I was paging threw a food magazine and came across this ad for Green Giant. This brand of canned and frozen foods has disappeared years ago. I wanted to learn just a little more information so I searched Green Giant on the web. I found in the Chicago Tribune they wrote that in general sales of frozen foods are slumping. B&G Company who is the newest owner of Green Giant is planning to let the Green Giant out of retirement to push frozen vegetable products on TV again.

I read on the Green Giant Website that they are promising to bring back vegetables like you’ve never seen them before!

They are introducing frozen riced vegetables, frozen roasted vegetables and several varieties of frozen vegetable tots.

Later today I went to the store. I came across some Green Giant Products just today!

HO Ho HO! Green Giant is Back!

The Forking Truth

Hagelslag translates to “Hailstorm” to Americans this food is also known as “Sprinkles”, “Jimmies” and “Twinkle Coat” depending on what part of the country you are from. I only recently found out that in the Netherlands it’s a normal everyday activity to butter a piece of bread between breakfast and lunch and add Sprinkles to you buttered piece of bread as a snack.

The flavors of Hagleslag are usually Vanilla, Fruit,  Chocolate or Anise.

I read on Wikipedia that in Australia and New Zealand they serve buttered white bread topped with sprinkles, ( the nonpareils kind)  also known as hundreds and thousands at children’s parties and call it fairy bread……???  Sounds fun for a kid but then do they miss out on cake?

Well I always liked Rainbow Jimmies……I’ve had them on donuts.

I’ve enjoyed Jimmies maybe the most on frozen vanilla custard and now I know that other parts of the world enjoy Sprinkles on Buttered Bread. Some call the Sprinkles Hagelslag.

To me buttering bread and topping it with Sprinkles is a very strange snack…..But maybe people that enjoy Buttered Bread Topped with Sprinkles might think that Sprinkles are strange on Donuts or Frozen Custard ?????  Don’t forking know!

The Forking Truth

Photo is from sodahead.com

As a child my favorite fast food chain was Arthur Treacher’s. I loved the Fish & Chips. We didn’t have an Arthur Treacher’s in our neighborhood but when we drove out to the city we’d stop at Arthur Treacher’s once in a while when it was my turn to pick a fast food place. The fish was always clean tasting, mild and meaty but it was that light, tasty and super magical, shattering, crisp crunch around the fish that made it special. It was so good and I always got to take home a yummy fried lemon pie for latter. Loved it! For me this was a treat!

My Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips platter looked like this..a few pieces of fish, chips and hushpuppies .Photo is from menuism.com

Out here in Phoenix Arizona we have Long John Silvers……I never tried it until this week and thought it might be similar to how I remembered Arthur Treacher’s……

Long John Silvers

It not light or crisp but greasy and taste like old oil…. 🙁 ….gross….even the fish isn’t good…it’s muddy tasting…and oily……..I can’t eat this….the funny thing is that my 15 1/2 year old dog also spit it out when I offered it to him and that really is TheForkingTruth ! ….It really is….!

“This forking fish isn’t fit for me to eat….Give it to the other dog.”

“Hey Old Man….You get more food when your not picky”

After a bite of Long John Silvers I kept thinking about WTFork happened to Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips….it was so good….. So I did some research.

Arthur Treacher’s is a fast food chain that was named after the the English Actor that was well known for playing Jeeves the Butler in several Shirley Temple Films. In the late 70s there were about 800 Arthur Treacher restaurants across America. Today according to the website they only list 7 locations. They’ve gone from around 800 locations down to a forking 7 locations….. 🙁

WTFork happened?

The downfall seemed to have started  when Arthur Treacher’s was sold to Mrs. Paul’s Seafood. They replaced the mild meaty Icelandic Codfish with cheap inferior pollack. The chain changed ownership several times and went threw bankruptcy several times as well.

That’s WTFork happened to Arthur Treacher’s.

The Forking Truth

www.Wikipedia.com

www.ArthurTreachersFranchising.com

Pumpernickel is a dark bread that taste similar to rye bread but it has a soft crust and is a little moister and a little sweeter sometimes seasoned with other flavors. I think Pumpernickel is  great with egg salad, chicken salad or just whipped sweet butter. I don’t see much real rye bread around Phoenix AZ and I almost never see any Pumpernickel Bread here so I started to research Pumpernickel before I try to bake one.

There are many different styles of Pumpernickel Bread.

This bread looks like German Style Pumpernickel (note how it looks like a pressed brick)

Pumpernickel Bread was invented in Germany. A German Style Pumpernickel Bread uses a sourdough starter with course rye berries and often old leftover soaked rye breads and crumbs from leftover breads that are usually rye. The dough gets baked in covered tins and a low temperature that you slowly drop for up to twenty four hours. The German Style Pumpernickel gets it’s dark color from the slow low cooking time.

American Style Pumpernickel doesn’t use a sourdough starter. American Style Pumpernickel gets it’s dark color from cocoa and molasses and gets baked like regular loaves of bread.

Got an recipe for Pumpernickel Bread from a very old American Cookbook called The Settlement CookBook. This recipe includes cornmeal, shortening and two cups of mashed potatoes with Rye Gram Meal ( ground rye berries), Wheat Flour and Caraway Seeds.

Russian Style Pumpernickel also called sometimes as Borodinsky Bread is made of Wheat Flour, Rye Flour, Rye Malt, Pressed Yeast, Salt, Sugar, Molasses, Coriander and Cumin.

I use to work for a bakery that sold baked goods and breads and among the breads they sold were rye bread, pumpernickel bread and what they called black Russian Pumpernickel. The regular pumpernickel was similar to rye bread but a little darker with a soft crust. I remember that the Black Russian Pumpernickel  was much more flavorful than the regular pumpernickel. It was a black soft bread so I’m guessing coffee and or cocoa might have been in the ingredients so it seems that there are endless variations of Pumpernickel Bread.

References

www.RusExplorer.com

www.TheKitchn.com

www.HuffingtonPost.com

www,TheBreadKitchen.com

www.WiseGeek.com

The Settlement CookBook

My first attempt at Rye Bread came out pretty good so I will attempt a Pumpernickel Bread sometime in the near future.

That was a little Forking Truth about Pumpernickel Bread.

The Forking Truth