The Food of my “Mixed German” Franconian and Saarland Great Great Grandparents

Above image: Potato meat filled dumplings with Saarland bacon cream sauce. These meat filled potato dumplings, although called something different, are common to both Saarland and Franconia.

If you turn onto Central Avenue at Big Daddy Liquors in Newport, Kentucky, within two blocks you will come onto a rather large Victorian three bay two and a half story Victorian house.    This was the house of my great great grandmother Anna Maria Scharolt Gehring whose image I just received.   She was born to Johann Georg Scharolt and Catherine Berg in Hochstadt, Franconia, and her husband was from the Midwest border of Germany on the Rhine, called Saarland, next to Alsace Lorraine, son of Johann George Gehring and Catharina Weiss.   Then the Saarland was part of the Kingdom of Rhinish Bavaria, or listed as just Bavaria in American records.   This often confuses and misleads geneaologists like me.

Above image: My great great grandmother Anna Maria Victoria Sharolt Gehring (1831-1911)

Anna and her husband, John George Gehring were married in 1849 at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Cincinnati.   They raised 11 children within the Germanic Catholic Community of Corpus Christi Parish in Newport, Kentucky.   John George was a tailor, but his numerous sons became bakers and all worked their adult lives working for Streitman Biscuit in Over-the-Rhine, most commuting from Newport.   They came in chain migration with other families from the same area – names of Frischolz and Timmerman, all whom were witnesses for each others weddings and godparents to each other’s children.

Above Image: My great grandmother Francesca Gehring Schaeser/Schoesser

Above image: My Great Grandmother Francis Gehring Schaeser, back far left and her siblings – William and George Gehring shown here worked at Streitman Biscuit in Over-the-Rhine their whole careers

My Grandmother, Francesca Gehring met a man who worked as a tailor with her father, my great grandfather Jacob Nicholas Schoesser, who came from the same Saarland area as her family, namely the town of St. Ingbert.    His uncle Michael Schoesser had already settled in Cincinnati  in the 1860s at the foot of Mt. Adams at 3^rd street and was a tailor.   He had three daugthers, was a tailor, and was the relative who sponsored my great grandfather.   Unfortunately alcoholism ran in this family.    Michael died of cirrhosis of the liver and his nephew – my great grandfather – would reak havoc on his family with his alcoholism and joblesseness as a result.  

My great grandmother was left to support six children on her own, which she did doing laundry and cooking for families in Cincinnati and Newport.     As her husband went from job to job to no job cutting for various clothing firms, Francis worked for a family in Cincinnati near 3^rd street.  My grandmother, although raised in Newport, at the Central Avenue house of her maternal grandmother, Anna, was born in Cincinnati, when her family rented a tenement apartment on Broadway, and was baptized at St. Philomena German Catholic Church which was demolished.   As a young girl she often accompanied her mother to work at this family and ate meals with them.

After this life in Cincinnati became harder, Francesca moved her family of six into the house of her mother Anna Sharolt Gehring.    She had immigrated with a sister Kunigunda, a cousin Georg, who fought in the 108th infantrry in the Civil War and settled his family in Harrison, Ohio.  

I wish I had the  Franconian and Saarbrucken recipes of my great great grandmother.   But unfortunately that line of recipe inheritance was broken with my Grandmother, the youngest of five girls, who never had to cook a day in her life before marriage.    So, my unskilled grandmother had to learn how to cook from her first landlady in Newport, a German woman named Mrs. Herzog, who taught her how to make cherry pie, barley soup (which her father in law, Theodore Woellert adored when he moved in with them in his later years), goetta and other staples of a Germanic American household.      I have not been able to find this Mrs. Herzog and find what area of Germany she was from, but the dishes she taught my grandmother how to make like  goetta and whispering / poor man’s fruitcake (a fruitcake of only raisins)  are  both from Northwestern Germany.

Even the jam and pastry knowledge of my Great Grandmother Francis, was lost on my grandma.   But my grandma was a good cook, famous for her lasagna (from the Creamette noodle box), chocolate cake (which we would find out was the recipe from the Hershey’s Cocoa tin, goetta, and barley soup.      She found recipes like the chocolate cake from  Hershey’s cocoa mix and perfected them over many years to the extent that we all thought they were hers.

Above image: My grandmother at about six posing in front of her family house on Central Avenue in Newport before going to Cincinnati to get her formal portrait taken for her first communion.

Above image: My grandma’s older sister Emma Schaeser Greifenkamp, who cooked for many years for a large wealthy family in Cincinnati, perhaps using the Franconian recipes of her grandmother.

When I would cut her lawn in high school, she served me pickle loaf sandwiches with her handmade famous cole slaw, which my cousin David still makes for his family and our family get togethers.

In Hochstadt, where Anna Sharolt Gehring was from, fried carp, fresh horseradish with sausage and liverwurst, pork, sauerkraut, and horseradish,  and meat filled potato dumplings were the standard fare.    Also standard was Frankish Sauerbraten, which was thickened with the local lebkuchen or gingerbread and with raisins, giving it a distinct flavor .    One tradition that seems to have been practiced and passed on was the Brotzeit or early happy hour.  IN Franconia, which has the highest concentration of breweries in the world, around 3 PM a light beer like a pale lager or wheat beer is served with a small snack like slices of headcheese/schwartenmagen with sliced onions or small sausages with horseradish or mustard.   There’s a story that in her nineties my great grandmother lived with her oldest daughter Rose and would always ask what time it was because they would enjoy a 3 PM Brotzeit beer everyday together.

Any time something was served with sliced onions in Franconia, it was called ‘mit Musik’ or with music, because of the resulting flatulence it produced.

Above image: traditional country rye bread from Saarland

In Saarbrucken , where Anna’s husband’s  Gehring family hailed, the potato, sour apples, and rye bread are king of the table.     Round potato dumplings called Gefilde/Gefulde filled with minced meat and served in a  regional bacon cream sauce and with sauerkraut is the common comfort food.       Yeasted rye breads and dense rye brown breads would be what my Great Great Grandmother would have made for her family.    And finally, they liked not beer but Riesling wines and the sour apple wine, called Viez, from the region.

Although a mixed German household – Franconian/Saarland – where the two regions met in the middle were through meat filled potato dumplings and rye bread.      Anna may have learned Saarland dishes from her sisters in law who immigrated with her husband’s family.        Man would I love to have my great great grandmother’s recipes

How Gold Star Chili Continues to Foster Amazing Restaurant Concepts in Cincinnati

Above image: Braheim Shteiwi plans to open Court Street Kitchen in Cincinnati

The Cincinnati Chili Family Tree I created in my 2013 Authentic History of Cincinnati Chili book shows how all chili parlors descend from the original Empress Chili parlor, which celebrated its 100 year anniversary in 2022.    But embedded within that family tree is a another one – the Gold Star Chili family tree – of all the non-chili parlor restaurants founded by family who started or still are in the Gold Star family franchise network.

