Marzipan was one of Germanic confectioners’ greatest inventions. It’s super tasty, pliable to any shape, and doesn’t melt in summer heat. Germanic immigrant confectioners brought it with them to the U.S. and it became popular with kids, especially at Christmas. But it was not a penny candy and only available to the wealthy kids of robber barons and the well-to-do. These kids loved how it could be shaped into just about any form – from flies to elephants.
Lubeck marzipan is known worldwide for its high quality and rich almond flavor. In the middle ages other marzipan makers used more sugar than almond, but Lubeck confectioners used a higher almond to sugar ratio. Today Lubeck marzipan makers use at least 70% almond paste and no more than 30% sugar. Some Lubeck producers use 90% almond paste. Another separating factor with Lubeck marzipan is that it uses premium quality, sun-baked almonds, which gives it a unique and pleasing aroma. Lubeck is so proud of its marzipan, it has a Marzipan Museum.
Marzipan has been around a long time. The Persian physician Rhazes, who lived from 850 to 923 wrote a book extolling the benefits of sugar and almond paste mix. Thirteenth century philosopher Thomas Aquinas, wrote that marzipan could be eaten during a religious fast. When the Hanseatic league of northern Europe first imported marzipan, Queen Elizabeth I and other royals were the first to indulge in marzipan. Cincinnati’s first confectioner, Johann Myers, created a marzipan scene for the ball hosted for the tour of the Marquis de Lafayette celebrating his role in the Revolutionary war.
In addition to candy and pastry, Lubeck marzipan is used to make something called marzilade or marzipan marmalade, which introduces fruits like apple, orange, cherry, strawberry, cassis /black currants, and even one made with a northern European fruit called sea buckthorn (sanddorn in German), unknown to most Americans and kind of like the Euro version of the cranberry, as it grows in boggy, sandy soil. Marzilade is used as a topping on yogurt, on bread and bagels, in jelly rolls, and as a filling in chocolate bonbons.
In comes two Germanic confectionery brothers Herman and Adolph Goelitz, who lived in Hyde Park about a mile from me. In 1898 they made shaped marzipan candies, but realized that a larger market could be had if they made molded candies with a new, cheaper technology called buttercream. Buttercream candies were made from mixing molten corn syrup, sugar, and fondant together. The result, is chewy, and moldable to any shape. The Goelitz company employed Germanic immigrant workers to mix three colors of buttercream to make what would be come the beloved American candy corn.
Although Candy Corn is as American as apple pie and baseball, it is definitely a polarizing candy. I am of the camp that it is disgusting and call it the Devil’s Earwax. Give me the original, Marzipan!
The Turkish take their bread very seriously. They eat more bread than any country in the world, and claim they invented bread over 10,000 years ago. They also claim they invented baklava, but don’t tell a Greek that.
Now Cincinnatians can get the most popular Turkish bread – the simit – at Truva Turkish Kitchen in Kenwood. It’s a ring shaped bread of wheat flour encrusted with sesame seeds. But, in Turkey and surrounding countries, you can see them encrusted with poppy seeds, flax, or even sunflower seeds. So it’s advisable to eat them outside because the seeds will shower themselves after each bite. Simit is often called the Turkish bagel, but I’d liken it more to a pretzel. It’s crispy on the outside and chewy and slightly sweet on the inside.
It has the nickname of “the Sultan’s gift”, indicating its long history with the mutliculti Ottoman Empire. The simit is said to have been a fusion of Armenian and Macedonian bread influences. Although there is no official record, it is believed that simit was conceived in the palace kitchens during Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent’s reign in 1500s. During the 16th century, Evliya Celebi, who was an Ottoman explorer, travelled through the Ottoman Empire and neighboring realms over a period of 40 years. He recorded his observations in a travelogue titled Seyâhatnâme (“Book of Travel”), and described Istanbul’s simit sellers in his famous book Seyahatname, “There were a total of 300 sellers and 70 bakeries that made simit five times each day. The last batch came out after dark, and the sellers threaded the rings onto long sticks fixed into the corners of their baskets or trays and hung a small lantern at the top to attract the attention of the crowds on their way home after work.” According to the palace records, 30 pieces of simit were brought to the palace from public bakeries every morning during the sultan Suleiman II’s reign in the 1690s. Simit was the favored gift given to soldiers by the Ottoman Sultans during Ramadan, the month of daily fasting observed by Muslims.
