Mrs. Ronie Venables made honorable-mention in the first annual “National Chicken Cooking Contest” at the Delmarva Chicken Festival in 1949. Were she able to prepare her fried chicken on a wood-burning stove, she told a Universal Press reporter, she could have beaten out Mrs. A.L. Karlik for first place. The Press reporter contrasted the two…
My plan to roll out high-quality content in 2020 got off to an inauspicious start when I decided to make “Barbecued Hot Dogs.” It’s not that the dish wasn’t great- it is hot dogs after all – but January isn’t exactly a time when people have frankfurters on the mind, nor is there much of…
The 1958 cookbook by the National Council of Negro Women, the “Historical Cookbook of the American Negro,” opens with a photograph of Sojourner Truth and Abraham Lincoln, opposite recipes for the first of January: “Emancipation Proclamation Breakfast Cake” and “Western Beef Steak” from Denver. “The Emancipation Proclamation New Years’ Day, 1863, is celebrated in all…
“There used to be a stone yard at 26th and Charles and in it was a large tool box about 6′ by 4′ by 4′. This the older boys called THE HOT BOX, and they took delight in locking the younger boys in there for a couple of hours, and believe me by that time…
Thelma Magturo was barely a year old when Japan attacked the Commonwealth of the Philipines in December, 1941. The United States had been transitioning the Philippine Islands to independence in a process drawn out over the preceding decades. In 1936 the U.S. had provided some funds to establish the Philippine Army. Facing growing concerns about…