And when we think of Gold Star we think of the original four Daoud brothers and their families who still run the business and own many of the 100 franchises.    But another less well-known Jordanian family name Shteiwi grows from that same family tree.

Braheim Shteiwi recently announced the opening of a new restaurant he’s calling Court Street Kitchen in the burgeoning Court Street District downtown.   He’s calling it elevated American cuisine.    And he comes from many years experience working in the Gold Stars of his family and the other restaurant concepts his father Rakan “Rick” Oudeh Shteiwi founded.    

Rick was born in Al-Fuheis, Jordan,  in 1937, to Oudeh and Jamileih Shteiwi.   He was  one of the oldest of four brothers and 7 sisters – a huge family just like the founding Daoud family.   He was hosted by his Daoud cousins in Cincinnati and started five Gold Star franchise locations.   From there he founded Caruso’s Italian restaurant in 1967 and then took over the legacy Caproni’s Italian restaurant in 1975.   That restaurant had been founded in 1886, but Rick revamped it and made it more than Italian – he added  international cuisine from Middle East, France, and Germany.   Before immigrating to America  – he had worked in restaurants in Germany, Italy ,and France, so he had great techniques and great ideas, but Cincinnati chili was his jumping off point in America and he never forgot it.

Above image: Four founding Daoud brothers of Gold Star

Above image: Shakir Tuimeh Daoud father of the founding brothers of Gold Star married a Shteiwi

The four founding brothers of Gold Star – Fahir, Fahid, Beshir and Beshara Daoud- were born to Shakir Tuaimeh Daoud and Nora Shteiwi – so the Shteiwis are cousins to the Daouds.    They also come from the same Arabic Christian village in Jordan – Al-Fuheis, as the Daoud family, where they grew tobacco for the Gold Star cigarette company – thus the name of the chili parlor.    Shakir – the patriarch of the Daoud family (Tuiemeh in Jordan) was a well-respected community leader and parliament member who was sought after for his advice and hosted many members of the community despite their meager means – a hospitality that extends into both families’ restaurant DNA.    The Daoud brothers helped finance their cousins and train them into the Gold Star Franchise system to get their American start.  

In 1981 Rick founded the iconic Spinning Fork in Fairfield and opened another location in Middletown in 2013.   He also owned Dipaolo’s/Three Trees Catering in Oxford and MIA in Milford.   Before his passing in 2016, Rick had started a new concept called the Silver Tee Kitchen and Craft Bar at the Elks Country Club in Liberty Township.

After his father passed in 2016, Braheim sold the family restaurants and worked for Jeff Ruby, only to revamp Caruso’s a few years later in the former Fairfield Spinning Fork location.

Braheim’s father, Rick hosted younger brother Hatem Shteiwi as a dishwasher at his Springdale Gold Star, while he attended Princeton High School in the early 1980s.    Hatem now owns his own Gold Stars – one in Mason and one on Oxford State Road in Middletown.  He took that Middletown store over in  1998 and it’s now in  the top 5 performing gold stars out of 100 in greater Cincinnati.     He ran the restaurant at the Forest Hills Country Club , and Dad’s restaurant and the Stand in Middletown.

Other Brothers Hukkum and Hakman “George,” were also involved in the various restaurants and all of their seven sisters worked at one time at one of the family-owned restaurants. 

Braheim Shteiwi’s sister Lana Shteiwi Wright ran the former Chateau Pomije in O’Bryanville with her bestie Kelly Lough Phillips for many years.   Lana  took that wine education to co-own today the amazeballs Abigail Street and gourmet hot dog stand, Senate in Over-the-Rhine, with her husband.       Lana’s bestie, Kelly went on to open La Poste in Clifton and Django Taco in Northside, which were two of my ultimate fave restaurants in the early 2000s.      Kelly got her start in the restaurant world working at the Springdale Gold Star, owned by Lana and Braheim’s father, Rick Shteiwi.     

So you see how tangled and many-branched this Gold Star Family Tree is.    You also see that Rick Shteiwi and his family built a restaurant empire that extends from downtown Cincinnati as far north as Dayton, and as far west as Oxford – maybe the largest family restaurant empire in Greater Cincinnati, certainly the one with the most geographic spread.      Much luck to Braheim for his new Court Street Kitchen, but with all that restaurant experience, I don’t think he needs it!

Taco Casa: The Hyde Park East Taco Bell Competitor Still Gong Strong In Cincinnati

Above image: Polly Lafoon at her first Taco Casa on Erie Avenue

When I first moved to the East Side, the Taco Casa at 3516 Eire Avenue was still there, one of two in Hyde Park.   The other just vacated its location last year next to Chipotle on Wasson.    There were overlapping clay tiles on a small faux roof jutting out from the facade.     The Erie Avenue location became the amazing Cumin Restaurant after Taco Casa vacated and that whole strip of 1930s stores were renovated to a more modern aesthetic.   Cumin sparked the food revolution of East Hyde Park that spawned other amazing restaurants like Café Mediterranean and the fabulous Tuscan-inspired Forno, which now occupies the former space. 

Growing up in the 1980s  I was more familiar and a super fan of the other Cincinnati Taco Bell wannabe – Zantigo’s.   There was one on Winton Road near my gradeschool – St Bart’s Consolidated – where a Taco Bell now stands.    I can still taste their hot picante sauce that me and my gradeschool buddies would slurp right out of the condiment packages as sort of a Mexican version of the Skyline hot sauce cracker bomb.    In retrospect, it was a lot like Taco Bell’s current hot sauce.    Who knows which came out first with this formula.     My grade school hosted Zantigo Day several times a year, when we would choose and have our parents approve – from a limited menu of items to have for lunch that day.   It was heaven – a respite from the sometimes horrible cafeteria food we were submitted to in the 1980s.

Taco Casa started life in 1968  as  a Taco Tico franchise – Cincinnati’s first fast food Taco Bell wannabe franchise.    Taco Tico was founded in the early 1960s by Dan and Robin Foley and still exists today as a  privately held franchise, headquartered out of Wichita, Kansas.   It’s now owned by Jerry and Kim Gill, who had their first date at the Texarcana Taco Tico.

The Cincy franchise was bought for a measly $5000 by housewife Pauline “Polly” Laffoon, labelled the Queen of Tex-Mex by the Enquirer, and second wife of Polk Laffoon III, an insurance exec.   Their slogan was “Mexican Food With a Flair, ”   serving burritos, enchiladas, Taco Burgers, tamales, tacos, chili and beer.      Polly’s stepson Peter would bring another type of burger, the Mary Burger, to Cincinnati as owner of Cincinnati’s Hamburger Mary’s on Vine Street in the early 2000s.

