Archive for category: Friday Afternoon

Back when there were 15 stars & stripes on our glorious flag, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Captain Meriwether Lewis & Second Lieutenant William Clark on an expedition that would change our country forever.  Wouldn’t it be great to have seen the country back in those times? Some of the paintings above give a flavor of the beauty and how tough the going really was. And thanks to that expedition, I can use a car to take my family to see our beautiful US of A.  :))  Really interesting read.

Ever go for a walk, a run, or jump in the car and head off, not really knowing what’s ahead, or where you’ll end up?  I do, and really love the “unknown”. Back in the very early days of our Nation, it was called an expedition.  No, not the car – the old-fashioned kind, where incredibly brave men (and women) packed up their stuff, gathered up some wagons, boats, grub and strong animals and started exploring.  No maps, no GPS – just a direction – talk about a PIA (Pain in the @%$) Job!  On the surface, it seems pretty reasonable, right … “hey guys, just go in this direction and see where it takes you”.  As a kid, I used to love exploring the neighborhoods on my bike – go down a new street, find a different way home, cut through some woods or just peddle around looking for some of my buds.  Not much risk involved really. Dad and Mom on the other hand would take the family (all of us!) on incredible driving road trips, eventually a few of my siblings have actually been to all 50 states! But when the President of the United States says he’s looking for “the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce”, and commissions your team to go … well, I guess you go.  Today marks the day when The Corps of Discovery departed from Camp Dubois (Camp Wood) at 4 pm on May 14, 1804. Under William Clark’s command, they traveled up the Missouri River in their keelboat and two pirogues to St. Charles, Missouri, where Meriwether Lewis joined them six days later. The expedition set out the next afternoon, May 21, where as many as 45 members, including the officers, enlisted military personnel, civilian volunteers, and support team headed West.  Here is just some of the history provided on Wikipedia – it’s fascinating!  I left in a lot of the links, as the story has so many “legs” to it. Enjoy.  And get on your bike this weekend and go exploring!

The Lewis and Clark Expedition from August 31, 1803, to September 25, 1806, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select group of U.S. Army and civilian volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Second Lieutenant William Clark. The expedition made its way westward, and crossed the Continental Divide of the Americas before reaching the Pacific Coast.

President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the expedition shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 to explore and to map the newly acquired territory, to find a practical route across the western half of the continent, and to establish an American presence in this territory before European powers attempted to establish claims in the region. The campaign’s secondary objectives were scientific and economic: to study the area’s plants, animal life, and geography, and to establish trade with local Native American tribes.

For years, Thomas Jefferson read accounts about the ventures of various explorers in the western frontier, and consequently had a long-held interest in further exploring this mostly unknown region of the continent. In the 1780s, while Minister to France, Jefferson met John Ledyard in Paris and they discussed a possible trip to the Pacific Northwest. Jefferson had also read Captain James Cook‘s A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean (London, 1784), an account of Cook’s third voyage, and Le Page du Pratz’s The History of Louisiana (London, 1763), all of which greatly influenced his decision to send an expedition.

Two years into his presidency, Jefferson asked Congress to fund an expedition through the Louisiana territory to the Pacific Ocean. He did not attempt to make a secret of the Lewis and Clark expedition from Spanish, French, and British officials, but rather claimed different reasons for the venture. He used a secret message to ask for funding due to poor relations with the opposition Federalist Party in Congress (wow, what a surprise – funding battles in Washington). Congress subsequently appropriated $2,324 for supplies and food, (that’s it? – obviously a Kowalski was not on the food list) the appropriation of which was left in Lewis’s charge.

In 1803, Jefferson commissioned the Corps of Discovery and named Army Captain Meriwether Lewis its leader, who then invited William Clark to co-lead the expedition with him. Lewis demonstrated remarkable skills and potential as a frontiersman, and Jefferson made efforts to prepare him for the long journey ahead as the expedition was gaining approval and funding.

Jefferson explained his choice of Lewis: (I love this description) “It was impossible to find a character who to a complete science in botany, natural history, mineralogy & astronomy, joined the firmness of constitution & character, prudence, habits adapted to the woods & a familiarity with the Indian manners and character, requisite for this undertaking. All the latter qualifications Capt. Lewis has.”

