Did You Know? Nachos

Nachos originated in the city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, just over the border from Eagle Pass, Texas, at a restaurant called the Victory Club, owned by Rudolfo DeLos Santos. One day in 1943, the wives of 10–12 U.S. soldiers stationed at Fort Duncan in nearby Eagle Pass, were in Piedras Negras on a shopping trip, and arrived at the restaurant after it had closed for the day. The maître d', Ignacio "Nacho" Anaya, invented a new dish for them with what little he had available in the kitchen: tortillas and cheese. Anaya cut the tortillas into triangles, added longhorn cheddar cheese, quickly heated them, and added sliced jalapeño peppers. He served the dish, calling it nachos especiales, or "special nachos".

Anaya went on to work at the Moderno Restaurant in Piedras Negras, which still uses the original recipe. He also opened his own restaurant, "Nacho's Restaurant", in Piedras Negras. Anaya's original recipe was printed in the 1954 St. Anne's Cookbook. The popularity of the snack qiuckly spread throughout Texas. The first known appearance of the word "nachos" in English dates to 1949, from the book A Taste of Texas. Waitress Carmen Rocha is credited with introducing the dish to Los Angeles at El Cholo Mexican restaurant in 1959.

A modified version of the dish, with permanently soft cheese and pre-made tortilla chips, was marketed by a man named Frank Liberto beginning in 1977, during sporting events at Arlington Stadium in Arlington, Texas. During a Monday Night Baseball game, sportscaster Howard Cosell enjoyed the name "nachos", and made a point of mentioning the dish in his broadcasts over the following weeks, further popularizing it and introducing it to a whole new audience - From Wikipedia.org

Did You Know? The KFC Secret Recipe

The recipe lays out a mix of 11 herbs and spices that coat the chain’s Original Recipe chicken, including exact amounts for each ingredient. It is written in pencil and signed by Harland Sanders.

The iconic recipe is now protected by an array of high-tech security gadgets, including motion detectors and cameras that allow guards to monitor the vault around the clock.

“It’s like an onion of security — many layers,” said security expert Bo Dietl, who brought the recipe back to the building.

Thick concrete blocks encapsulate the vault, situated near office cubicles, that is connected to a backup generator to keep the security system operating in times of power outages.

“I can guarantee you, once it’s in there, it will be safe,” Dietl assured Eaton.

The recipe is such a tightly held secret that not even Eaton knows its full contents. Only two company executives at any time have access to the recipe. KFC won’t release their names or titles, and it uses multiple suppliers who produce and blend the ingredients but know only a part of the entire contents.

“We’ve very comfortable with the security,” [KFC President Roger] Eaton said. “I don’t think anyone can break into it.”

What we’re talking about here is a yellowed piece of paper, originally written by Harland Sanders, aka The Colonel.  It has the exact amounts for each of the 11 ingredients on it.  But still, doesn’t this seem a bit overkill?

Do You Remember - Horn & Hardart's Automats?

A coin-operated glass-and-chrome wonder, Horn & Hardart’s Automats revolutionized the way Americans ate when they opened up in Philadelphia and New York in the early twentieth century. In a country where the industrial revolution had just taken hold, eating at a restaurant with selfserving vending machines rather than waitresses and Art Deco architecture instead of stuffy dining rooms was an unforgettable experience. The Automat served freshly made food for the price of a few coins, and no one made a better cup of coffee. By the peak of its popularity—from the Great Depression to the post-war years—the Automat was more than an inexpensive place to buy a good meal; it was a culinary treasure, a technical marvel, and an emblem of the times.

Do You Remember?

- Aluminum ice trays with the lever you pulled to loosen the cubes. 
- Aluminum drinking glasses that we would get at Woolworth's 
- roller skates with keys 
- s&h green stamps 
- goodies in detergent boxes. My mom had about 5 or 6 measuring cups, all that came with different brand she bought. 
- Salvo detergent which was a tablet. 
- Egg shampoo. 
- When conditioner was called "cream rinse." 
- Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific 
- Protein 21 
- Lemon Up 
- Chinese checkers 
- Soda in tin cans and you needed a can opener for them 
- Coffee that came in 1 lb cans and they had the little scoop inside for each one