By 1971 Laffoon absconded the franchise and went off on her own, renaming the business Taco Casa.   Laffoon claims she was the first to bring the Taco Salad to Cincinnati.   It combined hot spicy beef taco meat on cold salad ingredients with tortilla chips on top.   Taco Bell would come out with the over-the-top taco salad in a fried shell, that was me and my mom’s  jam to eat together in the 1980s.     Taco Bell no longer serves the taco salad.

In my professional career, I would work with the Taco Bell Brand corporate food scientists of Yum! Brands, at their huge corporate facility outside of Houston, Texas, to develop holding technology for their tortillas on the restaurant assembly line.     We would also work with another Houston-based taco franchise called Del Taco.   As it turns out, tortillas are hard to hold warm and keep moist for service.   Ever noticed how crackly McDonald’s breakfast burritos’ tortillas get?   That’s because they hold them wrapped in breathable paper without moisture and they dry out.    You can call me any time you want McDonald’s Corporate– I’m available for consult.

Polly was carted off to El Paso, Texas, from her native Ft. Thomas, by her first husband, an Army officer serving in the Korean War period.   That’s where she fell in love with Tex-Mex food.   They arrived back in Cincinnati in 1956, which at the time had no Mexican food, so she learned how to make it for herself and her family.  

She said that Taco Casa is more than Taco Bell.   It’s not just  bottled hot sauce and prepackaged burrito fillings or canned beans.     It’s fresh ingredients and homemade salsa.   Sound familiar Chipotle?

Her son Clif  Kennedy made the tortillas from stone ground corn masa in a factory he ran next to the Evanston outlet.   He also made chips and tortillas for the Cincinnati Zoo, and other restaurants like El Coyote, Barleycorns and Sylvia’s.   Her son Gene Kennedy also joined the business and she sold it all to him in 2000 when she retired.    By 1988 she had four Taco Casa locations and 55 employees – the original Erie Avenue location, 3700 Montgomery Road in Evanston, 2723 Vine Street in University Village, and 318 New Street downtown – a virtual Tex-Mex Republic.

So what’s happened in the Cincinnati Taco Scene since that first Taco Bell competitor came into town over 50 years ago?   Right now we are having a Birria taco moment in Cincinnati.   One of the best collabs in our city in the last several years has been that of recent Mexican immigrants and gas stations allowing them to park taco trucks on site.  There are several near me – the yummy Jorge’s Tacos on Erie Avenue (owned by an immigrant from Jalisco, Mexico, Birria’s birthplace), one on Red Bank and Brotherton, and one at Madison and Ridge.    There are numerous ones in Price Hill and Fairmount as well on the West Side.    (Anyone who wants to go on a Cincinnati gas station taco tasting adventure let me know).   And then there are the myriad of fancier taco centered restaurants like the amazeballs Frida in Covington (which makes the best margarita in town – the spicy Prickly Pear Cactus Blossom Marg), and Condado’s with locations all around the city.       Bakersfield in Over-the-Rhine was sort of the first elevated taco-forward restaurant.   There’s even been a crossover from tacos to Birria Cheese Coneys, which means Birria is here to stay.   I’d love to try a birria four way myself.    Maybe Taco Casa should come up with a birria taco themselves.

I have to admit I never have eaten at a Taco Casa even though they have surrounded me for nearly 25 years.    I was always afraid of something they advertised in the window at the Wasson location – the Tuna Boat.       Former Cincinnati Enquirer food writer Polly Campbell defended the Tuna Boat against my naysaying several years ago, so I guess I should shut up and put it on my Weird Foods to Try List for 2023.    There are still locations of Taco Casa left in Norwood and Montgomery so my time is not up.  Given their legacy of being the first competitor to Taco Bell and the originator of the Cincinnati-style taco salad, I think it’s a requirement.

German Mardi Gras: Becoming a Waggi And What Do They Eat

I had the wonderful experience last year to visit two ancestral hometowns – Merdigen, Baden-Wuertuemburg of my maternal Barmann ancestors and the Breitenach area around Basel, Switzerland of my maternal Brosi/Brosey ancestors.    I actually got to see the house and area where my third great grandmother was born and the deed of sale of her father’s property which funded their immigration to America.   I tasted the outstanding Spatburguner/Pinot Noir made by my Barmann cousins at their 200+ year old winery that was once worked in by my ancestors who left and made Catawba wine in Price Hill and Delhi Township in Cincinnati.     We also tasted Bibelskase – the great grandmother to our American cheeseball and beer cheese dips.       And I got to taste the amazing Hildabrotchen – sort of like a cross between a New York black and white cookie, and a raspberry jam-filled linzercookie.   The best experience though was spending the day with my fantastic 10^th or more so cousins and learning the lives of my ancestors.

Then in Basel  I tasted the Leckerli or version of Gingerbread.  It’s a soft, chewy, not-too-sweet,  amber colored version with a very light icing.     We had lunch at a typical Basel Brotli bar – which serves deli salads as open faced sandwiches, washed down by the local Eichhof lager.   We had a wonderful farewell tasting dinner in downtown Basel at Hahn-Rickli Wine cellars, that consisted of all Basel regional dishes – a savory pastry called Fastenwahen, their Wurstkase salad (sausage cheese salad), Basler Mehlsupper (Basel flour soup), Zwiebeltarte (onion pizza), Fleischkase auf kartoffelsalat (sort of a goetta with potato salad), a pasta dish with potatoes, onions, and cheese sauce with apple compote, green spargel risotto, and Toberone mousse – one of the best meals I had in 2022!   I also tasted their super crunchy and tender version of schnitzel, but missed tasting Baseler Geschnetzeles – a featured regional dish of thin strips of veal in mushroom cream sauce served with spaetzli noodles, and of course, lots of Swiss white wine.       One of the other drinks I fell in love with, but was a post WWII invention, not experienced by my Brosi ancestors, called diet Rivella, a sort of floral Ginger ale.

But probably the coolest thing I did while visiting both areas, was a deep dive into both of their carnivals – called Fastnet in the regional Badischer German dialect.       Both southern Baden-W and Basel have their own very distinct carnevals, with defined masked characters who march in their crazy parades.   I’ve been a super fan of New Orleans Mardi Gras since I attended two in college.     So, this was right up my cultural alley.        My cousin Tanya and her aunt made me the traditional braided straw shoes, black knit hood and white pantaloons of my ancestors in Baden for me, that are now worn by both men and women who dress as Hexe or witches and march together with the masked Narran or jesters masked and dressed in frilly tricolor suits.   

