Who brought ice cream to America? Find out as host Ian Knauer hand-churns a bucket of ice cream based on a beloved president’s recipe.

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The coronation of a new queen always unleashes a tidal wave of commemorative memorabilia, and Queen Victoria’s crowning in 1837 was no exception. But amid all of the cheap mementos and tacky tchotchkes was a true standout—a startling new variety of rhubarb that was like nothing anyone had ever seen before.

That’s right. Rhubarb.

Although this plain, unassuming vegetable had been a staple of British cooking for some time, it wasn’t until 1837 that the plant truly took the English-speaking world by storm. In fact, the introduction of this quirky coronation commemorative marked the beginning of what would be a long and passionate love affair between the Victorians and rhubarb.

Rhubarb had been featured in pies, custards and fools for ages. But the plant didn’t come without its problems. Poison, for instance. The broad, flat leaves are terribly poisonous, packed as they are with toxic levels of oxalic acid. And the edible stalks, though tasty enough when stewed with sufficient amounts of sugar, could still be stringy and tough, depending on growing conditions and other uncertain variables.

The introduction of the Victoria variety put a stop to all that. Victoria rhubarb was the rhubarb the 19th century had been waiting for. Easy to grow, reliably robust and consistently sweet and tender, Victoria rhubarb was a runaway smash hit from the start. And the Victorian obsession with rhubarb had truly begun.

They put rhubarb in everything. Jams, jellies, pies, custards, fools and puddings. And while rhubarb is generally treated as a fruit, it also made many popular appearances in recipes of the day as a savory ingredient, frequently paired with meats and cheeses in stuffings and sauces.

The cult of Victoria rhubarb soon took on mythic proportions, and even the harvesting of the plant was shrouded in mysterious and romantic overtones. It wasn’t long before British farmers discovered that the sweetest crops were generated from the practice of “forcing” rhubarb—by cultivating it in complete darkness under carefully controlled conditions. Because any strong light could damage the plants, harvesting was conducted at night, by torchlight. This practice is still followed today, especially in the famed “rhubarb triangle” of West Yorkshire, which once supplied 90 percent of the world’s sweet forced rhubarb.

Rhubarb enjoyed widespread popularity for about 100 years. But the expansion of trade that followed the World Wars introduced more competition, and eventually rhubarb fell out of favor, acquiring a reputation for being stodgy and old-fashioned. Only a few staunch supporters still included recipes for rhubarb pie in their cookbooks, and even then it was generally as a mere historical footnote.

But rhubarb is on the upswing again, and is now poised to make a comeback in the early decades of the 21st century. Yorkshire forced rhubarb now enjoys Protected Designation of Origin status: as with champagne and Stilton cheese, the name can only be applied to rhubarb that comes from the approved section of Yorkshire. And the ritual of harvesting by torchlight—in many cases using the very same cast iron torches that were used 150 years ago—is attracting more press and attention every year. Recipes are starting to crop up in fashionable cookbooks and magazines, and the old favorite of the Victorians is finally back in vogue again.

Fool is a traditional English dessert that was popular throughout the 19th century on both sides of the Atlantic. Simple to make and relatively healthy as desserts go, it generally consists a pureed fruit folded gently into a light, tart custard. This version calls for sweetened Greek yogurt and whipped cream in place of custard, which lends the dish a delightful tartness.

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RHUBARB FOOL

Start to finish: 2 hours
Servings: 8

2 cups rhubarb, roughly chopped
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup whipping cream
16 ounces Greek yogurt

Place the rhubarb in a pan with the sugar over low heat. Simmer, covered, until tender. Uncover, turn up the heat to medium and allow some of the juice to evaporate. Set aside and cool.

Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks, then carefully fold in the yogurt. Loosely swirl in the cooled rhubarb (you should still be able to see bright red streaks amid the pale white cream and yogurt mixture), and chill in refrigerator for at least an hour.

Serve in shallow dishes or glasses.

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For thousands of years, thyme has been a superstar of the herb garden. As an antidote for poison, a plague preventative, a symbol of bravery in battle and a stalwart companion to the grave, thyme has a far more storied past than you’d think if you were walking past it in the supermarket today.

Thyme’s reputation as a healer and protector goes back thousands of years. In the Roman era, it was widely held that eating thyme either before or during a meal would protect you from poison. For obvious reasons, this made the herb a particular favorite of the emperors. It was even said that a bath in warm water liberally dosed with thyme could stop the effects of poison after it was inadvertently consumed.

Thyme was also associated with courage, bravery and strength in ancient times. Roman soldiers exchanged sprigs of thyme as a sign of respect. Greeks and Romans burned bundles of thyme to purify their temples and homes, and to evoke a spirit of courage in those who inhaled it.

The association with courage and bravery persisted into the Middle Ages. Thyme was a traditional gift offered to men going into battle. Most soldiers would just cram these fragrant charms into their pockets or purses, but some were known to attach thyme to their clothing or armor as a visible badge of honor. When worn into battle, thyme might serve double duty: used as an embalming herb since the time of the Egyptians, it was thought to be a powerful aid to those making their passage into the next life.

When the Black Death struck in the late 1340s, millions of people turned to thyme for relief and protection. Many of the day’s medicinal concoctions—from posies worn about the neck to poultices applied directly to plague-blistered skin—included the herb as a major ingredient. Though there was little science to these remedies, one of the chemical compounds found in thyme is a powerful antiseptic. Known as thymol, it’s still widely used today in mouthwash, hand sanitizer and acne medication.

The Victorians placed their own fanciful spin on the mystical properties of thyme. They considered a patch of wild thyme in the woods to be a clear and incontrovertible sign that fairies had recently danced the night away on that very spot. Generations of little girls camped out near remote little plots of creeping thyme, hoping to catch a glimpse of a tribe of woodland fairies. But the Victorians also had more prosaic uses for thyme. Well before the mechanics of infection were fully understood, 19th-century nurses were bathing bandages in a dilution of thyme in water.