A keelboat used for the first year of the journey was built near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1803 at Lewis’s specifications. The boat was completed on August 31 and was immediately loaded with equipment and provisions. Lewis and his crew set sail that afternoon, traveling down the Ohio River to meet up with Clark near Louisville, Kentucky in October 1803 at the Falls of the Ohio. Their goals were to explore the vast territory acquired by the Louisiana Purchase and to establish trade and US sovereignty over the Native Americans along the Missouri River. Jefferson also wanted to establish a US claim of “discovery” to the Pacific Northwest and Oregon territory by documenting an American presence there before European nations could claim the land.

Jefferson’s instructions to the expedition stated: “The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River, & such principle stream of it, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or any other river may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent for the purpose of commerce.^”

The US mint prepared special silver medals with a portrait of Jefferson and inscribed with a message of friendship and peace, called Indian Peace Medals. The soldiers were to distribute them to the tribes that they met. The expedition also prepared advanced weapons to display their military firepower. Among these was an Austrian-made .46 caliber Girandoni air rifle, a repeating rifle with a 20-round tubular magazine that was powerful enough to kill a deer. The expedition was prepared with flintlock firearms, knives, blacksmithing supplies, and cartography equipment and also carried flags, gift bundles, medicine, and other items that they would need for their journey.

The route of Lewis and Clark’s expedition took them up the Missouri River to its headwaters, then on to the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia River, and it may have been influenced by the purported transcontinental journey of Moncacht-Apé . Jefferson had a copy of Le Page’s book in his library detailing Moncacht-Apé’s itinerary, and Lewis carried a copy with him during the expedition. Le Page’s description of Moncacht-Apé’s route across the continent neglects to mention the need to cross the Rocky Mountains, (oops, a small detail) and it might be the source of Lewis and Clark’s mistaken belief that they could easily carry boats from the Missouri’s headwaters to the westward-flowing Columbia.

From St. Charles, the expedition followed the Missouri through what is now Kansas City, Missouri, and Omaha, Nebraska. On August 20, 1804, Sergeant Charles Floyd died, among the first to sign up with the Corps of Discovery and was the only member to die during the expedition. He was buried at a bluff by the river, now named after him, in what is now Sioux City, Iowa..

During the final week of August, Lewis and Clark reached the edge of the Great Plains During the expedition, the group established relations with about two dozen Indian nations, without whose help the expedition would have risked starvation during the harsh winters or become hopelessly lost in the vast ranges of the Rocky Mountains.

After the expedition had set up camp, nearby Indians came to visit in fair numbers, some staying all night. For several days, Lewis and Clark met in council with Mandan chiefs. Here they met a French-Canadian fur trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau, and his young Shoshone wife Sacagawea. Charbonneau at this time began to serve as the expedition’s translator. Peace was established between the expedition and the Mandan chiefs with the sharing of a Mandan ceremonial pipe.

By April 25, Captain Lewis wrote his progress report of the expedition’s activities and observations of the Native American nations they have encountered to date: A Statistical view of the Indian nations inhabiting the Territory of Louisiana, which outlined the names of various tribes, their locations, trading practices, and water routes used, among other things. President Jefferson would later present this report to Congress.

They followed the Missouri to its headwaters, and over the Continental Divide at Lemhi Pass. In canoes, they descended the mountains by the Clearwater River, the Snake River, and the Columbia River, past Celilo Falls, and past what is now Portland, Oregon, at the meeting of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers. Lewis and Clark used William Robert Broughton’s 1792 notes and maps to orient themselves once they reached the lower Columbia River. The sighting of Mount Hood confirmed that the expedition had almost reached the Pacific Ocean.

The expedition sighted the Pacific Ocean for the first time on November 7, 1805, arriving two weeks later, where the expedition faced its second bitter winter camped on the north side of the Columbia River, in a storm-wracked area. Lack of food was a major factor. The elk, the party’s main source of food, had retreated from their usual haunts into the mountains, and the party was now too poor to purchase enough food from neighboring tribes.

