These are the snacks that soothe men's souls.

I spent a good deal of time today reflecting and remarking on The American War of Independence and the players thereof. This is the day for it, whether one likes it or not. My ancestor Samuel Swift died at age 60 in 1775 under house arrest in occupied Boston. He was caught organizing the hiding of guns and pitch forks when the British authorities were moving to disarm the population. It's good to remember him every year. I remember also the founding father who is closest to my heart. Thomas Paine, whose legacy has been largely air-brushed out of American history, particularly in Philadelphia, where I live, suffers this insult because orthodox Christians have hated the man for his Deist beliefs for over two centuries.

But as the day closed and the sounds of bursting fireworks faded to the silence of night, I enjoyed these delicious snacks from across the Atlantic. I ate dry ostrich sausage from France, perhaps made by a descendant of our ally the Marquis de Lafayette, who was born in Auvergne (saucisson sec country) precisely two hundred years to the day before I was born. Then I savored Welsh cakes with a wonderful Welsh cheddar, flavored with apple cider and perhaps made by a descendant of Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage, who ordered my ancestor's arrest all those years ago.

Those were the times that tried men's souls, and these are the snacks that soothe them.