Ever heard of the pawpaw tree?  Ever tasted its fruit?  Did you even know it had fruit?   Though it does not have the name recognition of an apple or peach tree, the pawpaw tree has a long and important history in the United States, one associated with everything from nutrition to folklore.  Pawpaws have the largest fruit of any native tree.  In the mid-sixteenth century, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto likely observed Mississippi Valley Native Americans growing and eating pawpaws.  News of this exotic fruit subsequently spread to Europe.  Confusion over the fruit’s name started immediately.  One theory is that the Spanish mistakenly named the fruit “papaya” because of its green skin and orange flesh similar to a papaya.  Some think it is a muddled English spelling of a different Caribbean fruit.  What is known is that the tree’s scientific name (Asimina triloba) comes from the Powhatan word Assimina, which a Jamestown settler transcribed in 1612 as “wheat plum.”  Pawpaws extend across eastern portions of the United States between Northern Michigan and Georgia.  The pawpaw tree produces a nutritious and delicious fruit in the summer which is actually a berry.  The pawpaw berry is also called a “custard apple,” a name derived from the creamy texture of the fruit.  It is said to taste like a mix between a banana and a pear, with a hint of vanilla.  Jessica Brode, edited by Kayleigh Waters  https://gardens.si.edu/learn/blog/way-down-yonder-in-the-paw-paw-patch/  See also https://www.bethsnotesplus.com/2013/05/paw-paw-patch.html and https://www.facebook.com/jtsdmusic/videos/4th-grade-paw-paw-patch/429661111274340/ 

Kimchi grilled cheese  A lot of people burn their grilled cheese, so I figured out a few tips on how to make a perfect grilled cheese every time. First, make sure everything is hot before adding the cheese.  That way, the cheese will melt quickly and your bread won’t burn.  The second tip is to add the butter last.  Adding it last gives the grilled cheese a nice finishing buttery flavor without burning the bread.  You can use this recipe method for normal grilled cheese without the kimchi, and it will still be great.  And if any of you can’t handle spicy kimchi, then rinse off the spiciness in cold water, squeeze out excess water, chop it up, and use it.  It will still have a crispy-crunchy texture.  posted by Maangchi  https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/kimchi-grilled-cheese   

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Words coined after people, we call them eponyms:  from Greek epi- (upon) + -onym (name).  The English language is chockful of them:  boycott, dunce, and tawdry, to name a few.

Pyrrhonism  (PIR-uh-niz-uhm)  noun  Extreme or absolute skepticism.  After Pyrrho, a Greek philosopher, c. 360-270 BCE.  Earliest documented use:  1603.

litmus test  (LIT-muhs test)  noun  1.  A test in which a single indicator prompts the decision.  2.  A test to determine if a solution is acidic or alkaline.  From Old Norse litmosi (dye-moss), from litr (dye) + mosi (moss).  Earliest documented use:  1824. 

The 12 most unforgettable descriptions of food in literature by Adrienne LaFrance  Read descriptions of food in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, Under the Jaguar Sun by Italo Calvino, I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections by Nora Ephron, Chicken Soup With Rice: A Book of Months by Maurice Sendak, Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust, Revenge of the Lawn by Richard Brautigan, Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth, Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert, After the Plague by T. C. Boyle, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, and The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway at https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/03/unforgettable-food-scenes-books-haruki-murakami/627601/ 

Rick and Laura Brown are at the forefront of a field called experimental archaeology—recreating ancient objects using the tools and techniques of those eras.  Their main goal is education—teaching their students at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design to recreate age-old monuments and more.  “The object itself is loaded with information,” Rick says.  “You don’t understand it until you reverse-engineer it and experience the process.”  Fascinated by New England’s architectural history, they joined the Timber Framers Guild, a 1,400-member group devoted to the old-fashioned craft of building structures with beams and joints held together by wooden pegs.  In 1998, Grigg Mullen Jr., a civil engineer and retired professor at the Virginia Military Institute who has worked with the Browns since their earliest projects, put out a call for volunteers to recreate a full-sized medieval trebuchet, a kind of catapult and the period’s most fearsome weapon.  The Browns took part in the workshop, and on the flight back to Boston, Rick sat next to PBS “Nova” producer Michael Barnes, who asked Rick if he thought he could recruit timber framers from the workshop to help assemble more weapons for a “Nova” program, “Secrets of Lost Empires.”  The show culminated with participants raising two full-sized trebuchets next to a castle on the shores of Loch Ness in Scotland.  The burning of the Notre-Dame cathedral in April 2019 inspired the Browns and their students to launch a new, international educational project.  After two-thirds of the cathedral’s roof and most of its spire were consumed by the flames, Carpenters Without Borders, a French group, held that the structure should be rebuilt using medieval methods, an argument the group eventually won.  The Browns offered to help demonstrate the potential of experimental archaeology in this singular case—a gesture of goodwill and solidarity.  In response, the French carpenters sent them the plans for Truss 6, a supporting structure that hung over the choir.  Estimated to have been built in 1180, the truss was one of the oldest features of a cathedral that took nearly two centuries to build starting in 1163.  Douglas Starr  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/americans-helping-rebuild-notre-dame-12th-century-tools-180979794/ 

On May 4th of an undetermined year, a young girl told an immortal truth about literature:  “‘what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice ‘without pictures or conversations?’”  This was, of course, directly before Alice’s own contribution to the worlds of literature and internet lingo:  going down the rabbit hole.  Alice descended into Wonderland on the birthday of Alice Pleasance Hargreaves (née Liddell), the inspiration for the character.  The Liddells were friends with the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), and Alice and her two sisters heard the first versions of the soon-to-be iconic story on a “golden afternoon” in 1862, in a rowboat with Dodgson and his friend Robinson Duckworth.  The story—originally titled Alice's Adventures Under Ground—was published by Macmillan as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in November 1865, and promptly became “the publishing sensation of Christmas 1865.”  Since then, the book has never gone out of print, and has been translated into more than 100 languages, including Latin.  Literary Hub  May 1, 2022 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2529  May 4, 2022