateur, and culinary writer who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods. Much of Escoffier's technique was based on that of Marie-Antoine Carême, one of the codifiers of French haute cuisine; Escoffier's achievement was to simplify and modernize Carême's elaborate and ornate style. In particular, he codified the recipes for the five mother sauces. Referred to by the French press as roi des cuisiniers et cuisinier des rois ("king of chefs and chef of kings"—also previously said of Carême), Escoffier was a preeminent figure in London and Paris during the 1890s and the early part of the 20th century.

Alongside the recipes, Escoffier elevated the profession. In a time when kitchens were loud, riotous places where drinking on the job was commonplace, Escoffier demanded cleanliness, discipline, and silence from his staff. In bringing order to the kitchen, he tapped into his own military experience to develop the hierarchical brigade de cuisine system for organizing the kitchen staff which is still standard in many restaurants today. He worked in partnership with hotelier César Ritz, rising to prominence together at the Savoy in London serving the elite of society, and later at the Ritz Hotel in Paris and the Carlton in London. (Full article...)

• ... that food critic Grace Dent reviewed a Liverpool restaurant that served her rice pudding flavoured with a substance that is banned in the United States for its lethality?
• ... that Gleaners Food Bank has served more than 700 million pounds (320 million kg) of food in Indiana?
• ... that within the Armenian Rite, it takes 40 days and more than 40 flowers, herbs, and spices to create the chrism known as myron?
• ... that the island bronze-naped pigeon is a popular food at bars and parties on São Tomé?
• ... that the Cantonese cooking channel Made With Lau began generating about US$50,000 per month in YouTube advertising revenue in under a year?
• ... that Ice Spice is Princess Diana?

... that in the cuisine of the Thirteen Colonies, venison was the most popular of meats as it was plentiful, often seen potted or jerked, and its tripe was popular as well?

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