In Basel, they have a group of characters called Waggi, that are known for their masks of huge wide toothed smiles and oversized noses.   The Waggi are a cultural lampoon of 19^th century Alsatians and Baden peasant farmers who brought their produce to the markets of Basel.      Waggi has the same etymology as our English word Vagabond and basically translates to Hillbilly or country people.     The characters march in the enormous Basel Fastnet parades, which are held the week after Ash Wednesday for some unknown reason, and are loud, boisterous and throw and shoot rappeli or confetti out of canons.   The Waggi that ride on the parade floats or wagons throw flowers and oranges and small sweet treats, rather than the beads of New Orleans Mardi Gras.   When in Basel we ate at a restaurant Zum Braunen Mutz (The Brown Bear) that had a bunch of Waggi masks hanging on their walls and I got a photo in the most outrageous of one of them.

So this year, for our celebration of German Fastnacht at the Hofbrauhaus in Newport, Kentucky, sponsored by the German American Citizens League, I will dress as a Waggi to embrace my ancestry – both the lampooners and the lampoon-eed!      I had to revert back to one of my earliest maker talents – the art of paper mache to make a Waggi mask.  It will be accompanied by a traditional sparkly wig and black hat and my Baden pantaloons and straw shoes, and a tied kerchief and Fastnet beads.

I will march in the Fastnacht Parade at 7 PM and will represent in the costume contest.  

The Cult of Cherry Thing A Lings

So this weekend was the last of five days of cherry thing a ling production at Schmidt’s Bakery in Batesville Indiana.   It’s a President’s day tradition that has gone on for 50 years, started by Clem Schmidt to commemorate the mythical Washingtonian chopping down of a cherry tree – something modern politicians should embrace – owning their false statements.    So What is a cherry thing a ling ?  It’s basically a cherry flavored fritter.   They’re smaller than the average fritter – almost beignet sized – but pack a cherry flavored punch with the red dyed cherry icing and the bits of cherry baked into the fritter dough itself.    They usually show up in time around Mardi Gras and are kind of like our local King Cake or Fastnacht donut or paczki.  

People posted their triumphant box of a dozen cherry thing a lings online, some waiting up to three hours for them.    And then, of course the haters came out – why would anyone wait that long for a damn donut?   And ‘I don’t see what all the fuss is over a donut.”     Well there’s bonding and community while waiting in line.     You have a story to tell – “I waited in line three hours for these, and I’M sharing them with you.”   That’s love!

But similar things have been said about Cincinnati chili and goetta and even LaRosa’s pizza.     What these haters don’t realize is that all of these are really something special – regional iconic foods.   And yes, most of them are just simple comfort foods that anyone can make.

In the simplest form, food is just fuel.    But it’s also cultural and part of community and tradition.  Food memories are the strongest    Much research has been done on comfort food and our perceptions of taste.   Food just tastes better to us when it is connected to a warm memory.   Fod that comes out of a tradition that involves good memories, family, friends and community.   So yeah, maybe it is just a normal fritter, and yes maybe anyone in the world could make them.   But they don’t.  Schmidt’s does five days a year and they bring us this great cultural phenomenon of which I’m happy to be a part.

I’m a cherry thing a ling lover.  I’ve ordered them by phone and had them delivered, I’ve had friends wait in line for them.       This year I tried to avoid them because I’m watching my sugar intake.   But a generous co-worker waiting in line and brought in a dozen to share.   So I had to honor her generosity and love, and I had one.   Yes, I’m a cherry thing a ling weakling.

The Sordid Story Behind Tabasco’s Green Sauce

Above image: African Americans picking green tabasco peppers for Cornay Moss’s Green Heart Tabasco Sauce. Cornay his two sons, their family puppy, and wife are looking on to the far left.

Last September I took a day trip from my yearly fall trip to New Orleans. I headed out to New Iberia, a two hour drive west of the Crescent City for a hot sauce excursion. I met Marcia, the executive director of the Bayou Teche Museum, which has a great collection of New Iberia Louisiana hot sauce artifacts. She led us on a tour of the former Frank Red Hot Sauce factory and showed us the Estilette family’s final resting place in the New Iberia Catholic Cemetery. Adam and Constance Estilette originated the recipe and with their children grew the peppers and ran the factory for Jacob Frank, who bottled Franks Hot Sauce in Cincinnati. Her husband, a renowned New Orleans chef even fed us with maque choux, a Cajun spicy creamed corn and homemade boudin sausage, a cousin to our goetta. It was amazing. Then they sent us on our way to Avery Island for the Tabasco experience and with the great recommendation to try both flavors of Tabasco ice cream at the store.

We drove the 20 or so minutes south to the original Tabasco factory and took the tour. Although the peppers are now grown in South America, they still grow peppers for seeds on site in a greenhouse you can tour. Disregarding the many signs NOT to pick and eat the peppers, I did and my mouth was on fire the rest of the tour, fueled by 50,000 scovilles of heat, not diluted by salt and vinegar as in the sauce. As great as the history is that they present, there’s one story that’s not told at the Tabasco experience and that’s the one behind their green sauce. It’s now a mild jalapeno green sauce, but in the early 20th century it was a green tabasco sauce, a business scavenged by copywright infringement from a man named Cornay Moss and his Green Heart Tabasco Company of New Iberia.

Rewind to 1869 when Edmund McIlhenny sold his first bottles of Tabasco sauce in perfume bottles.   He had gotten seed from a plantation neighbor Maunsel White, who had gotten seeds from a returning soldier of the Mexican American war.    This soldier had seen, eaten, and fallen in love with the heat of this strange pepper from the Mexican state of Tabasco.     Even though the Maunsel White papers prove otherwise, the McIlhenny family to this day holds tight that their ancestor obtained pepper seeds on his own and invented American Louisiana style hot sauce.    

Above image: Maunsel White, the inventor of American Louisiana style hot sauce.

Above image: Edmund McIlhenny, inventor of McIlhenny’s Tabasco sauce.

The interesting story is that tabasco sauce was really a happy accident, as most food inventions are.    Maunsel just wanted to dry the peppers he received and grew like the Mexicans did with other peppers.  He could then throw the whole pepper in a stew and add some heat.   What he found was that this strange new tabasco pepper was too oily and juicy to be dried and to be preserved, had to be mashed, set with salt and then strong vinegar added.   The end result was a preserved pepper sauce that could be added to stews and dishes and thus was born American Louisiana style hot sauce.

By 1850, Maunsel had articles and ads in New Orleans newspapers that gave him credit for growing and proliferating his new peppers to neighbors and anyone willing to grow them.   While we now know that capsicum, the heat giving element of peppers is good for heart health, the new Orleans papers also said, “none of White’s negros came down with cholera,”  due to his giving them tabasco sauce regularly.   This makes us wonder if, like Jack Daniels’ whiskey, it was an unnamed enslaved person who actually came up with that first hot sauce formula on White’s Deer Range plantation. In Plaquemines, Louisiana.

