Books, programs to make your mouth water

641.5. That num­ber might not mean any­thing to you, but in the world of the Delaware County Dis­trict Library and other pub­lic libraries in the United States, that num­ber is incred­i­bly impor­tant and sig­nif­i­cant. 641.5 is the Dewey Dec­i­mal Clas­si­fi­ca­tion num­ber for cook­books, one of the biggest and most used col­lec­tion of non­fic­tion books in the library.

It is fas­ci­nat­ing to browse the cook­book sec­tions in the library. The books on these shelves cover such a wide and var­ied num­ber of top­ics, from peren­nial favorites like The New York Times Cook­book to cook­books by favorite Food Net­work stars such as Paula Dean, Guy Fieri, Rachel Ray and Emeril LaGasse, to healthy cook­books, cook­books for hol­i­days, cook­books for babies and even cook­books for pets.

If you are like thou­sands of other library users, you prob­a­bly have checked out a cook­book once or twice in your life­time, per­haps for a par­tic­u­lar recipe or just to leaf through it. Because of the pop­u­lar­ity of these types of books, the library is now offer­ing a “Cook Book Club” pro­gram, giv­ing you a chance to dis­cuss a cook­book and share a recipe pre­pared from it.

You are cor­dially invited to attend the first meet­ing of “The Cook Book Club” at the Delaware (Main) Library at 7 p.m. Thurs­day, March 29. Atten­dees will review and dis­cuss Jamie’s Food Rev­o­lu­tion by Jamie Oliver, and then enjoy shar­ing a recipe that they pre­pared from the book. Check at the Infor­ma­tion Desk for copies of the book — check it out, find a tan­ta­liz­ing recipe to pre­pare, and then share it with fel­low “food­ies” at this program.

Who was Cyn­thia Ann Parker?

Cyn­thia Ann Parker was born in 1825 in Illi­nois, accord­ing to World Book Ency­clo­pe­dia. Her fam­ily trav­eled by wagon train to set­tle Fort Parker in Texas. In 1836, soon after the com­mu­nity was estab­lished, Comanches raided the set­tle­ment and kid­napped five set­tlers, includ­ing 10-year-old Cyn­thia. Four of the set­tlers were even­tu­ally returned to Fort Parker, but Cyn­thia Ann Parker stayed with the tribe for 25 years. In 1860, a raid by the Texas Rangers recov­ered Parker and her infant daugh­ter. Her hus­band, Chief Peta was pre­sumed dead, and her two sons escaped. Parker tried many times to return to the Comanches, but was found and sent back to the Parker fam­ily each time. Broken-hearted, Parker her­self died in 1870 at the age of 43. Parker’s sur­viv­ing son Quan­nah Parker became chief of the Qua­hadi Comanches and took con­trol of the Texas plains for years, fight­ing back the U.S. Cav­alry until 1874. Exiled to Okla­homa, he was revered as a tribal leader until his death in 1911.

What is a black swallower?

Black swal­lower are rarely seen under­sea crea­tures because sci­en­tists have only seen them after they are dead — after one has attempted to eat a fish so large that its meal even­tu­ally killed it through indi­ges­tion. Grz­imeks’ Ani­mal Life Ency­clo­pe­dia notes that while sci­en­tists have never seen the fish eat­ing, they spec­u­late that it grabs its prey by the tail and slowly starts swal­low­ing it whole. Unfor­tu­nately, the black swal­lower is not too selec­tive about the size of its prey, which often results in decom­po­si­tion start­ing before it can be digested. The result­ing gas builds up and leaves the black swal­lower to float to the surface.

How did Martha’s Vine­yard get its name?

Pro­lific explorer Bartholomew Gos­nold (1592–1607), who named both Martha’s Vine­yard and Cape Cod, pio­neered the quick­est way to sail from Great Britain to the north­east­ern seaboard of Amer­ica. In a pub­lished account of his voy­age in 1602, it was noted that he was respon­si­ble for pop­u­lar­iz­ing the col­o­niza­tion of New Eng­land. Martha’s Vine­yard is named after a daugh­ter of Gos­nold who died in infancy. I found this infor­ma­tion in Names on the Land: An His­tor­i­cal Account­ing of Place Names in the United States.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delawarelibrary.org. No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked.

Posted by Mary Santos on Mar 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.