Friday, February 15, 2008

#67: Condimental Congress

Auntie Mame says to her nephew Patrick at one point in the movie named for her, "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" Well, this day in history it would appear that the first mustard in America was advertised in Philadelphia in 1768.
Since I was born in Philly, making me a native American, if not a Native American, the cockles of my heart (which I'm gonna have to Google to find out just exactly what they are) are warmed with memories of the soft pretzel shop around the corner from my house that was owned by the father of a buddy of mine. (Handy, Eh?) The glory of THOSE soft pretzels is that we got to pick which ones we wanted because we were part of the Good Ole Boy system of the neighborhood, so mine were always nearly burnt, with that great yellow mustard on them, and always salty! (I think I might be Mrs. Lot reincarnated, but I haven't done enough research on the subject to verify my suspicions.) Anyway...the really good thing about the soft pretzels we got was that they were sold from an enclosed counter, not some guy's armpit as has been the case on the corners of Philly for subsequent generations.
Now...on February 11, 1768, Samuel Adams (famous for his patriotism and more recently having a beer named after him) circulated a petition opposing the Townsend Act, one of the preliminaries to the American Revolution. NOT coincidentally, in the Providence of God, on February 20, 1768, the first American fire insurance company was chartered in Pennsylvania.
I wonder if guys were sitting around with Sam Adams, eating mustard covered soft pretzels, and drinking Sam's home brew when they came up with THAT idea, anticipating the firestorm they would start in another eight years?
Given the Founding Fathers' propensity for eating, especially when they were sitting through all the discussions of the Continental Congresses, should history have recorded the name of the meetings as the First and Second Condimental Congresses?
Got Revolution?

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