On the south side of the Columbia River, 2 miles upstream on the west side of the Netul River (now Lewis and Clark River), they constructed Fort Clatsop. They did this not just for shelter and protection, but also to officially establish the American presence there, with the American flag flying over the fort. During the winter at Fort Clatsop, Lewis committed himself to writing and was determined to remain at the fort until April 1 but was still anxious to move out at the earliest opportunity. By March 22, the stormy weather had subsided and the following morning, on March 23, 1806, the journey home began.

They made their way to Camp Chopunnish in Idaho, along the north bank of the Clearwater River, where the members of the expedition collected 65 horses in preparation to cross the Bitterroot Mountains, lying between modern-day Idaho and western Montana. However, the range was still covered in snow, which prevented the expedition from making the crossing.

As the expedition encountered the various Native American tribes during the course of their journey, they observed and recorded information regarding their lifestyles, customs and the social codes they lived by, as directed by President Jefferson. By western standards, the Native American way of life seemed harsh and unforgiving as witnessed by members of the expedition.

One of the primary customs that distinguished Native American cultures from those of the West was that it was customary for the men to take on two or more wives if they were able to provide for them and often took on a wife or wives who were members of the immediate family circle. Sacagawea, sometimes called Sakajawea or Sakagawea was a Shoshone Native American woman who arrived with her husband Toussaint Charbonneau on the expedition to the Pacific Ocean.

On February 11, 1805, a few weeks after her first contact with the expedition, Sacagawea went into labor which was slow and painful, so the Frenchman Charbonneau suggested she be given a potion of rattlesnake’s rattle to aid in her delivery (yum – Lewis luckily happened to have some snake’s rattle with him). A short time after administering the potion, she delivered a healthy boy who was given the name Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. Sacagawea was not the guide for the Expedition, but was important to them as an interpreter and in other ways, as she played an important role in diplomatic relations by talking to chiefs, easing tensions, and giving the impression of a peaceful mission.

The Corps met their objective of reaching the Pacific, mapping and establishing their presence for a legal claim to the land. They established diplomatic relations and trade with at least two dozen indigenous nations. They did not find a continuous waterway to the Pacific Ocean but located an Indian trail that led from the upper end of the Missouri River to the Columbia River which ran to the Pacific Ocean. They gained information about the natural habitat, flora and fauna, bringing back various plant, seed and mineral specimens. They mapped the topography of the land, designating the location of mountain ranges, rivers, and the many Native American tribes during their journey. They also learned and recorded much about the language and customs of the Indian tribes they encountered, and brought back many of their artifacts, including bows, clothing and ceremonial robes.

Detailed timeline

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DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

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I don’t suppose all those small humans pictured above really care how the ice cream cone is made—but I do.  :)))))  Read on my friends!!!

Ice cream.  It’s awesome – in bowls is good with syrup and peanuts and dash of whipped cream. But I think the most fun is in a cone.  No matter your age, there’s just nothing like shaping, licking and spinning a cone, catching the drips and savoring the deliciousness.  As a “foodie”, I have pretty much tried every flavor out there – maple walnut (not a favorite), superman, cherry chocolate chip, moose tracks and of course good old vanilla.  Ben & Jerry have had fun with names and mixtures, but I think my favorite is vanilla, because it goes with everything! Stopping in the supermarket aisle, I’m amazed at the variety in container size and different taste choices.  And then there’s the cones – for me it’s a toss-up – traditional or waffle.  I saw online that today marks a great day in history linked to the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.  Officially named the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, it has become a uniquely powerful magnet for food origin stories, including the hamburger, the hot dog, peanut butter, iced tea, the club sandwich and cotton candy. All have been alleged to have been invented on the fairgrounds in St. Louis in 1904, or at least popularized there. But none of them actually were.  There is one classic American food item, however, whose origins truly are linked to the 1904 Fair: the ice cream cone. Despite dramatic tales of quick-witted ice cream vendors running out of cups and rolling waffles into improvised cones, this is a story about good old-fashioned hustle, the ambition of newly arrived immigrants seeking their fortunes…and, of course, plenty of lawyers. How much more all-American could a food story be?  Here’s a detailed video and detailed history.  Enjoy the read, and thanks to YouTube and seriouseats.com for the info.

