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Chef James

“The duty of a good Cuisinier is to transmit to the next generation everything he has learned and experienced.”
 
Fernand Point, 1941

FEATURED FOR MARCH

Updated: Over 9,000 Food Festivals

St. Patrick’s Day Facts & Food

St. Patrick’s Day Recipes
 

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FEATURED RECIPES & TIPS

· Original Frank's Redhot Wings

· Ultimate Party Wings

· More Chicken Wing Recipes

· More Appetizer Recipes·

· French Onion Dip

· Jack's Screaming Red Sauce

· Potato Salad Recipes

· Cole Slaw Recipes

· Chicken Salad Recipes

· Kickoff Kabobs

· Banana Bread Recipes

· Mushroom Appetizer Recipes

· Crunchy Snack Mixes

· Mustard and Mustard Sauces

· Salsa Recipes

· Baked and Stuffed Potato Recipes

· Mac & Cheese Recipes
 

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March Food Holidays:

For Details, History and more DAY, WEEK and MONTH Food Holiday designations, including LINKS to Holiday Origins and Additional Information:
SEE Detailed MARCH Food Calendar

MARCH is:

• American Red Cross Month
  (Annual Presidential Proclamation since 1943)

• Caffeine Awareness Month

• Grain of the Month: Quinoa

• National Flour Month

• National Frozen Food Month

• National Kidney Month

• National Noodle Month

• National Nutrition Month  (A nutrition education and information campaign sponsored annually by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

• National Peanut Month (National Peanut Month had its beginnings as National Peanut Week in 1941. It was expanded to a month-long celebration in 1974)

• National Sauce Month

• Canada: Nutrition Month

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DID YOU KNOW?

The bite and aroma of the horseradish root are almost absent until it is grated or ground. During this process, as the root cells are crushed, volatile oils known as isothiocyanate are released. Vinegar stops this reaction and stabilizes the flavor. For milder horseradish, vinegar is added immediately.

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Monday, March 2, 2026

Daily Trivia Questions are below

TODAY’S FOOD QUOTE

“I have no truck with lettuce, cabbage, and similar chlorophyll. Any dietitian will tell you that a running foot of apple strudel contains four times the vitamins of a bushel of beans.”
S.J. Perelman
 

FOOD HOLIDAYS - TODAY IS:

• National Banana Cream Pie Day
   (Banana Cream Pie Recipes)

• Egg McMuffin Day [mcdonalds.com]

• National School Breakfast Week (March 2-6, 2026 - 1st full week in March) [School Nutrition Assoc]
  (Breakfast Recipes  ---  Breakfast Facts & Trivia)
  (Breakfast Quotes)

• UK: [British Pie Week] (March 2-8, 2026)
  (Pie Recipes  ---  Pie Trivia  ---  Pie Quotes)

• UK: [SPAM Appreciation Week]  (March 2-8, 2026)
 

TODAY IN FOOD HISTORY

1787 William Bass died (born 1717). English brewer, founder of Bass Brewery in 1777 in Burton-on-Trent.

1799 The first U.S. weights and measures law was passed by Congress. Actually it did not set standards, but rather required the surveyor of each port to test and correct the instruments and weights used to calculate duties on imports. Basically each surveyor was on his own in setting the standards to be tested.
(Weights & Measures Facts)

1863 Congress authorized a track width of 4-ft 8-1/2 in. as the standard for the Union Pacific Railroad, which would become the standard width for most of the world.

1865 John James McLaughlin was born (died Jan 28, 1914). Canadian chemist and pharmacist, founder of Canada Dry soft drink brand.

1887 Harry E. Soref was born. Inventor of the laminated steel padlock, founder of the Master Lock Company in 1921. The company became well known in 1928 when it shipped 147,600 padlocks to federal prohibition agents in New York for locking up speakeasies they raided.

1903 The 12 story, 416 room Martha Washington Hotel opened in New York City. It was the first hotel exclusively for women (but men could eat in the restaurant).

1904 Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) was born. Writer and cartoonist. A few of his childrens books were 'Green Eggs and Ham,' 'One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish,' 'Scrambled Eggs Super!' and 'The Butter Battle Book'

1923 Canada and the U.S. sign the 'Halibut Treaty' (Convention for the Preservation of the Halibut Fishery of the Northern Pacific Ocean) to preserve North Pacific fish stocks, providing for joint management of the Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) and a 3-month closed winter season.  This was Canada's first treaty negotiated independently of Britain.

1930 Actor John Cullum was born. He played the restaurateur on the TV show ‘Northern Exposure’.

1933 The classic film 'King Kong' premiered at Radio City Music Hall and the RKO Roxy theaters in New York City.

1935 Porky Pig, Warner Bros. Loony Tunes character, made his debut in the animated short 'I Haven't Got a Hat'

1942 The Stage Door Canteen opened in New York in the basement of the 44th Street Theater. It offered servicemen free nights of dancing, entertainment, food and nonalcoholic drinks, and even opportunities to rub shoulders with celebrities.

