title: Lyle Alzado

text: Alzado retired at the end of the 1985 season. He attempted a comeback in 1990, but injured a knee during training camp and was released. In 196 career games, he racked up 112.5 sacks, 24 forced fumbles, and nearly 1,000 tackles, while earning Pro Bowl honors in 1977 and 1978. Following his retirement from playing, Alzado worked as a part-time color analyst for NBC's NFL coverage in 1988–89.


title: Lyle Alzado

text: In 2018, the Professional Football Researchers Association named Alzado to the PFRA Hall of Very Good Class of 2018.


title: Lyle Alzado

text: The man whom ESPN would later label a "...violent, combative player known for his short temper", inspired the league rule against throwing a helmet after having done so to an opponent's helmet. Peter Alzado, Lyle's brother, later identified the years of their youth – marked by an absent, alcoholic father and an over-worked mother — as the crucible for Alzado's unremittingly fierce style of play. "That violence that you saw on the field was not real stuff," his brother held. "Lyle used football as a way of expressing his anger at the world and at the way he grew up." Defensive end Greg Townsend, a teammate on the Raiders, contended that the savagery for which Alzado became noted represented part of a "split personality." "Off the field," remembered Townsend, "he was the gentle giant: so caring, so warm, so giving."


title: Lyle Alzado

text: Alzado was involved in "countless youth organizations", receiving the Byron "Whizzer" White award for community service in 1977. He appeared in "Stop the Madness", a 1985 anti-drug music video sponsored by the Reagan administration.


title: Lyle Alzado

text: Alzado pursued an acting career in both movies and television, appearing mostly in youth-oriented comedy and adventure roles. His most notable film roles include the bully construction worker in "Ernest Goes to Camp" and the unstoppable killer in "Destroyer". He also appeared in "" as a notorious bodyguard and rifleman. He played prison staff member Brawn in the 1990 film "Club Fed", and co-starred in the film "Neon City".


title: Lyle Alzado

text: On television, Alzado appeared in a number of mid-1980s commercials for "Sports Illustrated" with "Jack", who tries to help him perform the commercial correctly. He played himself, wearing his Raiders uniform, in the "Amazing Stories" episode "Remote Control Man" He also played himself in a 1988 episode of "Small Wonder", and made a guest appearance on "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show" in 1989. Alzado starred in the sitcom "Learning the Ropes" as a high school teacher whose secret alter ego is a professional wrestler known as "The Masked Maniac," alongside numerous NWA Wrestling stars. Alzado appeared in the series premiere of the short-lived 1991 sitcom "Good Sports" with Ryan O'Neal and Farrah Fawcett, and in episodes of "It's Garry Shandling's Show" and "MacGyver".


title: Lyle Alzado

text: Alzado was one of the first major US sports figures to admit to using anabolic steroids. In the last year of his life, as he battled against the brain tumor that eventually caused his death, Alzado asserted that his steroid abuse directly led to his fatal illness. Alzado recounted his steroid abuse in an article in "Sports Illustrated",


title: Lyle Alzado

text: The role that anabolic steroids may have played in Alzado's death has been the subject of controversy. The lymphoma of the brain that took his life has not been associated clinically with steroid use. The claim was denounced as a myth in the 2008 documentary about steroid use, "Bigger, Stronger, Faster".


title: Lyle Alzado

text: Lyle Alzado died on May 14, 1992, at age 43 after a battle with brain cancer. He was buried at River View Cemetery in Portland, Oregon.


title: Cooties

text: Cooties is a fictitious childhood disease, commonly represented as childlore. It is used in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines as a rejection term and an infection tag game (such as Humans vs. Zombies). It is similar to the British 'dreaded lurgi', and to terms used in the Nordic countries, in Italy, India and Iraq. A child is said to "catch" cooties through close contact with an "infected" person or from an opposite-sex child of a similar age.


title: Cooties

text: The word is thought to originate from the Austronesian language family, in which the Philippine, Malaysian-Indonesian, and Māori languages have the word "kuto" or "kutu", which in turn refers to a parasitic biting insect. However, it is equally likely the name originated from "cuties", a cynical reference to the same. The earliest recorded uses of the term in English are by British soldiers during the First World War to refer to lice that proliferated in battlefield trenches.


title: Cooties

text: A hand-held game, the "Cootie Game", was made by the Irvin-Smith Company of Chicago in 1915; it involved tilting capsules (the cooties) into a trap over a background illustration depicting a battlefield. Other cootie games followed, all involving some form of "bug" or "cootie", until "The Game of Cootie" was launched in 1948 by Schaper Toys. This game was very successful, becoming an icon; in 2003, the Toy Industry Association included it on its "Century of Toys List" of the 100 most memorable and most creative toys of the 20th century.


title: Cooties

text: In addition to the cooties games, the term "cooties" was popularised in America in the 1950s by military personnel coming back from service alongside the British in the South Pacific. Like the British 'dreaded lurgi', the cooties games developed during the early 1950s polio epidemic, and became associated with dirt and contagion.


title: Cooties

text: The lice of the nicknamed "cooties" were also known as "arithmetic bugs" because "they added to our troubles, subtracted from our pleasures, divided our attention, and multiplied like hell."


title: Cooties

text: In Italy, children have the term "la peste" ("the plague"). Cooties are known in Denmark as "pigelus" and "drengelus" and in Norway as "jentelus" and "guttelus": each pair meaning literally "girl lice" and "boy lice". In Sweden they are known as "tjejbaciller" and "killbaciller" (literally "girl/boy bacilli") and in Finland they are known as the "tyttöbakteeri" and "poikabakteeri" ("girl/boy bacteria"). In Serbia the game is known as "šuga"; the word means scabies.


title: Cooties

text: A child is said to "catch" cooties through any form of bodily contact, proximity, or touching of an "infected" person or from a person of the opposite sex of the same age. Often the "infected" person is someone who is perceived as different, due to disability, shyness, being of the opposite sex, or having peculiar mannerisms. The phrase is most commonly used by children in elementary school aged from four to ten; however, it may be used by older children in a sarcastic or playful way.


title: Cooties

text: In the United States, children sometimes "immunize" one another from cooties by administering a "cootie(s) shot". Typically, one child administers the "shot", using an index finger to trace circles and dots on another child's forearm while reciting the rhyme, "Circle, circle, Dot, dot, – Now you've got the cootie shot!" In some variations, a child then says, "Circle, circle, Square, square, – Now you have it everywhere!" In this case, the child receives an immunization throughout their body. These variations may continue to a final shot where the child says, "Circle, circle, Knife, knife, – Now you've got it all your life!". A number of other variations exist.


title: Tom T. Hall

text: Thomas Hall (May 25, 1936 – August 20, 2021), known professionally as Tom T. Hall and informally nicknamed "the Storyteller," was an American country music singer-songwriter and short-story author. He wrote 12 No. 1 hit songs, with 26 more that reached the Top 10, including the No. 1 international pop crossover hit "Harper Valley PTA" and "I Love", which reached No. 12 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. He is included in "Rolling Stone"s list of 100 Greatest Songwriters.


title: Tom T. Hall

text: Hall was born in Tick Ridge, seven miles from Olive Hill, Kentucky, on May 25, 1936. As a teenager, he organized a band called the Kentucky Travelers that performed before movies for a traveling theater. Hall enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1957, serving in Germany. While in the service, he performed over the Armed Forces Radio Network and wrote comic songs about army experiences. Following his discharge in 1961, he used G.I. Bill education benefits to enroll at Roanoke College where he worked as a disc jockey. His early career included being an announcer at WRON, a local radio station in Ronceverte, West Virginia. Hall was also an announcer at WMOR (1330 AM) in Morehead and WGOH (1370 AM) in Grayson, both in Kentucky. Hall was also an announcer at WSPZ, which later became WVRC Radio in Spencer, West Virginia, in the 1960s.


title: Tom T. Hall

text: Hall's big songwriting break came in 1963, when country singer Jimmy C. Newman recorded his song "DJ For a Day". In 1964, he moved to Nashville and started to work as a $50-a-week songwriter for Newkeys Music, the publishing company belonging to Newman and his business partner Jimmy Key, writing up to half a dozen country songs per day. Key suggested that he add the middle initial "T" to his name. Hall was nicknamed "The Storyteller", and he composed songs for dozens of country music stars, including Johnny Cash, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Waylon Jennings, Alan Jackson, and Bobby Bare. He also penned "Hello Vietnam", a song that openly supported the Vietnam War at a time when war protest songs were beginning to dominate the pop music chart. The song proved to be a hit for country singer Johnnie Wright and was later used in the 1987 Vietnam War movie "Full Metal Jacket".


title: Tom T. Hall

text: One of his earliest successful songwriting ventures, "Harper Valley PTA", recorded in 1968 by Jeannie C. Riley, hit No. 1 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and Hot Country Singles charts a week apart. It sold over six million copies and won both a Grammy Award and CMA Award. The song would go on to inspire a motion picture and television program of the same name. Hall himself recorded the song for his album "The Definitive Collection" (as track No. 23). His recording career took off after Riley's rendition of the song, releasing a number of hits from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. Some of his biggest hits include "A Week in a Country Jail", "(Old Dogs, Children and) Watermelon Wine", "I Love", "Country Is", "The Year Clayton Delaney Died", "I Like Beer", "Faster Horses (the Cowboy and the Poet)", and "That Song Is Driving Me Crazy". One of his best known numbers, "Pamela Brown," was recorded by Leo Kottke and became a staple of his performances. He is also noted for his child-oriented songs, including "Sneaky Snake" and "I Care", the latter of which hit No. 1 on the country charts in 1975. His song "I Love", in which the narrator lists the things in life that he loves, was recorded by Heathen Dan, with completely altered lyrics, as "I Like" and appeared many times on the Dr. Demento show in the early 1980s. Hall's song was also used with altered lyrics and a hard rock arrangement in a popular 2003 TV commercial for Coors Light. In the mid-to-late 1970s, Hall was a commercial spokesperson for Chevrolet trucks.


