The American Eclipse of 1878
From Nation, For Nation - Pulse of the Nation
The Iron Lung: A Mechanical Miracle of the Polio Era
Stuff Your Face With These Weird Food Combinations
Contrary to what your parents told you when you were young, food is meant to be played with! Where would we be if we hadn’t discovered the incredible taste combination we received when we mixed chocolate and peanut butter together? Or when we realized sea salt and caramel could be blended with coffee to create a delicious, salty-sweet treat? Below are eight weird food combinations you may never have tried but that, according to those who swear by them, actually taste amazing!
1. Hot Chocolate and Cheese
It’s hard to imagine two foods more people love, but chocolate and cheese together?! Now that sounds weird. However, in Columbia, hot chocolate with cheese is a tradition and a delicacy that people in North America are only just starting to discover. The cheese used is called “queso compasigna,” meaning rustic cheese. The best translation you can find in US grocery stores would probably be a mild mozzarella or halloumi. Cook up a batch of hot chocolate and then add a cube of cheese on top. When it melts, you’ve got heaven in a cup.
2. Avocado and Chocolate
The concept of mixing these two disparate-seeming ingredients comes from the popularity of both and the ability to use avocado to make an otherwise decadent dessert-like chocolate mousse-into something considerably healthy. People absolutely love this combination, which often requires mixing equal parts of both ingredients together. The two flavors smooth and complement one another, rather than fighting for dominance as one would think.
3. Cheetos and Milk
What is slowly becoming a new-but somehow deeply disturbing-option for after-school meals is a combination of Cheetos and milk. Now, one can conceivably imagine eating Cheetos with milk, but many people are actually starting to enjoy the option of Cheetos in milk, like a cereal. This also led to the concept of Cheetos milk, which is the milk left over after the Cheetos are eaten. A Filipino website, Pepper, even offers a recipe one can make with the concoction: Cheetos milk fudge truffles.
4. Pickles and Ice Cream… or Bourbon… or Peanut Butter
Pickle-lovers are always trying to mix these tangy treats with everything under the sun, which may be why most of the weirdest food combinations have pickles in them. There are also dozens of pickle-flavored foods, such as chips, candies, even vodka! But why do people crave pickles to the point where they try to add them to every other food? It could be because your desire for pickles is actually an act of self-preservation: pickles are extremely acidic, which can help stomach issues and minimize bloating, and they have lots of sodium, which can help the body absorb water when dehydrated.
5. Peanut Butter and Hamburgers
Many people love putting condiments on their hamburgers-ketchup, mayo, mustard, sometimes all three! But have you ever thought of slathering a burger with melted peanut butter? The Wheel Inn restaurant located in Sedalia, Missouri, which first opened its doors in 1947, offered the Guberburger, which included a beef patty, lettuce, mayo, tomato, and peanut butter. Unfortunately, the Wheel Inn is now closed. Still, the idea of the Guberburger lives on, and you can find recipes for this savory meal online.
6. Cheddar Cheese and Apple Pie
If you’re from the South, you may balk at the idea, but Northerners prefer a slice of cheddar cheese melting on top of their apple pies. According to Southern Living, this practice could date back as far as Medieval times and was perhaps carried over from Europe to the US, eventually connecting the so-named dairy country (the Midwest) with the apple country (New England).
7. Coca Cola and Red Wine
What may sound unfathomable to Americans is the combination cocktail that has become a huge part of the indigenous Basque culture in Europe. There’s even a name for it: Kalimotxo. The legend goes that the cocktail was invented when servers at the 1972 Basque festival Puerto Viejo realized their wine had gone bad, so they mixed it with Coke to hide the taste. Now, people enjoy the drink all throughout Basque country-with lots of ice, of course.
