Truffles Newsletter

                              March is National Peanut Month, and what started as a week-long observance in 1941, became a full month in 1974 to celebrate its role in our culture, health benefits and use in cookery.  Primarily grown in the tropics and subtropics, the peanut is native to South America, where peanut pods were discovered and dated to approximately 7600 years old. Cultivation spread throughout Mesoamerica and eventually into Europe during the 19th century. European traders distributed peanuts worldwide, and eventually they arrived in America during the colonial period.             ...

The Toll House Inn in MA, courtesy of New England History As early as 1928, newspapers were printing ads for majorsupermarkets that were baking and selling cookiescontaining chips of chocolate. But it wasn’t until 1938 that theChocolate Chip Cookie as we know it today became America’s all-time favorite cookietreat. To this day, it is the official state cookie of Massachusetts. In 1930, during the Great Depression, Ruth Graves Wakefield - acollege educated dietitian, teacher and chef - and her husbandKenneth, purchased a tourist lodge in Whitman, Massachusetts.They called it The Toll House Inn. It began with seven tables, whichsoon expanded...

Tom Browne‘s advertisement postcard for Fry's chocolate, 1912 – Public Domain The origins of cacao date back to ancient Mesoamerica – but chocolate in the form we now know it has a much shorter history.   Cacao – the raw form of the cocoa bean – has been found in artifacts dating as far back as 3600 BC.  Its first known specific use is by the Olmecs in Mesoamerica (what is now Mexico and Central America) in 1800 BC, when it was ground with chilies to create an astringent drink, similar to black coffee. In the 8th century AD, Mayans and...