Food Watch: OMG, is it National Frappe (or Frappé) Day again already?

ICED-COFFEE FRAPPE

[Says Food.com recipe-sharer Sydney Mike:] "Another recipe for coffee lovers, found in the Favorite Brand Name Recipes, May 2010 cookbooklet, Smoothies and Summer Drinks. Preparation time does not include the time needed to brew the coffee strong and cool it!"

Total Time: 2 mins
Prep Time: 2 mins
Cook Time: 0 mins

Ingredients:
1 cup coffee, brewed strong, then cooled
½ cup cream
1 tablespoon light chocolate syrup
2 tablespoons sugar substitute (recipe gives sucralose-based)
1 cup ice cubes

Directions:
(1) Combine all ingredients in a blender and process for about 30 seconds or until smooth.
(2) Pour into 2 glasses and enjoy.

by Ken

Where does the time go? Here you are thinking it's months yet till National Frappe Day, or weeks anyway, and then you look up and suddenly it's here! And in a panic you've got to shake your brain out to remember where you know you can get a really fine frappe, or (some would say) frappé -- or check out some recipes for do-it-yourself frapping (or frappé-ing).

Okay, I don't have to shake my brain terribly hard to know that I don't have a backlog of favorite frappe joints, and in approaching the making of one I would be handicapped by a high degree of murkiness about what exactly a frappe is. Off the top of my head I think of something liquidier than a sundae, more along the lines of a milkshake, but not so much like a milkshake as . . . well, frappier. What's more, as you may have guessed already, I have never actually celebrated National Frappe (or Frappé) Day, never actually even heard of it. Still, it sounds to me like a more festive holiday than any number that have lobbied their way onto the official holiday schedule.

Speaking of which, I'm inclined to think that National Frappe (or Frappé) Day may not have absolutely official standing, especially since the Cooking.com page where I encountered the news of it also includes a calendar that just for this month lists:

OCTOBER 2014
1 -- Vegetarian Day
2 -- Fried Scallops Day
3 -- Caramel Custard Day
4 -- Taco Day
5 -- Apple Betty Day
6 -- Mad Hatter Day
7 -- Frappe Day
8 -- Fluffer Nutter Day
9 -- Moldy Cheese Day
10 -- Angel Food Cake Day
11 -- Sausage Pizza Day
12 -- Gumbo Day
13 -- Yorkshire Pudding Day
14 -- Chili Month
15 -- Chicken Cacciatore Day
16 -- Liqueur Day
17 -- Pasta Day
18 -- Chocolate Cupcake Day
19 -- Seafood Bisque Day
20 -- Applejack Day
21 -- Pumpkin Cheesecake Day
22 -- Nut Day
23 -- Boston Cream Pie Day
24 -- Bologna Day
25 -- Greasy Foods Day
26 -- Mincemeat Day
27 -- American Beer Day
28 -- Wild Foods Day
29 -- Oatmeal Day
30 -- Candy Corn Day
31 -- Caramel Apple Day

In the matter of official standing, I mean, I don't think you'd get very far trying to fight a parking ticket on the ground that you assumed alternate-side-of-the-street parking was suspended for Apple Betty Day.

Is Vegetarian Day on the 1st a coy euphemism for October Fools' Day? It manages to make, say, Moldy Cheese Day (9) sound like an event to look forward to. Then, some of these days seem awfully specific, like Fried Scallops Day (2) and Seafood Bisque Day (19), where you might expect the entire scallop and bisque communities to be celebrating. Similarly, Pumpkin Cheese Day (21) makes you wonder whether every imaginable species of cheesecake has its own "day." At the other end of the spectrum, some of these days sound awfully broad -- Nut Day, for example, covers a lot of gastronomic territory.

Some of the days sound a little vague, like Mad Hatter Day (6) and Wild Foods Day (28), though Wild Foods Day still sounds vaguely more appetizing thatn Greasy Foods Day (25). Can you imagine doing up invitations for a Greasy Foods Day do? And while we're in a clarifying mood, is the 14th the start of Chili Month?

Given how food-suggestible I have become -- usually, I only have to hear a food mentioned to develope an overpowering craving for it -- I'm surprised how immune I am to most of this October calendar. Some of these festivities are clearly aimed at other eaters, like Fluffer Nutter day (8) Bologna Day (24), and Candy Corn and Caramel Apple Days (30, 31).

But I doubt that I'll be able to resist the siren song of Sausage Pizza Day (11), or perhaps Chocolate Cupcake Day (18). I might also be at high risk on Boston Cream Pie Day (23) , except that I really don't currently have a good source, and while I've looked at lots of recipes (how hard can it be? you make your cake layers, some sort of custard for the filling, and a ganache for the frosting), the problem is that even if it didn't come out all that well, it would probably be consumed before day's end.


SO WHAT EXACTLY IS A FRAPPE (OR FRAPPÉ)?

I think we all think we know, but do we really? I can't say that Food.com is all that helpful in its brief introduction to the recipes offered, especially since I think of the French verb "frapper" meaning to hit or strike or suchlike):

The name may be French (from the word "frapper," meaning “to ice”), but history says it's the Greeks who popularized this icy and sweet concoction during a 1957 international fair.

• Iced Coffee Frappe
• Chocolate-Strawberry-Coffee Frappe
• Frappe Cappuccino
• Mocha Frappe
• Iced Nutty Irishman Coffee Frappe (note: "non-alcoholic and diabetic")
• Kiwi Frappe
• Strawberry (Diet) Ginger Ale Frappe

Here's what the old Second College Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary I keep at my desk has to say about "frappé":

frappé n.
1. A frozen, fruit-flavored mixture that is similar to sherbet and is served as a dessert or appetizer.
2. A beverage, usually a liqueur, poured over shaved ice.
3. A milk shake containing ice cream.

Huh?

On the plus side, the ensuing derivation traces "frappé" back to "frapper, to chill" and then back to the Old French "fraper, to strike." (There's no point in my trying to reproduce the derivation here -- believe me, I tried -- because it uses "less than" signs to indicate "from," and it turns out that, as with ampersands, I can't do any HTML version that our system will accept except as, in this case, "<"; which seems to me exceedingly unhelpful.) This at least gives us "chilled" for "frappé," which is something. I think we can agree that whatever the heck a frappe (or frappé) is, it's chilled.

Otherwise I don't see the picture getting clearer. In fact, it seems to to have gotten murkier than I could possibly have imagined -- I'm almost sorry I brought it up. Except that you'd think National Frappe (or Frappé) Day would be the time, if ever, to establish what exactly the damned thing is. Well, good luck to us with that! I guess the deal is that a person knows a frappe (or frappé) when the person sees one. (Unfortunately, having had no advance warning of today's great event, I don't have access to my books, to see whether specifically culinary sources may be more to the point. I wonder if one or another edition of Joy of Cooking has anything to say on the subject.

Anyway, now that we've cleared that up --


WANNA TRY ONE MORE?

KIWI-FRUIT FRAPPE


[Says Cooking.com recipe-sharer katew]: "Great to start the day with loads of anti-oxidants"

Total Time: 5 mins
Prep Time: 5 mins
Cook Time: 0 mins

Ingredients:
1 cup apple juice, unsweetened
½ cup chopped pineapple
1 cup kiwi fruit
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1½ cups ice cubes

Directions:
(1) Place 2 glasses in fridge to chill.
(2) Blend all ingredients till smooth.
(3) Pour into chilled glasses.
(4) Garnish with a slice of kiwi fruit.
(5) Serve at once.

That's a good tip about chilling the glasses, wouldn't you say?

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