All along, of course, thyme remained one of Europe’s favorite cooking herbs (along with the ever-popular rosemary and sage). Monasteries, which served for hundreds of years as the keepers of medicinal knowledge as well as the art of keeping a good kitchen garden, made frequent use of thyme in their breads, soups and roasts. In the days before refrigeration and food safety laws, including thyme in recipes gave you at least some protection against spoiled meat and foodborne disease.

Now that you’ve heard the tale of thyme, celebrate the herb’s rich history in your own kitchen. The following is adapted from an old Benedictine recipe for mushroom-thyme soup.

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MUSHROOM-THYME SOUP

Servings: 4

1 clove garlic, minced
2 medium shallots, finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
8 ounces cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced
4 ouces shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and caps thinly sliced
2 tablespoons fresh thyme, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh sage, finely chopped
6 cups vegetable stock
Salt
Pepper

Sauté the garlic and shallot in the olive oil over low heat until the shallots are translucent. Add the mushrooms, thyme and sage, and stir together over low heat for about 1 minute. Add the vegetable stock. Bring to a rolling boil and then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

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In the world of food, one palate’s trash really is another’s treasure. Take the case of the egg, for instance. In most Western dishes, eggs are treated like delicate proteins, cooked for no longer than 10 minutes or so. In China, however, eggs are cured and boiled for days or weeks, turning the rich, golden yolk into a sulfurous, fermented mass. You may prefer your eggs scrambled or over easy, but to many, a perfectly aged egg is a delicious treat.

Thousand-year eggs take this custom to the extreme. Though they’re also known as century eggs, preserved eggs and millennium eggs, these terms are all misnomers: the eggs are only cured for about 100 days. According to legend, the tradition was born more than 600 years ago, when a man in Hunan Province discovered a cache of duck eggs buried under slaked lime in his yard. The adventurous man tasted the eggs and enjoyed them enough to make his own batch, this time adding salt and tea for flavor.

A thousand-year egg looks very different from its freshly hatched counterparts, with the white resembling glossy, amber Jell-O. Etched into the eggs shell are snowflake-like patterns created by fungi. The yolk is a hard ball, colored dark gray or green. Thousand-year eggs are typically sliced and served alongside soft tofu or congee porridge, or on their own with pickled ginger root.

But how do they taste? The uninitiated might find it hard to get past thousand-year eggs’ ammonia odor, caused by the reaction of its natural chemicals during the curing process. The scent can range from no worse than a fine French cheese to a pungent, room-emptying stench. The actual flavor is sharp, astringent and slightly mineral. Some say you can taste slight differences in the eggs depending on the clay or tea used in the preserving process. They’re often compared to a rich cheese—but that may be because no commonly eaten food in the Western tradition bears any resemblance to a thousand-year egg.

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When Americans think of English food, they might call to mind fish and chips, or perhaps a steaming shepherd’s pie with mushy peas on the side. But England’s most popular food isn’t chips, scones or crumpets—it’s chicken tikka masala. Indian cuisine has been at the heart of the British food scene ever since the East India Company first barged onto the subcontinent in the mid-18th century. From cocktails and beers to soups and curries, the influence is felt everywhere.

The British crown had a commercial presence in India beginning in 1612 and established a trade monopoly there by the mid-1700s. This meant that thousands of Brits lived in sweltering India, hankering for the foods and beverages of home. In the 1800s, thirsty colonists despaired when beer spoiled during long, hot trips across the ocean in cargo bays. Resourceful British brewers compensated for the harsh conditions of the voyage by adding more hops, using a natural preservation method that also resulted in a delightful drink. Our modern-day India Pale Ales, or IPAs, descend from this practice.

Beer isn’t the only beverage to benefit from a passage to India: gin and tonics also owe their existence to British colonialism. While the British East India Company wasn’t the first to realize the anti-malarial properties of quinine (that distinction belongs to the Romans), they were the first to drink it in cocktail form. As early as 1825, British officers began combining their daily doses of medicinal quinine syrup and decidedly non-medicinal gin into one pleasant beverage, covering up the bitter quinine taste with lime and sugar.

The Indian influence doesn’t stop with drinks. Chutneys, curries, rice dishes and all manner of Indian bread products have become fixtures of British cuisine. In the Victorian age, a craze for all things curry overtook England. Curry houses were fashionable, and in 1861 Isabella Beeton included a recipe for curry powder in her landmark “Book of Household Management.” This infatuation with a cuisine so different from the standard roast and pudding fare may seem surprising—until you consider the warming effect of a steaming bowl of spicy curry on a cheerless soul in dismal London. Curry also offered Victorian cooks a great way to use up leftovers: something had to be done with the rest of that Sunday roast.

A curry house staple, mulligatawny soup first appeared in British cookbooks during the Victorian age. It’s believed the soup was created by Indian cooks for British officers who enjoyed traditional, peppery Tamil stews but would only eat them in soup course form. (The name is an Anglicization of the Tamil term for “pepper broth.”) Recipes for mulligatawny vary widely: curry powder, apples and chicken broth are often added, but Australians sometimes add tomatoes and bacon to the mixture as well. Below you’ll find a recipe for a simple vegetarian mulligatawny, featuring apples for sweetness and lentils for flavor and body. If you prefer your mulligatawny meaty, just use chicken broth instead of vegetable stock, and stir two cups of cooked chicken breast or thigh meat into the pureed final product.

MULLIGATAWNY SOUP

Start to finish: 1 hour
Servings: 4-6

2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
3 tablespoons chopped fresh ginger
3 tablespoons curry powder
3 cloves chopped garlic
2 yellow onions, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 apples, chopped
1 15-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 1/2 cup lentils
8 cups vegetable stock
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
1 lime, juice and zest
2 cups cooked shredded chicken meat (optional)
Chopped cilantro, mint or green onions (optional garnish)

In a large, heavy-bottomed Dutch oven or soup pot, melt butter on medium heat. Add salt, cumin, coriander, pepper, ginger and garlic, and cook until garlic is aromatic but not browned, about 1 minute. Add curry powder, onions, celery, carrots and apples and sauté until vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes. Next add crushed tomatoes, lentils, 6 cups of the vegetable stock, turmeric, cinnamon and bay leaf, stirring continuously. Bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer and cook for approximately 40 minutes or until lentils are soft. If liquid level seems low, add up to 2 cups of the vegetable stock. When lentils and vegetables are tender, puree soup with immersion blender or in a blender until smooth. Add lime juice and zest, chicken if desired, and season with salt to taste. Garnish with optional cilantro, mint or green onions.