title: Tom T. Hall

text: Hall succeeded Ralph Emery as host of the syndicated country music TV show "Pop! Goes the Country" in 1980 and continued until the series ended in 1982. Hall largely retired from writing new material in 1986 and from performing in 1994; his last public performance, which was also his first in several years, was in 2011.


title: Tom T. Hall

text: Hall won the Grammy Award for Best Album Notes in 1973 for the notes he wrote for his album "Tom T. Hall's Greatest Hits". He was nominated for, but did not win, the same award in 1976 for his album "Greatest Hits Volume 2". He was a member of the Grand Ole Opry from 1971. In 1998 his 1972 song "(Old Dogs, Children and) Watermelon Wine" came in second in a BBC Radio 2 poll to find the UK's favorite easy listening record, despite never having been a hit in the UK and being familiar to Radio 2 listeners mostly through occasional plays by DJ Terry Wogan.


title: Tom T. Hall

text: Hall was inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame in 2002. On February 12, 2008, Hall was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In regard to Hall's longer-than-anticipated wait to be inducted, he attributed it to being somewhat reclusive and "not well liked" among the Nashville music industry, noting that he almost never collaborated with other songwriters and by the 1990s was largely out of step with the corporate style of country music. On June 1, 2014, "Rolling Stone" ranked "(Old Dogs, Children and) Watermelon Wine" at No. 93 on their list of the 100 greatest country songs. In November 2018 Hall and his wife Dixie Hall were inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. On June 13, 2019, Hall was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Of all the honors he had received in his lifetime, he considered this induction to be his proudest moment and the pinnacle of his achievement, also stating that he was taken by surprise for even being considered.


title: Tom T. Hall

text: Together with his wife Dixie Hall he won the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America Bluegrass Song Writer of the Year award in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2015.


title: Tom T. Hall

text: Hall was married to Opal "Hootie" McKinney, a native of Grayson, Kentucky. Their son, Dean Todd Hall, was born on June 11, 1961. Dean worked for his father in the early 1980s, first as a roadie and later as a guitarist. Dean has since worked as a solo artist and with Bobby Bare's band.


title: Tom T. Hall

text: Hall met bluegrass songwriter Dixie Hall in 1965. Tom and Dixie met at a 1965 music industry award dinner she was invited to for having written (as Dixie Deen) the song "Truck Drivin' Son-of-a-Gun" which became a hit for Dave Dudley. Dixie Hall was born Iris Lawrence in the West Midlands, England, in 1934 and emigrated to the U.S. in 1961. Hall and Dixie were married from 1968 until her death on January 16, 2015. They lived in Franklin, Tennessee.


title: Tom T. Hall

text: At age 85, Hall died at his home in Franklin, Tennessee, on August 20, 2021 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head; the cause of death went unreleased and had been presumed to be natural until the Williamson County medical examiner released his findings in November. Hall left no suicide note, had chlordiazepoxide (used to treat anxiety and alcohol withdrawal) in his system at the time of his death and was rumored to have been suffering from numerous old age-related illnesses at the time.


title: Otome game

text: An , is a story-based video game that is targeted towards women. Generally one of the goals, besides the main idea/goal, is to develop a romantic relationship between the female player/main character and one of the second-lead male characters.


title: Otome game

text: The first "otome" game is generally acknowledged to be "Angelique", released in 1994 by Koei in Japan for the Super Famicom, and created by an all-woman team. The game was originally designed for pre-teen and younger teenage girls, but became unexpectedly popular with older teenagers and women in their 20s. In 2021, the series continues with "Angelique Luminarise", in which the protagonist is a 25-year-old office worker. "Angelique" is credited with "set[ting] up the specifics and conventions of women's games: a focus on romance, easy controls and utilizing other multimedia." After Angelique came in 1997 the second otome game, which was created by Gimmick House and Magical Craft for PC-FX and later for PlayStation. The game has a very similar dynamic to its predecessor Angelique, with the protagonist Ashanty, a young woman who will have to choose between being the new sacred protector of a kingdom, or falling in love and living happily with one of her knights who will help her during the game. In 2002, Konami released its very successful "Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side", which brought many new fans to the still-new genre. In 2006, Famitsu's listings for the Top 20 selling love games included seven "otome" games. Early games borrowed heavily from the iconography and story conventions of "retro shoujo manga", "the archetypical girly heroines, the emphasis on pure, sexless, tranquil romance and on a peaceful, stable setting", but as the category expanded, other narrative and gameplay elements were introduced, including action, adventure, combat and plots in which "the heroine can 'save the world' and 'get the guy' at the same time".


title: Otome game

text: "McKenzie & Co" (1995) from American Laser Games and "Girl's Club" (1992) from Philips Interactive were simulation games for girls developed and released in the US in the past. The first Japanese "otome" game to be officially translated and sold in English was the visual novel "Yo-Jin-Bo" in 2006 for the PC. Since then there have been a small handful of releases increasing each year, including "Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom" for the PSP and 3DS.


title: Otome game

text: The genre has many style elements in common with "shōjo" manga and "josei" manga, and plotwise they are often similar to harem manga. There are also games targeted towards women that are focused on romance between men, called , and sometimes there are "yaoi" (boys' love) elements in "otome" games, but the two genres are usually kept separate.


title: Otome game

text: "Otome" games that are released on console and handheld platforms contain no pornographic content, as companies such as Sony and Nintendo do not allow it. There are games released on a PC platform which are rated 18+ for their sexual content. Some games were originally released for the PC with pornographic content, and were later toned down and re-released for the PS2.


title: Otome game

text: Other common elements in "otome" games are the importance of voice acting, CG stills, and a small epilogue or set scene at the end of the game when a character is successfully finished.


title: Otome game

text: Traditionally, the goal of these games is to have the desired partner fall in love and have a relationship with the player character, but the requirements for gaining a "good end" differ from game to game. While the plots of "otome" games differ greatly, there is usually a single female main character, and several good-looking males of varying "types".


title: Otome game

text: Gameplay occasionally does not particularly focus on romance, even if there are several characters whose "routes" can be followed.


title: Otome game

text: In the visual novel examples of the genre, the player proceeds in the story by selecting dialogue or action choices which affect their relationships in a decision tree format. In simulation "otome" games, there is also other gameplay which affects the plot, either by playing minigames or by raising stats. The main character often has several parameters, such as looks, style, intelligence, talent, etc., that can be raised through various activities in normal gameplay. The potential partners usually require a certain parameter or parameters to be at a certain level for them to fall in love with the main character. There is also often a pure dating aspect of gameplay in simulations. This involves asking or being asked on dates by the love interest, doing an activity with them, and responding to their questions or comments. The player has a choice of responses, and a correct answer will raise your standing with that character.


title: Otome game

text: One feature that has become common in "otome" games is , which is to have voice acting throughout the entire game. The love interests are often voiced by well-known voice actors. At certain points, or when the player passes certain requirements, special events can occur, often with a "CG" (computer graphic) as a reward. This CG is a set picture featuring the love interest and sometimes the main character in a pose, and some dialogue.


title: Otome game

text: Most "otome" games' heroines are not voiced, due to the budget concerns of voicing all their dialogue. However, there are some games featuring fully voiced heroines, such as "Norn9" or "".


title: Otome game

text: "Otome" games have strong links with "shōjo" manga, with popular titles often spawning a manga series (e.g. "Neo Angelique" and "Meine Liebe"), and popular manga series getting adapted to videogames (such as "Nana"). Some examples of simultaneous releases of a manga and "otome" game also exist, such as "Angelique" and "Full House Kiss". It's also common to find "dōjinshi" featuring popular characters from "otome" games.


title: Otome game

text: Some popular games have also been adapted to anime, OVAs, or series, such as "Angelique", "Diabolik Lovers" and "Uta no Prince-sama".


title: Alexander

text: Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.


title: Alexander

text: Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Aleksander and Aleksandr. Related names and diminutives include Iskandar, Alec, Alek, Alex, Alexandre, Aleks, Aleksa and Sander; feminine forms include Alexandra, Alexandria, and Sasha.


title: Alexander

text: The name "Alexander" originates from the (; 'defending men' or 'protector of men'). It is a compound of the verb (; 'to ward off, avert, defend') and the noun (, genitive: , ; meaning 'man'). It is an example of the widespread motif of Greek names expressing "battle-prowess", in this case the ability to withstand or push back an enemy battle line.


title: Alexander

text: The earliest attested form of the name, is the Mycenaean Greek feminine anthroponym , , (/Alexandra/), written in the Linear B syllabic script. Alaksandu, alternatively called "Alakasandu" or "Alaksandus", was a king of Wilusa who sealed a treaty with the Hittite king Muwatalli II ca. 1280 BC; this is generally assumed to have been a Greek called Alexandros.


title: Alexander

text: The name was one of the epithets given to the Greek goddess Hera and as such is usually taken to mean "one who comes to save warriors". In the Iliad, the character Paris is known also as Alexander. The name's popularity was spread throughout the Greek world by the military conquests of King Alexander III, commonly known as "Alexander the Great". Most later Alexanders in various countries were directly or indirectly named after him.


title: Alexander

text: Alexander has been the name of many rulers, including kings of Macedon, of Scotland, emperors of Russia and popes.


title: Ragdoll (TV series)

text: Ragdoll is an internationally co-produced thriller series based upon the novel of the same name by Daniel Cole. In the United States, it premiered on AMC+ on November 11, 2021, and in the United Kingdom, it premiered on Alibi on December 6, 2021.


title: Ragdoll (TV series)

text: The series follows the murder of six people who have been dismembered and sewn into the shape of a grotesque body, "The Ragdoll". As detectives begin to investigate, the killer begins to taunt them.


title: Ragdoll (TV series)

text: In February 2021, it was announced AMC and Alibi would co-produce a thriller series based upon the novel "Ragdoll" by Daniel Cole. Freddy Syborn would adapt the series and serve as an executive producer. Production companies involved with the series include Sid Gentle Films and AMC Studios, with BBC Studios distributing worldwide. The series premiered on November 11, 2021, on AMC+ in the United States.