1962 The Twilight Zone episode 'To Serve Man' premiered. It is about aliens who arrive here ‘to serve man,’ but not quite in the way we assumed. Their manual on how ‘to serve man’ turns out to be a cookbook.

1974 U.S. first class postage rates are raised to 10 cents and post cards to 8 cents.

1976 The musical 'Bubbling Brown Sugar' opened on Broadway.

1984 Ray Kroc's first McDonald's franchise restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois closed. It had opened for business on April 15, 1955.

1989 A phone call to the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, Chile begins a chain of events that results in an 11 day embargo of Chilian fruit. The anonymous phone call, and another one on March 9, warns that Red Flame grapes on the way to the U.S. have been injected with cyanide. Over 2 million crates of Chilean fruit is impounded and 20.000 Chilean food workers lose their jobs. Consumers in the U.S. and several other countries stop eating grapes of any kind for a month. No real evidence of contamination was found.

1995 The musical 'Smokey Joe's Cafe' opened in New York City.

2011 The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the Eastern Cougar officially extinct,

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A FEW FEATURED FOOD FESTIVALS
(See All 9,000 Food, Wine & Beer Festivals)

February 21-March 2, 2026  New York City Beer Week
New York, New York

February 26-March 8, 2026  Florida Strawberry Festival - Plant City, Florida

March 1-31, 2026 - Taste Atlantic City
Atlantic City, New Jersey

March 1-31, 2026  Washington Wine Month
Various locations, Washington

March 6-15, 2026 - 44th Annual Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

March 7, 2026  Schell's Bock Fest
New Ulm, Minnesota

March 7-8, 2026 - Downtown Chandler Barbeque Festival - Chandler, Arizona

(SEE ALL FOOD FESTIVALS and OTHER FOOD EVENTS)
 

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FOOD TRIVIA QUIZ    (new DAILY questions)

1) All of the following events took place in the same year.  What year is it?
· Gail Borden creates condensed milk.
· Native American Chef George Crum invented potato chips at Moon's Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York.
· Keebler Biscuits are introduced in Philadelphia by baker Godfrey Keebler.

2) A thistle-like Eurasian plant (Carthamus tinctorius) of the daisy family, having heads of red or orange flowers that are the source of a red dye. The seeds, which look like small pine nuts, contain an oil used in foods (especially margarine), cosmetics, paints, and medicine. The flower petals are sometimes used as a substitute for saffron.
Name this plant.

3) An aromatic herb, a member of the parsley or carrot family, and indigenous to the regions around the Black and Caspian Seas. It is an essential ingredient of fines herbes, widely used in French cuisine.  Some varieties also have edible roots which are like small turnips, and were enjoyed by the early Greeks and Romans, and in England during the 14th to 17th centuries.
Name this herb.

Click Here for Today’s Quiz Answers
 

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Read an article about Chef James and the FoodReference.com website published in the Winona Daily News, Minneapolis StarTribune, and numerous other newspapers: Click here for the Article
 

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Dedication
This website is dedicated to:
· Gladys Ehler, my mother, who taught me patience and how to make Sauerbraten (it is still my favorite)
· Edward Ehler, my father, who taught me a love of books and history.
· Barbara Saba, my sister, who taught me how to dance.
· Cpl. Thomas E. Saba, my nephew.  Died in action on Feb. 7, 2007 in Iraq.  He was 30 yrs. young.

          Chef James
 

TOP

DID YOU KNOW

Unripe bananas have about 25% starch and only 1% sugar. Natural enzyme action converts this high starch content to sugar, so ripe bananas have about a 20% sugar content.

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A FOOD LIFE

"There are those who say that a life devoted to food -- cooking it, eating it, writing about it, even dreaming about it -- is a frivolous life, an indulgent life.  I would disagree.  If we do not care what we eat, we do not care for ourselves, and if we do not care for ourselves, how can we care for others?"
Fictional cookery writer Hilary Small, in episode 6, series 2 of 'Pie In the Sky'

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Click Here for
Food Emergency
Websites, Phone #s, E-mails, etc.

 

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Classic Fish and Seafood Recipes
 

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DID YOU KNOW?

Lactose is a disaccharide (compound sugar) found in milk, also called milk sugar.  It forms about 5% of cow's milk (about 2-8% in the milk of all mammals).  It is the least sweet of natural sugars. Used as a food additive in baked goods, confections, baby foods, etc. 

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IN SEASON FOR WINTER

VEGETABLES
(Recipes  --  Tips)
Avocados
Beets
Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage
Carrots
Celery
Collard Greens
Kale
Leeks
Onions
Parsnips
Plantains
Potatoes
Pumpkin
Rutabagas
Sweet Potatoes & Yams
Swiss Chard
Turnips
Winter Squash

FRUITS (Tips)
Apples
Bananas
Grapefruit
Grapes
Kiwifruit
Lemons
Limes
Oranges
Pears
Pomegranates

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DID YOU KNOW?

Cumin 'seeds' are actually the small dried fruits of the plant.

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Website last updated on Monday, March 2, 2026