TIDBITS: The Difference Between Kettle Chips And Conventional Potato Chips

What exactly are “kettle chips,” such as those made by Boulder Canyon, our Top Pick Of The Week (see the previous post)? Let’s start at the beginning. Potato chips, invented in 1853 in Saratoga, New York, were originally called Saratoga chips (the history of potato chips). By the 1920s, every town in the U.S. had…
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TIDBIT: Chocolatier Vs. Confectioner

What’s the difference between “chocolates” and “confections?” Is a “chocolatier” or chocolate shop the same as a “confectionary?” A confectionery (also spelled confectionary) is a confectioner’s shop—more popularly called a candy store or sweet shop in modern times. A chocolatier (a French word, pronounced cho-co-la-tee-YAY) is both the chocolate shop and the person who makes…
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TODAY IN FOOD: It’s National Fettuccine Alfredo Day

Fettuccine Alfredo is rich comfort food, made from fettuccine, ribbon-shape strands of pasta (fettucce means “small ribbons” in Italian). Wider than the other popular flat shape, linguine, fettuccine provide a better surface for catching rich and creamy sauces. (Fettuccine is similar to tagliatelle, the flat pasta from the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, but is…
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TODAY IN FOOD: It’s National Corn Chip Day

Fritos, America’s first corn chip (photo © Mx. Granger | Wikipedia).   January 29th is National Tortilla Chip Day. What’s the difference between a corn chip and a tortilla chip? Both are made from corn or masa,* vegetable oil, salt and water. But tortilla chips are made from cut-up wedges of actual tortillas. That’s why…
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TODAY IN FOOD: It’s National Pistachio Day

We’re the last to make light of Fundamentalist Islam, but we do have better pistachios for it. Prior to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979, there was no pistachio industry in the U.S. A series of political events ensued, beginning with the fundamentalist Islamic revolution of the Ayatollah Khomeini that ousted Shah…
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