title: Ragdoll (TV series)

text: In March 2021, Lucy Hale joined the cast of the series in a starring role. In April 2021, Henry Lloyd-Hughes and Thalissa Teixeira joined the cast of the series in starring roles.


title: Ragdoll (TV series)

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports a 90% approval rating with an average rating of 7.9/10, based on 10 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, ""Ragdoll" avoids feeling like yet another serial killer caper sewn together from better thrillers, thanks in part to its dry humor and killer cast chemistry." On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the series a score of 65 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Ragdoll (TV series)

text: Daniel Fienberg, of "The Hollywood Reporter", called the series a "metaphor" rather than a TV show, saying that "[it] has enough unnerving moments to satisfy impressionable devotees of the genre."


title: Paul Farmer

text: Paul Edward Farmer (October 26, 1959 – February 21, 2022) was an American medical anthropologist and physician. Farmer held an MD and PhD from Harvard University, where he was a University Professor and the chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He was the co-founder and chief strategist of Partners In Health (PIH), an international non-profit organization that since 1987 has provided direct health care services and undertaken research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. He was professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.


title: Paul Farmer

text: Farmer and his colleagues in the U.S. and abroad pioneered novel community-based treatment strategies that demonstrate the delivery of high-quality health care in resource-poor settings in the U.S. and abroad. Their work is documented in the "Bulletin of the World Health Organization", "The Lancet", "The New England Journal of Medicine", "Clinical Infectious Diseases", the "British Medical Journal", and "Social Science and Medicine".


title: Paul Farmer

text: Farmer wrote extensively on Health and Human Rights, the role of social inequalities in the distribution and outcome of infectious diseases, and global health.


title: Paul Farmer

text: He was known as "the man who would cure the world", as described in the book "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder. Farmer and Partners in Health received the Peace Abbey Foundation Courage of Conscience Award in 2007 for saving lives by providing free health care to people in the world’s poorest communities and working to improve health care systems globally. The story of PIH is also told in the 2017 documentary "Bending the Arc". He was a proponent of liberation theology.


title: Paul Farmer

text: On April 24, 2021, Farmer was awarded the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity in recognition of his work with PIH.


title: Paul Farmer

text: Farmer was born in North Adams, Massachusetts, and raised in Weeki Wachee, Florida. He had first lived in Alabama for some of his childhood years. Then when his family moved to Florida, Farmer and his family of eight lived in an old school bus that his father had transformed into a mobile home. Farmer recounted his father as a “free spirit,” as he later on pursued commercial fishing and took his family to live with him on a houseboat in the Gulf of Mexico. Farmer’s father then anchored the houseboat in a primitive bayou called Jenkins Creek where the family bathed, bringing jugs with drinking water from Brooksville. Farmer prioritized his education and excelled academically in school. Farmer’s parents often read serious literature to their children, motivating them to learn as much as possible in regard to all that the world had to offer. The family dealt with financial difficulties that often led them to work in different environments. One summer, Farmer’s family worked with Haitian migrant workers and picked citrus fruit, which was Farmer's first encounter of many with Haitian people.


title: Paul Farmer

text: He was the brother of former professional wrestler Jeff Farmer. He was a graduate of Hernando High School in Brooksville, Florida, where he was elected president of his senior class. He attended Duke University as a Benjamin N. Duke Scholar, graduating "summa cum laude" with a Bachelor of Arts in medical anthropology in 1982. During his time at Duke, he went to Paris for half a year and learned French fluently which benefited him in his future work. He then came across the work of Rudolf Virchow, the 19th century German physician and scientist that developed public health medicine, who inspired Farmer's career trajectory. Farmer’s passions were further shaped by the political atmosphere around him at the time with civil war and revolution breaking out in Central America (including the Nicaraguan Revolution, Salvadoran Civil War, and Guatemalan Civil War), and the rise of liberation theology which the Catholic clergy used to defy authoritarianism in the region. This ideology emphasized the “preferential option for the poor,” which consisted of the physical and spiritual wellbeing of the poor as a crucial component of the word of God. To some followers of Christianity, part of “liberation theology" that Christians need to focus on as their primary obligation involves helping the least fortunate of those around them.


title: Paul Farmer

text: Farmer later became involved with migrant labor camps near campus, and came into contact with Sister Juliana DeWolf. She was working with the United Farm Workers, seeking to ameliorate the living circumstances of the laborers harvesting tobacco. Through this encounter, Farmer befriended many of the Haitian farm workers, and listened to their life experiences and stories. He became interested in Haiti and began learning Creole, interviewing Haitian migrant workers, and reading about Haiti's history. In 1983, while still in school, he started working with villages in Haiti's Central Plateau to help incorporate modern health care practices in their communities. He ended up writing and co-writing more than 100 scholarly papers and several books.


title: Paul Farmer

text: After graduating from Duke, Farmer began volunteering at a hospital in Cange, Haiti. Subsequently, he attended Harvard University, earning an MD and a PhD in medical anthropology in 1990, returning to Haiti multiple times during medical school to continue his work in Cange. He completed an internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1993 and an infectious disease fellowship in 1996. Farmer was board certified in internal medicine and infectious disease.


title: Paul Farmer

text: In 1987, Farmer, along with his colleagues from Harvard Jim Yong Kim, Ophelia Dahl, Thomas J. White and Todd McCormack, co-founded Partners In Health. PIH began in Cange in the Central Plateau of Haiti and at the time of Farmer's death in February 2022 operated 16 sites across the country, with approximately 7,000 employees. PIH in Cange was known as Zanmi Lasante, the sister organization of PIH. Zanmi Lasante built schools, homes, and communal sanitation and water systems to help the community in central Haiti have improved facilities and resources. The organization vaccinated all of the local children while successfully decreasing malnutrition and infant mortality rates in the area. Zanmi Lasante also focused on AIDS prevention during the HIV crisis and successfully decreased HIV transmission rates to 4% from mothers to babies.


title: Paul Farmer

text: In 1999, the World Health Organization designated Farmer and a fellow PIH worker Jim Yong Kim to facilitate global multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) treatment programs, ensuring successful deliveries of antibiotics. With the help of a $44.7 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Farmer created specific drug-therapy initiatives for individuals in Haiti, Peru, and Russia. With this program having some of the highest cure rates in the world, it was clear that treating MDR TB could be done cost effectively in poor countries with functional delivery systems.


title: Paul Farmer

text: Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais opened in 2013 and provides tertiary care to patients, including oncology and trauma surgery services. Partners In Health also works in Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi, Mexico, Peru, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Russia, and the Navajo Nation. The University of Global Health Equity is an initiative of Partners In Health that started in 2015 and focused on delivering the highest quality of health care by addressing the critical social and systemic forces causing inequities and inefficiencies in health care delivery.


title: Paul Farmer

text: In 2003, author Tracy Kidder's "Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World" was published. The book describes Farmer's work in Haiti, Peru, and Russia.


title: Paul Farmer

text: In May 2009, Farmer was named Chair of Harvard Medical School's Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, succeeding Jim Yong Kim, his longtime friend and colleague. On December 17, 2010, Harvard University's President, Drew Gilpin Faust, and the President and Fellows of Harvard College, named Farmer as a University Professor, the highest honor that the University can bestow on one of its faculty members.


title: Paul Farmer

text: In August 2009, Farmer was named United Nations Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti (serving under former U.S. President Bill Clinton), in his capacity as Special Envoy.


title: Paul Farmer

text: In December 2012, Farmer was appointed the United Nations Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Community Based Medicine and Lessons from Haiti.


title: Paul Farmer

text: In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Farmer worked with PIH to develop a contact-tracing program in Massachusetts.


title: Paul Farmer

text: Farmer was editor-in-chief of "Health and Human Rights". He was on the board of the Aristide Foundation for Democracy and was a co-founder and board member of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti. He was on the Board of PIVOT, a recently formed healthcare and research organization operating in Madagascar. He was a member of the Advisory Board of Incentives for Global Health, the NGO focused on developing the Health Impact Fund. He also served on the Global Advisory Council of GlobeMed, a student-driven global health organization that works through a partnership model.


title: Paul Farmer

text: Farmer served on the Advisory Board of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, an international student-driven advocacy organization that works on issues of medicine development and affordability. Farmer was a board member of Kageno Worldwide, Inc., a community development agency that has worked in Kenya and Rwanda. He was also on the Board of Trustees for EqualHealth, which builds critical consciousness towards health equity.


title: Paul Farmer

text: Farmer was married to Didi Bertrand Farmer, a Haitian medical anthropologist and community health specialist who has led several initiatives at Partners in Health. Her most recent work focuses on empowering girls and young women in Haiti and Rwanda. They had three children.


title: Paul Farmer

text: In February 2022, Farmer was one of 38 Harvard faculty to sign a letter to "The Harvard Crimson" defending Professor John Comaroff, who had been found to have violated the university's sexual and professional conduct policies. After students filed a lawsuit with detailed allegations of Comaroff's actions and the university's failure to respond, Farmer was one of several signatories to say that he wished to retract his signature.


title: Paul Farmer

text: Farmer died in his sleep from an acute cardiac event in Butaro, Rwanda, on February 21, 2022, at the age of 62. Farmer had been involved in medical education at Butaro District Hospital and the Butaro campus of the University of Global Health Equity, which accepted its first class of medical students in 2019.


title: Paul Farmer

text: Farmer was the recipient of numerous honors, including the Bronislaw Malinowski Award and the Margaret Mead Award from the Society for Applied Anthropology, the Outstanding International Physician (Nathan Davis) Award from the American Medical Association, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and, with his Partners In Health colleagues, the Hilton Humanitarian Prize. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, from which he was awarded the 2018 Public Welfare Medal. In 2020, he was awarded the million-dollar Berggruen Prize.


title: Central London

text: Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. Its characteristics are understood to include a high density built environment, high land values, an elevated daytime population and a concentration of regionally, nationally and internationally significant organisations and facilities.


title: Central London

text: Road distances to London are traditionally measured from a central point at Charing Cross (in the City of Westminster), which is marked by the statue of King Charles I at the junction of the Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street, just south of Trafalgar Square.


