Tag: American

10 interesting facts about the iconic American donuts – Italian Cuisine

10 curiosities on the colorful and delicious donuts donuts, always the favorite breakfast and one of the comfort food par excellence of the American people

The greedy ones "Donut", the famous fried and glazed American donuts, can be considered one of the iconic foods par excellence of American culture and cuisine, especially in terms of desserts and pastries. Yet, incredible but true, these colorful and low-calorie donuts are actually of Dutch origin. This is just one of the many curiosities that lie behind this American comfort food: From the origin of the name to the most bizarre variants, up to the extraordinary world records won by voracious donut eaters.

1. The Dutch origin of American donuts

Although Americans are proud of their donuts, the origin of the donuts must be attributed to the Dutch. Since the mid-nineteenth century, what could be considered the ancestor of donuts, or a local sweet called olykoek, spread in the Netherlands: small fritters fried in pork fat. The Dutch immigrants exported this cake to America, giving way to what would be the evolution of the American donut to the present day.

2. Why do donuts have holes?

Often these "donuts without holes" were stuffed with dried fruit or other, also to facilitate the difficult cooking of the internal part of the dough. To solve this problem even more effectively, in 1847 the naval captain Hansen Gregory of New England had theintuition to pierce the center of the dough before frying it, giving life to what would have been the first real donut in history.

3. The first machine to make donuts

To consolidate the ring shape of the donuts, as well as its diffusion and its success at national level, was the invention, in 1920, the first automatic machine, by the Russian immigrant Adolph Levitt. The official presentation of this machine happened at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1934, during which the donuts were called “the food of the century of progress”.

4. The origin of the word "donut"

THE'origin of the name "ciambella" (donut) is much discussed. Some say it refers to nuts that were placed inside the dough ball, while others say it refers to "knots of dough", which is another popular form of olykoek. The first written record of the word "donut" dates back to an 1809 publication by Washington Irving, A History of New York.

5. The "Donut Day"

Donut Day (National Donut Day) is celebrated every year from afar 1938 and even has an official website. This festival was created to celebrate the Salvation Army which provided donuts to American troops abroad free of charge during the First World War.

6. The numbers of the Dunkin 'Donuts empire

Today Dunkin ’Donuts is the most famous and largest donut shop chain, with over 10 thousand stores in 33 countries serving more than 5 million customers a day. The first Dunkin ’Donuts was opened in 1950.

7. The most expensive donut in the world (for a good cause)

Krispy Kreme Donuts, Inc., the most famous American donut brand, realized in 2014 the most expensive donut in the world, at the price of 1000 pounds. The precious donut in question, prepared with Belgian chocolate and covered with golden leaves and a sprinkling of edible diamonds, was presented at the Selfridges department store in the United Kingdom during the National Donut Week for a fundraiser for the UK Children's charity Trust.

8. The most bizarre donuts in the world

Although the classic American donut is fried and glazed, there are also imaginative variations, with all kinds of sweet or savory ingredients. Between most bizarre proposals who made the news in the United States there are the savory pizzas donut, the tasty donut mac and cheese, the oriental sushi donut, the candy-pink Bubblegum donuts and finally the alcoholic Shot Glass Donuts, placed on shot glasses and filled with liquor.

9. Competition donut eaters

As with any traditional US food, there is also a section dedicated to world records. It dates back to 2014 the one for the donut eaten faster, moreover without hands and without licking lips; the record is 11.41 seconds, and was reached by Philip Joseph Santoro (USA), in San Francisco, California. In 2017, instead, the American YouTube star and professional eater Kevin "LA Beast" Strahle managed to swallow six donuts in three minutes, all without licking each other's lips.

10. The real donuts of Homer Simpson

Impossible not to associate the American donuts with the cartoon character Homer Simpson, which made us laugh so much and dream with his own gluttonous donuts covered with pink icing. Well, to the delight of the many fans of America's most popular cartoon, in 2018 Krispi Kremenel released a special edition of the two “Homer style” donuts, made with a creamy white strawberry chocolate and a layer of colored sugar ; assured commercial success.

Photo: ciambella americana_Flickr_m01229.jpg
Photo: typical American donut dinut_pixabay.jpg
Photo: Colored American donut_Wall_Food_Michael Stern.jpg
Photo: donuts various donut_Pixabay.jpg

Yacon, the South American superfood tuber that is conquering the world – Italian Cuisine

Yacon is the sweet yet low-calorie tuber from the Andes that is conquering the world because of its delicious taste and its beneficial properties that make it a superfood in effect.

The yacon, a low-calorie tuber, rich in nutrients, with a pleasant crunchy texture and a rather sweet taste, has all the credentials to become one of the next trends "superfood". Originally from South America, in recent years the yacon has been cultivated and marketed in everything and is particularly popular in the organic sector. More and more are the studies that ascertain its beneficial properties and more and more are also the products based on yacon, as well as the recipes in which it is used.