Today, in Istanbul simit sellers carry piles of them on their heads and sell them on the street, much like they did during the Ottoman days.
At Truva in Kenwood, they serve simit, along with a variety of other Turkish breads and meat pies, like boreks, for breakfast, which starts at 10:30 AM, which is a bit late for western working professionals.
Bread is considered sacred to the Turks. Muslims use Simit and another bread, Pide, to break the fast at Ramandan. Catholics totally have the sacred bread thing very wrong. The thin tasteless communion wafers are useless. Does the Vatican really think that Christ can only transubstantiate into tasteless wafers, and not maybe a wonderful rye bread? I remember in the 1980s there was a movement to have Catholic masses in peoples homes, and to make their own sacramental breads. Most were terrible, but there was one I remember that used a dark flour or grain sweetened with a bit of honey (which breaks the Vatican law of only wheat and water in eucharistic bread) that was really good. It looked a lot like the Turkish pide used at Ramandan. Even Jewish people have better sacramental bread in challah, used at high holy days and for Shabbat dinners. Well there you have it, I have sacramental bread envy.
When I stop by Truva to pick one up, the restaurant manager makes me sit at the bar and serves me a cup of Turkish tea on the house, while his chef warms my simit in the open hearth oven. All Turkish bread is served warm and the simit is a traditional breakfast gnosh for Turks on the go. He tells me he is from Istanbul, asks if I have been there, and tells me I look German, which I admit and then we start speaking in German.
I take my first bite in the car, and sesame seeds fly every which way. But I fall in love with this new bread. It’s got all the kicks – the crunchy, nutty, semi-sweet chewy goodness that we all want in a breakfast bread. I can definitely get into having these alongside scrambled eggs in the morning or dipping it in Turkish marinara that they also serve. I just wish their bakery was open earlier. Do yourself a favor and stop by Truva Turkish Kitchen on the weekend to try a simit and an amazeballs Turkish Breakfast.
Yesterday at the Yellow Springs Street Festival, we stopped at one of my favorite book stores, Epic Books on Xenia Avenue. Its comparable to Ohio Bookstore in Over-the-Rhine Cincinnati and the Book Loft in Columbus’ German Village. Of course I gravitated toward the Ohio recipe book section and found a 1970 cookbook called “Favorite Recipes from Shandon, Ohio”, a small town near Oxford, Ohio, famous for its Strawberry Festival. I found some cool faves, a recipe for goetta, city chicken, & 7 layer salad, Ruth Lyon’s Christmas Jello Salad, and one for a casserole I’d never heard of called “Ben Getty’ or John Ben Ghetti.
It was a simple casserole of the 70s made with ground beef, onion, green pepper, a can of tomato soup and cream of mushroom soup, a can of peas, mushrooms, and pimentos, and spaghetti noodles. thus the “Ghetti” portion of its name The recipe reminded me of another famous Ohio 1970s casserole I knew about called Johnny Marzetti, invented in the 1920s in Columbus, Ohio, by Italian immigrant Teresa Marzetti at her and her husband Joseph Marzetti’s restaurant.
Before opening the original restaurant in 1896, Marzetti wrote, “We will start a new place and serve good food. At a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but we will serve good food.”
She sought a simple main course, easy and cheap to make. It had to be scalable to feed the masses, the starved college students from Ohio State University down the street. The dish became known as Johnny Marzetti, named afer Teresa’s brother-in-law. Sounds like an Italian opera of forbidden love – why would she name it after her brother-in-law and not her husband? There’s a story there for sure. The original recipe included ground beef, onions, cheese, tomato sause and macaroni noodles. It was a sensation at 45 cents a serving.