title: Central London

text: The London Plan defines the 'Central Activities Zone' policy area, which comprises the City of London, most of Westminster and the inner parts of Camden, Islington, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Lambeth, Kensington & Chelsea and Wandsworth. It is described as "a unique cluster of vitally important activities including central government offices, headquarters and embassies, the largest concentration of London's financial and business services sector and the offices of trade, professional bodies, institutions, associations, communications, publishing, advertising and the media".


title: Central London

text: For strategic planning, since 2011 there has been a Central London sub-region comprising the boroughs of Camden, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Southwark, Westminster and the City of London. From 2004 to 2008, the London Plan included a sub-region called Central London comprising Camden, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Southwark, Wandsworth and Westminster. It had a 2001 population of 1,525,000. The sub-region was replaced in 2008 with a new structure which amalgamated inner and outer boroughs together. This was altered in 2011 when a new Central London sub-region was created, now including the City of London and excluding Wandsworth. However, districts at the outer edge of this subregion such as Highgate, Archway, Streatham and Dulwich are not generally considered as Central London.


title: Central London

text: The 1901 Census defined Central London as the City of London and the metropolitan boroughs of Bermondsey, Bethnal Green, Finsbury, Holborn, Shoreditch, Southwark, Stepney, St Marylebone and Westminster.


title: Central London

text: During the Herbert Commission and the subsequent passage of the London Government Bill, three unsuccessful attempts were made to define an area that would form a central London borough. The first two were detailed in the 1959 Memorandum of Evidence of the Greater London Group of the London School of Economics.


title: Central London

text: "Scheme A" envisaged a central London borough, one of 25, consisting of the City of London, Westminster, Holborn, Finsbury and the inner parts of St Marylebone, St Pancras, Chelsea, Southwark and Lambeth. The boundary deviated from existing lines to include all central London railway stations, the Tower of London and the museums, such that it included small parts of Kensington, Shoreditch, Stepney and Bermondsey. It had an estimated population of 350,000 and occupied .


title: Central London

text: "Scheme B" delineated central London, as one of 7 boroughs, including most of the City of London, the whole of Finsbury and Holborn, most of Westminster and Southwark, parts of St Pancras, St Marylebone, Paddington and a small part of Kensington. The area had an estimated population of 400,000 and occupied .


title: Central London

text: During the passage of the London Government Bill an amendment was put forward to create a central borough corresponding to the definition used at the 1961 census. It consisted of the City of London, all of Westminster, Holborn and Finsbury; and the inner parts of Shoreditch, Stepney, Bermondsey, Southwark, Lambeth, Chelsea, Kensington, Paddington, St Marylebone and St Pancras. The population was estimated to be 270,000.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Canadian cuisine consists of the cooking traditions and practices of Canada, with regional variances around the country. First Nations and Inuit have practiced their own culinary traditions in what is now Canada since time immemorial. The advent of European explorers and settlers, first on the east coast and then throughout the wider territories of New France, British North America and Canada, saw the melding of foreign recipes, cooking techniques, and ingredients with indigenous flora and fauna. Modern Canadian cuisine has maintained this dedication to local ingredients and "terroir", as exemplified in the naming of specific ingredients based on their locale, such as Malpeque oysters or Alberta beef. Accordingly, Canadian cuisine privileges the quality of ingredients and regionality, and may be broadly defined as a national tradition of "creole" culinary practices, based on the complex multicultural and geographically diverse nature of both historical and contemporary Canadian society.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Divisions within Canadian cuisine can be traced along regional lines and have a direct connection to the historical immigration patterns of each region or province. The earliest cuisines of Canada are based on Indigenous, English, Scottish and French roots. The traditional cuisines of both French- and English-Canada have evolved from those carried over to North America from France and the British Isles respectively, and from their adaptation to Indigenous customs, labour-intensive and/or mobile lifestyles, and hostile environmental conditions. French Canadian cuisine can also be divided into Québécois cuisine and Acadian cuisine. Regional cuisines have continued to develop with subsequent waves of immigration during the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, such as from Central Europe, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, South Asia, East Asia, and the Caribbean. There are many culinary practices and dishes that can be either identified as particular to Canada, such fish and brewis, peameal bacon, and ginger beef, or sharing an association with countries from which immigrants to Canada carried over their cuisine, such as pierogies, roast beef, and bannock.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Though certain dishes may be identified as "Canadian" due to the ingredients used or the origin of their inception, an overarching style of Canadian cuisine may be more difficult to define. Some commentators, such as the former prime minister Joe Clark, believe Canadian cuisine to be a collage of dishes from a variety of cultures. Clark himself has been paraphrased to have noted that "Canada has a cuisine of cuisines. Not a stew pot, but a smorgasbord." Canadian food culture writer and author Jennifer Cochrall-King has said that "there is no single definition of Canadian cuisine. It starts with ingredients that spring from the landscape and with traditional dishes steeped in the region's history and culture."


title: Canadian cuisine

text: While the immense size of Canada, and the diversity of its inhabitants, compounds the difficulty in identifying a monolithic Canadian culinary tradition, Hersch Jacobs acknowledges that the lack of a hegemonic definition does not preclude the existence of Canadian cuisine. Lenore Newman argues that there is a distinctly Canadian creole cuisine, and identifies five key properties that together define Canadian cuisine: its reliance on seasonality, multiculturalism, wild foods, regional dishes, and the privileging of ingredients over recipes. This adaptation, preparation, and emphasis on specific local ingredients is of particular note, and a common theme in Canadian food is the use of foreign recipes, introduced by immigrants and their descendants, that have been modified for use of local products. Tourtière, for example, is a Canadian meat pie of French origin that can be cooked with beef, pork or fish. The sections on regionality and national foods below illustrate this tradition of diversity and emphasis on local elements, such as dulse and lobster in the Maritimes, deer meats in the Northern Territories, salmon and crab in British Columbia, or maple syrup in Central Canada.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Indigenous food may be considered uniquely Canadian, and the influence of Métis culture can be considered to have played a particularly important role in the origin of a distinct Canadian cuisine. Foods such as bannock, moose, deer, bison, pemmican, maple taffy, and Métis stews, such as barley stew, are all either traditional Indigenous foods, or originate from Canada with roots in Indigenous cuisines, and are eaten throughout the country.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: There are many foods of foreign origin that are eaten commonly and considered integrated constituents of Canadian cuisine. Pierogies (dumplings of Central and Eastern European origin) are an example of this, due to the large number of early Ukrainian and Polish immigrants, while the ubiquity of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding are an example of the heavy English influence. As much of Canadian cuisine is coloured by the adaptation and development of dishes brought over by European, and later Asian, settlers, there is a variety of noteworthy Canadian variations on pre-established, templated food and drink, with their own nationally defined particularities, such as Canadian cheddar cheese, whisky, bread, wine, bacon, and pancakes.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: In general, much of what is considered to be traditional Canadian cuisine contains strong elements of richness, breads and starches, game meat, and often stews and soups. Certain culinary traditions in Canada, such as the frying of dough, which developed out of the country's voyaging and frontier culture, have seen to both the creation of distinct national foods and the flourishing of a broader national association with certain types of dishes. In the case of frying dough, for example, particular foods originating form Canada would include beavertails, apple fritters and toutons, whilst foods such as doughnuts, cronuts, bannock, bagels, and pancakes, though not physically originating from Canada, have nonetheless developed within a broader tradition of nationally recognized cuisine.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Canadian cuisine has been shaped by the historical and ongoing influences of indigenous peoples, settlers and immigrants. Indigenous influences remain prevalent in Canada's contemporary food scene, alongside those of the three major immigrant groups of the 17th and 18th centuries: English, Scottish, and French. This diversity has been further expanded by subsequent waves of immigration in later centuries.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: The traditional Indigenous cuisine of Canada is based on a mixture of wild game, foraged foods, and farmed agricultural products. Indigenous peoples are known to have used more than five-hundred plant species for food. They cultivated and foraged a variety of plants, hunted a diversity of animals, and used various tools to boil, smoke/preserve and roast their food. Each region of Canada, with its own First Nations and Inuit peoples, utilized local resources and distinct preparation techniques for their cuisines.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Maple syrup was first collected and used by the aboriginal people of Eastern Canada and the north-eastern United States, and Canada remains the world's largest producer. Though the origin of maple syrup production is not clear, the earliest known syrups were made by repeatedly freezing the collected maple sap and removing the ice to concentrate the sugar in the remaining sap. Maple syrup is one of the most commonly consumed Canadian food of Aboriginal origin.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Dried meat products such as and pemmican are commonly consumed by the indigenous peoples of the plains. In particular, the former was a predecessor for North American-style beef jerky, with the processing methods adapted for beef.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: In most of the Canadian West Coast and Pacific Northwest, Pacific salmon was an important food resource to the First Nations peoples, along with certain marine mammals. Salmon were consumed fresh during the spawning season, or smoked dry to create a jerky-like food that could be stored year-round. The latter food is commonly known and sold as "salmon jerky".