Above image: John Avery McIlhenny, son of the founder and chief litigator for the family.

Getting back to the green sauce story.   Founder Edmund McIlhenny dies in 1890, but not before he writes an extensive memoir.   He didn’t even mention his tabasco sauce making empire, and more lamented the loss of his banking fortune due to the post Civil War economy.   But two of his sons – Edmund Jr. and John saw the future of a family enterprise in hot sauce.   The eventually would patent Tabasco, even though it was geographical and the name of the pepper, not a brand name, and would sue anyone who used the name Tabasco in their sauce.

One of those first guys they went after was Cornay P. Moss, president of the Green Heart Tabasco Sauce Company.    John McIlhenny became sort of the family’s litigation attorney against anyone using the word tabasco.    John  sued Moss and his company in years of litigation, costing the Mosses nearly $250,000, an enormous fortune at that time.    The Mosses countersued the McIllhennys for loss to their business and were compensated a measly $5000.    In order to pay for the costs of the first suit, the Mosses ended up selling the tabasco sauce portion of their business to McIllhenny’s, which ended their competition.   Problem gloriously solved for the McIllhennys.   Although the Mosses continued to grow and sell peppers, it no where near compensated for the loss of their hot sauce business.

Above image: The former Cosmpolitan Hotel in New Orleans, now the Astor Hotel.

So, in 1917, Moss checked into the Cosmopolitan Hotel in New Orleans, now called the Astor Hotel.    On Wednesday, January 10, 1917, Cornay Moss shot himself in the temple, ending his life.   His handsome photo and his entire suicide letter were published in The Weekly Iberian three days later.     In the note addressed to his dear “Pug” he said:

I  have learned to know this world of hypocrisy so well,

that I do not care to continue to live in it. I hate to do this on account

of you and our boys, but life on this planet has grown intolerable to me.

As you are familiar with every detail of our business and eminently

qualified to handle things, you are to make such business or other

investments as in your judgment seems best in the future.

I have no fear for the future of my soul because I know that I am a better

man at heart and in fact than 90 per cent of them all, and I do not believe

that over 90 per cent of them are going to the worst place in the hereafter.

it is my one wish that our two boys stick together through this life, and if

practicable that you always be near, if not with them. I leave all the love

I possess with you and our boys and may God be with you all. Good-bye.

The litigation with the McIlhennys had so affected Moss that he couldn’t bear living, a true tragedy.

History soon forgot Moss and his Green Heart Tobasco company, but John McIlhenny didn’t stop going after anyone who used tabasco in their name.  From 1922-1929, he sued Bernard Francois Trappey, their former blacksmith at the factory, who left in 1898 and started his own tabasco hot sauce company with his ten sons.   Trappey lost the battle and renamed his hot sauce Red Devil, which is still being made today.

Cornay Moss requested that the Green Heart logo be made on his tomb, in the New Iberia Catholic Cemetery (where other hot sauce families like the Estilettes of Frank’s Red hot sauce are buried).     But either that didn’t happen or it has since fallen off – it looks like there was once a plaque on the top of his gravestone that is no longer there which might have held the company logo.

Above image: Cornay Moss’s final resting place in New Iberia’s Catholic Hot Sauce Cemetery.

Other hot sauce entrepreneurs saw the repercussions of making a hot sauce with tabasco peppers and going up against the behemoth McIlhenny family.   So, that’s what led Buillards, Franks, Crystal (the Baumer family) and Louisiana (the Brown family) and others to make their hot sauces with cayenne instead of tabasco.

The same year Moss took his life, 1917, was the same year Jacob Frank first travelled to New Iberia to scout hot sauce makers and met Adam Estillette, forming the partnership that would become Frank’s Red Hot Sauce.

Above image: The Estilettes who originated Frank’s Red Hot Sauce recipe and operated the Frank’s plant in New Iberia.

And now the American hot sauce market is the largest growth sector of the condiments category in retail grocery.    John McIlhenny’s head would explode today at the tens of thousands of hot sauce competitors to their OG tabasco hot sauce.

Emily in Paris’ Bistro Gigi Conjures the Classic Le Petit Bouillon Pharamond Café in Paris

I have recently been watching Emily in Paris, and I’ve fallen in love again with the cuisine of Paris, which is featured in the series.  I also love the series because for over a decade I worked with a Paris office which had many of the same characters in the series.   The series nails the often dueling differences between Paris and American professional characteristics and rules.  There was a Luc character – goofy, life loving, no-filter, sloppy flirt;  Julien, the flamboyant diva; and of course Sylvie, the office manager character, to whom every day has a dark cloud hanging over it.    I worked with all of them.

The restaurant called Les Deaux Comperes across the way from Emily’s apartment is cheffed by her off and on love interest Gabriel.   He finally gets his dream to buy and rebrand the restaurant where he works, to serve his native cuisine of Normandy and stay in Paris to be near Emily.

That rebrand to the cuisine of Normandy is clearly modeled after Café Pharamond in the Beaubourg neighborhood in the 1^st Arrondissement.   The series is filmed and supposed to take place in the 5^th arrondissement.   Gabriel’s restaurant in real life is actually an Italian bistro called Terra Nera.    Frequented by Ernest Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, and politicians George Clemenceau and Francois Mitterand, these spectacular dining rooms in Pharamond became a listed French national landmark in 1989. A hundred and eighty years after the Pharamond family first arrived in Paris, many of their famous Norman dishes are still featured on the restaurant’s menu, 

Above image: In Emily in Paris, Gabriel’s grandma Gigi flambees a dessert Gabriel has just doused with apple brandy

The Chef is backed by Antoine, a rich perfumer and foodie, who is a client of Emily’s marketing firm and whose boss has been his mistress for decades.    The first meal that Gabriel serves to the perfumer and his influential friends is a native Normandian tripe stew that Antoine originally thinks will be terrible, but ends up complimenting the chef on the dish’s beauty.     This dish is clearly modeled after Café Pharamond’s signature dish tripes a la mode Caen – a stew of beef tripe and vegetables slowly cooked in cider and Calvados.  The original owner of Café Pharamonde, Pierre Heutte, sold this dish from a push cart around Paris before opening his café and to introduce Parisians to the beauty of tripe.  

Above Image: Chef Gabriel’s Tripe a la Normandy in Emily in Paris.

The original Pharamond tripe dish consisted of all four chambers of the stomach , some large intestine, hooves and bones on a bed of carrots, onions, leeks, garlic cloves peppergrns cider and calvados in a special earthenware pot called a tripiere for cooking tripe.  It was hermetically sealed with dough and simmered in the oven for 15 hours- the hooves and bones and bouquet garni are removed before serving

Above image: Pharamond’s tripe dish in Paris.

