Daniel's Horse Burger

Last week I was at a restaurant and I ordered a "Horse Burger." As I ate my wonderful Horse Burger not only did I wonder how my delicious horse escaped the glue factory, but how horses came to America. I went home and decided to do research on the history of horses, and how they came to America.

I found out that when the Spanish traveled to America they brought horses along with them. This exchange was known as the Columbian Exchange. The Columbian Exchange caused the trade of many products.

After eating my horse burger I felt very sick. This worried me because I feared that I may have contracted one of the many diseases that were spread in the Columbian exchange from eating my tasty horse burger. I feared that I could have a disease such as small pox, or measles. And now as I lay here on my death bed, I wonder when it will be that I will become part of the earth that horses run on, unless the horses are all in a glue factory, cause horses can't run if they're  in a glue factory.

 

 

 

Yummy Yellow Curry Ashlyn Macie

Ashlyn Macie

Mr. Benschine

Ap World History

13 December 2013

 

Yellow Curry

 

A long time ago, there was a little boy named Abhijat Yuvraj. He always wanted to be just like his father when he got older. Abhijat's father was a businessperson; he would go into the big city every weekend to sell the crops grown on their farm. His father was a very well known man in town and was favored by the gods according to the townsmen. Abhijat wandered to himself, "Why not start now?" Abhijat went to his back yard to pick a crop that would be easiest for him to start with. First he went over to the potatoes, which he remembered his dad telling him he got them from the Philippines, thought they would be too heavy to carry around, but they were very tasty. Then he thought that maybe red peppers would be exciting, his dad told him they came from the Americas. However, they might be a little too spicy for customers wanting to buys a lot of them. Then, maybe he thought, something more simple from his hometown India would be much more convenient. He decided to start with cinnamon, onion, cumin spice, and turmeric because these ingredients were very primitive.  His father let him come to the market one day and set up a little shop. Abhijat's little business turned into a worldwide exchange from the old world into the new world. That is how the yellow curry was able to get in front of me today.

 

 - Ashlyn Macie

            Here I was popping tags, and bottles in the Big Apple. I have been to some of the best Italian restaurants, but this one, Ai Fiori, the food here takes me back to Trentino-Alto Adige. The spaghetti blue crab with lemon, bottarga, and chilies are enticing to my taste buds, which leads me to this. As I was eating my meal, I began to wonder where chilies are from. I mean these chilies are crispy, juicy, and tastes like no other thing I can think of.  Crispy and juicy does not sound like something of the French and Italian culture, both being of the Old World, so what about chilies?

            I did some research on chilies when I arrived back home, and this is what I found. Chilies are a spice which gained universal significance as one of the few spices to travel from the New to Old World. Chilies are the fruit of the Capsicum genus of flowering plants, and range from sweet bell peppers, which have no heat, to the Naga chili, which are currently the world's hottest pepper. Chilies come from the Americas, where they have been refined and were probably a vital part of the Mesoamerican diet. For example, the great amount of Vitamin C in red peppers increases the uptake of non-red blood cell iron in diets that has little to no meat.

            Christopher Columbus encountered chilies on his first voyage to the Caribbean in 1492, but he did not bring any chilies back on the voyage. Columbus wrote of a pepper that Natives called Ají, which was better in taste and nature than ordinary peppers. It was the Portuguese in 1498, who took the chili pepper, most particularly the piri-piri chili, to Portugal and Cape Verde Islands. As Portugal sought to exploit their foothold in the Americas, they brought chilies to West Africa and African slaves to Brazil. Between 1498 and 1549, chilies had spread east, over the Silk Route and through Portuguese conquests in India, Spice Islands, China and Japan so by 1549 chilies were known as far as Japan.

            Back to me sitting at home, I found this information quite interesting and decided to make spaghetti blue crab for dinner tomorrow. Below is the recipe I used.

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

3 cloves garlic, peeled, smashed and minced

1 28-ounce can peeled tomatoes

2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

1/2 teaspoon red-pepper flakes

4 large blue crabs

Kosher salt

1 pound dry spaghetti

½ cup fresh basil leaves

Freshly ground black pepper to taste.

1. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. When it begins to shimmer, add garlic and cook for 1 minute or until it is fragrant. Add the tomatoes, crushing them by hand as you do so, as well as the parsley and red-pepper flakes. Stir and allow to come to a simmer.

2. Turn the heat up to high and add the crabs. When the sauce starts to boil, lower the heat to a gentle simmer and cook for 30 minutes or so. Remove the crabs to a serving bowl and cover to keep warm.

3. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until it is firm — Drain.

4. Place the pasta in a large serving bowl or platter and drizzle with olive oil. Pour the crab sauce over the pasta, scatter the basil leaves over the top and season aggressively with black pepper. Serve with crabs on the side and lots of bread. Serves 4

-Dionna Green

 

Authentic Tandoori Chicken

                                I had the best experience of my life on my last night trip to India which was by the way really short since I had to go to school today. I was so hungry by the time that I had to eat a chicken that I found on my way. It was cooked into the mouth watering Tandoori chicken. It consists of salt, onion, lemon, garam masala, cilantro, plain yogurt, clove garlic, cayenne pepper and ginger root. However, I had to wait 1 hour until it was done cooked which was not good at all. But the waiting was worth it because the dish tasted amazing.

                                During the wait, I thought about the Columbian Exchange Food Extra Credit we did in class. I realized that many of the ingredients used in this dish have traveled between the Americas and to Europe. The chicken is from the Old to New World. Onions, salt and lemon are from old to new. Pepper was from new to old. Lemons' origin was said to be from Asia and it was distributed by the Arabs in the Mediterranean region. The origin of onions is from Central Asia and chicken is from Southeast Asia. Thanks to ships, any kind of food can be eaten anywhere!

               

Tandoori chicken

 

-Hima Velaga

Selena's picture

Caribbean Jerk perk chicken (Selena)

I had the best time of my life. A week ago, I took my private broom and flew to the Caribbean islands, and boy oh boy it was a rush. By the time I got there I was so hungry, I could eat a cow. Luckily, I saw a restaurant just on the broader of an airport. I flew over to them asked to talk to talk to the owner. I asked him what was their special and they Caribbean jerk perk chicken. It consisted of :

 1 red onion chopped

o   4 green onion tops, chopped

o   Salt and pepper

o   4 teaspoon ground ginger and nutmeg

o   I roasting chicken, cut in half

o   ½ cup lime juice

o   Scotch bonnet peppers

It was so hot and the chicken was a jerk. My mouth was on fire.  Apparently the chicken, onion, and lemon hitched a ride from the Old world to the New World and they were exhausted. Also, the salt hitched a ride to, so the jerk perk was too sweet.

All About Pumpkin Pie (Gillian)

I went to a restaurant right before Thanksgiving that was serving the best pumpkin pie I had ever tasted! If you were to ask for my opinion, I'd say to go just for the sake of the dessert. The rest of the food they offered was alright, but the pumpkin pie really made the experience worthwhile. It had supposedly been made from scratch from a secret recipe passed down in the family business, although the basic recipe is simple; pumpkin puree, egg yolks, sugar, cinnamon, spices, and so on.

 

It's always important to know where a food originated from though, right? Pumpkins had been exchanged from the New World to the Old World. Sugar, also commonly used in pumpkin pie, had been exchanged from the Old World to the New World. It explains why pumpkin pie has become an essential dish for Thanksgiving; most dishes used for Thanksgiving dinner use foods that had come from the New World to the Old World!

 

In addition, they also served turkey (which had also come from the New World to the Old World). It wasn't that bad, but it was a little bit dry.