Portal:Food

Burger King Corporation (BK, stylized in all caps) is an American multinational chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida–based restaurant chain. After Insta-Burger King ran into financial difficulties, its two Miami-based franchisees David Edgerton (1927–2018) and James McLamore (1926–1996) purchased the company in 1959 and renamed it "Burger King". Over the next half-century, the company changed hands four times and its third set of owners, a partnership between TPG Capital, Bain Capital, and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, took it public in 2002. In late 2010, 3G Capital of Brazil acquired a majority stake in the company in a deal valued at US$3.26 billion. The new owners promptly initiated a restructuring of the company to reverse its fortunes. 3G, along with its partner Berkshire Hathaway, eventually merged the company with the Canadian-based doughnut chain Tim Hortons under the auspices of a new Canadian-based parent company named Restaurant Brands International.

Burger King's menu has expanded from a basic offering of burgers, french fries, sodas, and milkshakes to a larger and more diverse set of products. In 1957, the "Whopper" became the first major addition to the menu, and it has since become Burger King's signature product. Conversely, Burger King has introduced many products that have failed to catch hold in the market. Some of these failures in the United States have seen success in foreign markets, where Burger King has also tailored its menu for regional tastes. From 2002 to 2010, Burger King aggressively targeted the 18–34 male demographic with larger products that often carried correspondingly large amounts of unhealthy fats and trans-fats. This tactic would eventually damage the company's financial underpinnings and cast a negative pall on its earnings. Beginning in 2011, the company began to move away from its previous male-oriented menu and introduce new menu items, product reformulations, and packaging, as part of its current owner 3G Capital's restructuring plans of the company. (Full article...)

Foodborne illness (also known as foodborne disease and food poisoning) is any illness resulting from the contamination of food by pathogenic bacteria, viruses, or parasites, as well as prions (the agents of mad cow disease), and toxins such as aflatoxins in peanuts, poisonous mushrooms, and various species of beans that have not been boiled for at least 10 minutes.

Symptoms vary depending on the cause. They often include vomiting, fever, and aches, and may include diarrhea. Bouts of vomiting can be repeated with an extended delay in between. This is because even if infected food was eliminated from the stomach in the first bout, microbes, like bacteria (if applicable), can pass through the stomach into the intestine and begin to multiply. Some types of microbes stay in the intestine. (Full article...)

Soul food is the ethnic cuisine of African Americans. Originating in the American South from the cuisines of African slaves transported to the Thirteen Colonies during the colonial history of the United States, soul food is closely associated with the cuisine of the Southern United States. The expression "soul food" originated in the mid-1960s when "soul" was a common word used to describe African-American culture. Soul food uses cooking techniques and ingredients from West African, Central African, Western European, and Indigenous cuisine of the Americas.

The cuisine was initially denigrated as low quality and belittled because of its origin. It was seen as low-class food, and African Americans in the North looked down on their Black Southern compatriots who preferred soul food (see the Great Migration). The concept evolved from describing the food of slaves in the South, to being taken up as a primary source of pride in the African American community even in the North, such as in New York City, Chicago and Detroit. (Full article...)

Piper cubeba, cubeb or tailed pepper is a plant in genus Piper, cultivated for its fruit and essential oil. It is mostly grown in Java and Sumatra, hence sometimes called Java pepper. The fruits are gathered before they are ripe, and carefully dried. Commercial cubeb consists of the dried berries, similar in appearance to black pepper, but with stalks attached – the "tails" in "tailed pepper". The dried pericarp is wrinkled, and its color ranges from grayish brown to black. The seed is hard, white and oily. The odor of cubeb is described as agreeable and aromatic and the taste as pungent, acrid, slightly bitter and persistent. It has been described as tasting like allspice, or like a cross between allspice and black pepper.

Cubeb came to Europe via India through the trade with the Arabs. The name cubeb comes from Arabic kabāba (كبابة) by way of Old French quibibes. Cubeb is mentioned in alchemical writings by its Arabic name. In his Theatrum Botanicum, John Parkinson tells that the king of Portugal (Possibly either Philip IV of Spain or John IV of Portugal, as that year was marked by the start of the Portuguese Restoration War) prohibited the sale of cubeb to promote black pepper (Piper nigrum) around 1640. It experienced a brief resurgence in 19th-century Europe for medicinal uses, but has practically vanished from the European market since. It continues to be used as a flavoring agent for gins and cigarettes in the West, and as a seasoning for food in Indonesia. (Full article...)