I have to admit I’ve had tripe – the Chinese dim sum version – and I am not a fan of anything you have to chew for 20 minutes before you swallow.     Nor am I a fan of any meat – like stomach lining – that is the highway for an animal’s digestive system.      Maybe being slow cooked in apple brandy takes away the barniness and tenderizes it.     The next time I’m in Paris, I now have to try it. 

 Calvados is a brandy native to Normandy made from apples or pears or apples with pears.   Thanks to America’s infection and near devastation of the French vineyards with our American phylloxera infested imported vines, Calvados experienced a golden age of popularity in France from the time the café opened into the 1880s.   During WWI, cider brandy was requisitioned to make explosives for the armament industry due to its high alcohol content.       Apples are the major agricultural product of Normandy and thus cider is used in many of Pharamond’s signature dishes.

Above image: Leeks in vinaigrette.

Other famous dishes at Café Pharamond are lobster ravioli, leeks vinaigrette (which just discussed on NPR’s The Splendid Table this past weekend), the Salad Folle (Crazy Salad) consists of greens topped with haricot verts (blanched green beans), foie gras, and magret de canard and sometimes cured beef or salmon.

Then there’s Coquilles St. Jacques au cider (sea scallops in cider)  The Parisian original dish has breadcrumbs mushrooms and gruyere cheese and is more creamy than this version from Normandy.    The apostle St. James’s symbol is the scallop shell and was used as a water cup and eating plate by pilgrims on the pilgrimage of the Santiago de Compostela.  Apples are one of the principal crops of Normandy, thus the prevalence of cooking with cider and the panels of apple tree branches adorning the walls of the café    Other dishes served at the café are veal medallions, grilled salmon, and a house made boudin sausage – a cousin of our goetta.

Desserts at Pharamonde consist of profiteroles, pound cake (quatre quart), and crepes normandes, with apples flambeed in Calvados to oppose the more French crepes Suzette with apricots.    Also on the dessert menu is the famous tart tatin from Normandy – a thinly sliced apple torte with cream, a touch of Calvados and ground almonds.

In Emily in Paris we see Gigi making crepes, of which Chef is a huge fan of.    His girlfriend Camille consistently goes out get him pancakes (crepes) in the morning for which he rewards her with post-pancake hanky panky. 

Above image: Logo of Pharamond (you know I’m a logo guy) from a plate showing a woman in tradidtional Norman costume holding the clay pot of cooked tripe. Cincinnati artists like Elizabeth Nourse painted the women of Normandy in their native cosgtumes.

Above image: Norman peasants at mass by Elizabeth Nourse at the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnat Wing.

Although the Café Pharamond has been around since 1832, its inside décor is very Art Noveau, because it was redecorated in advance of the Paris Exposition of 1900.   Knowing the gourmet reputation of the French capital, the Pharamond family left their native Normandy in 1832 and settled in Les Halles, where they quickly tantalized the neighbourhood with Norman specialities. As their business thrived, they moved into a handsome house at 24 rue de la Grande Truanderie in 1879. The outside, however, retains its old school original half timber framing, almost looking more Germanic than French.   It sits in the originally working class neighborhood Beauborg, which was named for the pile of rubbish discarded there from the old Halles food market there.     It’s near the Pompideux Center – Paris’s modern art museum – which houses a large collection of paintings by my and Jeff Ruby’s favorite art deco artist Parisian, Tamara de Lempicka.

The 16th Century Stolen Painting That Named our Cincinnati Cathedral

There’s a 16^th century painting by a Flemish artist called Juan de Roelas that hangs in the atrium of the Mt Saint Mary Seminary’s Chapel on Beechmont Avenue in eastern Cincinnati.    It’s the only painting by the famed artist that hangs in the Western Hemisphere.   But, it’s a stolen piece of art that has never been restituted to its original owner and it has a sordid history that connects it to Napoleon, an art stealing Cardinal, and one of the most expensive and luxurious steak dishes.   And the title of this painting is what named our cathedral St. Peter in Chains.

The painting is titled the Liberation of St. Peter and was painted in the late 1500s by Roelas.    It depicts the moment that an angel helps St. Peter escape imprisonment.     It’s a massive mural sized painting in the baroque style.  The painting was a gift from Cardinal Joseph Fesch to the first Archbishop of Cincinnati,  Bishop Edward Fenwick, during a visit to Rome in 1824.   It was installed in the new St. Peter in Chains Cathedral when it was finished in 1826 and hung there until 1941 when Archbishop John McNicholas brought it to the Aethenium – now called Mt. St. Mary’s.

To be fair, almost all museums are filled with stolen art.    That’s whey they’re in a museum, rather than the church, cathedral, home or other place where they originated.     Think of any Egyptian mummy artifact, or native American artifact that was basically plundered from its original burial spot.     One tragic local example is the largest collection of Adena era moundbuilder funerary objects that were excavated from a site in today’s Mariemont and secreted to the Harvard Museums in the middle 1800s and then LOST or discarded or stolen at Harvard!   

The art stealing Cardinal Fesch who gave us the Roelas painting along with 12 other paintings from  his collection of 30,000 stolen, mostly Italian renaissance and Flemish paintings, was the maternal uncle of Napoleon.   Napoleon ranks second behind Hitler as the largest art stealer in history.   During his war conquests in Northern Italy and Germanic Europe he took valuable and venerated art, amassing a huge collection, most of which ended up in the Louvre.    Like Hitler, Napoleon thought art symbolized an evolved civilization and master minded a national museum to house it all.

Above image: The artist Roelas

Thirty thousand of these paintings ended up in Cardinal Fesch’s collection.   The Vatican, knowing that the majority of this was from plundered Napoleonic collections, ordered Fesch to donate 12 paintings (symbolizing the apostles) to ‘mission’ dioceses in the United States for their cathedrals.   At the time, Cincinnati was considered one of these mission diocese, as was Baltimore, Maryland, which also received a gift of 12 of these paintings.

Fesch was a favorite brother of Napoleon’s mother, and actually lived with her for many years.     During the Napoleonic wars, Fesch left the priesthood, but was reluctantly given a position as regimental canteen manager, supplying food and other supplies to Napoleon’s troops.  During this time he made a fortune.   He also became, thanks to his nephew, ambassador to Rome, where an aristocratic  French poet and writer, named Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, was appointed his assistant.     Francois thought Fesch was a horrible boss and complained to Napoleon, trying to get Fesch deposed from his ambassadorial office.     Napoleon sided with his uncle.

