6,788 articles
Cowboy boot
Cowboy boot, also called western boot or santiag: tall leather riding boot with angled heel, high shaft, and pointed toe, developed from vaquero boots in the 1870s American West and now a recurring fashion icon.
Cowboy hat
Cowboy hat: a wide-brimmed, creased-crown Western hat. Known as Stetson, Boss of the Plains (1865), ten-gallon; fur felt or straw, with vaqueteada and sombrero roots.
Crab Rangoon
Crab rangoon, also called crab puffs or cheese wontons, is an American Chinese deep-fried wonton filled with cream cheese and usually imitation crab, attributed to Trader Vic's founder Victor Bergeron in the late 1940s or 1950s.
Cracker (food)
Cracker (food): a plain, unsweetened, dry, hard baked bread product named for the cracking sound it makes; also called savoury biscuit. Covers types (saltine, soda, common cracker), history from hardtack, nutrition, and the $10.6 billion US market.
Cracker Barrel
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store is a Lebanon, Tennessee-based American restaurant-and-retail chain founded by Dan Evins in 1969, trading as Nasdaq: CBRL, with nearly 660 company-owned locations in 43 states, known for country cooking, retail gift stores, and the 2025 logo controversy.
Cracker Jack
Cracker Jack is an American snack brand of caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts, sold since 1893 and best known for the small prize packaged in every box.
Craft
Craft is the skilled making of objects by hand or with hand tools, as an occupation, trade, or hobby, distinguished from industrial manufacture by the maker's manual contribution.
Craft beer
Craft beer: beer from small, independent breweries, defined in the US by the Brewers Association (6 million barrel cap, under 25% non-craft ownership). Roots in 1965 Anchor Brewing; 2025 US market 13.4% by volume, $28.0 billion retail.
Craic
Craic is an Irish English informal noun meaning fun or gossip. It is derived from the Old English word cracian, which means to make an explosive noise (24 words).
Cranberry extract
Cranberry extract (cranberry extract powder), a proanthocyanidin-standardized powder from Vaccinium macrocarpon juice; GRAS under FDA GRN 873 (no questions, May 2020) and EU-authorized novel food, used in beverages and supplements.
Cranberry juice
Cranberry juice, pressed from Vaccinium macrocarpon fruit, exists as tart unsweetened 100% juice and sweetened cranberry juice cocktail (20-27% juice). Known for UTI prevention evidence (Cochrane 2023) but not treatment, with FDA qualified health claims since 2020.
Crazy quilting
Crazy quilting, also called crazy patchwork, is Victorian-era patchwork of irregular silk and velvet scraps with embroidered seams, inspired by the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial's Japanese exhibits, popular 1876–1900, usually unquilted and without batting.
Cream
Cream (dairy): the fat-rich fraction of milk, an oil-in-water emulsion separated centrifugally from whole milk. Fat content ranges from 10.5% (half and half) to 80% (plastic cream); used for butter, ghee, ice cream, and coffee. First continuous separator by Gustaf de Laval, 1877.
Cream cheese
Cream cheese is a soft, mild, spreadable unripened cheese made from milk and cream, created in New York in 1875 and used on bagels, in dips, and in cheesecake.
Cream pie
Cream pie: a chilled American dessert pie with a stovetop custard or pudding filling (milk, eggs, sugar, cornstarch) set in a prebaked crust and topped with whipped cream; distinct from baked custard pies and airy chiffon pies.
Cream soda
Cream soda: vanilla-flavored carbonated soft drink of water, sweetener, and vanilla; no dairy. First recipe 1852 (E.M. Sheldon, Michigan Farmer); Dr. Brown's 1868; pink in Canada, melon float in Japan; 2.5-2.8 gas volumes.
Cream tea
Cream tea: a British West Country meal of scones with clotted cream and jam plus tea. Devon serves cream first, Cornwall jam first; clotted cream must be at least 55% milk fat.
Crème brûlée
Crème brûlée, French "burnt cream", is a vanilla custard of cream and egg yolks baked in a bain-marie and topped with caramelized sugar; first printed by Massialot in 1691, distinct from crema catalana.
Crème caramel
Crème caramel, also called caramel custard or flan, is a baked egg-and-milk custard cooked in a caramel-lined mold in a water bath and unmolded so the caramel becomes a soft sauce on top.
Crème fraîche
Crème fraîche is French cultured cream with 30-40% milkfat, legally defined in France as pasteurized cream packaged within 24 hours; thicker, milder, and more heat-stable than sour cream.
Crêpe
Crêpe: very thin unleavened French pancake of wheat batter (sweet crêpe) or buckwatter galette, from 13th-century Brittany; national dish of France, crêperie culture, Chandeleur, Gavottes, bilig and rozell.
Crew cut
Crew cut: short men's haircut with tapered sides and a graduated top of about 1.5 to 3 cm; named for 1930s Harvard and Yale rowing crews, spread by WWII U.S. military grooming, standard in the 1940s and 1950s, with the Ivy League as its longer side-parted variant.
Crewelwork
Crewelwork, also called crewel embroidery, is a form of free surface embroidery worked with two-ply crewel wool on linen or cotton twill, flourishing in Europe and the American colonies from the 16th to 18th centuries.
Crimson
Crimson, a deep red color inclining to purple, originally named for kermes dye from the scale insect Kermes vermilio (qirmiz, kermesic acid); later surpassed by cochineal carmine.
Crinoline
Crinoline: a 19th-century skirt-supporting undergarment, originally a stiff horsehair-and-linen fabric, then the 1856 steel-hoop cage crinoline that created the wide Victorian bell skirt, peaking around 1862 before giving way to the bustle.
Crisco
Crisco is an American brand of vegetable shortening, cooking oil, and cooking spray, introduced by Procter & Gamble in 1911 as the first shortening made entirely from vegetable oil.
Cristal (wine)
Cristal is Louis Roederer's flagship prestige cuvée Champagne, created in 1876 for Tsar Alexander II in a clear flat-bottomed crystal bottle; vintage-only, from 45 Grand Cru plots, first sold commercially in 1945.
Cristóbal Balenciaga
Cristóbal Balenciaga Eizaguirre (1895–1972), Spanish Basque couturier, founder of the House of Balenciaga (San Sebastián 1919, Paris 1937), called "The Master"; known for the sack dress, balloon jacket, silk gazar, and a new 1950s female silhouette.
Croatian cuisine
Croatian cuisine (Hrvatska kuhinja) is a highly regional Mediterranean and Central European tradition: olive oil, seafood, and peka roasting on the Adriatic coast; paprika, pork, and štrukli inland.
Crochet
Crochet: fabric made with a single hooked tool from one continuous thread, loops pulled through loops (French crochet, small hook). Probably evolved from tambour embroidery around 1800; first described in the Dutch journal Penelope, 1824. One live loop, denser fabric and more yarn than knitting; still not machine-replicable.