Clockwise from top-left: kkakdugi, pa-kimchi, yeolmu-kimchi, dongchimi, nabak-kimchi, mul-kimchi

Kimchi (/ˈkɪmtʃiː/; Korean: 김치; RR: gimchi, IPA: [kim.tɕʰi]) is a traditional Korean side dish (banchan) consisting of salted and fermented vegetables, most often napa cabbage or Korean radish. A wide selection of seasonings are used, including gochugaru (Korean chili powder), spring onions, garlic, ginger, and jeotgal (a salted seafood). Kimchi is also used in a variety of soups and stews. Kimchi is a staple food in Korean cuisine and is eaten as a side dish with almost every Korean meal.

There are hundreds of different types of kimchi made with different vegetables as the main ingredients. Traditionally, winter kimchi, called gimjang, was stored in large earthenware fermentation vessels, called onggi, in the ground to prevent freezing during the winter months and to keep it cool enough to slow down the fermentation process during summer months. The process of making kimchi was called kimjang and was a way for the whole village to participate. The vessels are also kept outdoors in special terraces called jangdokdae. In contemporary times, household kimchi refrigerators are more commonly used. (Full article...)

Thomcord grapes

Thomcord is a seedless table grape variety and a hybrid of the popular Thompson Seedless or Sultanina grape (a Vitis vinifera variety) and Concord grape (a Vitis labrusca variety). Thomcord was developed in 1983 by Californian grape breeders working for the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), as part of a test to better understand a new seedless grape breeding procedure.

Its aromatic, "labrusca" flavor is similar to that of Concord, but mellowed by the mild, sweet taste from Thompson Seedless. Thomcord grows well in hot, dry climates, ripens between late July and mid-August, and tolerates powdery mildew. It is a productive variety, yielding an average of 15.1 kg (33 lb) of grapes per vine, but has produced as much as 30 to 32 kg (66 to 71 lb) per vine in grower trials. The berries weigh between 2.72 and 3.38 g (0.096 and 0.119 oz) and have a medium-thick, blue-black skin that adheres to the fruit, unlike Concord, which has a thick skin that can slip off the pulp easily. The aborted seeds in the fruit body are relatively small, but larger than those in Thompson Seedless. (Full article...)

Haddon Norman Salt (born 18 October 1928) is a British–American businessman, best known for founding the fast food chain H. Salt Esq. Fish & Chips and for acting as that company's brand ambassador, spokesman, and symbol. Salt followed his father and grandfather's careers, becoming a master fish cook and purveyor of fish and chips.

"I came over not simply to start a restaurant, but to introduce America to fish and chips, as grandiose as that dream sounds now". When Salt arrived in America in 1964, Britons ate an average of 100 pounds of fish per year, while Americans ate only 10 pounds per year. Salt said, "The way some of it is handled, I can see why".

Salt opened his first fish and chips shop in California in 1965. His business was acquired by the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation in 1969. The sale made Salt the third largest stockholder in KFC, at the time the world's largest fast-food company.

KFC was not successful in the large-scale expansion of the H. Salt Esq. chain and sold the brand and business in 1972. Salt explained the brand's failure, saying "They started lowering the standards of the quality of the fish, and so the [sales] volumes of the restaurants went down and people stopped buying franchises, so that was the end of it. And it didn't grow anymore."

Salt left the company in 1972. (Full article...)

• ... that in Spain, it is considered lucky to eat twelve grapes while wearing red underwear received as a gift at midnight on New Year's Eve?
• ... that Tad's Steaks offered "tasty food, low prices, service with a grunt"?
• ... that food stylist Susan Spungen estimated that she baked hundreds of pies with Josh Brolin and film staff while practicing for a scene in Labor Day?
• ... that the Sonoran blue butterfly uses Dudleya cymosa subsp. pumila as a larval foodplant and hummingbirds feed on its nectar?
• ... that Steven A. Shaw, one of the first food bloggers, decided to pursue the career that he loved after the early death of his father?
• ... that the Unitized Group Ration – Express is designed to heat food itself without the need of a field kitchen?