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Whipped soapberry, known as (sk-HOO-shum, "Indian ice cream") in the Interior Salish languages of British Columbia, is consumed similarly to ice cream or as a cranberry-cocktail-like drink. It is known for being a kidney tonic, which are called "agutak" in Arctic Canada (with animal/fish fat).


title: Canadian cuisine

text: In the Arctic, Inuit traditionally survived on a diet consisting of land and marine mammals, fish, and foraged plant products. Meats were consumed fresh, but also often prepared, cached, and allowed to ferment into "igunaq" or "kiviak". These fermented meats have the consistency and smell of certain soft aged cheeses. Snacks such as "muktuk", which consist of whale skin and blubber is eaten plain, though occasionally dipped in soy sauce. Chunks of muktuk are sliced with an "ulu" prior to or during consumption.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Fish are eaten boiled, fried, and prior to today's settlements, often in dried forms. The so-called "Eskimo potato", (Inuit: "oak-kuk": "Claytonia tuberosa") and other "mousefoods", are some of the plants consumed in the Arctic.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Foods such as "bannock", popular with First Nations and Inuit, reflect the historic exchange of these cultures with European fur traders, who brought with them new ingredients and foods. Common contemporary consumption of bannock, powdered milk, and bologna by aboriginal Canadians reflects the legacy of Canadian colonialism in the prohibition of hunting and fishing, and the institutional food rations provided to Indian reserves. Due to similarities in treatment under colonialism, many Native American communities throughout the continent consume similar food items, with some emphasis on local ingredients.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Settlers and traders from the British Isles account for the culinary influences of early English Canada in the Maritime provinces and Southern Ontario (Upper Canada). Cuisines found in Newfoundland and the Maritimes derive largely from British and Irish cooking, with a preference for salt-cured fish, beef, and pork. Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia also maintain strong British culinary traditions. The French settlers of New France, who would become the Canadiens and Acadians, account for much of the cuisine of southern Quebec (Lower Canada), Northeastern Ontario, and New Brunswick.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Seafood had an important influence on the early European settlers and explorers of Atlantic Canada, which continues to be expressed in Maritime cuisine and culture to this day. In the late 15th-century, John Cabot's journey to the shores of what would become Newfoundland brought England knowledge of the Grand Banks and their abundance in cod. He is reported to have told King Henry VII that "the sea was covered with fish which could be caught not merely by nets, but weighted basket lowered into the water." Fleets of fishermen from England, France, Portugal, and Spain flocked to Newfoundland to return with fish, filling a market need in Europe and cutting out the necessity of importing from Iceland. The English, Scottish, Irish, and French settlers of what would become the Atlantic provinces frequently built their communities beside the ocean and rivers for easy access, and the fishing industry along the Canadian east coast steadily expanded until it became the region's major industry. Accounts from early settlers list fish that were caught, sold, and incorporated into local meals, such as trout, eels, mackerel, oysters, lobsters, salmon, cod and herring. Meals that incorporated such fish included, and continue to include, fried cod roe, fried or baked cod tongues, stewed or fried cod heads, fish hash, codfish balls, cod sounds, toast and fish, roasted scrawd, fish and brewis, salt fish and potatoes, and boiled rounders, among others. The abundance of seafood and the ease by which it could be obtained made the British and French colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Acadia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador attractive destinations for settlers.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: The influx of United Empire Loyalists into British North America in the 18th century, and the subsequent establishment of Upper Canada, saw the wider expansion of British cooking with indigenous ingredients in the future province of Ontario. These settlers established customs similar to their compatriots in England, but with a particular focus on dietary staples, such as meat, bread, and tea. Local forage and game were typically incorporated into the cooking of early English-Canadians in Upper Canada, such as wild berries, maple sugar, venison, partridge, waterfowl, maize, pumpkin, and turkey. Meals often contained more meat than was typical in England and were particularly reliant on pork and potatoes during early settlement, although these meals began to include beef and mutton as farming became more established in the region. Roasting was a common method of cooking for Upper Canadians, and Scottish immigration, largely onset by the Highland Clearances, brought a wider emphasis on mutton.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: The Victorian era saw a greater swell of British immigration to Upper Canada, Lower Canada, and the Atlantic colonies, and the urban and rural development that followed encouraged the spread of eating establishments, local cookbooks, and a busier ingredients market. By the mid-19th century, there was a tavern every couple odd miles along the major roads of Upper Canada, and there were reportedly twenty-nine alone along the route between Halifax and Digby, Nova Scotia. The larger urban centres, such as Toronto, Kingston, and Coburg in Upper Canada, Montreal and Quebec City in Lower Canada, and Halifax in Nova Scotia, saw the opening of hotels that could better serve a burgeoning upper class of Victorian patrons. These hotels, broadly, provided beef steak, fried pork, buckwheat cakes, roast beef and pork, wild game and fowl, vegetables, pudding, and tea. Cookbooks published during this period include "The Home Cookbook" (1877) and "The Galt Cook Book" (1898). Traditions that developed out of the Victorian era in Canada include the Victorian cooking fireplace, which saw continued use in homes and restaurants even after the metal stove was introduced, and picnics, which often involved ham, fowl, meat pies, tarts, and cakes.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: In the territory of Rupert's Land, the development of communities throughout the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries, which centered around Hudson Bay Company and North West Company trading posts, saw to the intermingling of European (largely Scottish and French) traders, clerks, guides, and canoers with the local Indigenous population. The resulting genesis of the Métis culture saw to the development of a cuisine in the Canadian West which combined the culinary traditions of these previously separate groups.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: With the arrival of the Earl of Selkirk and his Scottish retinue (people largely displaced by the Highland Clearances), as well as the purchase of forty-five million acres of land in the Red River Valley, many Scottish culinary traditions were brought to the region. These foods included black bun, haggis, honey cakes, and rowies. Cooperation with the local Métis saw Scottish immigrants hunting buffalo and incorporating game into their meals.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the late 19th-century led to a significant influx of not just settlers of British origin, but of also a multitude of different backgrounds, notably Ukrainian, Polish, German, Scandinavian, Belgian, Dutch, Greek, Czech, Slovak, Chinese, American, Mennonite, and Jewish. It is in this way that the Canadian Prairies, or the future provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, were a frontier of multicultural community-building in Canada, and the creation of a regional cuisine which absorbed influences from a variety of ethnic, national, and religious backgrounds.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Icelandic immigration has a particular influence on the cuisine of Manitoba, which, besides Iceland itself, has a larger Icelandic population than anywhere else in the world. One example is "vinarterta", a layer cake filled with prune jam and flavoured with cardamom, and a popular Christmas treat in Manitoba. Bakeries in the province often include other pastries brought over and adapted from Iceland, including "kleinur" (similar to dougnuts), "laufabrauõ" (flatbread decorated with patterns), "kransakaka" (a type of cake with almonds), and "ugbraud" (a rye bread).


title: Canadian cuisine

text: In Canada's Prairie provinces, which saw significant immigration from Eastern and Northern Europe in the pre-WWI era, Ukrainian, German, and Polish cuisines are strong culinary influences. Such examples include perogies, kielbasa, and babka. Emigration from Russia to Western Canada in the late 19th and early 20th centuries also established a Doukhobor influence, noted in particular for its emphasis on vegetarian recipes on the cuisine of the British Columbia Interior and the Prairies.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: The Waterloo, Ontario, region and the southern portion of Manitoba have traditions of Mennonite and German cookery.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Jewish immigrants to Canada during the late 1800s played a significant culinary role within Canada, chiefly renowned for Montreal-style bagels and Montreal-style smoked meat. A regional variation of both emerged within Winnipeg, Manitoba's Jewish community, which also derived Winnipeg-style cheesecake from New York City recipes. Winnipeg has given birth to numerous other unique dishes, such as the schmoo torte, smoked goldeye and "co-op style" rye bread and cream cheese.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Chinese immigration to Canada, beginning predominantly in the 1850s, saw to the local modification of dishes imported from Qing China. Much of what are considered to be "Chinese dishes" in Canada are largely Canadian or North American inventions, with Chinese restaurants having tailored their traditional cuisine to local tastes, local ingredients, and a largely non-Chinese clientele. This "Canadian Chinese cuisine" is widespread across the country, with great variation from place to place. Examples of such variation are seen in unique regional dishes, including Calgary ginger beef, Montreal peanut-butter dumplings, Newfoundland chow mein, and Thunder Bay "bon bons".