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These days, barely a week goes by without some new food-related horror story popping up in the media. Horsemeat in your taco? Check. E. coli in your hamburger? Got it. From mercury in fish to salmonella in chicken, it can seem like we’re living in a golden age for unsafe foods. But what about foods that are naturally dangerous? Between maggot-infested cheese and the exotic puffer fish, adventurous eaters have their pick of risky delicacies.

Let’s start with perhaps the most well-known danger food: Japan’s puffer fish, or fugu. Fugu contains a deadly dose of the poison tetrodotoxin in all its organs, the liver being the most toxic. Tetrodotoxin kills by paralyzing victims’ muscles and asphyxiating them—all while they remain fully conscious. There is no known antidote. But that hasn’t stopped legions of Japanese from dining on fugu sashimi for centuries. Fugu chefs must be trained and certified to handle the fish, keeping special fugu-only knives stored separately from the rest of their equipment.

Fugu is not the only potentially lethal fish to make appearances on dinner tables. If you don’t remove the liver and reproductive organs of the silverstripe blaasop, an Indian Ocean native, your fresh-caught meal could kill you. And Koreans enjoy eating nakji, a small octopus whose tentacles are served still raw and gently wriggling. It’s not poisonous, but about six South Koreans a year choke to death when the suction cups stick on their cheeks or inside their throats. Nakji experts recommend chewing the tentacles thoroughly and drinking lots of liquids to make sure they go down quickly.

Killer fish seem terrifying enough, but what about killer cheese? Casu marzu, a traditional Sardinian delicacy, is created by cutting sections of the rind from whole wheels of Pecorino cheese. Cheese flies enter the wheel and lay eggs that turn into larvae, which then eat the cheese. This produces a buildup of acid in the wheel, transforming the once-hard cheese into a soft, fermented mass. Casu marzu lovers insist that the cheese becomes unsafe to eat once the larvae inside have died—so tasting this peculiar treat means getting a mouthful of live maggots. The creatures can survive the trip through the digestive track and take up residence in the large intestine, causing stomach ailments. Even though medical attention is rarely needed for the maggot infestation, the price of this cheese course might still be too high for most people.

Dr. Libby O'Connell

The colorful Gold Rush era—roughly 1848 to 1870—offers a mine of riches when it comes to all kinds of history, including some entertaining tales of food and drink. Mark Twain, for example, demonstrated a prodigious capacity for eating oysters and drinking hard liquor, feats respected by many in San Francisco during his stay there. One of my favorite stories, concerning the origins of a picturesquely named omelet called the Hangtown Fry, actually boasts a couple versions. In “Twain’s Feast,” one of my favorite books for 2012, author Anthony Beahr serves up the two competing origins of the Hangtown Fry.

Both stories take place in Hangtown, California, which received its name after three desperadoes met their fate on the scaffold there in the late 1840s. In one account, a newly wealthy miner arrives in Hangtown and demands the most expensive meal available. In those early days of the Gold Rush, hen’s eggs were as rare as hen’s teeth, a scarce luxury and prohibitively expensive. Oysters, shipped inland on ice and uphill from the coast, cost a pretty penny too, perhaps as much as the eggs. A local cook created an omelet bulging with oysters, which cost the successful miner some of his newfound gold.

The other folk origin for Hangtown Fry describes a condemned man’s request for his last meal. Wanting to postpone his encounter with the hangman’s noose for as long as possible, he asked for a dish whose ingredients he knew would take several days to arrive, since the hen’s eggs and oysters had to travel 130 miles overland from San Francisco to Hangtown.

Whatever story you prefer, a Hangtown Fry still describes an oyster-filled omelet with bacon strips resting like oars across the top. You can find it on quite a few menus in El Dorado County, home of the original Hangtown (now known as the more respectable Placerville). In San Francisco, the 160-year-old Tadich Grill serves Hangtown Fry at their “new” location (since 1967) on California Street, and that’s where I first had a taste of this sumptuous Gold Rush dish.

You can make Hangtown Fry at home if you have access to fresh oysters. Eat it slowly, savoring every morsel, and postpone all sorts of things—email, the gym, even a trip to the scaffold.

A word of warning to the meticulous researcher: I can’t find a documented source on Hangtown Fry prior to the 20th century. Too bad. Those two origins are my stories, and I’m sticking to them.

Tadich Grill in San Francisco serves the dish with bacon and green onions crumbled into the omelet, along with breaded, panfried oysters, which is more traditional. In my version, I don’t bread the oysters at all, just warm them through, which makes it a lighter dish. Even if I were a condemned desperado, I think I’d like my oysters prepared very simply—although the breading and frying does take longer!

If you’ve never made an omelet before, go online and watch a how-to video, or ask someone to show you. Generally speaking, a bad-looking omelet tastes fine unless you’ve let it burn. For a two-egg omelet, you’ll need an eight- or 10-inch pan.

HANGTOWN FRY

Servings: 1 (but can be doubled)

2 strips bacon (I get thick-sliced bacon from the butcher. It’s often oddly shaped, but it tastes terrific and it’s not loaded with nitrates. This lets me pretend that it’s healthy.)
3-4 raw oysters, shucked and drained (I’m not much on shucking my own oysters, so I ask the nice guys at my neighborhood fish store to do it for me. Whether you buy your oysters at the fishmongers or at your supermarket, make sure they are fresh. For this recipe, I used our local Long Island Peconic oysters, which are small and sweet, tasting like an ocean breeze at high tide.)
Cooking spray or 1 1/2 tablespoons butter
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 pinch dried thyme
Salt, freshly ground pepper
Hot sauce (optional)
1 slice whole grain or sourdough bread for toast

In a seasoned cast iron frying pan or a Teflon pan, place your raw bacon strips and fry over medium-low heat until crispy. Always start bacon in an unheated pan. Keep an eye on the bacon so it doesn’t burn. You want the fat to be rendered and the meat browned. Remove strips and drain on a paper towel. Pour off most of the fat in the pan, leaving just a little for flavor. Generously spray the pan with cooking spray, or add the butter, to keep the surface well-lubricated.