How to Make Ice Cream Cone Inside the Factory
And Check This Out!

• Antecedents to the ice cream cone certainly existed long before 1904. People had been eating ice cream from various cone-like containers for decades; they just didn’t eat the containers themselves.
• Way back in 1807, Philibert-Louis Debucourt created an etching called The Interior of the Café Frascati, which shows, alongside elegant Parisians enjoying lemonade and punch, a woman lifting to her mouth an oddly spiral-shaped utensil, containing what might very well be ice cream. Culinary historian Robin Weir claims that this is the first pictorial evidence of an ice cream cone, and he might be right. (it could also be a really ugly spoon or the world’s first corn dog).
• As ice cream grew in popularity in the 19th century, roving vendors began selling it on city streets in a variety of cups and containers, including cone-shaped glass utensils and the notoriously unsanitary “penny licks” —tiny stemmed glasses in which ices were sold at the British seashore and on London streets.
• One of the earliest alternatives to the penny lick was “hokey-pokey,” devised by immigrant street vendors in London in the 1870s. A British journal described hokey-pokey as “a coarse kind of Neapolitan ice” made with a blend of one part water to two parts milk, sweetened and thickened with sugar and cornstarch. The mixture was frozen, pressed into rectangular molds, then cut into slices and wrapped in white paper, to be sold from vendors’ carts.
• In both England and the US, Italian immigrants dominated the urban ice cream trade, and innovations within it.  In 1901, Antonio Valvona, an Italian citizen living in Manchester, England, filed a patent for an “Apparatus for Baking Biscuit Cups for Ice Cream.” The device was designed for baking “dough or paste…composed of the same materials as are employed in the manufacture of biscuits [that is, cookies], and when baked the said cups or dishes may be filled with ice-cream, which can then be sold by the venders of ice-cream in public thoroughfares or other places.”
• The following year, Valvona teamed up with Frank Marchiony, an Italian immigrant in New York, to form the Valvona-Marchiony Company, which produced the patented cups and the ice cream sold in them. Valvona operated the firm’s factory in the UK, while Marchiony ran the American operations, first on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and then in Brooklyn as trade grew.
• By 1904, Marchiony had advanced from pushing a solo street cart to operating “two big wafer and ice cream factories” and a fleet of 200 carts, according to a newspaper profile at the time. But Marchiony’s carts had plenty of competition on the streets of Manhattan, including from those of his cousin, Italo Marchiony, who had worked for the Valvona-Marchiony Company briefly, but by 1903 had established a rival ice cream firm. In September of that year, Italo Marchiony filed a patent for his own “molding apparatus used in the manufacture of ice cream cups and the like.”
• Italo’s innovation, he claimed, was that his design made it possible to mold biscuit paste “in particular and unusual shapes” that were not possible before due to “the delicacy of the substance molded and the difficulty of forming and extracting the same from the molds.” Unlike Valvona’s two-part mold, which had a hinged top and bottom that closed like a clamshell.
• And that’s where things stood on the eve of the St. Louis World’s Fair. People were eating ice cream from edible containers, but nothing that anyone today would consider an ice cream cone.
• One thing we know for sure: Visitors at the World’s Fair ate plenty of ice cream in cones—or cornucopias, as they were called at the time. Mrs. F. M. Hicklin wrote home to her family in South Carolina that the “waffle cornucopia filled with ice cream” was a treat widely enjoyed on “the Pike”—the Exposition’s version of a midway, a mile-long strip lined with cafes, amusements, and food concessions.
• The long cones have waffled sides and pointed bottoms, and they appear to resemble the molded type of waffle cone familiar to us today instead of just a rolled-up waffle. This suggests that the confection was neither an improvised creation from a waffle stand nor a product of Valvona’s or Italo Marchiony’s biscuit-cup mold.
• Some suspect that it wasn’t the work of last-minute desperation, but rather a dodge to get around restrictive concessionaire licensing.  To sell any sort of item—from jewelry and souvenirs to food and beverages—vendors had to apply to and be accepted by the Exposition’s Division of Concessions and Amusements. The competition was stiff, for there was a fortune to be made from selling snacks and drinks to daily crowds of 35,000 or more captive customers.