title: Canadian cuisine

text: The "Chinese buffet", although found in other parts of North America, traces its origins to early Gastown, Vancouver, c.1870. This meal format developed from the practice of Chinese restaurateurs providing a steam table on a sideboard to serve Scandinavian lumberjacks working in local forests and mills.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Japanese-Canadians have had a profound influence on the cuisines of British Columbia and Ontario. Distinct varieties of sushi, such as the B.C. roll and the California roll, originate from the Metro Vancouver region, while sushi pizza was invented in Toronto. Japadog street food in Vancouver is also a popular example of Canadian west coast fusion cuisine.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Indian and South Asian culinary influences are a relatively recent addition to Canadian cuisine, having gained wider prominence in the country during the post-1960's era of immigration, despite earlier South Asian settlement in British Columbia dating back to the late 19th century. Indian food is particularly popular in Canada, deriving mostly from Northern Indian cuisine. It is characterized for its use of bread, curry, and use of yogurt and cream for meat-based dishes; it also draws inspiration from South Indian cuisine in its use of sour and spicy combinations.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Unique Indo-Canadian food includes the East Indian roti wrap, which gained popularity in Toronto during the 1980s and 1990s; using North Indian/Pakistani bread and curries as stuffing, local chefs originally drew inspiration from the West Indian roti which had entered the city's food scene in the 1960s and 1970s after a wave of Caribbean immigration. Also known as butter chicken roti, the dish is served at many Indian restaurants and fast food locations across Southern Ontario.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Other Canadian food unique to the South Asian community includes "Indian-style pizza" (also known as "Punjabi-style pizza" or "Desi-style pizza") which has gradually gained popularity since the 1980s in major urban centres across western and central Canada with large South Asian populations, including Greater Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and Greater Toronto, later expanding to other regions. This type of pizza typically includes sauce with mixed spices and toppings such as cilantro, ginger, spinach, cauliflower, tandoori chicken, butter chicken, or paneer.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Contributions from Southeast Asia to Canadian cuisine includes a style of medium-thick crust pizza Margherita in Toronto. An example of fusion cuisine, the pizza is topped with garlic and basil oil topping, combining an Italian pizza with the Vietnamese tradition of using herbed oil toppings in food.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: While numerous and varied ingredients are commonly found throughout Canada, each region, with its own tradition of culinary development, utilizes locally derived ingredients, both wild and agricultural, which are used to define unique dishes. The table below is meant to provide particular examples of regional staples and their key local ingredient.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Wild game of all sorts is still hunted and eaten by many Canadians, though not commonly in urban centres. Venison, from white-tailed deer, moose, elk ("wapiti") or caribou, is eaten across the country and is considered quite important to many First Nations cultures. Seal meat is eaten, particularly in the Canadian North, the Maritimes, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Wild fowl like ducks and geese, grouse (commonly called partridge) and ptarmigan are also regularly hunted. Other animals like bear and beaver may be eaten by dedicated hunters or indigenous people, but are not generally consumed by much of the population.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Seafood is a very common constituent of Canadian cuisine broadly, but particularly in British Columbia and the Atlantic provinces. West Coast salmon varieties include sockeye, coho, chinook (also known as king), and pink, while salmon used on the East Coast can be broadly defined as Atlantic salmon. Freshwater fish, such as the walleye (also known as pickerel) and lake whitefish are commercially fished in the Great Lakes and are popular in southern Ontario. Both wild-caught and farmed rainbow trout are consumed throughout Canada.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Although the majority of Canada's fish yield is captured wild, about 28% of the country's yield came from aquaculture in 2018. British Columbia accounts for 49% of the country's total aquaculture production volume, while the Maritime provinces account for 46%. Canada is the world's fourth-largest producer of farmed salmon, and other species, such as trout, Arctic char, mussels, oysters, and clams are well established industries.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Forage in Canadian cooking can include a variety of berries, mushrooms, Canada rice and herbs. Wild chanterelle, pine, morel, lobster, puffball, and other mushrooms are commonly consumed. Gooseberries, salmonberries, cranberries, strawberries, Saskatoonberries, cloudberries, soapberries, blackberries, blueberries, bilberries, currants, and huckleberries are gathered wild or grown.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Alberta is renowned for its production of beef; in 2016, Alberta's cattle herd accounted for 41.6% of the national total. Alberta beef is thought to have a rich marbled flavour due to the province's nutritious grasslands and barley. Examples of local recipes that utilize Alberta beef include beef tartare, bistecca, short ribs, ginger fried beef, and grilled steak. Canada ranks among the world's top 10 per capita consumers of beef.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Saskatchewan is often referred to as the "breadbasket of Canada"; it accounts for nearly 50% of Canada's total crop yield and for two-fifths of the country's total field acreage. In 2016, canola and spring wheat were the two largest crops, Saskatoon berries accounted for over half of the "fruit, berry and nut area", and sweet corn was the largest field vegetable crop by area. Saskatchewan also produces most of the country's spice yield, particularly mustard, but also caraway and coriander.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Although there are considerable overlaps between Canadian culinary practices and those of the British Isles, France and the rest of North America, many dishes (or variations of imported dishes) are particular to, quintessential of, or available only in Canada.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: There is an abundance of unique pastries and desserts that originate from Canada, as accounted for in the list below. Over twenty-one hundred bakery product manufacturing establishments, and more than twelve hundred retail bakeries, operate in the country. Tim Hortons, a Canadian restaurant chain that specialized in baked goods, maintains the highest number of franchises in the country.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Dairy products became prominent among Central Canadian producers in the 1860s. Ontario's first cheese factory opened in 1863, and by the end of the decade, they had expanded to over two-hundred. The 1860s also saw to the start of a shift from wheat production to dairy and livestock in Quebec, which would become the dominant agricultural sector in the province by the early 20th century. Cream and cheese factory production would begin to increase exponentially in both Central and Eastern Canada by the 1880s.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Canada is currently the 12th largest producer of cheese by tonnage, and is considered to be one of the major cheese-producing countries. Canadian cheese is mostly "firm", with cheddar and mozzarella being the most produced varieties in 2020. Among Canadians, specialty cheese (such as cream cheese, cottage cheese, and parmesan) is the most popular type, with cheddar being the second-most. The list given below, taken from an international database of cheese varieties, is an account of over one-hundred Canadian cheeses:


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Canada is considered one of the top whisky-producing countries, and is most renowned for rye whisky. Regulation states that Canadian whisky must age for a minimum of three years and be kept in oak barrels. Canada houses about thirty whisky distilleries across the country, and produces 54.2 million liters. Canadian whisky is noted for its light and smooth style, and though most of it is blended, single-malt and 100% rye are some of the country's most desired. The Glenora Inn & Distillery is the only single-malt distillery in North America.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Canada's wine industry is over two-hundred years old and includes the wine regions of British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. Canada's first commercial vineyard, the Pelee Island Winery, was established in 1866. There are currently over eight-hundred licensed wineries in the country, with the most recognized wine-producing areas being southern Ontario (most notably the Niagara peninsula), and the Okanagan valley of British Columbia.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: While most major cities in Canada offer a variety of street food, each region has specialties which reflect local cultural influences. Montreal food trucks offer shish taouk, the Montreal hot dog, and dollar falafels. Although falafel is available in Vancouver, East Asian-influenced offerings are much more widespread, including sushi, samosas, Vietnamese banh mi subs or Pho soup, Filipino offerings, and various Japanese and Chinese cuisines. In Victoria, British Columbia, vegan and vegetarian burgers are common, as are various seafood take-aways and Mexican-influenced street food. Since 2007, Toronto has encouraged vendors to sell street food from a wider variety of cuisines.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: In Western Canada, a version of the Ukrainian garlic-pork sausage, referred to as "Kubasa" (a corruption of the Ukrainian sausage "Kobasa") is widely available and celebrated. The term "smokies" or "smokeys" may refer to Kubasa rather than frankfurters.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Fusion cultural foods are constantly evolving, such as the Japadog, which tops a hot dog with traditional Japanese ingredients, such as wasabi, teriyaki, shredded daikon radish, or bonito (fish) flakes. Pizza slices are a common street offering. Shawarma is quite prevalent in Ottawa and Windsor, while Halifax offers its own unique version of the döner kebab called the donair, which features a distinctive sauce made from condensed milk, sugar, garlic and vinegar. Ice cream trucks can be seen (and often heard due to a jingle being broadcast on loudspeakers) nationwide during the summer months. Winnipeg has a particularly famous line-up of food truck vendors on Main Street.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Various street food markets exist across the country. Metro Vancouver offers the "Richmond Night Market", with over two-hundred retail stalls offering predominantly East Asian-inspired food, such as grilled octopus, takoyaki, dumplings, fish sticks, and taiyaki. As well, there is the "Shipyards Night Market" in North Vancouver, which is more varied in its offerings and provides more than thirty-five food trucks per week over the course of its annual run.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: In Alberta, notable street food markets include the "Calgary Night Market", as well as the "Calgary Stampede Night Market", and Edmonton's "What the Truck?". The Greater Toronto Area runs "Market 707", "Adelaide Eats", and "Night It Up!". Market 707 on Dundas Street is of particular aesthetic note given that it is formed out of refurbished shipping containers. Eastern Canada also maintains several street food markets of note, including Montreal's "First Fridays" and Halifax's "Trusk-Side".


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Though finding consensus among Canadians in determining a national food or dish can prove difficult, there are nonetheless several items broadly recognized as being representative of Canada's national cuisine. Foods typically considered national dishes of Canada include poutine and butter tarts. Canadian back or peameal bacon, as well as Atlantic or Pacific salmon, are also commonly thought of as representative of Canada.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Published by the Statista Research Department, a June 2015 poll asked Canadians, "If Canada were to identify one of the following as official national food, which should it be?" The results revealed Canadian bacon to be the top choice, followed by poutine:


title: Canadian cuisine

text: CanCulture Magazine conducted a 2021 social media poll that sampled from fifty-five Canadians given ten choices. The poll revealed the following results:


title: Canadian cuisine

text: According to an informal survey by "The Globe and Mail" conducted through Facebook from collected comments, users considered the following to be the Canadian national dish, with maple syrup likely above all the other foods if it were considered:


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Canada's most "iconic" foods were named in a survey conducted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, in the summer of 2012, as:


title: Canadian cuisine

text: In 2020, Hayley Simpson identified the "best signature Canadian dishes" as poutine, Nanaimo bars, butter tarts, beavertails, tourtière, pea soup, Halifax donair, Saskatoon berry pie, and Montreal-style bagels. The following year, Reader's Digest published an article similarly listing "10 Must-Try Canadian Dishes" as poutine, Canadian bacon, caesar, beavertails, Canadian pizza, butter tarts, Nanaimo bars, split pea soup, tourtière, and ketchup (namely "ketchup" chips).


title: Canadian cuisine

text: As in other countries, Canadian meals are commonly segmented accordingly to their suitability for the time of day.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Breakfast takes place in the morning and typically consists of a variety of foods, such as toast, biscuits, muffins, scones, pancakes, bacon, bagels, cereals, fruit and eggs, among others. Breakfast condiments are very common and can often include an assortment of jam, cream cheese, peanut butter, marmalade, or nutella. Typical drinks include water, juice, coffee, and tea. Breakfast traditionally occurs before work or school on weekdays, or otherwise soon after waking up in the morning. An archetypal French-Canadian meal may contain more starch-based material, while an English-Canadian meal might consist of more protein.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Coffee customarily refers to a small meal during a break from labour. This involves the consumption of a snack that, although it is the typical drink of choice (hence the name), may or may not include coffee. The Canada Labour Code requires employers to provide 30-minute breaks for every five consecutive hours of work.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Lunch generally takes place around noon. Sandwiches, soups, fruit, nuts, cheese and a variety of snacks are common foods during this meal. Lunches are usually compact, utilitarian, and/or casual, particularly given that they are often eaten at work, school, or otherwise outside of the home.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Afternoon tea is a common practice in English Canada and takes place around 16:00. This tradition often overlaps with afterschool snack and is commonly considered to be a marker for the end of one's daily obligations, whether it be work or school.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Dinner usually takes place from anywhere between 17:00 to 19:00, and tend to be heartier affairs based around protein and vegetables. Local flora and fauna are most fully realized during dinner; in the Maritimes, dinner may be more likely to include fish, while the Prairies might include more beef.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Various food festivals take place annually across Canada and in accordance with seasonality, often in celebration of a local culinary tradition or industry. The list below is a selection of food festivals by region (giving their location and standard month(s) of occurrence), and is not exhaustive.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: While an abundance of livestock breeds and crops originating from other countries are grown and raised in Canada, there is also a variety of unique breeds and cultivars that have been developed domestically. Below is a selection of various livestock breeds and cultivars that originate from Canada.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: Due to an influx of grain from the Prairies into British Columbia during the late 19th century, via the advent of the Canadian rail network, the province's grain production became largely redundant. This allowed for the development of specialized produce industries, such as fruit in the Okanagan. As a result, many of Canada's unique apple varieties have been developed in the interior of British Columbia.