Gently place the oysters in the pan over medium-low heat. Cook about 1 minute on each side. You are essentially warming them through. Do not overcook or they may get rubbery and the taste changes. They may lose a little liquid as they cook, which is fine. Remove oysters from pan and put on a small dish to reserve.

Preheat pan to medium-high. Sprinkle thyme, salt and pepper into the eggs. Pour egg mixture into the hot pan and distribute evenly by swirling the pan a little. Lift the cooked edges of the omelet up with a spatula so that the raw egg in the center can run underneath and cook.

Place the oysters down the middle of the omelet. With a spatula, loosen the one side of the eggs from the pan edge. (You may add more butter or cooking spray to the bottom of the pan as needed to help make this process easier.) Gently fold this side over the middle of the omelet. Repeat with the second side. Slide and lift omelet off the pan and place on a warm plate.

Place the two strips of bacon on the omelet, like oars on a boat. Serve with toast and hot sauce if you like that. If your omelet is a mess, the toast and bacon can make it look a lot better.

The omelet makes a meal in itself, but from my point of view all this protein cries out for vegetables. Try a side salad of baby spinach, arugula and some chopped apple, tossed with a lemony vinaigrette.

Dr. Libby O’Connell is HISTORY’s chief historian.

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Perhaps more than any other food, haggis has an exceptionally bad reputation. This Scottish national dish—a mix of sheep’s innards, oatmeal and spices, all wrapped up in a sheep stomach—has been the butt of jokes for years. It’s a dish that people love to hate, even if some of those critics haven’t had a chance to taste it in over 40 years. That’s because importing real Scottish haggis to the United States has been illegal since 1971, thanks to a ban on foods containing sheep’s lungs.

Although now haggis is a thoroughly Scottish tradition, its early history could be French, Roman or Scandinavian. Some say the word “haggis” derives from the French term “hacher,” which means to chop up or mangle. Others insist a similar dish appears in sources as old as Homer’s “Odyssey,” while English food historian Clarissa Dickson-Wright claims that haggis came from Scandinavia “even before Scotland was a single nation.”

But while the dish’s exact provenance remains in doubt, food historians agree that it was a peasant food. Encasing hard-to-cook cuts like lungs and intestines along with undesirable muscle meats like liver and kidneys into a convenient stomach packaging would have been a wonderful way to feed a group—while making sure no meat went to waste.

Haggis languished uncelebrated until 1787, when poet Robert Burns penned his great ode “Address to a Haggis.” In his poem, Burns declares his love for the “great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race” and glorifies what was a poor man’s food into a dish greater than any French ragout or fricassee. Burns was already a national hero, and haggis’ profile soon soared. After Burns’ death, a group of his friends began commemorating him every year on his birthday, January 25, and so began the “Burns Supper” tradition. The suppers continue to this day, featuring Scottish food, Scotch whiskey and a grand presentation of the haggis to the assembled guests.

While Burns Suppers are haggis’ main opportunity to shine, the dish is still widely enjoyed throughout Scotland. Supermarkets sell packaged varieties, with the cheaper variations now placed in synthetic casings instead of stomachs. It’s served in fast food restaurants, deep-fried along with chips and Mars bars. There are even vegetarian versions, which rely on grains and beans instead of lungs and hearts.

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This weekend, families across the country and around the world will celebrate Easter with leg of lamb dinners, egg hunts and lots of chocolate bunnies. But how did lamb, eggs and chocolate become iconic aspects of the Easter tradition, much like turkey and cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving?

The tradition of eating lamb on Easter has its roots in early Passover observances before the birth of Christianity. According to the biblical Exodus story, the people of Egypt suffered a series of terrible plagues, including the death of all firstborn sons. Jews painted their doorposts with sacrificed lamb’s blood so that God would “pass over” their homes while carrying out the punishment. Accustomed to eating roast lamb on Passover, Jews who converted to Christianity continued the tradition at Easter. Additionally, Christians refer to Jesus as the “Lamb of God,” so it makes sense that the food shows up at the Easter table. On a less symbolic note, lamb would have been one of the first fresh meats available after a long winter with no livestock to slaughter.

Eggs have been a symbol of rebirth since ancient times, but it was Mesopotamian Christians who first adopted them as an Easter food. They were also the first to dye eggs, turning them bright red to represent Christ’s blood. Eastern Europeans took egg decorating to an art form, creating delicate wax relief designs in the shells to give to friends and family members. In the United States and Britain, eggs are dyed and used for hunts and rolls. (America’s most famous egg roll, which takes place on the White House lawn, began in 1878 as a pet project of first lady Lucy Hayes.) As egg decorating grew more popular, dishes like deviled eggs and hardboiled eggs became associated with Easter as a way to avoid wasting valuable food.

The custom of giving candy and chocolate for Easter, meanwhile, first appeared in the Victorian age. New technology, developed by the famous Cadbury factory in England, allowed manufacturers to create hollow sculptures made of chocolate, instead of painstakingly applying layer after layer of chocolate to individual molds as they had before. These new processes meant that higher-quality candies were available for a cheaper price, and the market quickly boomed: by 1893 the Cadbury company alone offered a whopping 19 different product lines for the Easter market.

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The Jewish calendar is full of holidays with rich food histories. Whether it’s latkes and sufganiyot for Hanukkah or the decadent fast breaking of Yom Kippur, food is inextricably linked to celebrating for the Jewish people. One of the religion’s most iconic holiday foods is eaten during the weeklong spring festival known as Passover, which commemorates the Israelites’ departure from ancient Egypt. Available in sheet or meal form, matzo becomes ubiquitous around the holiday, making appearances in appetizers, main courses and even desserts. Love it or loath it, this little cracker has a big history.

Jews snack on matzo because of the Passover prohibition against eating leavened food, or chametz, throughout the holiday’s duration. That’s because Passover centers on the retelling of the biblical Exodus tale, an epic story that encompasses the Israelites’ slavery in Egypt, their eventual release by the pharaoh and their trek to the land of Canaan through the Sinai desert. According to legend, the fleeing Israelites left their bondage in such a hurry that they didn’t even wait for their bread dough to rise. Another theory holds that matzo-like flatbreads were simply easier to carry through the desert than regular bread.

