Today’s iced teas include herbal varieties
like this hibiscus Superflower Tea
from RepublicOfTea.com.

While iced tea is not traditional in that stronghold of tea-drinkers, China, it has gained popularity over the past 30 years thanks to canned and bottled tea.

Many Americans enjoy sweetener in their tea, but “sweetened tea” is different from “sweet tea,” a Southern tradition. It is brewed strong, and served presugared (and heavily sugared) and served hot or iced (there are a brands of bottled tea that specialize in “sweet tea”).

There’s an iced tea maker from West Bend that has a “sweetness chamber” for sugar, so the sugar can be brewed right into the tea! The tea brews into a pitcher, ready to cool down with ice (or, you can drink it hot).

Some sources cite that iced tea was invented, or at least popularized, at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis by Richard Blechynden, a tea plantation owner. The story goes that no one wanted his hot tea due to the heat; so he found ice and created iced tea—an instant hit. Given the historic record, however, this story is apocryphal.

Check out our Gourmet Tea Section for our favorite bottled teas and recipes, including lavender iced tea and tea cocktails.

To get tweets of the daily food holidays and tips to celebrate them, sign up for our Twitter feed at Twitter.com/thenibble.

• Check out the fresh herbs in the produce section of your market, and make dinner tonight with something new. You can season dishes or snip herbs into your salad.

• Browse the spice racks and bring home something different, yet familiar—fennel, lavender or star anise, for example.

• Learn the wonders of fennel pollen, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week.

• Take a look at the top antioxidant spices, which have real health benefits.

• Look for McCormick’s new slow-roasted spices: Roasted Saigon Cinnamon, Roasted Ground Coriander, Roasted Ground Cumin and Roasted Ground Ginger.

Seasoned fennel pollen from Pollen Ranch.
Photo by Daniela Cuevas | THE NIBBLE.

Enjoy adding spice to your life—today and every day.

[2] Prefer a Brown Cow? Here’s the recipe from Smucker’s.

June 10th is National Black Cow Day. National Root Beer Float Day is August 6th.

Two holidays for the same sweet treat:

A Black Cow is another name for that popular old-fashioned ice cream soda, the root beer float made with vanilla ice cream.

If you substitute chocolate ice cream and an optional squirt of chocolate syrup, the root beer float is called a Brown Cow or Chocolate Cow.

You can make them a Coke float instead of using root beer.

There’s also a cocktail that uses Kahlúa, a drink sometimes referred to as a Black Cow #2 (the recipe is below).

Today is National Black Cow Day—the perfect day to make one.

How did a root beer float get such an unusual name? But first…
 

BLACK COW HISTORY

Pharmacist Charles Hires introduced commercial root beer to the public in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.

It was a hit, and other beverage companies went into root beer production.

The Black Cow dates to an August night in 1893 in a bustling mining town.

Frank J. Wisner, owner of the Cripple Creek Cow Mountain Gold Mining Company in Cripple Creek, Colorado, also owned a tavern. He produced carbonated soda waters, popular with adults and children alike.

As the story goes, Wisner wanted to create a special drink for the local children. One night, he added a scoop of vanilla ice cream to his glass of root beer.

Here’s where the cow comes in:

While Wisner owned a business named after Cow Mountain, he supposedly picked the name by looking out the window.

He saw the snow-capped Cow Mountain in the moonlight, and was inspired to name the drink after it.

The float was an instant hit and was christened “Black Cow” by the children, for the dark color of the root beer and Wisner’s reference to Cow Mountain.

This recipe can be made sugar-free (we do it all the time) with diet root beer and no-sugar-added ice cream (we prefer Breyers Smooth & Dreamy vanilla). We leave out the chocolate syrup because we haven’t yet found a good one that’s sugar-free.

Garnishing the float with whipped cream and a cherry is showy, but not essential to the flavor of the float. We generally leave it off so we can get straight to the ice cream. But if you want to use a maraschino cherry, buy the best, from Tillen Farms.

Ingredients Per Serving

 
Preparation

1. Scoop ice cream into a tall glass. Add chocolate syrup.

2. Slowly pour root beer over ice cream being careful not to let it foam up over the side of the glass.

3. Garnish with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry—or with a flute cookie, as in the photo. Serve with a straw and a long spoon for the ice cream.
 
Find all the August food holidays.
 
 
RECIPE #2: BLACK COW #2 COCKTAIL

The cocktail recipe tastes like a black cow, but has no ice cream. Our recommendation: Add the ice cream for an alcoholic float.
 
Ingredients Per Drink

 
Preparation

COMBINE the ingredients and pour over ice in a rocks glass. If adding ice cream, use a highball glass.

Food gift-of-the-month clubs abound, from cheese, chocolate, coffee and cookies to bacon and hot sauce.

For Father’s Day, we sampled three “club” gifts that we’d be happy to receive:

• Jerky Of The Month

• Microwbrewed Beer Of The Month

• Olive Oil Of The Month

The selections are top-quality and left us wanting more. Learn more about them.

Give a monthly gift of top-quality olive oils from
around the world. Photo by Melody Lan | THE NIBBLE.

What To Eat is informative and fun reading.

Now, the experts on healthy eating from Cooking Light magazine have published an equally important guide, What To Eat: A Real World Guide To Making Smart Choices.

While Eat This, Not That focused on restaurant choices, What To Eat is the “complete grocery shopping companion.” But it’s much more than a guide to consult while walking down the aisles of the supermarket. It’s an enjoyable education about the foods we eat every day.

Sure, you’ll learn where to find the hidden sugar and salt and how to avoid them and which produce has the most pesticides (consider buying the organic versions).

But if you’re buying nuts—for snacking or for recipes—did you know that each of the choices provides a different benefit? Walnuts have the highest level of omega-3s, pecans have the most antioxidants, peanuts have the most protein and cashews and almonds have 4-5 times the amount of vitamin E as other nuts.

With 1,000 tips enlivened by more than 650 color photos and illustrations, this is a peach of a book for anyone who wants to learn more about food—from kids to parents to people who want to eat better and people who need to eat better.

Buy several copies—they make great gifts. You can find Cooking Light What To Eat at bookstores and at Amazon.