Hot cross buns are warm and tempting: Why
wait for Easter? Photo © Aimee Herring |
Amy’s Bread.

“Hot cross buns,” you think. “Aren’t they for Easter?”

This sweet yeast bun, dotted with currants and topped with an icing cross (originally the cross was simply knife cuts in the dough), is believed to predate Christianity.

Food historians note that the cross bun was eaten by the ancient Saxons to honor the goddess Eostre. The cross is believed to have symbolized the four quarters of the moon; the name also crossed over to Christianity (Eostre is believed to be the origin of “Easter”).

While the bun, considered an Easter bread, is traditionally served on Good Friday, once you’ve made them, you’ll want them all year round.

So make a batch for brunch today and enjoy them as you contemplate today’s tip:

Why have egg nog only for Christmas and New Year’s Eve? (Well, there are the overwhelming calories, but perhaps that’s beside the point.)

We enjoy ice cream on the coldest January day and hot coffee in the dog days of August.

So even if you enjoy the specialness of gingerbread during the holidays, don’t hold back. After all, National Gingerbread Day is June 5th. The food holiday calendar is begging you to eat outside the box.

Learn more about all the food holidays, starting with how the holidays get created.

The date palm tree is believed to have originated in northern Africa. It was cultivated along the banks of the Nile River throughout the “fertile crescent.”*

*Also known as the “cradle of civilization,” this area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers comprised the lands we now know as Iraq, small portions of Iran and Turkey, the Levantine coast of the eastern Mediterranean (Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Syria and the West Bank) and Egypt’s Nile Valley.

Wild dates are not edible, but early horticulturalists discovered how to grow a version bearing sweet fruit. Whatever they did, a premium date has the sweetness of honey crossed with sugar syrup. The flesh is soft and easily digestible. Its simple sugars—fructose and dextrose—replenish energy quickly.

Why else should you snack on dates?

The science behind dates is also impressive. The fruit is loaded with different antioxidants that help with cholesterol, inflammation, eyesight and various cancers.

As with any food, quality makes a big difference. There are luscious dates that are “food for the gods,” and sad, dried-out dates that at best should only be used for cooking and baking. If you can’t find good dates locally (we have this problem), you can buy them online. NutsOnline.com is a good source.

You can also find pitted dates and organic dates, plus delicious date confections: dates rolled in chopped nuts or coconut, or covered in chocolate.

TYPES OF DATES
If you don’t know your dates, start with one type and then try other varieties. Each has its own appeal.

 
HOW TO ENJOY DATES
In addition to snacking from the bag:

Make it a date!

The creamiest peanut butter ever. Photo
by Jaclyn Nussbaum | THE NIBBLE.

In addition to the protein in peanut butter, here’s a new reason to eat more of it: Planters Creamy Peanut Butter and Planters Crunchy Peanut Butter.

The famous nut company launched a peanut butter in the 1970s, but then discontinued it. We’re so glad that Mr. Peanut adjusted his monocle and refocused on these new peanut butter formulations.

We’ve enjoyed many brands of peanut butter, but the new Planters PB has one special quality: It is so silky-smooth that you can spread the thinnest slick of PB on bread to add just a touch (try it with a turkey sandwich) or to save calories.

EDITOR’S NOTE: WE REGRET THAT THE PRODUCER OF THE VIDEO HAS DISCONTINUED IT.

Challah, the traditional Jewish bread, dates to ancient Israel.

The word itself refers to a tithe of bread that was given to the priests, who had no income. A portion of the dough was sanctified, and the remainder was used for ordinary consumption.

It became customary to serve challah with all Sabbath and holiday meals. Before cutting the bread, a blessing for the food (a motzi) is recited.

Challah arrived in America with Jewish immigrants. The word is pronounced CHAH-luh, with a guttural ch as in the German word ach (here’s an audio pronunciation).

Since we spend our days (and nights) tasting artisan food products, we don’t eat many frozen dinners.

But in grade school, they were a favorite meal. It was an easy way for our working mother to serve us a dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes and peas—and three slices of apple “cobbler” for dessert. There were other varieties—Fried Chicken, Salisbury Steak and—but we only wanted the turkey.

The novelty of eating food from the separate tray compartments was greater than our childhood awareness of how fine our mother’s home cooking was. So on days when she was headed out for the evening, we happily ate TV Dinners.

Long before the advent of microwaved food, millions of Americans ate them regularly. The name TV Brand Frozen Dinner is the registered trademark of C.A. Swanson & Sons, which introduced the frozen meals in 1953. They weren’t the first to sell frozen meals, but they were the first nationally successful brand.*
 
 
THE HISTORY OF TV DINNERS

Clarence Birdseye developed a process of flash-freezing food in in 1923. It would become a game-changer; but many American homes did not have refrigerator-freezers until after World War II.

Refrigerator-freezers had been introduced in 1939, but their availability was delayed by the the war (by 1944, nearly 70% of American homes had refrigerators).

The progenitor of the TV dinner was a frozen meal invented for airline use. The first frozen, ready-to-heat-and-eat meals appeared in 1941, created by Maxson Food Systems. Called “Strato-Plates.” The base was a plastic plate, divided into three separate compartments, that held portions of meat, potato and vegetable.

Alas, it did not then cross over to grocery stores, because of financial troubles within the company [source].

In the late 1940s, a company called FridgiDinners that sold a variation to bars and taverns that wanted an easy way to provide food. But the concept didn’t explode into consumer retail.

In 1949, Frozen Dinners Inc. of Pittsburgh, sold frozen meals, in three-compartment aluminum trays, which caught on in a big way. By 1952 the company expanded their sales area to the east coast. But they were not sold as meals to be eaten in front of the TV.

Swanson’s TV Dinners, the big brand in the category, were introduced in 1954, as television set sales were skyrocketing.

[1] Fried chicken TV Dinner (photo courtesy Wikimedia).

[2] Swanson marketed the first national frozen TV dinner brand (photo courtesy Wikimedia).

[3] The evolution of the TV Dinner, now a microwaveable “frozen meal” (photo © Denzil Green | Cook’s Info).

In the early 1950s, television blossomed as a news and entertainment medium. The “TV tray’ collapsible table made it easy for families to eat dinner in the living room, where the television resided in a large wood cabinet.

As the tale is told, Swanson got into the business as a way to use the vast surplus of Thanksgiving turkey. An executive allegedly came up with the name “TV dinner.” The first variety contained traditional Thanksgiving dinner ingredients: sweet potatoes, turkey with cornbread dressing, and peas. It sold for 89 cents and took about 25 minutes to heat in the oven.

Swanson trademarked the term “TV Dinner.” Along with a national advertising campaign, the brand exploded in popularity. TV dinners became a must-have for busy families, bachelors and others who didn’t like to (or couldn’t) cook.

Other manufacturers still made frozen meals, but Swanson’s TV Dinners were king.

In 1960, Swanson added a dessert compartment (a small brownie or cinnamon-apple slices, for example).
 
 
THE TV DINNER TODAY

What happened to the TV Dinner?

The adoption of microwave ovens required the replacement of the aluminum trays with plastic trays. Swanson’s microwave-safe plate appeared in 1986.

With more companies entering the microwavable meal business, the category was renamed (“microwave meals”).

Over time, as the product became more than a meal to eat while watching TV, the category became known as frozen meals; and later, adapted for microwave meals. The aluminum trays were ditched for the microwave and microwaveable plastic.

In 1987, a Swanson TV dinner with the original aluminum tray (and plastic food recreating the original) was added to the collection of the Smithsonian Museum.

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* The first variety was turkey, peas and sweet potatoes with cornbread dressing.