Chocolate pralines: History and Invention

Praline itself is a French confection, and it was invented when an accident occurs that combined pecans, chocolate and burnt sugars.

The name of pralines derived from French diplomat in the early 17th century whose name and title was César, duc de Choiseul, comte du Plessis-Praslin. His personal chef, Clement Lassangne is believed to be the original inventor of pralines. Chef Lassagne's original praline were whole almonds individually coated in caramelized sugar, as opposed to dark nougat, where a sheet of caramelized sugar covers many nuts.

In 1636 Chef Lassagne decided to coat almonds with boiling sugar. It has been said that Lassagne getting the idea from children who were scavenging for scraps in the kitchens, nibbling on almonds and caramel leftover from one of his pastry creations. Some said that the children stealing almonds from the kitchens and Lassagne followed the delicious smell to find them caramelizing the almonds in sugar over a candle. Lassange then used the idea coated almonds in sugar which were said to be used as gifts to visitors or as a digestive aid.

The other version of the story: The chef Lassagne getting the idea from a clumsy young apprentice who knocked over a container of almonds into a vat of cooking caramel.

Chocolate pralines were brought over from France by the Ursuline nuns, who came to New Orleans in 1727. These nuns were tasked to teach local young girls the domestics arts, which include cooking and how to make confection. The girls were taught the art of praline making. As these girls married and they moved throughout Louisiana and the rest of the south, the praline automatically became a popular regional treat.
Chocolate pralines: History and Invention 

The history and the invention of Camembert cheese

Legend holds that Marie Harel (April 28, 1761- November 9, 1844) is credited with inventing the gourmet cheese named for her native village of Camembert.

Marie was a 19-year-old cheesemaker. One day in 1819, her thoughts more on the boy next door than on her cheesemaking, she omitted the blue mold culture for one batch of cheese. Upon testing of that one batch with its soft creamy texture and delicious flavor, her fame was made. Camembert started life as a meager, dry, yellow-brown cheese made for family consumption.

Fortunately for cheese-lovers, the Harel family gave shelter to a young priest from Brie region, on the run during the French Revolution of 1789. Having closely watched his parishioners make cheese, he was able to return the Harel’s kindness by imparting his knowledge.

This helped them turn the small, rather bitter cheese into a delicious, softer, infinitely more palatable and memorable experience.

The first known reference to cheese from the village of Camembert is from 1706, and in 1760 a nearby mayor wrote that Camembert’s cheeses were reputedly even better than the local ones at Livarot’s market, although cheeses from Livarot and Camembert were still richer and better than those from Pont I’Eveque.

In 1855 a descended of Marie Harel presented Napoleon III with a sample of this cheese. He liked it and ever since then it became known as Camembert cheese.

In 1890 the characteristic round box was invented and Camembert quickly became of the most popular French cheeses conquering foreign markets as well.

After repeated attempts since 1909 to protect its name, Camembert de Normandie became a protected designation of origin cheese in 1983.
The history and the invention of Camembert cheese

Max Morgenthaler invented Nescafé

Like many brand innovators, Nescafé was a result of intensive research - seven years of research to be precise taking place in Swiss Laboratories. In 1930 the Brazilian Coffee Institute contacted Nestlé to develop granulated coffee, soluble in hot water and that retained its flavor.

The background to this inquiry was that Nestlé through it dry milk products has a worldwide reputation and that Brazil produced coffee in abundance, such that the country was forced to destroy part of its crops so as not to see prices fall through the floor on the world market. Through a collaborative approach with the Brazilian Government, and seven years of research, a group of Nestlé scientists, led by chemist Dr Max Morgenthaler, developed Nescafé.

Many more or less successful trials were performed by Max Morgenthaler showed a recurring problem of a very hygroscopic extracted soluble coffee power.

In the spring of 1931 a soluble powder was finally produced that could be manufactured on an industrial scale. The breakthrough product was announced and introduced on 1 April 1938 at Nestlé’s headquarters in Vevey.

Over the years Nescafé has kept the emphasis on innovation, introducing pure soluble coffee (1952) solely using roast coffee beans, freeze-dried soluble coffee (with the launch of Gold Blend in 1965) and coffee granules (1967). In 1994 it invented the ‘full aroma’ process, which improved the quality of instant coffee.
Max Morgenthaler invented Nescafé

The invention of windmill

The power of the wind was well recognised in antiquity when people took advantage of its to propel ships. Sailing ships using wind power to drive their ships by 3000 BC. Some historians believed that the windmill had its origin in Tibet or China,where wind-driven prayer wheels that rotated on a vertical axis were common.

The earliest known wind powered grain mills and water pumps were used by the Persians in A.D. 500-900. Communities in Persia were mounting small sails of reed mats, woven palm fronds, and occasionally slats of wood onto vertical shafts extending through the roofs of buildings. The sails spun horizontally turning the vertical shaft to provide grinding power below.

In China in the 8th century AD, windmills were apparently employed for helping to haul canal boats past canal locks but were not used for grinding grain.

Around AD 1100, the ‘Mediterranean’ windmill began to appear in Italy. Massive, two story stone building were mounted with vertical sails and it was connected to a vertical shaft that drove the mill grinding stone below. Windmills were used in Holland in the 15th century for pumping water over the dikes.

The first windmill manufactured in the United States was designed by Daniel Halladay, who began inventing windmills in 1854 in his Connecticut machine shop.

By the early nineteenth century steam engines had begun to replace windmills as the preferred power source for grinding and for industrial uses.
The invention of windmill

Invention of bicycle

A bicycle is a truly great invention because it is part of the entire range of human existence, from frivolity to necessity. Three centuries ago French mathematician Jacques Ozanom spelled out the theoretical advantages of human powered carriage in which one can drive oneself wherever one pleases, without horses.

The bicycle was not created in one brilliant invention. Rather it arrived piecemeal, one idea at a time, until 1885, John Starkey added the final ideas and created a functional bicycle.

In 1804, an obscure American mechanic named J. Bolton patented a four-wheeled carriage designed to carry up to six idle passengers who sat comfortably on three upholding benches. In addition, toe men operated the vehicle. One sat in front and steered the smaller front wheel, each about two feet in diameter.

Macmillan’s bicycle the first to use pedals

The first bicycle was built in 1817. Baron Karl Drais Von Sauerbrun of Germany called his invention the draisine. The draisine was made of wood. It was pushed forward by the rider’s feet. The baron’s bicycle did not catch on in France, but it became popular as a plaything in England during the 1820s and 1830s.

The term ‘bicycle’ was not introduced until the 1860s, when it was coined in France to describe a new kind of two-wheeler with a mechanical drive. Ever since then, ‘bicycle’ has been used in French and English to designate a two-wheeler with pedals.

In 1839, a Scottish blacksmith named Kirkpatrick Macmillan made the first bicycle pedals. He attached pedals to swinging cranks above the bicycles front wheel. The swinging cranks were linked to rods that drove the back wheel. His bike also the first to have a brake, but this did not prevent the Glasgow police court from fining him for ‘furious driving’ when his bicycle struck a child in 1842.

The safety bicycle did not become popular until the advent in 1885 of the first recognizable modern bicycle, the Rover designed by John Starley of Coventry. In 1888 the Scottish veterinarian Dr John Dunlop’s invented the pneumatic tyre specially made for bicycle.
Invention of bicycle