Whatever the custom’s origin, it’s not enough just to abstain from leavened foods during Passover. Observant Jews purge their homes of every trace and crumb of chametz, often using the process as an excuse for some deep spring cleaning. One final sweep for chametz traditionally takes place the night before Passover begins.

Once bread has been removed from the house, its crispier replacement—matzo—gets its annual chance to shine. Strict standards govern the baking of the matzo: its flour and water must be mixed very quickly to prevent fermentation, and it must be pricked during the baking process so it won’t puff or rise. The matzo is then either left to harden and crisp or pulverized into a meal. Matzo flatbreads serve a ceremonial role during the Passover dinner, or seder, and stand in for their sliceable cousin throughout the week. As for matzo meal, it’s a key ingredient in the dumplings that crown the most signature Jewish comfort food: matzo ball soup.

But that’s not all matzo’s good for. In the recipe below—inspired by a Midwest favorite, saltine toffee—we bring out the sweeter side of the admittedly bland cracker. Part cookie and part candy confection, this matzo toffee with walnuts is a perfect way to wind down the seder or enjoy matzo at any time of year.

MATZO TOFFEE WITH WALNUTS

Start to finish: 2 1/2 hours
Servings: 12-16 squares

5 sheets matzo
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 cups dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup toasted, roughly chopped walnuts
1 teaspoon flakey sea salt

Preheat oven to 275 F. Grease a 13 x 17 baking sheet, and then line the greased pan with a sheet of parchment paper. Break the matzo sheets over the parchment, creating a single layer of matzo to mostly cover the pan.

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the brown sugar, reduce heat to low and stir until sugar is melted and mixture is bubbling, about 2 minutes. Drizzle hot syrup over the matzo and cover evenly using a spatula.

Transfer the matzo pan to the oven and bake until the toffee is shiny, about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately scatter chocolate chips on top. Wait until chips melt, about 3 minutes, and spread melted chips over toffee to cover completely. Sprinkle with chopped nuts and sea salt.

Chill pan in refrigerator for at least 2 hours. When toffee has chilled and hardened, break into pieces. Finished toffee will keep at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 4 days, but will last longer if kept in the refrigerator.

In this exclusive Hungry History video, host Ian Knauer serves up pizza history, from the flatbreads of ancient Pompeii to today’s pies. He also takes us through the steps of making a classic Margherita pizza at home. Follow his recipe (taken from his cookbook “The Farm: Rustic Recipes for a Year of Incredible Food”) to turn your own kitchen into an authentic pizza parlor.

PIZZA DOUGH

1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
3 cups bread flour or all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt

Stir together yeast and water until dissolved.

Stir the ingredients together in a large bowl until combined, then transfer the dough to a flourless work surface. Knead the dough until it becomes elastic and pulls off the work surface.

Oil the bowl, then shape the dough into a ball and place it back in the bowl, turning to coat.

Cover the bowl with a towel and let rest at room temperature until it doubles in size, about 1 hour in a warm room.

MARGHERITA PIZZA

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra to grease pan
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
1 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes, drained and hand-crushed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 8-ounce ball fresh buffalo mozzarella, drained
1/2 bunch fresh basil leaves
Cornmeal for dusting

Preheat pizza stone in oven to 450 degrees.

In a large sauté pan over medium heat, add 2 tablespoons olive oil, the minced garlic, thyme and oregano. Cook until just fragrant, then add the crushed tomatoes and season with salt and pepper to taste. Lower the heat and simmer for 7 to 8 minutes to reduce and concentrate the flavor. Shut off the heat and set aside.

Stretch pizza dough into a 15-inch round by tossing and stretching. Lay on cornmeal-dusted pizza peel. Smear with tomato sauce, then tear up the mozzarella and scatter it evenly over the top of the pie. Give it a final season with salt and pepper to taste, then bake in the hot oven until golden and bubbly, about 15 to 18 minutes.

Remove from oven, tear basil and sprinkle over pizza. Cut into slices and serve.

About the Host: After spending close to a decade in the test kitchens of Gourmet Magazine, where he developed recipes and co-hosted “Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie” and “Adventures with Ruth,” Ian poured his love of food back into his family’s Pennsylvania farm. There, he grows his own vegetables and cooks everything from scratch. He recently released his first cookbook, “The Farm: Rustic Recipes for a Year of Incredible Food.” He also writes for several publications and contributes to Cooking Channel’s “Unique Eats.”

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The wearing of the green is nearly upon us, and so the season of green beer, bagels and milkshakes has begun. While there’s nothing particularly Irish about shamrock-shaped cookies or green-frosted cupcakes, you might be surprised to learn that the traditional St. Paddy’s meal—corned beef and cabbage—is no more authentic. Like many aspects of St. Patrick’s Day, the dish came about when Irish-Americans transformed and reinterpreted a tradition imported from the Emerald Isle.

The first St. Patrick’s Day parade took place not in Dublin but in New York City, in 1762. Over the next 100 years, Irish immigration to the United States exploded. The new wave of immigrants brought their own food traditions, including soda bread and Irish stew. Pork was the preferred meat, since it was cheap in Ireland and ubiquitous on the dinner table. The favored cut was Irish bacon, a lean, smoked pork loin similar to Canadian bacon. But in the United States, pork was prohibitively expensive for most newly arrived Irish families, so they began cooking beef—the staple meat in the American diet—instead.

So how did pork and potatoes become corned beef and cabbage? Irish immigrants to America lived alongside other “undesirable” European ethnic groups that often faced discrimination in their new home, including Jews and Italians. Members of the Irish working class in New York City frequented Jewish delis and lunch carts, and it was there that they first tasted corned beef. Cured and cooked much like Irish bacon, it was seen as a tasty and cheaper alternative to pork. And while potatoes were certainly available in the United States, cabbage offered a more cost-effective alternative to cash-strapped Irish families. Cooked in the same pot, the spiced, salty beef flavored the plain cabbage, creating a simple, hearty dish that couldn’t be easier to prepare.