My Aunt Betty had a similar casserole that was her signature dish at family gatherings which included Italian pork sausage, tomato sauce, spiral pasta and cheese. I loved it, but we never called it Johnny Marzetti – to us it was just Aunt Betty’s casserole. Baking it did something to the spiral pasta that made it extra chewy and delicious.
Johnny Marzetti has different names and variations depending on where in Ohio you cook it. It can be called John’s Dinner, Johnny Mazuma, Yum-a-Zetti, John Ben Getti, Johnny M, John Marzetti, Marsetti, Johnny Mazetti, Hamburger Casserole, Beef and Macaroni Casserole and, for baby boomers and Generation Xers in the Columbus area elementary-school cafeterias, the memorable Glop. So there it was, John Ben Ghetti – a variation on the original Johnny Marzetti, but refined with peas, pimentos, and green peppers (or mangos as we called them mid century in Cincinnati).
I have not been able to find any references to who nameplated John Ben Ghetti – more local recipe book investigations needed. But surely some ingenious housewife looking to hide or include veggies in the meat and starch diet of mid century America thought this up.
By the 1920s Johnny Marzetti was so popular it began showing up in cookbooks outside of Columbus, Ohio, as far away as Wisconsin. Like they introduced SPAM to Hawaii, American soldiers took it down to Panama during World War II and it became so popular there, it was named the national dish. In Panama, they call it Johnny Mazetti and add olives and Arturo sauce.
The food scientists at Betty Crocker saw how popular these hamburger and tomato based casseroles were in homes and made an even easier-to-prepare boxed version, introducing it to America in 1971 as the first Hamburger Helper. It came in five flavors – Beef Noodle, Potato Stroganoff, Hash, Rice Oriental, and Chili Tomato (the closest flavor to Johnny Marzetti).
At its release in 1971 food prices were high due to post Vietnam war inflation. Hamburger Helper mix came to the rescue with its super-power ability to stretch one pound of ground beef into five servings for a family meal. It combined the meat in one pot with macaroni noodles and processed ‘cheese’ spread, that made it an ooey-goey sensation, and sales took off. More than one in four households purchased it in its first year. Hamburger Helper was certainly a staple on my childhood dinner table.
So enter the Columbus Public Schools who caught wind of the casseroles economics and deliciousness and started serving it in their scratch kitchens. This made the casserole a staple dish in school kitchens throughout Ohio. But by 2018, there were few schools serving it. The West Branch district, near Alliance, served Johnny Marzetti to elementary and middle school students on Tuesdays, with corn, a mixed green salad, fried apples and milk. Miller High School and Millcreek Elementary in the Southern Local district near New Straitsville serves Johnny Marzetti, steamed peas, fruit cocktail and fat-free milk on a Wednesday. The closest public school district to Columbus with Johnny Marzetti on the menu was Lakewood Local Schools in Hebron, near Buckeye Lake.
So why has it fallen out of favor in Ohio public schools? Well, Michelle Obama was an accessory to its massive disappearance. It was the law that reformed school lunches in 2010. When Barack Obama first took office, Michelle endeavored to use her newfound position and influence to battle childhood obesity. It was a noble cause, and her passion became the inspiration for the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010. That law reimbursed districts that served meals with more green vegetables, fruits and whole grains—none of which finds its way into even the most creative Johnny Marzetti recipe.
A school gets an extra 6 cents for meals that meet the standards, and menus must be certified. They need to have a bean or legume, an orange or red vegetable, a starch, a dark green vegetable and whole grains, even in the pizza crust.
In marches John Ben Ghetti to the rescue, or one would think, with its peas, green peppers, and red pimento peppers. But alas, no Ohio school systems have turned to JBG to keep the yummy dish alive in the hearts and stomachs of the next generation of Ohio public school kids.
My book club just finished “No One Here Gets Out Alive”, the 1980 biography of rock icon Jim Morrison. It was a little off the beaten path for our club, but it was certainly an interesting, shocking and entertaining read. There is NO ONE who embodies the Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll era of the 1960s and early 1970s more than Morrison. He drank, tripped, and terrorized his way through the Sunset Strip of Los Angeles during the height of his fame and then did the same in the Marais district of Paris before his untimely death at age 27, in the same year as other rock geniuses Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, also both age 27.
