Nov. 4, Monday — New Moon. Richard Gatling receives patent for machine gun, 1862. American humorist and actor Will Rogers born, 1879.
Nov. 5, Tuesday — Election Day. A palindrome for the day: "Rise to vote, sir." Author Sinclair Lewis receives the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1930.
Nov. 6, Wednesday — First day of Ramadan. Composer and band conductor John Philip Sousa born, 1854. Former Ford Motor Co. president Edsel Bryant Ford, born, 1893.
Nov. 7, Thursday — First cartoon of the Republican elephant appeared in "Harper's Weekly," 1874. "Galloping Gertie" bridge collapsed, Tacoma, Wash., 1940.
Nov. 8, Friday — Louvre Museum opened, Paris, 1793. Montana, "The Treasure State," entered into statehood, 1889.
Nov. 9, Saturday — Sadie Hawkins Day. "Rolling Stone" magazine began publication, 1967. Poet Dylan Thomas died, 1953.
Nov. 10, Sunday — Journalist Henry Stanley located missionary and explorer David Livingstone, Africa, 1871.
Ask The Old Farmer's Almanac:How do you determine the date for Sadie Hawkins Day? — G.H., New York, N.Y.
Answer: The first Sadie Hawkins Day occurred on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 1938, and this year it's celebrated on the 9th as well, because it happens to be a Saturday. Recent practice has been to choose the Saturday nearest to the 9th of November to accommodate "girls-ask-boys" school dances and other events.
Unlike typical holidays, this one is the invention of a cartoonist, Al Capp, creator of the "Li'l Abner" cartoon strip. Capp conceived of a day in Dogpatch, U.S.A. (apparently somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains, where Mammy and Pappy Yokum lived with their son, Li'l Abner) when all the unmarried ladies could pursue their men. If caught, the hapless bachelors were soon trudging down the aisle. Needless to say, pandemonium erupted in Dogpatch. This fictional world so captured people's imaginations that Sadie Hawkins Day passed into the realm of modern folklore.
Ask The Old Farmer's Almanac:How did the pioneers keep yeast or sourdough starters going without refrigeration? — N.I., Evansville, Ind.
Answer: They used it daily, pretty much, so the fermentation never progressed to spoilage. Today, we keep packaged yeast in the refrigerator because we may not use it for weeks between baking sessions. Even in the old days, however, sourdough starters had to be replenished from scratch now and again.
Many old recipes rely on potatoes, which are boiled in water, cooled and pressed through a sieve, water and all, and then left at room temperature. Flour is then stirred in, and the whole concoction is covered loosely in the hope that wild, airborne yeasts will feed on the sugar in the wheat starch (flour) and begin the process of fermentation. These wild yeasts are the same sort that aid in making hard cider, beer and wine.
If you bake a lot of bread, you may have a fine strain of wild yeast in your kitchen. Sourdough takes its name from the tart taste of a "seasoned" starter, slightly fermented, and always in danger of going bad if not supplemented with additions of flour. For the pioneers, bubbles in the bread batter marked a successful yeast collection; mold did not bode well. Neighbors shared starters rather than make their own because it could take so long to get a good, well-rising dough started. Travelers carefully guarded their starter supplies, replenishing them with equal parts of flour and water as took from their resources.
The modern tradition of "Friendship Breads" echoes the old habit of sharing. The sourdough starters are passed around a community of friends, who keep it going in their refrigerators and make an occasional loaf for family and friends. With the aid of modern refrigeration, a sourdough batch can be stirred as little as once a week and kept almost indefinitely. If it's not used within two weeks, a portion can be taken out and passed on to a friend, and new flour and water added to keep the batch fresh.
Ask The Old Farmer's Almanac:We just bought an old farmhouse with a cranberry bog on one end of the field. Have you got any unusual cranberry ideas? — R.H. Sedgwick, Maine
Answer: Sure thing. If you've got young children, send them out in their puddle boots on a warm, rainy day, and let them fill their small pails with cranberries. When they're ready to come inside, set them up with a box of toothpicks and their berries, and let them construct small houses, chairs, teepees and the like for entertainment.
In the culinary area, you can make an excellent hot, spiced cranberry punch by mulling 5 cups of cranberries with a stick of cinnamon, five whole cloves, five whole allspice and 2 cups of sugar. Start by boiling the berries and spices in 4 cups of water until the berries burst (about 10 minutes). Crush and strain the berries through a fine sieve or cheesecloth (keeping the strained juice). Boil the sugar in another 2 cups of water until the sugar is dissolved. Finally, combine the strained cranberry juice, the sugar water, 1 cup of orange juice and the juice from half a lemon. Serve hot, with a clove-studded orange slice and brandy (optional), or chill and serve cold, adding ginger ale and sliced oranges to taste.
Finally, when Thanksgiving approaches, consider making baked cranberries to go with the turkey. For every 2 cups of washed berries, add 1 1/4 cups sugar, and spoon the mixture into a covered baking dish. Bake for one hour at 350 F. The berries bake up with a beautiful translucent color, like candied cherries.
Send your questions to: Ask the Almanac, The Old Farmer's Almanac, Main St., Dublin, NH 03444; Web site: www.almanac.com; © Yankee Publishing