• All we know for sure is that the ice cream cornucopia had been introduced to America, and it was about to become an even bigger hit than it had been at the Exposition.
• By May 1904, newspapers from Florida to North Dakota were running ads and articles that referenced “Cornucopia Ice Cream Sandwiches.” Many noted that the trendy new product had originated on the Pike in St. Louis.
• In August, the Macon Telegraph profiled the Cornucopia Waffle Oven Company of St. Louis, which had just been awarded the cone concession for the Tri-State Fair in Georgia. “This company is introducing a new novelty for serving ice cream,” the paper reported. “They were first introduced at the great world’s fair at St. Louis and immediately, on account of its daintiness and neatness, became the most popular confection and have proven equally so in the East, and especially at the parks at Coney Island, Atlantic City, Chicago and various other famous resorts.” The ice cream cone had arrived.
• Back in Brooklyn, Frank Marchiony’s business at the Valvona-Marchiony Company was thriving. A profile that year in the Brooklyn Eagle reported that Marchiony was “constantly adding to the plant” and that Valvona-Marchiony had become “the largest manufacturer of the kind in the United States.”
• In the now-booming ice cream cone market, the Valvona-Marchiony Company had a valuable asset: Antonio Valvona’s patent for his “apparatus for baking biscuit cups.” The firm landed a big victory in 1905 when a federal judge sustained the validity of Valvona’s patent and ordered a competitor named D’Adamo to cease using his version of the device, which the judge declared to be “identical with the complainant’s, except in a trifling detail.”
• In 1910, the Valvona-Marchiony Company’s lawyers started going after competitors selling cone-shaped containers, too, slapping patent infringement suits against companies from Missouri to Ohio to Indiana. Marchiony hired private detectives in Pittsburgh to infiltrate the Star Wafer Company’s factory and identify what they claimed were copycat baking molds. On July 10, 1910, Frank Marchiony even filed suit against his own cousin, Italo, who had since moved out to Hoboken, New Jersey, and was operating a large factory with his own patented molds.
• In a surprising twist, the federal court in New Jersey ruled that Italo Marchiony’s patent was invalid and infringed upon his cousin’s firm. “Structurally and functionally the devices are substantially alike,” the judge determined, then added insult to injury by stating that “the defendant [Marchiony] never invented a single detail of the apparatus in question.” Italo was ordered to discontinue production and pay damages, but his lawyers secured a stay as they appealed the decision.
• The Federal Court of Appeals in Philadelphia settled the matter once and for all in 1914, in a case that subsumed the Italo Marchiony appeal and that of many other manufacturers. The judge took a narrow reading of Valvona’s patent, concluding that his innovation was limited to details of the mold’s design related to heat conduction (now that’s something we love here at KHT) and in no way prevented others from creating other types of baking molds.
• “All Can Make Cones!” the International Confectioner trade journal jubilantly declared. The Valvona patent became essentially useless, and the American ice cream cone industry has never looked back.
• Curiously enough, none of the records from the many court cases make any reference to the St. Louis World’s Fair, and none of the defendants purported to have invented the ice cream cone by rolling up a waffle. It wasn’t until more than a decade after the Fair that people starting making such claims. Almost all the tellings involve an element of drama—typically, an ice cream vendor runs out of cups, or guests start ruining their clothes as they eat melting ice cream with spoons, and some crafty person saves the day with a rolled-up waffle.
• With so many competing after-the-fact stories and so little tangible evidence, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever know who came up with the ice cream cone. Maybe the real lesson from this story is that the certainty and drama we crave in food histories—the idea that a single person had to have been the first, and that their invention was made in a flash of brilliance to solve an immediate emergency—what we here at KHT proudly call “solving you most pressing PIA (pain in the @%$) Jobs!”

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DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

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