From the Andes to commercial success

This tuber grows spontaneously in the Cordillera of the Andes, in particular in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador, and for some years it has also been cultivated in the United States, in Brazil, in Argentina, in New Zealand, in Australia and in various parts of south-east Asia . Its marketing has recently increased significantly, just as small-scale production has increased. In supermarkets and grocery stores, mostly biological, yacón can be purchased in the form of syrup, powder, tea or dehydrated slices, but they are also increasingly common yacon based products including cereal or chocolate bars, cereals, vegetable-based protein supplements, superfood powders and capsules and even toothpaste.

What makes this tuber an exceptional superfood

The nutritional characteristics, and in particular its dietary potential, make it yacon a food of great interest, ideal for natural, low-calorie and vegetable-based diets. In particular, the yacon has prebiotic properties, is rich in natural fibers and iron, is able to dampen the sense of hunger and, above all, is a natural sweetener since it is rich in oligofructose, a low-calorie sugar that can fight blood sugar and regulate insulin in the blood.
In short, this good and superfood ingredient is particularly suitable for overweight people, for those suffering from high cholesterol and for those who suffer from digestive irregularities.

How to use the yacon in the kitchen

Beyond the health benefits and the possible intake of this tuber in the form of sweetener or natural supplements, the rediscovery of the yacon and its popularity also regards its versatile use in the kitchen.
The taste of this naturally sweet food it is delicate and juicy and recalls a cross between Asian pear (nashi), apple and a Mexican potato (jicama), while the consistency has been repeatedly associated with that of Chinese water chestnuts.
The yacon it tends to absorb sauces and condiments and can be eaten raw, simply washed and peeled, perhaps cut into thin slices or grated, to be added to fresh summer salads to give a pleasant, refreshing and fruity touch. In this case it is advisable to cover it with a little lemon juice first, to prevent it from blackening too much. For example, the tuber can be grated with carrots and seasoned with sunflower seeds or used instead of apples in the American Waldorf salad or in the traditional South American salpicón salad. The yacon can finally be cut into slices and fried or cooked and added to soups.
Its pleasant sweetness combined with the low calorie content make it finally ideal for tasty and light desserts, such as pancakes, puddings, desserts, or used instead of apples as the main ingredient of cakes and pies.

Incoming search terms:

An American startup launches edible straws with algae – Italian Cuisine

An American startup, Loliware, launches the straw of the future, an innovative, ecological and above all edible product made with algae

The disposable use of plastic straws and their damage in environmental terms have become a topic of global interest, so much so that some countries and cities have not only banned their use in restaurants and bars but are also adopting eco-friendly alternatives. Also in the United States, where according to the Plastic Pollution Coalition more than 500 million disposable straws are consumed a day, something is moving, between proposed laws and the promotion or launch of straws made with sustainable materials such as steel or bamboo. However, one of the recent and most interesting innovations comes from an American startup, the LOLIWARE, which launched those promise to be the cnests of the future.

An eco-friendly straw to eat

LOLIWARE, a New York startup whose team includes industrial designers and scientific experts in the food and sustainability sectors, is the first company in the world to have patented a straw that is not only ecological but also edible. This product, similar in appearance to the usual plastic straws, is in fact 100% plastic-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, GMO-free but above all it is based on algae. This vegetable ingredient, in fact, besides being a super food, is a natural regenerative resource capable of capturing CO2, renewable and sustainable. The LOLIWARE has also designed these innovative canes so that they have the same functionality that is expected from a plastic straw, that is a 24-hour duration in a beverage and a generic maximum duration of 24 months.

The green mission of LOLIWARE

As we have seen, the environmental impact of using straws in the world is a very serious problem, and alarming numbers prove it; every day in the world one billion plastic straws are used, and most of them end up in the oceans, with disastrous consequences for animals, but also for the environment. The plastic materials used daily, which take hundreds of years to decompose, represent 70% of the polluting waste in the oceans. The objective of LOLIWARE is to stem the problem, with a unique and alternative product that is "ipercompostabile", Or capable of rapidly disintegrating without any consequences for the ecosystem of the seas and oceans and for the environment in general. The company said it intends to produce 30 billion straws by 2020, hoping one day to replace the 500 million plastic straws that are used and discarded every day in the United States, especially in places with a high concentration of waste such as stadiums, fast food and cafeterias. Currently their straws can be pre-ordered on Kickstarter and Indiegogo crowdfunding sites, but we expect and hope that they will soon be on the market, revolutionizing our bad habits of using non-recyclable plastics.

Photo: cannucce_Pixabay_Alexas_Fotos.jpg