title: Canadian cuisine

text: There are over sixty potato varieties that originate from Canada. Many of these were developed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, largely in New Brunswick, but also in Alberta, Newfoundland, Ontario, and Quebec. The following is a small sampling of Canadian potatoes:


title: Saiyami Kher

text: Saiyami Kher is an Indian actress who primarily works in Hindi and Telugu films. She made her acting debut with the Telugu film "Rey" (2015) and her Hindi film debut with "Mirzya" (2016), for which she received Stardust Award for Superstar of Tomorrow – Female.


title: Saiyami Kher

text: Kher made her Marathi film debut with "Mauli" (2018) and went onto act in "Choked" (2020) and "Wild Dog" (2021). She made her web debut with "Special OPS" (2020).


title: Saiyami Kher

text: Kher was born in Nashik, Maharashtra to Adwait Kher and Uttara Mhatre Kher, a former Miss India. She is the granddaughter of actress Usha Kiran and the niece of actress Tanvi Azmi. Kher completed her graduation from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai.


title: Saiyami Kher

text: In 2015, Kher made her debut with Telugu film "Rey" and appeared in Rakesh Omprakash Mehra's Punjabi folklore Mirza Sahiban based Hindi film "Mirzya" opposite Harshvardhan Kapoor in following the year.


title: Saiyami Kher

text: In 2021, she did a role in Telugu movie Wild Dog (film) with Nagarjuna Akkineni as an NIA Agent. The theatrical release of film was on April 2, 2021. Later, it was on Netflix India.


title: Tom Meighan

text: Thomas Peter Meighan (, born 11 January 1981) is an English singer and musician, best known as the former lead vocalist for the rock band Kasabian. He enjoyed large-scale success with Kasabian in the 2000s and 2010s. He is said to have an intense, frenetic personality both on and off stage. He has been compared to Liam Gallagher, who he has referred to as the "perfect frontman". Meighan finished 13th in Radio X's poll of the greatest frontmen.


title: Tom Meighan

text: Thomas Peter Meighan was born on 11 January 1981 in Blaby, Leicestershire, the son of Irish window cleaner Tom Meighan Sr. and nurse Patricia Meighan. He attended Countesthorpe Leysland Community College. He passed Art and English Literature at school, but was ungraded for many other exams after failing to attend them. He enjoyed music ranging from Motown to hip hop, and constantly sang Cypress Hill songs during his youth. He said, "It was a very musical house with Motown and a lot of soul music. That's what I grew up on. It was just a very loving house. It's got a very warm feeling."


title: Tom Meighan

text: Meighan became the lead vocalist of Kasabian at the band's inception in Leicester in 1997. He has sung lead vocals on the majority of the band's recordings, has a baritone vocal range, and did not play any instruments within the group apart from tambourine on occasion and guitar on live renditions of "The Nightworkers" and "Test Transmission".


title: Tom Meighan

text: Meighan has also contributed lead to the songs "Viva La Revolution" by Superevolver, and the Lysergic Suite's "Ghosts on Crusade". He was a guest vocalist on the Dark Horses track "Count Me In", which he performed with that band when they opened for Kasabian on the West Ryder tour. Additionally, he sang backing vocals on the Jersey Budd single "She Came Back". Meighan has also appeared onstage with Zak Starkey's band Penguinsrising.


title: Tom Meighan

text: In 2013, Meighan began a project with rapper Wottee Watnot (Andrew Wattie) called Mic Rockers, described as "a hip hop/rock collaboration". The first video from the duo, "Mic Rockers", was released on 13 November 2013. In addition to the numerous musical awards he shares with the rest of Kasabian, he was named the 19th-best frontman of all time by a "Q" magazine readers' poll, and 13th-best frontman of all time by a 2012 Xfm listeners' poll.


title: Tom Meighan

text: Meighan took his first acting role in early 2011, as Terry Graham in the sitcom pilot "Walk Like a Panther". Reportedly, he had previously rejected offers to appear in "Marie Antoinette" due to being committed to Kasabian.


title: Tom Meighan

text: On 6 July 2020, it was announced that Meighan was stepping down from Kasabian by mutual consent due to personal issues. The next day, he pleaded guilty to assaulting his ex-fiancée on 9 April 2020.


title: Tom Meighan

text: In October 2020, Meighan announced that he was working on solo projects. A year later, he shared a snippet of a song called "Would You Mind" on his Instagram account, explaining that the song was about "asking for help when you need it the most but can't find the courage to ask." He also added that he had recorded several songs that were "ready to share." On 31 October 2021, "Would You Mind" was released as a free download.


title: Tom Meighan

text: Meighan also offered more serious critiques of the effects of the Internet upon the music industry, and was one of a number of celebrities to criticize Simon Cowell's handling of Susan Boyle, stating, "It will torture her for the rest of life. She is not ready for it and she is not made for it. She is being manipulated. It's horrible."


title: Tom Meighan

text: As of 2009, Meighan was making an attempt to tone down his controversial image. In an interview with the "Daily Record", he said, "When we released the first album, it didn't help in interviews that we slagged everyone off. We were only messing about, we were having fun but everyone took it a little too seriously…We did it for effect but we were portrayed as monsters instead of just a bunch of lads in a band. They got us so wrong. I don't regret anything we said but it was ridiculous."


title: Tom Meighan

text: Meighan has supported numerous charities including Oxfam, UNICEF, and the Teenage Cancer Trust. In support of the latter, he assumed the role of Ace Face in The Who's 2011 benefit performance of "Quadrophenia".


title: Tom Meighan

text: Meighan's status as a fashion icon and well-known football fan led him to be chosen to unveil Umbro's England away football jersey in 2010, the first singer ever to do so. He has also modeled for Gio-Goi and Deadly Sins.


title: Tom Meighan

text: Meighan has a daughter, Mimi Malone Meighan, with his former girlfriend Kim James. The couple split in 2016.


title: Tom Meighan

text: On 7 July 2020, less than 24 hours after his departure from Kasabian was announced, Meighan pleaded guilty to assaulting his fiancée Vikki Ager. At the time of the trial, prosecutor Naeem Valli said the "sustained assault" had left Ager with bruises on her knees, elbow, and ankle, as well as red marks around her neck. The court was told that Meighan "smelt heavily of intoxicants" as he assaulted Ager. He was ordered to 200 hours of community service.


title: Tom Meighan

text: The following day, Meighan issued a public apology. "I would like to make a statement about recent events and publicly apologise to my partner Vikki, my bandmates, my friends, family and fans. I am very sorry and deeply regret my recent behaviour. In no way am I trying to condone my actions or make excuses. I am completely to blame and accept my responsibility." Meighan said he has been struggling with an alcohol addiction and was diagnosed with ADHD, commenting: "The incident in April was a wake-up call for me, for who I was, and what I was becoming. I was spiralling out of control. My mental health was becoming more and more unstable and I was at breaking point."


title: Tom Meighan

text: Meighan said he left rehab three weeks prior and was intent on staying sober. He added his ADHD diagnosis does not excuse his behaviour, but it has helped him to understand more about his "behavioural issues". The musician concluded the post by assuring his fans the assault was an isolated incident, adding: "Vikki and I are still very much in love and we are looking forward to rebuilding our life together with the support of those close to us."


title: Tandoori chicken

text: Tandoori chicken is a South Asian dish of chicken marinated in yogurt and spices and roasted in a "tandoor", a cylindrical clay oven. The dish is now popular world-wide. The modern form of the dish was popularized by the Moti Mahal restaurant in New Delhi in the late 1940s.


title: Tandoori chicken

text: Dishes similar to tandoori chicken may have existed during the Harappan civilization during the Bronze Age of India. According to the archeologist Professor Vasant Shinde, the earliest evidence for a dish similar to tandoori chicken can be found in the Harappan civilization and dates back to 3000 BC. His team has found ancient ovens at Harappan sites which are similar to the tandoors that are used in the state of Punjab. Physical remains of chicken bones with char marks have also been unearthed. Harappan houses had keyhole ovens with central pillars which was used for roasting meats and baking breads. Sushruta Samhita records meat being cooked in an oven (kandu) after marinating it in spices like black mustard (rai) powder and fragrant spices. According to Ahmed (2014), Harappan oven structures may have operated in a similar manner to the modern tandoors of the Punjab.


title: Tandoori chicken

text: Tandoori chicken as a dish originated in the Punjab before the independence of partition of India. In the late 1940s, tandoori chicken was popularised at Moti Mahal in the locality of Daryaganj in New Delhi by Kundan Lal Jaggi and Kundan Lal Gujral, who were Punjabi Hindu migrants from Peshawar as well as the founders of the Moti Mahal restaurant. Mokha Singh had founded the restaurant in the Peshawar area of British India, which is now a part of neighbouring Pakistan.


title: Tandoori chicken

text: In the United States, tandoori chicken began appearing on menus by the 1960s. Jacqueline Kennedy was reported to have eaten "chicken tandoori" on a flight from Rome to Bombay in 1962. A recipe for tandoori chicken was printed in the "Los Angeles Times" in 1963, for "the hostess in search of a fresh idea for a party dinner"; a similar recipe was featured in the same newspaper in 1964.


title: Tandoori chicken

text: Raw chicken parts are skinned then marinated in a mixture of dahi (yogurt) and "tandoori masala", a spice blend. They is seasoned and colored with cayenne pepper, red chili powder, or Kashmiri red chili powder as well as turmeric or food coloring.


title: Tandoori chicken

text: The marinated chicken is placed on skewers and cooked at high temperatures in a tandoor oven, which is heated with charcoal or wood, which adds to the smoky flavour. The dish can also be cooked in a standard oven, using a spit or rotisserie, or over hot charcoal.


