This morning I’m joining Emily P. Freeman’s “What I Learned” link-up to share the things I learned in October (mostly food-related apparently). If you’re interested, you can head over there to check out some of the other blogs.
- “Mistrust” and “distrust” mean pretty much the same thing.
- People used to contract malaria in the United States. (I learned this from Little House on the Prairie.)
- “Ack-Emma” and “Pip-Emma” are British slang for A.M. and P.M., based on the WWI British signalman’s phonetic alphabet. (The Ack-Emma was a tabloid in Josephine Tey’s The Franchise Affair.)
- The date of Canadian Thanksgiving has changed many times since explorer Martin Frobisher declared the first Thanksgiving celebration in North America in 1578.
- It takes 72 hours to thaw a 15-pound turkey in the fridge.
- Grade B maple syrup is made at the end of the season when the sap is most watery. Since it takes longer to boil the sap down to syrup, the sugars caramelize more, resulting in a darker syrup.
- “Pumpernickel” refers to a coarse whole grain rye flour. Pumpernickel bread uses this flour with cocoa for colour (it’s not just any rye bread with cocoa). I’m sure rye bread purists are glad that I now know this distinction.
- I love a good cubed and roasted potato, but they constantly stick to the pan. For a few years I have been lining the pan with aluminium foil and stirring often, but they still stick and – even worse – the foil often rips. This month I tried parchment paper and voila! the perfect roasted potatoes. I’m never looking back.
What did you learn in October?
Parchment paper? Great idea. I’m your neighbor at Emily’s in #82!
Thanks for stopping by! I’ll have to check out your blog.
That is crazy about the turkey thing. The Canadian thing is interesting as well.
For some inexplicable reason I am displeased with “Ack-Emma” and “Pip-Emma.” They sound so strange.
It is good to have the heads-up regarding turkey thawing, in time for American Thanksgiving.
Those terms were beloved of Agatha Christie; I know they play a role in A Murder is Announced.
I’ll have to read that one! Thanks.
In October I decided to investigate the Higg’s Boson and bought a DVD course. Scientists always knew there was something like this to make sense of the other findings of particles within the atom. The boson is one of the particles that produces a force to holds things together .The other large group of particles are fermions or particles of matter as in humans and earth and stars. Higg’s importance is the discovery of the mass it gives to electrons which means atoms could form and give rise to all the variations .. God’s mind was there in the beginning. What a wonder! He understands all this amazing creation.
Parchment paper! So brilliant.