After taking off among New York City’s Irish community, corned beef and cabbage found fans across the country. It was the perfect dish for everyone from harried housewives to busy cooks on trains and in cafeterias—cheap, easy to cook and hard to overcook. It was even served alongside mock turtle coup at President Lincoln’s inauguration dinner in 1862.

Far from being as Irish as a shamrock field, this St. Patrick’s Day classic is as American as apple pie.

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We’ve discussed the story of the knife and fork, but there’s another set of utensils used by billions of people around the world—and it has a truly ancient past. The Chinese have been wielding chopsticks since at least 1200 B.C., and by A.D. 500 the slender batons had swept the Asian continent from Vietnam to Japan. From their humble beginnings as cooking utensils to paper-wrapped bamboo sets at the sushi counter, there’s more to chopsticks than meets the eye.

The fabled ruins of Yin, in Henan province, provided not only the earliest examples of Chinese writing but also the first known chopsticks—bronze sets found in tombs at the site. Capable of reaching deep into boiling pots of water or oil, early chopsticks were used mainly for cooking. It wasn’t until A.D. 400 that people began eating with the utensils. This happened when a population boom across China sapped resources and forced cooks to develop cost-saving habits. They began chopping food into smaller pieces that required less cooking fuel—and happened to be perfect for the tweezers-like grip of chopsticks.

As food became bite-sized, knives became more or less obsolete. Their decline—and chopsticks’ ascent—also came courtesy of Confucius. As a vegetarian, he believed that sharp utensils at the dinner table would remind eaters of the slaughterhouse. He also thought that knives’ sharp points evoked violence and warfare, killing the happy, contended mood that should reign during meals. Thanks in part to his teachings, chopstick use quickly became widespread throughout Asia.

Different cultures adopted different chopstick styles. Perhaps in a nod to Confucius, Chinese chopsticks featured a blunt rather than pointed end. In Japan, chopsticks were 8 inches long for men and 7 inches long for women. In 1878 the Japanese became the first to create the now-ubiquitous disposable set, typically made of bamboo or wood. Wealthy diners could eat with ivory, jade, coral, brass or agate versions, while the most privileged used silver sets. It was believed that the silver would corrode and turn black if it came into contact with poisoned food.

Throughout history, chopsticks have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with another staple of Asian cuisine: rice. Naturally, eating with chopsticks lends itself to some types of food more than others. At first glance, you’d think that rice wouldn’t make the cut, but in Asia most rice is of the short- or medium-grain variety. The starches in these rices create a cooked product that is gummy and clumpy, unlike the fluffy and distinct grains of Western long-grain rice. As chopsticks come together to lift steaming bundles of sticky rice, it’s a match made in heaven.

DILL PICKLES

3 pounds pickling cucumbers, 4 to 6 inches long
2 quarts white wine vinegar
1 quart water
1 cup salt
1 ounce dried ginger
3/4 pound pearl onions
1/4 pound horseradish, cut into smooth, uniform slices
1/2 ounce white peppercorns
1/4 ounce cloves
12 bay leaves
2 handfuls dill
1 handful tarragon
1 handful peppergrass or cresses

Before you begin, scald several quart pickling jars in boiling water to make sure they’re completely clean.

Select the pickles carefully, rejecting all that are spotted or damaged. Let sit in fresh water with salt and set aside for 12 hours. Dry cucumbers with a towel.

In a large saucepan, add vinegar, water, salt and dried ginger. Bring to a boil and remove from heat.

Add cucumbers and remaining ingredients to pickling jars, dividing everything equally. Pour in the hot vinegar mixture.

Tie a cloth over the jars and set aside in a cool, airy place. Pickle for 3 to 6 days. Once they are to your liking, refrigerate.

About the Host: After spending close to a decade in the test kitchens of Gourmet Magazine, where he developed recipes and co-hosted “Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie” and “Adventures with Ruth,” Ian poured his love of food back into his family’s Pennsylvania farm. There, he grows his own vegetables and cooks everything from scratch. He recently released his first cookbook, “The Farm: Rustic Recipes for a Year of Incredible Food.” He also writes for several publications and contributes to Cooking Channel’s “Unique Eats.”

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The Chinese, who first invented or discovered soy bean curd, call it “doufu.” The Japanese, who adopted it hundreds of years later, use the term “tofu,” as do many Americans. As for myself, I rarely cook doufu/tofu at home, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it. I order it frequently in Asian restaurants because I enjoy the variety of tastes and textures. Plain bean curd, a great source of protein and vitamins, provides a healthy vehicle for a stunning array of preparations and sauces.

My favorite traditional Szechuan dish is mapo doufu—bean curd cooked with minced pork or beef, red chilies and lots of other spices. I have two reasons for this allegiance. First of all, the evocative name: Mapo doufu means “pockmarked grandma’s bean curd,” although it is sometimes translated into the mundane “country-style bean curd,” which sounds hearty but bland. Second, mapo doufu is delicious. I can remember the first time I had it—with my Chinese history professor in Boston’s Chinatown. At that point in my life, I had only eaten westernized Cantonese, plus I thought I didn’t like spicy food, so mapo doufu was a revelation.

Tofu has a long, impressive history in China. As early as 1600 B.C., the ancient Chinese cultivated soy beans, which remain a vital source of protein and other nutrients throughout Asia today. During the Han Dynasty (between 206 B.C. and 220 A.D., about the same time as the Roman empire’s glory days), the Chinese production of bean curd became widespread. Eventually, Buddhist monks brought soy beans and recipes for bean curd to Japan.

It took a long time for tofu to come to the United States. Samuel Bowen, a well-traveled sailor, settled down near Savannah, Georgia, and planted soybeans for his employer in 1765. The approach of the American Revolution stymied this enterprise. But a few years later, tofu had another early champion in America: a man remembered as a scientist, diplomat, writer, editor, postmaster, signer of the Constitution and true character who liked to take air baths naked. That’s right—Ben Franklin. In 1770 Franklin sent soybeans (which he called “Chinese caravances”) back from France to his friend John Bertram, a famous botanist, exclaiming in his letter about a “special cheese” made from the beans “which is called Tau Fu.”

