Small bites

Garlic festival time in Pennsylvania

STROUDSBURG, Pa., -- The 2002 Pocono Garlic Festival is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 31, to celebrate the beloved homegrown product.

The organizers promise loads of garlic for sale, garlic delicacies to eat, and other food and entertainment, all in downtown Stroudsburg, which last year modestly proclaimed itself the Garlic Capital of the World.

About 35 restaurants and other establishments featuring local chefs and cooks will prepare garlicky dishes to eat on the spot or take home in coolers. Music will include the mellow sounds of the Garlic Eating Tuba Troubadours.

Admission and parking are free.

Book tells long history of peanut butter

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- "Peanuts: The Illustrious History of the Goober Pea" (University of Illinois University Press, $29.95) by Andrew S. Smith tells the back story of one of the wonders of the national food scene.

"Peanuts help define what it means to be an American," Smith says.

Quite a definition -- bearing in mind that in antebellum America the peanut was shunned by Southern aristocrats and Northern elite, considered ungenteel, fit only for the poor and slaves to eat. Thereafter, it soared in public esteem, of course. Fresh roasted peanuts soon found a wider popular fan base, and now peanuts and peanut butter are part of the food mainstream.

"Nowhere else in the world are peanuts consumed in so many ways or in such quantities as in the United States," Smith writes. Its long social history has converted the peanut into a culinary icon, he says.

The book surveys that long history, drawing from many scholarly sources. Among Smith's offerings is a chapter titled Historical Recipes. He found thousands, he says -- and chose some to include here, pointing out they're quite different from modern recipes.

Indeed. Today's cookbooks probably wouldn't feature Liver With Peanuts, or even Peanut and Prune Ice Cream, recipes from a 1916 publication.

-- From wire reports