Halloween is often seen as a children’s holiday, or a holiday that used to be just for children but has since turned into an adult masquerade festival, too.  This was never really true.  In fact, getting kids in on the fun is a pretty recent development. The roots of Halloween are kind of scary.  They date back to pre-Christian Celtic Britain, known then as the festival of Samhain in Ireland, or Calan Gaeaf in other Celtic-speaking regions.  It took place in the middle of autumn, like it does today, as a way to mark the coming of winter.  The souls of the dead were said to walk the earth, and people would dress up as the dead in order to protect themselves from these souls.  Later, the Catholic Church made November 1  All Saints’ Day , a celebration of Christian saints, and made November 2  All Souls’ Day , a day to remember the dead.  These days were a major holiday on the Christian calendar, so October 31 was celebrated as the vi...

As a kid, I always imagined the marshmallow to be some kind of plant.  I remember being surprised to learn that that stuff in the rocky road ice cream, that I just dropped in my hot chocolate, that I’m roasting over the fire, was not actually from a plant.  Later on I was surprised again to learn that the marshmallow is indeed a plant, no matter what it is that we eat as a confection. Althaea officinales , aka the marshmallow plant The marshmallow is a nice looking green plant with white flowers, indigenous to the Mediterranean region.  The first people to use it for anything were the ancient Egyptians, who found it to make nice decorations, and who also mashed up its flowers, roots and leaves for herbal medicine.  It was used to deal with irritated mucous membranes and different kinds of ulcers.  There was also a kind of ancient confection that they Egyptians developed, made from the roots of the plants, that evolved into the common Middle Eastern conf...

An oft-repeated expression you hear in America goes, “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.  Wisdom is knowing not to put on in a fruit salad.”  This is true in America and many other countries: however a tomato might be classified scientifically, it’s treated as a vegetable in cuisine.  Since a tomato is developed in the ovary of the flower of the tomato plant, it’s technically a fruit.  Fruits contain the seeds of the plant, which is why apples and oranges are fruits, like cherries, blueberries and grapes, and even beans and some nuts.  Since more people tend to engage in cooking and not botany, referring to a tomato as a fruit will only upset the most dedicated pedant. There was a time when few people (besides botanists) gave this matter much thought.  Due to its savory flavor, tomatoes were referred to throughout the United States as vegetables.  The tomato was native to Central America and northwestern South America, and follo...

It’s been a while since a bachelor has been elected president of the United States.  In fact, it’s only happened twice.  The first was James Buchanan, in 1856, and the second was Stephen Grover Cleveland in 1884.  (The last bachelor to be nominated for president by a major political party was Adlai Stevenson, the unsuccessful Democratic nominee in 1952 and 1956.)  This probably accounts for why there have been so few weddings in the White House.  The first White House wedding took place during Cleveland’s first term, on June 2, 1886, when the president married Frances Folsom. Image of the Clevelands’ marriage.  The couple expressly requested there be no photographs taken. Cleveland had known Frances Folsom all her life.  She was the daughter of Oscar Folsom, his law partner and best friend.  When Mr. Folsom died in a violent carriage accident at the age of 37 in 1875, Cleveland became the executor of his partner’s estate, and took und...