Hi Blog Readers!
This is the second of the new Food Tech blogs. Thank you for reading it.
Don't forget to read through and find the code to crack, and the clue to to deciphering it. The first correct deciphered code will win the code cracker an Easter Egg!
Did you know that 7 out of 10 Moms cook more than one meal at a time to please their family?
I must confess that I used to! My two children ate well but my daughter Samantha was quite a fussy eater and so I catered for her taste, and her brother Tim ate the same because he ate almost anything!
He loved his Grandma's roast dinners with all the different vegetables. When he started school and was 'interviewed' by the health visitor, she asked him what his favourite food was, he replied' 'pureed parsnip'!
I'm sure she thought I had told him to say that but I hadn't! I suppose most kids of that age would say, 'MacDonalds'!
Samantha went to Oxford University, and on the first night - a formal meal in the Great Hall with all the important professors etc., she was seated next to the Dean of Christ Church College. The main course was salmon; she had always refused fish before this but of course couldn't refuse it in front of the Dean!  She started to eat it , and guess what? She liked it!  She orders fish many times now in restaurants.
So the lesson here for you is to try new stuff - you might surprise yourself!
I was a terribly fussy eater as a child and teenager and yet studied Home Economics when I left school!?
I only ate one vegetable willingly and that was peas! I detested sprouts but now even like them cold!
The big turning point came when I was 24; I started eating all kinds of veg. and also discovered that I liked cheese!
Write me a short piece about what happens in your house - does your Mom cook different meals for your family members? Do you think this practice is a good idea or not, and why. A chocolate bar for every piece of written work.
I often give talks to local clubs and societies on Food related topics.One popular talk that I enjoyed writing, and that can be changed regularly if I get bored with it, is entitled The A-Z of Food Trivia. For each letter of the alphabet I have a word beginning with that letter that has a connection to food or drink, and there is a some information or a story to interest and often amuse the audience.
The clue for the code later on is -REVERSE THE ALPHABET.
I change the words to my talk occasionally, and often get new ideas from books or articles on food that I have at home.
My current word for C is Cornish Pasties. These snacks have attained their identity over the past 200 years.
An industry that really supported the community in Cornwall was tin mining. It was harsh, dangerous work, and the miners spent all day down the dark, dusty mines. Their wives or mothers would bake pasties and throw them down the mine shaft to their family members for their lunch! Pasties consisted of meat and vegetables baked in a thick pastry crust. Sometimes the cook would place a dividing piece of pastry through the middle of the pasty and there would be the savoury filling on one side and a pudding on the other!
The thick pastry acted as a lunchbox and insulator; the contents were kept safe and warm. They would be full of carbohydrates to provide energy for the miners. The cook usually made one for each member of the family and put the person's initials on it, so there would be no fighting over who got what!
Miners were very superstitious.One superstition was that it was unlucky to eat the thick crust along the top of the pasty so it had to be thrown to the spirits of the mine.
So the thick crimped edge of the pasty was just the handle to hold it by; then it was thrown.
This practice, although based on superstition, probably saved lives.  Miners' hands were often covered in ARSENIC-a poisonous substance found in the rock along with the tin, and would have transferred to the pasty 'handle'. Enough pasty handles, consumed over time, would probably have caused death!
Isn't history interesting?
DSZG DZH GRN'H UZELFIRGV EVTVGZYOV DSVM SV DZH ORGGOV?

Mrs P signing off now. Have a go at the code.   Also, enter the spelling test!