Gone Fishin’
My Own True Love and I are off on another adventure. This time we’re headed for Normandy. The main focus is D-Day, but we’ll also spend some time on the William the Conqueror and the invasion that went the other way. In other words, lots of history and lots of potential blog posts.*
While I’m gone, feel free to poke around the archives. You might find something you like that you missed the first time.
*If you’ve spent time in Bayeaux and have some don’t-miss suggestions of places to eat, please share.
Having a Blast: Heroes, History, and More History
I will admit freely that I am currently under the gun: a speaking gig to prep for, edits to finish ASAP and an open suitcase on the bedroom floor ready to back for our trip to Normandy.
Instead of scrambling to tell you one of the stories from my list of ideas and possibly not doing it justice, I’d like to introduce you to a history site with a whole bunch of stories from history, Sarah Towle‘s #HistoryHero Blast. Sarah describes what she does as “fun factual fables of (mostly) ordinary individuals doing extraordinary things” –in other words, the kinds of people I call Shinkickers From History. Some names are familiar. Many are not. All the stories are written with a deft hand because Sarah understands that story and history need to pull together.
While I struggle to get my act together, I suggest you click the link, read a story or ten, and nominate your own favorite Shinkicker for a future story.
Tell Sarah Pamela sent you.
In Which a Tomato Appears Before the U.S. Supreme Court
I have tomatoes on my mind these days.
Chicago has been hovering on the edge of spring of days now–though you wouldn’t know it by looking out the window today. Last week I planted peas, lettuces and radishes. I’m eager to plant heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, summer herbs, some more tomatoes. But the weather isn’t quite cooperating., so I’m going to have to wait until we get back from the Great D-Day Tour. Which means waiting a couple of weeks longer before we have tomatoes from my two raised beds.
In the absence of an opportunity to play in the dirt, I’ll share a small historical controversy surrounding the tomato.
As someone is always willing to point out, the tomato is botanically a fruit.* In the United States, the tomato is legally a vegetable, and has been since 1893 thanks to a ruling by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Nix v. Hedden .
The case began with the Tariff Act of 1883, which placed a ten percent tax on imported vegetables. Some vegetable sellers refused to pay the tax on imported tomatoes on the grounds that the tomato is a fruit. Edward L. Hedden, a customs official at the Port of New York, didn’t buy it. When a vegetable merchant named Nix imported a load of tomatoes, he imposed the tariff. The Nix family sued.
After six years, the case reached the Supreme Court. Technically, the Nix family was right. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court ruled that since we eat tomatoes like a vegetable, they are a vegetable for purposes of trade. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you tax it like a duck.
* I must admit, sometimes that person has been me. Sorry.