Chateubriand went on to become ambassador of France in England.   It was here in 1822 where his chef – Montmireil -invented a new technique for cooking steak that involved wrapping a large boneless cut of beef in poor quality steaks, tying it up, grilling it until charred, discarding the outer steaks and bathing the now perfectly cooked boneless steak with a white wine beef stock sauce.    The chef honored his boss by naming the new dish after him.   Although the original dish never specified a cut of meat, the contemporary version made famous by French chef Escoffier uses filet mignon as the cut. 

After Napoleon and the Pope restored the Catholic church to France and Fesch went back into the priesthood, he was appointed Bishop of Lyon and then became a Cardinal.    That’s when he amassed his large collection of paintings, many of which are now in his former villa, the current Villa Fesch Museum in Ajaccio, France, where he lived with Napoleon’s mother.   At his death a large auction of some of the collection ended up with many being bought by wealthy English nobility.    A good portion of those stolen and auctioned paintings have now ended up in the National Gallery in London, but some still hang in large English estates.

It is not known from whom and when the Liberation of St. Peter was stolen, so it would be hard to repatriate it back to its rightful owner.   Although now in the moment when museums around the world are starting to repatriate their stolen art, there is a digital database of locations of the Fesch collection so that any that can be traced back are repatriated. 

Unfortunately, the archdiocese only knows of this painting and a few others from this gift of 13 from the stolen collection of Fesch, because there was no packing slip with names of the paintings from the shipment, and the archdiocese is notoriously bad and remiss of cataloguing and documenting its art.     So there may be several of these paintings hanging in a church, sacristy, convent or rectory in Cincinnati without anyone’s knowledge.

Before Punxy Phil Was a National Celebrity – He Was Center Plate in a Grundsau Versammlinge /“Groundhog Picnics”

Above Image: The taxidermied Uni from Union Canal Grundsau Lodge #17 in Pennsylvania, who rides on a small boat on the Tulpehocken Creek before predicting the upcoming winter weather.

Now that we’re done with Groundhog Day, we know that we either have six more weeks of winter, or an early Spring.    That’s depending on what groundhog celeb you listen to. – Punxy Phil or Staten Island Chuck.    In case you didn’t know there’s a great deal more meteorlogical marmots than Punxsutawney Phil.      Originally before the tradition was imported by the Pennsylvania Dutch – who were actually southwest German anabaptists escaping religious persecution – instead of a groundhog, the oracle animal for February 2 was the busy beaver.   But there were more groundhogs in Pennsylvania, so the immigrants adapted.   Not only did they adapt, but they strengthened this holiday to the extent that a movie starring Bill Murray catapulted one of them to national stardom.    

Germanics love drunken holidays where a furry animal is manhandled in a peculiar anthropomorphic way and sometimes then eaten.   Take our Cincinnati Bockfest, where goats are costumed and paraded in celebration of Bock Beer.    Or our weird Rat Races at the Covington Turner Hall.       Or the Swiss Cow Parades or Alpazug where cows don big bells and flowers and then led to be slaughtered.

Groundhog Day or Grundau Daag – is based on the Catholic feast of Candlemas honoring Mary bringing Jesus to the temple of Jerusalem.   In wintery Germanic Europe, this feast fell smack in the middle of winter, between Three Kings Day and Mardi Gras.     It was when the decision when to plant crops was made and eventually morphed into an event where an animal oracle predicted the upcoming weather.

When the holiday was imported to Pennsylvania, each county founded its own Grundsau Lodsche – or Groundhog Lodge, each of which has their own furry marmot to predict the weather.

Before Punxsutawny Phil  was a celebrity, though, he was lunch. In a terrible twist, the earliest Groundhog Days of the 19th century involved devouring poor Phil after he made his prediction. The year 1887 was the year of the “Groundhog Picnic,” when locals cooked up groundhog as a “special local dish,” served at the Punxsutawney Elk Lodge, whose members would go on to create the town’s Groundhog Club. Diners were “pleased at how tender” the poor groundhog’s meat was.   But groundhog meat eventually left the menu of Punxsutawney establishments as the townsfolk realized his worth.

In the 1960s, Phil got his name, a nod to “King Phillip,” per the Groundhog Club. The specific King Phillip he was named for is unclear, since there’s never been a King Phillip of Germany, where many Pennsylvania settlers came from, in centuries.   There was however, a Duke Phillip of Wuerttemberg, who was descended from a Wuerttemberg King.  Before that, Punxy was simply “Br’er Groundhog.”

Despite their early practice of noshing on Phil’s family, the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club avers that there has only been one Phil since 1886. He’s given an “elixir of life” every year at the summertime Groundhog Picnic, which “magically gives him seven more years of life.”    

Above Image: A plate at the Groundhog Dinner of Union Canal Grundsau Lodge #17.

These picnics are held at churches, public halls, and firehouses, where the focus is on good food – sometimes groundhog chili – and good German gemütlichkeit.     Pennsylvania Dutch dishes like boiled pot pies and shoofly pie make cameos at these events, which are now generic mostly meat and potatoes type of meals.

There are 17 Groundhog Lodges today in Pennsylvania Dutch Country and each has their own fun celebrity groundhog. 

There’s Octoraro Orphie the Magnanimous in Quarrytown;  Mount Joy Minnie in Lancaster county; Grover from Pine Grove Grundsau Lodge #5;  Poor Richard of York;  Lawrenceville Lucy; Mt Gretna Grady; Poppy Susquehanna Sherman; Tinicum Tim, and many others.   Uni from Meyerstown PA Groundhog Lodge 17 is named after the Union Canal.   He is not a live one, but  taxidermied and rides a tiny boat down the Tulpehocken Creek before ‘predicting’ the weather.

The Groundhog Day tradition has become so popular that others outside of Pennsylvania Dutch Country have their own furry forecaster.   There’s Unadillo Bill of Unadillo, Nebraska; Buckeye Chuck from Marion, Ohio; Dunkirk Dave from New York; General Beauregard Lee, a resident of Dauset Trails Nature Center in Jackson, Georgia; Chuckles IX from Madison, Connecticut; Chattanooga Chuck from Tennessee; Sir Walter Wally from North Carolina; Milltown Mel from New Jersey;   Lady Edwina of Essex from West Orange, New Jersey; Stormy Marmot from Aurora; Colorado; and Staten Island Chuck.

My friends in New Iberia, Louisiana – hot sauce and boudin country – started a Cajun tradition on Groundhog Day with Pierre C. Shadeaux, who is actually a nutria, one of the local bayou living rodents of Louisiana.   Unfortunately the editor of the Daily Iberian who startied it retired and the tradition is currently on pause.   Maybe Mayor Freddie DeCourt will take it on again.   I’ve put in a request to him and my influential friends there.