Dr. Libby O’Connell is HISTORY’s chief historian.

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I have all sorts of reasons to like green peas. They have a very long history, for one thing. Archaeologists have found evidence that people were eating peas over 8,000 years ago. In ancient Athens, street vendors sold take-out hot pea soup. The appreciative Romans named this legume “pisum” (pronounced pee-sum), from which we get the word “peas.” And peas served as an important source of nourishment for medieval Europeans. Peasants found that peas dried well, providing valuable vitamins and protein over the winter. These traditional field peas were starchy and pale, more like a chickpea, and formed the basis of the “pease porridge hot” mentioned in the nursery rhyme.

The tasty little green peas people enjoy today hit the big time in Renaissance France, where King Henry II’s Italian wife, Catherine de’ Medici, introduced them in the 1500s. There, they became known as “petit pois.” By 1695, a lady friend of Louis XIV, the famed Sun King, described the excitement at court over the first fresh peas harvested that season as “a fashion, a craze.”

It’s hard to imagine that baby peas could inspire such passion. But then I learned that Thomas Jefferson indulged in some healthy competition with his neighbors over who could harvest the first green peas of the season. He was thrilled when his garden at Monticello produced the first crop in the neighborhood. That’s a lot of enthusiasm for one of our most cerebral presidents. Because peas ripen early in the summer, they were among the first bright vegetables on the table each year throughout the millennia before refrigeration.

Another reason to like green peas: They can be planted early—around St. Patrick’s Day where I live in Zone 7. Also, they freeze really well and retain their taste, texture and nutrients when frozen commercially. So unless you are lucky enough to eat peas straight from a vegetable garden, baby peas from your grocer’s freezer are as close to fresh as you’ll get, and they are delicious.

I look for the frozen tiny baby peas, which are just a fraction smaller than the so-called “garden peas.” They are sweeter and less starchy and hardly need to be cooked. I leave the package in the fridge overnight so they defrost slowly, and then I just heat them through for about one minute in boiling water before draining. It’s traditional to add a bit of chopped mint to fresh peas, but a pinch of rosemary is tasty too.

I like to serve baby peas along with roast lamb or broiled lamb chops. I always make extra so that I have leftovers to make a salad. The next day, I top a salad bowl of leafy greens with baby peas, small pieces of pink lamb and a bit of minced mint. If I cooked some new potatoes the night before, I slice one of those in. (Alternatively, I add some cooked rice, white or brown, or quinoa here instead of the potato.) You can sprinkle toasted chopped walnuts or pine nuts on top to add a nice crunch. Then I season with sea salt, a little red pepper and a mild red wine or balsamic vinaigrette. I’ve shared my recipe below. This works with chicken as well as lamb, or even without meat.

SALAD WITH BABY PEAS

3-4 cups mixed greens (I like a mix of romaine, butter lettuce and arugula)
1 cup baby peas, boiled for 1 minute and drained
1 cup cooked lamb or chicken, cut into small pieces (optional)
3/4 cup diced cooked potato, rice or quinoa
1/4 cup chopped walnuts or pine nuts
2 tablespoons fresh mint, minced fine
Salt, pepper and vinaigrette to taste

Take care not to overcook the peas while boiling them. Toss together ingredients and don’t overdress.

Dr. Libby O’Connell is HISTORY’s chief historian.

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Conversation hearts, truffles galore and heart-shaped boxes of chocolates—these are the symbols of Valentine’s Day for many lovers around the world. But why do we have a “sweets to the sweet” tradition every February 14? While the roots of Valentine’s Day go all the way back to Roman times, candy gift giving is a much more recent development. Is it because of chocolate’s reputed aphrodisiac qualities, or just a way for candy companies to sell more sweets in the lull between Christmas and Easter? Whatever the reason, those ubiquitous little red boxes flood shelves every year, and this week we’re taking a look at the reasons why.

Valentine’s Day is actually named for two different Roman saints, both called Valentine and both utterly unconnected to romantic love. Though legend persists that the original St. Valentine was a priest who performed illegal marriages for the Emperor Claudius’ soldiers, there’s no evidence to suggest this ever happened. The first mention of St. Valentine’s Day as a romantic holiday appeared in the writings of Chaucer in 1382. With the medieval period came a new focus on illicit but chaste courtly love, and it is here that we see some of the familiar iconography begin to appear. Knights would give roses to their maidens and celebrate their beauty in songs from afar. But sugar was still a precious commodity in Europe, so there was no talk of exchanging candy gifts.

By the 1840s, the notion of Valentine’s Day as a holiday to celebrate romantic love had taken over most of the English-speaking world. It was Cupid’s golden age: The prudish Victorians adored the notion of courtly love and showered each other with elaborate cards and gifts. Into this love-crazed fray came Richard Cadbury, scion of a British chocolate manufacturing family and responsible for sales at a crucial point in his company’s history. Cadbury had recently improved its chocolate making technique so as to extract pure cocoa butter from whole beans, producing a more palatable drinking chocolate than most Britons had ever tasted. This process resulted in an excess amount of cocoa butter, which Cadbury used to produce many more varieties of what was then called “eating chocolate.” Richard recognized a great marketing opportunity for the new chocolates and started selling them in beautifully decorated boxes that he himself designed.

From that point, it was a quick jump to taking the familiar images of Cupids and roses and putting them on heart-shaped boxes. While Richard Cadbury didn’t actually patent the heart-shaped box, it’s widely believed that he was the first to produce one. Cadbury marketed the boxes as having a dual purpose: When the chocolates had all been eaten, the box itself was so pretty that it could be used again and again to store mementos, from locks of hair to love letters. The boxes grew increasingly elaborate until the outbreak of World War II, when sugar was rationed and Valentine’s Day celebrations were scaled down. But Victorian-era Cadbury boxes still exist, and many are treasured family heirlooms or valuable items prized by collectors.