While Jim’s standard drink was a whiskey with a beer shooter – appropriate as the Doors got their start at the Whiskey A Go-Go in Los Angeles – I think it’s even more interesting to document his favorite restaurants. While Jim is best known as being the shirtless, skin tight leather pants wearing, self described ‘erotic politician’, he was known to love food and was often asked to lose weight by Elektra records during his pudgier periods to return to the waify sex symbol he was known and loved for.
Jim lived in Venice Beach before the Doors catapulted into fame. One of his favorite places there was Olivia’s Place where he could get a heaping plate of short ribs, beans and cornbread for 85 cents or a steak dinner for $1.25. Jim immortalized the place in the song Soul Kitchen in his 1967 debut album. According to Doors drummer, Jim Densmore, it looked like an Amtrak dining car was parked on the beach on the corner of Main Street and Ocean Park Drive. It was the regular haunt of UCLA film students, which Jim was for a short while. It was demolished in 1973 two years after Jim died.
Jim’s supposedly fave bar in Venice was Hanino Café opened in 1969. It is still standing and known for its great burger on a sesame studded bun with standard toppings like lettuce, tomato, onion, mayo, mustard and relish, and add ons like cheddar, swiss, bacon and chili (which makes it an LA ‘chili size’ , invented at Ptomaine Tommy’s in LA in 1913).
The favorite Santa Monica Boulevard restaurant of Morrison’s was Barney’s Beanery, the third oldest restaurant in Los Angeles, founded in 1927 by John Barney Anthony who got his culinary start serving chili burgers and onion soup to his fellow soldiers. Morrison was seen here with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, a hauntingly ominous meetup. Janis would end up beating Morrison on the head with a bottle of Southern Comfort that night. Barney’s is still open, known for its comfort food and staggering 1000 menu items with 45 varieties of chili and 20 different burgers.
Another Sunset Strip fave in West Hollywood is the Cock and Bull, where Jim ate a lot and which was a hangout for the LA rock scene. After one dinner there with three bottles of scotch he ended up directing traffic like a matador with his coat on the strip as if the bulls of Pamplona were thundering past.
Jim ordered a lot of room service at one of his Sunset abodes, the Chateau Marmont, where he fell hanging off his balcony, bounced off the roof of a shed and walked away fine. During the height of his binges before leaving for Paris, if he was hungry, he’d drink a Singapore Sling or some other tropical drink with fruit.
Other LA joints where Jim ate and imbibed were the Garden District, the Phone Booth, the Palms, the Trubador (which he was banned from), and the Lucky U Café.
When they took the Doors’ boat to Catalina , coked out and drunk, they frequented Mikes Café and had breakfasts of scrambled eggs, sausage, sardines, olives, potatoes, chili, cold cuts, toast and beer, beer, beer!
When Jim was in New York he loved eating at the iconic restaurants Mama Leoni’s and the great German restaurant Luchows.
While in New Orleans, which was his last public appearance he ordered watermelon from room service and ate frog legs and hush puppies with his band mates.
While in Paris in the last year of his life, Jim was a regular at Alexander’s, a restaurant near the Hotel Georges V, which he accompanied with Bloody Marys and Chevas Regal Scotch. Ha and his wife could also be seen eating at Le Coupole, and the Café de Flore.
After a binger in the Marais, his wife Pameloa ordered breakfast for Jim at a Latin Quarter café, spaghetti and milk, to ‘line his stomach.’
For his last meal on July 2, 1970, he ate sweet and sour chicken and beer at one of the late night outdoor cafes on the Rue San Antoine near their flat with his wife Pamela and Alan Ronay. He took Pamela home, went out by himself and was found dead in the bathtub the next morning. No autopsy was done, but the official cause was heart attack. Many conspiracy theories of other causes from heroin OD to faking it and living incognito popped up over the next decades, but Jim was cemented into rock and roll legend, gaining entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
dannwoellertthefoodetymologist 