8. Peanut Butter and Onion
Perhaps the truest test of can-you-handle-this-food-combo is the peanut butter and onion sandwich. Most people state that sweet onions should be used, as they are less abrasive than the tangier varieties. It’s unclear where this sandwich originated, but during the Great Depression, the Bureau of Home Economics reportedly created a recipe for peanut butter stuffed onions. This amounted to baking an onion and then spooning peanut butter into its crevices. If you’re looking for a reason to try it, Hemingway apparently loved this combo.
So, before consider yourself a daring eater, maybe try out a few of the above and let us know what you think. →
From Globe, For Globe - Pulse of the Planet
She carried an olive cane (su mazzolu) or mallet to deal deathblows as needed.
A gaunt figure with a faceless black hood and a shiny scythe. The Grim Reaper fills hearts with terror, a highly recognizable symbol of death. Thanks to pop culture, the Grim Reaper has also become international and universal. But death is a woman for residents of Sardinia, the second largest island owned by Italy.
Her name? The accabadora. Here’s everything you need to know about this menacing figure and the mystery of how real she may have been.
The Sardinian Specter of Death
The folktales surrounding the accabadora first appeared in the historical record in the seventeenth century. True crime today has nothing on these early accounts of the murderess. She roved the village at night, dealing out deathblows and seizing belongings.
The accabadora, sometimes spelled as S’accabadora, turned up repeatedly in local legends. What does the term “accabadora” mean? It has a couple of potential sources. They include the Sardinian word sacabbu, which means “the end.” There’s also the Spanish term acabar, which means “to terminate.”
As the legend goes, family members left their door open when someone was sick beyond saving. This act invited the angel of death inside to do her dark work. Sometimes, the patients themselves even requested her services.
As such, she was portrayed as an older woman veiled in black lace. She carried an olive cane (su mazzolu) or mallet to deal deathblows as needed. Roving the town at night at the behest of caregivers and family members, she existed to bring mercy to the suffering. Besides hitting victims, some accounts describe her suffocating or strangling her charges.
A Multi-Tasking “Angel of Death”
But the accabadora didn’t stick to death alone. Besides putting people out of their misery, she also dabbled in many other things. These included delivering babies as a midwife.
Some accounts also discuss her providing herbal remedies to help the sick. In other words, she cared for her community from cradle to grave. She’s also described as clearing the deceased’s belongings from a room. And some talk about her positioning a yoke under the heads of the infirm.
A Terrifying Legend with Real Implications
Here's where the mystery comes in. Some accounts describe her as actually existing. (Yes, you read that right!) And some living Sardinians agree with this assessment. They assert multiple older women filled this role over the generations. They even claim that accabadoras were bringing death into the 1970s!
But the questions don’t stop there. As author of Accabadora, Michela Murgia argues, “The mystery around her, I think, is partially because it was done in secrecy, because it had to be done in secrecy.”
Unfortunately, this secrecy means the trail of the accabadora goes cold quickly. Some researchers think she served merely as a helper at the bedsides of those dying. These people argue she passively assisted rather than actively killing patients. According to Weird Italy, accabadoras “helped in the agony and gave support, so they were respected by the whole community, but they did not kill as it seems to have happened elsewhere (in Greece).”
Symbology Behind the Role
We can only imagine the terror Sardinians felt upon seeing a black-lace-veiled woman striding purposefully towards their house, olive cane in hand. And yet so many questions remain. These include inquiries about the accabadora’s gender and religious stance. After all, Sardinia was traditionally a very conservative, patriarchal Catholic society. Euthanizing people would have been seen as a mortal sin.
Moreover, a woman fulfilling this role seems surprising at first glance. But there are many potential reasons for this. The accabadora may echo the notion of women as givers (and finishers) of life. Or she may reflect remembrances of an ancient goddess, one that existed before the Indo-European migration. In this case, she may stem from the Great Mother. Either way, she’s earned her spot in the Halloween costume scene right next to the Grim Reaper. Don’t you think?
→
Referred by ripleys.com - where the world’s most extraordinary stories are discovered and celebrated.