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The British ritual of afternoon tea originated when the Duchess of Bedford decided, sometime in the early 1840s, that she was tired of feeling peckish in the middle of the afternoon. A little snack would be just the thing, she thought. Within a generation, the practice of taking a light meal with company in the middle of the day was firmly entrenched in British national life. By now, of course, it’s practically a cliché. But in the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign, the United Kingdom was desperate for rituals of comfort and domesticity. Thank goodness tea and scones came along when they did.

Victoria did not inherit an easy throne. The years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars were full of unrest and strife. After the war with France ended, thousands of demobilized troops flooded into the country, straining resources to the breaking point. Widespread unemployment and famine led to political upheaval and calls for reform. The mounting tide of radicalism was met, for better or for worse, with firm opposition by the politicians in London, and it wasn’t until almost 20 years after Waterloo that the demands of the reformers were finally acknowledged in the Great Reform Act of 1832.

Things at last began to settle down, and a few years later the young Victoria was crowned queen. You could practically hear her weary nation breathe a sigh of relief. At last, they could turn their attention to calmer, more domestic matters.

Naturally, the lion’s share of the work required to create the perfect home fell to the ladies. Young, married Victorian women were expected to take a devoted interest in all things domestic—and many of them responded to the call with feverish enthusiasm. Books and magazines sprang up overnight, each of them filled to bursting with helpful advice and instruction in the domestic arts. Articles on topics as diverse as how to bleach yellowed lace and how to hire a kitchen maid were snapped up by a ravenous public, and the publishers happily kept cranking out more.

Of course, the most elevated hostess in the land was the queen herself. Which leads us to the inevitable question: What kind of scones would Queen Victoria make?

Today’s host or hostess can cobble together a decent approximation. A good place to start is the National Trust, which has closely guarded its recipe for years. And a recently unearthed version from the files of Queen Elizabeth II also exists, carefully typed out and duly stamped with the royal coat of arms on official palace stationery.

Try this recipe for proper British scones when you want to inspire a little regal domesticity in your own home.

QUEEN VICTORIA’S SCONES (OR SOMETHING VERY LIKE THEM)

Start to finish: 30 minutes
Servings: 10

2 cups flour, sifted
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold
2/3 cup milk

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with nonstick parchment paper or a silicone mat.

Mix the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt) in a large bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces and work into the dry mixture, using either 2 knives or your fingertips. Once butter is fully worked in, add milk until mixture becomes a soft, bread-like dough.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface or a wooden cutting board and pat into a disk about 1 inch thick. Cut into rounds with a biscuit cutter or the rim of a small glass. Place on the prepared baking sheet and coat the tops with a thin film of milk to seal them up.

Bake for 12 minutes until lightly golden and well risen. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

In this exclusive Hungry History video, host Ian Knauer tackles the epitome of Southern comfort food: golden, crisp, juicy fried chicken. Did you know it was introduced to that region of America by both Scottish and African immigrants? Ian takes a bite out of this delicious history while following an 1881 recipe for simple fried chicken with gravy made in the pan with the remaining fat.

FRIED CHICKEN WITH PAN GRAVY

Chicken:
1 3-pound chicken, cut into 8 to 10 pieces
Kosher salt and pepper for seasoning
3 cups fine cornmeal
Oil or lard for frying

Gravy:
4 tablespoons oil or lard from fried chicken
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 sprigs flat leaf parsley

Heat oil or lard in a large cast iron skillet until the temperature reaches 375. Salt and pepper chicken pieces, then roll into cornmeal. Drop the pieces into the fat and let brown, about 5 to 8 minutes on each side. The chicken is done when the fork passes easily into it, about 15 minutes total (an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees).

After the chicken is cooked, leave a little of the hot oil or lard in the skillet, about 4 tablespoons. Take 4 tablespoons of dry flour and brown it in the fat, stirring around for about 1 minute. Pour in 2 cups milk and cook until the gravy thickens, 5 to 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with the chicken and garnish with parsley.

About the Host: After spending close to a decade in the test kitchens of Gourmet Magazine, where he developed recipes and co-hosted “Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie” and “Adventures with Ruth,” Ian poured his love of food back into his family’s Pennsylvania farm. There, he grows his own vegetables and cooks everything from scratch. He recently released his first cookbook, “The Farm: Rustic Recipes for a Year of Incredible Food.” He also writes for several publications and contributes to Cooking Channel’s “Unique Eats.”

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Last week we took a look at the history of salt, so this time it’s pepper’s turn. Unlike salt, which can be found or made practically anywhere in the world, black pepper is indigenous only to Kerala, a province in southwest India. References to pepper appear in Greek and Roman texts, suggesting an ancient trade between India and the West. As early as 1000 B.C., traders from southern Arabia controlled the spice trade and pepper routes, enjoying a huge monopoly over an increasingly profitable business. To protect their valuable routes, traders created fantastical stories about the hardships endured in order to procure spices. What Englishman in his right mind would want to travel around the globe just to be attacked by a dragon guarding a pepper pit?

By medieval times, the middle leg of pepper trade routes was still firmly controlled by Muslim traders, while Italian city-states like Venice and Genoa held a monopoly on shipping lines once the spice reached the Mediterranean. Pepper was costly to ship—the Silk Road, the most well-known trade route, stretched over 4,000 miles—but was such a desirable spice that Italian traders could essentially set their own prices. This led to pepper’s status as a luxury item in medieval Europe. Even today, the Dutch phrase “pepper expensive” refers to an item of prohibitive cost.

Eventually, the rest of Europe got tired of paying the high Venetian prices for pepper imports and decided to take matters into their own hands. Thus began the age of Christopher Columbus, Vasco de Gama, Sir Francis Drake and other explorers. Indeed, Columbus stocked the holds of his ships with what he believed to be pepper and brought the spice all the way from the West Indies. Only back in Spain did he discover that his ships weren’t full of priceless peppercorns but worthless chili peppers.

Pepper’s popularity quickly spread through world cuisines once more trade routes were established. At one time it accounted for a whopping 70 percent of the international spice trade. As it became more readily available, the prices dropped, and ordinary people were able to enjoy it. Regional cuisines began incorporating pepper into their foods alongside native spices and herbs. This resulted in typical spice blends such as garam masala in India, ras el hanout in Morocco, quatre épices in France and Cajun and jerk blends in the Americas.