Other species of predictors have also been engaged like Big Al the alligator from Beaumont, Texas, and Scramble the Duck in Eastford, Connecticut.

So, as it turns out the six more weeks of winter prediction is as precarious as that from our local news weathermen and women.

Food Museums Across the USA

As a food historian, I am always drawn to visit food museums and historic sites whenever I travel.   You’d be surprised how many museums there are globally that dedicate themselves to food.   Believe it or not, there’s even a Jell-O Museum.    Last year I did the Tabasco Experience at the plant in Avery Island, Louisiana, and tasted two types of Tabasco ice cream and their delicious new Raspberry Tabasco Sauce, while learning the history of our second most fave hot sauce (behind locally invented Frank’s).    I also toured the Coca-Cola Experience in Atlanta, Georgia, which is amazing and allows you to taste Coke products from around the world, like my fave Mezzo Mix from Germany.    I even went to a Mustard Museum in the city of Cologne, Germany, last year, and brought back some tasty mustards.     It made me think about the food museums we have here in Cincinnati and the area.   

Most corporate headquarters of market-aware food companies have at the very least a mini-museum for visitors to see.     I’ve seen those in Taco Bell Headquarters in Houston, Wendy’s Headquarters in Columbus, McDonald’s Headquarters in Chicago, Ben & Jerry’s in Burlington, Vermont; Chick-fil-A Headquarters in Atlanta and several others.     The KFC Museum with creepy audio-animatronic Colonel Sanders at the Yum! Corporate Headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky is worth a visit and is open to the public.   Also, most food manufacturers give a plant tour if planned ahead, even if they don’t advertise it.    

On my foods museums list this year is visiting the Harland Hubbard KFC site and museum in Kentucky,  the Hershey PA Story, the Wyandot Popcorn Museum in Marion, Ohio, the Ferrarra Candy Factory in Chicago, and the Sriracha Factory Museum in Irwindale, California.

On the backlog list from last year is visiting all the historic Norton winery sites in Hermann, Missouri near St. Louis.     

I plan on visiting the Southern Food and Beverage Museum at the WWII Museum in New Orleans to educate them that Cincinnati’s Mullane Candy invented the Nectar flavor about a decade earlier than they claim their New Orleans druggists did.

Right here in Cincinnati there’s a permanent exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center called Made in Cincinnati that highlights some of our legacy food brands like Skyline, Frank’s Red Hot Sauce, Fleischman’s Yeast, Manischewitz, and Frisch’s.    They do a cool mention of Goetta in the video they show in the exhibit.     The Behringer Crawford Museum in Devou Park, Covington, Kentucky, did a great local food exhibit a few years ago featuring Gliers Goetta and Dixie Chili.

There are so many iconic food companies in Cincinnati that could have amazing historic museums and factory tours.  One I think is missing that golden opportunity is the Grippo Factory.   The headquarters and factory on Colerain Avenue have no historic museum or regular tours of their plant, which now has cult regional food status.    A few family historic photos and some vintage chip wrappers could add a great experience to visitors.

Cincinnati should after 100 years have its own Cincinnati Chili Museum.   And, Camp Washington Chili, Dixie Chili, and Price Hill Chili should all have little museum displays in their restaurants.  To their credit, they all have historic photos hanging on the walls, they’re just not curated or annotated in an organized way to provide a museum-like experience.

The Sign Museum in Camp Washington has some amazing neon signs from Cincinnati Historic Restaurants.   My faves are the animated two-tone neon Habig’s sign, which ‘pours’ bubbly out of a champagne glass, and the epic  Budna Bar & Grill sign from the iconic North College Hill hangout.

The Delhi Historical Society Museum at the Witterstaeter Farmhouse will open its new exhibit, Dining in Delhi, featuring historic restaurants in that area of the West Side.    You can see an original Frisch’s bell hop girl uniform, as well as OG artifacts like a chili ladle from the Delhi Chili Parlor.   Price Hill Historical Society Museum has an original booth from the first Skyline location.   Frisch’s has a really nice museum in their historic Mainliner Fairfax location and artifacts displayed at other locations.     Our chili restaurants like Skyline and Gold Star have doubled down and made museum murals on their walls with historic photos from their past.    Even I have staged my travelling popup food museums – Cincinnati Candy, Cincinnati Chili, Cincinnati Goetta, Historic Restaurants of Cincinnati, and Cincinnati Cigars – around town at various events.

Even the city’s best kept secret, the Lloyd Library Downtown did a phenom exhibit on the history of cannabis edibles during the pandemic.

Locally we have the Doscher Candy Factory and Museum in Newtown, Ohio.   They have a really great historic timeline with historic photos and you can go on a tour to see them make candy canes, the French Chew and dots.

The tour ticket office of the Cincinnati Brewery District has a great rotating popup exhibit of historic local brewery artifacts, mostly on loan from the phenomenal local collector Carl Grohs.  Carl is doing our city a huge service by rescuing and preserving these amazing artifacts, many that he finds outside of the city and at national brewery shows.

The offices of Queen City Sausage have a great many artifacts of Cincinnati’s Porkopolis days assembled, that they plan to expand into a museum in the future.

Meier’s Winery has a great historic exhibit in their wine store and gift shop about their history and of the Catawba wine industry in Cincinnati.

Kaiser Pickles in OTR supposedly does plant tours, which sounds like a life changing experience.     Speaking of life changing experiences, I’ve heard from old timers about tours given of the old Kahn’s facility on Central Parkway which turned many carnivores into vegetarians.

Only an hour or two away from Cincinnati are some cool food factory tours.   The original Esther Price Candy factory in Dayton, Ohio, offers tours of the plant with history.     The Ale 8 Factory in Winchester, Kentucky, has a great historic and factory tour, complete with a wonderful historic movie to watch.       The Goo Goo Cluster flagship store in Nashville, Tennessee, is a must see when visiting the music city.  They make gourmet and specialty versions of America’s oldest ‘candy bar.’      Right across from Louisville, in Jeffersonville, Indiana, is the Schimpf’s Candy Museum.   There you can watch candy making demonstrations and see their huge collection (largest in the nation) of vintage American candy containers.   They have some wonderful examples of early Cincinnati candy companies there.   I’d love to film a candy history podcast there.

The Kentucky Bourbon Trial stops each have their own fantastic history museums and tours.  I’ve done the tours of Maker’s Mark, Woodford Reserve, and the Evans Williams Experience.   And who doesn’t like getting a little tipsy on a tour?

The National Hellenic Museum and Cultural Center in Chicago did an amazingly deep dive exhibit on the history of Greeks in the American candy, ice cream, and confectionery industry a few years back.   Local Aglamesis even got a cameo in that exhibit.

So, on your vacations this year, do yourself a favor and research if there’s a food museum or food factory tour nearby.