Rice was a widely grown crop in the southern colonies of the U.S., and it was used to make a variety of foods, including rice waffles. But perhaps the oddest use of rice was authorized in 1691 by officials in the colony of South Carolina.
Officials in that colony voted to allow its residents to pay their taxes in rice.
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Grover Cleveland was born on this day in 1837 in Caldwell, New Jersey. As his ample frame attested, Cleveland loved to eat. Unfortunately, the kind of comfort food that Cleveland adored was not within the repertoire of the French chef he inherited from outgoing President Chester Arthur.
A frustrated Cleveland wrote a friend: "I must go to dinner, but I wish it was to eat pickled herring, Swiss cheese, and a chop at Louis’ instead of the French stuff I shall find." Awaiting dinner on another night, President Cleveland caught the aromas of corned beef and cabbage coming from the servants’ quarters. Cleveland ordered his valet to take the dinner prepared for him "down to the servants and bring their dinner to me."
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The prime minister of Israel is in hot water over a cold treat. As the New York Times explains, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been criticized for allegedly maintaining an annual ice cream budget of $2,700.
To which flavor is Netanyahu most devoted? Pistachio. Correction: make that "artisanal pistachio." According to The Times:
]]>In a country facing severe cuts in government spending after an election that focused largely on the struggling middle class, and with the Netanyahus’ supposed taste for the high life already under scrutiny, news of the prime minister’s weakness for artisanal pistachio ice cream raised a national outcry.
Shelly Yacimovich, the leader of the center-left Labor Party, summed it up as a Marie Antoinette moment and noted that Mr. Netanyahu was the one who always spoke of cutting the fat. “If there’s no bread, eat ice cream,” she wrote on her Facebook page, adding, “Shall we laugh or cry?”
Rosa Parks was born on this date in 1913. This courageous woman inspired many civil rights supporters in 1955 by refusing to give up her seat in the section of an Alabama bus designated only for white customers. Her action added momentum to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and civil rights advocates eventually prevailed.
As could be expected, Parks' childhood eating habits reflected Southern culture, including dinners that featured catfish, fried ham and other meats. But in her adult years, she became a vegetarian.
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Edgar Allan Poe was born this date in 1809. During an 1845 visit to Boston, the author and poet took it on the chin from the city's literary critics, and Poe fired right back at them. He drafted a public reply in which he declared that Bostonians had "no soul," the poetry produced by the city was "not so good" and — last but not least — their hotels were "bad."
Yet Poe managed to extend one compliment to the city: its pumpkin pies were "delicious."
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On this day in 1976, the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot renamed Cambodia as Kampuchea. The year before, as the Khmer Rouge guerrillas battled to win control of Cambodia, the ruling Sangkum Party published a booklet warning the masses what communist rule would mean for the nation.
"There would be no delicious food to eat," predicted Sangkum. "If you ate more than allowed, the government would learn about it from your children in secret and you would be taken out and shot." Perhaps these warnings struck many Cambodians as far-fetched rhetoric, but the future would show these predictions were surprisingly accurate. One of the first achievements that Pol Pot's regime proclaimed was that it had successfully achieved communal eating through most of the country.
In four years of Pol Pot's rule, roughly 1.7 million Cambodians died from torture, starvation or disease.
Eugene Debs, a union leader and Socialist Party presidential candidate, served a prison sentence under the Espionage Act for publicly denouncing the U.S. entry into World War I.
President Woodrow Wilson refused to commute Debs’ sentence, but his successor was more forgiving. President Warren Harding explained that he agreed to let the Socialist leave prison on December 24, 1921 "because I want him to eat his Christmas dinner with his wife."
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Over its first four weeks, the movie "Lincoln" has been drawing big crowds, and ticket sales have exceeded $83 million so far. The Spielberg film focuses on President Lincoln's efforts to secure passage of the 13th Amendment, which constitutionally banned slavery.
The movie doesn't show Abraham Lincoln dining in presidential splendor, which is appropriate because the 16th president of the United States had humble tastes when it came to food. He liked bacon and vegetables, but his favorite food was probably the apple, and lunch was often just an apple with a glass of milk.
The stresses of being a wartime president left Lincoln feeling increasingly indifferent toward food. John Hay, one of Lincoln’s secretaries, said, "He ate less than anyone I know."
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After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Dallas police took Lee Harvey Oswald into custody. During one interrogation session, detectives asked Oswald for his alibi — what was he doing when the president was shot on the street outside the Texas School Book Depository, where Oswald worked.
"I told you," Oswald replied. "I was eating lunch in the lunchroom with a couple of the colored boys who work with me. One is named Junior and the other is a little short man. I don't know his name."
Detectives were able to confirm that Oswald was lying about his alibi, as well as what he claimed to have eaten for lunch: a cheese sandwich and an apple.
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Condoleezza Rice, the former U.S. secretary of state, was born on this date in 1954. Long before she began overseeing the nation's foreign policy, Rice was influencing her family's dinner menu.
As early as age 4, Condoleezza was determining what the Rices would have for dinner. Her mother, Ann, would ask her young daughter what she wanted for dinner, and Condoleezza would reply without hesitation. "Ann would cook exactly what Condoleezza said," recalled a family friend. "And (father) John would eat exactly what Condoleezza said. And he would enjoy it!"
Condi's stepmother, Clara, later remembered that the future secretary of state "was always the person in charge of the food, when we eat."
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