Here I am, stuck between Christmas and New Year's Day and wondering what I can write about. My west coast brother hasn't been much help recently. Between blizzards, slide offs (no injuries), family home for the holidays, and taking care of their grands, he and has wife have been kept quite busy lately. So I was left to check out anything special about December 29 besides the fact that it puts us firmly on the slippery slope into 2023. To my amazement I discovered that today is National Pepper Pot Day, a day that celebrates the 'soup that won the war,' the Revolutionary War that is. Pepper Pot soup, made of tripe, beef and whatever vegetables you can find, seasoned with liberal amounts of pepper, is presumed to have come originally from the Caribbean, and was sold on the streets of Philadelphia. A side note here, we tend to think of fast food as a modern invention but, according to historical sources, lots of sandwiches, pasties, chestnuts, etc. were sold on the streets of large cities. George Ludwig, who lived in Philadelphia, was George Washington's Baker General, charged with providing bread to the troops. Sadly there wasn't much grain available. The farmers were evidently selling their crops to the British, who probably paid with real money. So George W told George L to feed the troops whatever he could to keep them alive during the cold winter of 1777-78. Pepper Pot soup is what he made. I think it probably worked really well. Soup is warm, can always be watered down to feed more, and plenty of pepper can disguise the taste of not quite fresh ingredients. Maybe next year I'll have a Pepper Pot party, but I will use fresh ingredients and probably leave out the tripe.
PS If this doesn't appeal to you at all, tomorrow is Bacon Day!
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