title: Tandoori chicken

text: There are also tandoori recipes for whole chicken, some of which are cooked in a tandoor and others over charcoal. These include "Chirga" (Roasted whole chicken); "Tandoori Murgh" (Roast whole chicken with almonds); "Murgh Kabab Seekhi ("Whole stuffed chicken on the spit); "Kookarh Tandoori" (Steamed chicken on spit); "Tandoori Murgh Massaledarh" (Whole spiced chicken on spit); and "Murghi Bhogar" (Chicken in the Bhogar style).


title: Tandoori chicken

text: Tandoori chicken can be eaten as a starter or appetizer, or as a main course, often served with naan flatbread. It is also used as the base of numerous cream-based curries, such as butter chicken. Local varieties of tandoori chicken prepared from the rooyi posto in Bengal have appeared in local eateries, particularly those between Kolaghat and Kolkata. Tandoori chicken was popularized in post-independence India by Moti Mahal, Daryaganj in Delhi when it was served to the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. There, tandoori chicken became a standard offering at official banquets.


title: Tandoori chicken

text: The fame of tandoori chicken led to many derivatives, such as chicken "tikka" (and eventually the Indian dish popularized in Britain, "chicken tikka masala"), commonly found in menus in Indian restaurants all over the world. Nearly all derivatives of tandoori chicken begin with a yogurt and citrus-based marinade.


title: Birbal

text: Birbal (; born Mahesh Das; 1528 16 February 1586), or Raja Birbal, was a Saraswat Hindu Bhatt Brahmin advisor and main commander ("Mukhya Senapati") of army in the court of the Mughal emperor, Akbar. He is mostly known in the Indian subcontinent for the folk tales which focus on his wit. Birbal was appointed by Akbar as a Minister (Mantri) and used to be a Poet and Singer in around 1556–1562. He had a close association with Emperor Akbar and was one of his most important courtiers, part of a group called the "navaratnas" (nine jewels). In February 1586, Birbal led an army to crush an unrest in the north-west Indian subcontinent where he was killed along with many troops in an ambush by the rebel tribe. He was the only Hindu to adopt Din-i Ilahi, the religion founded by Akbar. Birbal was one of the first officers to join Akbar's court, possibly as early as 1556, when he was twenty-eight years old. He also had a naturally generous nature and all these traits combined—elegant repartee, largesse, and poetical talent—made Birbal the ideal Mughal courtier.


title: Birbal

text: Local folk tales emerged primarily in 19th century involving his interactions with Akbar, portraying him as being extremely clever and witty. However, it is highly unlikely that they are true considering the strict court etiquette of the Mughals, which would not have tolerated outspoken attitude of anyone like Birbal, and these tales are not mentioned in any official Mughal document. As the tales gained popularity in India, he became even more of a semi-fictional legendary figure across the Indian subcontinent. These most probably fictional tales involve him outsmarting rival courtiers and sometimes even Akbar, using only his intelligence and cunning, often with giving witty and humorous responses and impressing Akbar.


title: Birbal

text: Birbal was born as Mahesh Das in 1528, to a Brahmin family in Kalpi , Jalaun , Uttar Pradesh;in a called Ghoghra. His father was Ganga Das and mother was Anabha Davito. He was the third son of a family that had a previous association with poetry and literature.


title: Birbal

text: Educated in Hindi, Sanskrit and Persian, Birbal wrote prose, specialised in music and poetry in the Braj language, thus gaining fame. He served at the Rajput court of Raja Ram Chandra of Rewa (Madhya Pradesh), under the name "Brahma Kavi". Birbal's economic and social status improved after getting married to a woman of a wealthy family, contrary to the notion that he was on poor economic terms before his appointment at Mughal Emperor Akbar's imperial court.


title: Birbal

text: The details and year of his first meeting with Akbar and his employment at the court are disputed but estimated to be between 1556 and 1562. He became the "Kavi Priya" (poet laureate) of the Emperor within a few years of his appointment. Akbar bestowed upon him the name 'Birbal' with the title "Raja", by which he was known from then on.


title: Birbal

text: "Birbal" comes from "Bir Bar" or "Vir Var" which means "hasir javab" or "quick thinker". Akbar gave titles to his Hindu subjects according to their traditions and S. H. Hodivala writes that it could have been taken from a character in the folk tale "Vetal Panchvinshati". This featured a courtier called Vir Var who showed great loyalty to his king. Akbar was also fond of literature, having works of Sanskrit and other local languages translated into Persian.


title: Birbal

text: His growing reputation led him to be part of Akbar's nine advisers, known as the "Navaratna" - the nine jewels. Birbal also played the role of a religious advisor, military figure and close friend of the Emperor, serving him for 30 years. In 1572, he was among a large army sent to aid Husain Quli Khan against an attack from the Akbar's brother, Hakim Mirza, which was his first military role. He later accompanied the Emperor during his Gujarat campaigns. Despite having no military background, he often participated in Akbar's campaigns and was given leadership positions, like Todar Mal, who was an advisor in economic matters.


title: Birbal

text: Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak and Abdul Qadir Badayuni were historians of the court. While Fazl respected him, listed him as having twenty-five honorific titles and rank of a commander of two thousand; Badayuni distrusted Birbal because he was a Hindu, calling him a "bastard" and in contempt, writing how he, as a Hindu musician, was getting favour and becoming the king's "confidant", but at the same time acknowledging his talent. Akbar's other orthodox Muslim advisers were known to dislike Birbal. Most of Akbar's courtiers, when they failed to meet his expectations, like in the case of Raja Man Singh I, when he failed to pursue Maharana Pratap in the Battle of Haldigathi. According to Monserrate, among all of Akbar's officials, Faizi, Tansen, and Birbal didn't incur any displeasure in their years of service.


title: Birbal

text: Akbar had started a religion called Din-i-Ilahi, which acknowledged him as God's representative on earth and had a combination of Hindu and Muslim beliefs. In the "Ain-i-Akbari "(The Institutes of Akbar), it is mentioned that Birbal was one of the few people other than Akbar who were its followers, besides being the only Hindu. He had a close association with Akbar, despite being fourteen years elder than him; of the nine "ratnas", Birbal was often called the brightest jewel. Badaoni referred to this in sarcasm, as "a case of 'thy flesh is my flesh and thy blood my blood'". Akbar is reported to have saved Birbal's life in two instances.


title: Birbal

text: The painting "Akbari Nao Ratna" in Victoria hall, Kolkata depicts Birbal having a prominent position right next to Akbar. The Emperor found him entertaining at the start but in later years, sent him on important missions. Birbal was said to have received a two-storey house in Fatehpur Sikri within the palace complex, built close to Akbar's own chambers. He was said to enjoy having Birbal by his side and he was the only courtier to reside within the palace complex. One of the seven gates is known as "Birbal's gate".


title: Birbal

text: The Yusufzai Afghan tribe had started a rebellion along the east bank of river Indus against the Mughal rule. After troops sent to crush the unrest suffered losses, Akbar sent Birbal with reinforcements from where the Afghanis were waiting in prepared positions in the hills. In the ensuing ambush and heavy defeat, Birbal and over 8000 soldiers were killed. This was one of the largest military losses for Akbar. He was said to have expressed his grief over the loss his favourite courtier and not taken food or drink for two days. He was anguished since his body could not be found for Hindu cremation. He proclaimed that it was his greatest tragedy since his coming to the throne.


title: Birbal

text: Badayuni writes,His majesty cared for the death of no grandee more than for that of Birbal. He said, 'Alas! they could not even get his body out of the pass, that it might have been burned"; but at last, he consoled himself with the thought that Birbal was now free and independent of all earthly fetters, and as the rays of the sun were sufficient for him, there was no necessity that he should be cleansed by fire.


title: Birbal

text: Akbar-Birbal folk tales were passed on mainly by oral tradition. They focus on how Birbal manages to outsmart envious courtiers who try to trap and portray him in poor light in front of Akbar, often in a humorous manner with him shown giving sharp and intelligent responses. Others show his interactions with the Emperor which involve him trying to test Birbal's wit and Birbal making him realise his folly, which always ends with Akbar getting amused and impressed. He occasionally challenges Birbal by giving him a line of poetry which Birbal has to complete. Some of the other stories are simple humorous anecdotes. Getting an advantage in a seemingly impossible situation and making his challengers look silly are usual occurrences in these tales.


title: Birbal

text: According to C. M. Naim, the earliest known reference of Birbal's wit is in the 18th-century biographical dictionary, "Ma'athir al-Umara" in which he, thanks to his poetry and wit, becomes a member of Akbar's inner circle and gradually outranks all other courtiers. Naim draws a parallel between the Akbar-Birbal tales with others in Indian folklore involving a king and his quick-witted minister such as the Vijayanagara emperor, Krishnadevaraya and Tenali Ramakrishna and King Krishnachandra of Nadia and his barber, Gopal Bhar.


title: Birbal

text: In later years, a third character, Mulla Do-Piyaza began to appear. He was very likely a fictional character and was portrayed as Birbal's Muslim counterpart and a proponent of orthodox Islam.


title: Birbal

text: However, when viewed within the context of folkloric literature, these stories, much like other similar tales like those of Krishnadevaraya and Tenali Rama, make fun of the human imperfections in the character of the king and then offer a corrective to his behaviour.


title: Birbal

text: In the folk tales, he is always portrayed as a pious Hindu, being elder than Akbar, and being morally strict in the midst of opposing Muslim courtiers, who are shown plotting against him; his success was only because of his skill and he convinces the Emperor to favour Hinduism over Islam. He is thus depicted as acquiring religious, political and personal influence over Akbar, using his intelligence and sharp tongue and never resorting to violence. However, historically he never played such a role.


title: Birbal

text: Badayuni mistrusted him but did mention that he was "having a considerable amount of capacity and genius". The Braj language poet, Rai Hol, praised Akbar and his nine jewels, having a special emphasis on Birbal for his generosity. Abul Fazl respected him by emphasising on his spiritual excellence and position as a confidant of the Emperor rather than on his wit or poetry.