The first recipe for s'mores was published in 1927 in the Girl Scout Handbook, and the event marked the official introduction of the s'more into popular culture?
Outselling every brand of peanut butter combined, the amount of Nutella produced worldwide in one day is equivalent to nearly three times the weight of the Statue of Liberty?
Strawberries are the only fruit with seeds on the outside?
The history of birthday cakes come from the Greeks, who would take their round, moon-shaped cakes to the temple of Artemis-the Goddess of Moon. The tradition of placing lit candles on these cakes signified the glowing moon, and many believed the smoke of the candles carried their wishes and prayers to the Gods who lived in the skies above?
In 1937, Ruth Wakefield (owner of the Toll House Inn) was making butter cookies, and thought she would make them all chocolate instead. She cut a bar of Nestle chocolate into tiny pieces and added them to the cookie dough. When the cookies came out of the oven, the chocolate hadn't melted at all! Instead, the "chocolate chips" had kept their form. Ruth decided to go to Nestle with her recipe for "Chocolate Crunch Cookies." Nestle liked the idea, and they got permission from Ruth to put her recipe on the back of their chocolate bars. In return, she got all the chocolate she wanted to keep on baking those cookies?
In its early days, balsamic vinegar was available only to the nobility and the artisans who made it. It was believed to be a miracle cure for everything from a sore throat to labor pains, and even used as protection against the plague?
Daisies are not one flower. A Daisy is made up of two types of flowers - disk florets and petal-like white ray florets. The Disk florets are at the center and the ray florets are at the periphery, arranged to give the impression of being a single flower?
As in the Neiman-Marcus cookie legend, a woman is reported to have asked for the recipe for the delicious red velvet cake she was served at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel restaurant in NYC, only to find that she had been billed $250 for the recipe. Indignant, she spread it to all her friends as a chain letter?
Today, pears are available in grocery stores 10 months out of the year, but they weren’t always so easy to find. In the 1800s people were willing to pay over $20 for just one pear because they were so rare and delicious?
Half to one pound of raspberry fruit per day can provide twenty to thirty grams of fiber, which is adequate for an adult daily nutrition requirement?
Pomegranates have existed for 50 to 70 million years. The plants themselves live 100 to 150 years in the wild, and 300 years or more in cultivated gardens. They bear fruit in their second or third year, and can produce 440 to 660 pounds of fruit annually?
Falling coconuts kill 150 people every year - 10 times the number of people killed by sharks?
For hundreds of years, Greeks have prized strained yogurt for its richness and creaminess, and because it makes a great cooking ingredient that’s less likely to curdle when heated. Today, we know that straining also makes Greek yogurt richer in protein than regular yogurt, and lower in lactose?
The world's largest peanut butter and jelly sandwich was created in Oklahoma City, OK, on September 7, 2002 by the Oklahoma Peanut Commission and the Oklahoma Wheat Commission. The PB & J sandwich weighed in at nearly 900 pounds, and contained 350 pounds of peanut butter and 144 pounds of jelly. The amount of bread used to create the sandwich was equivalent to more than 400-one pound loaves of bread?
Man first began planting pomegranate trees sometime between 4000 and 3000 B.C. Many scholars now suggest that it was the pomegranate, not an apple, depicted in the biblical Garden of Edan?
Barley played an important role in ancient Greek culture as a staple bread-making grain as well as an important food for athletes, who attributed much of their strength to their barley-containing training diets. Gladiators were even known as hordearii, which means "eaters of barley?"
A one cup serving of fennel provides one third of the Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) of vitamin A and one half of the RDI of vitamin C. Fennel also provides 15-20% of the RDI of calcium and iron?
Easter Pie has many different names and even more recipes, depending on the section of Italy in question. In Naples it is known as "pastiera," and is made with ricotta cheese and whole grains of wheat to symbolize rebirth?
Red raspberries are native to Europe and have been cultivated for over 400 years, while wild red raspberries are native to North America. More than 40 varieties of raspberries were known by 1867, and today there are more than 200 known species?
In Britain the term "curry" has come to mean almost any Indian dish, whilst most people from the [Indian] sub-continent would say it is not a word they use. In India curry simply means "sauce." Therefore, Indian foods made with sauces are all "curries?"
Back in the day, black and white cookies were actually made by bakeries from their leftover cake batters, with just a little extra flour mixed in so the cookie didn’t spread all over the place. Sometimes called Amerikaner Cookies, they’re also occasionally referred to as "half-moons" Upstate and in New England. However, with a chocolate cake base, not the traditional vanilla/lemon one, they’re not the same thing?
Grains found in pits and pyramids in Egypt indicate that barley was cultivated there more than 5000 years ago. The most ancient glyph or pictograph found for barley is dated about 3000 B.C. In fact, Historians report that up until the 16th century, barley was the most important grain on the European continent. It was also used as currency and as a measuring standard?
At the time Marie Antoinette uttered the infamous quotation "let them eat cake," the word "cake" did not refer to the familiar dessert item that the modern-day French call le gateau. The operative term was brioche, a flour-and-water paste that was "caked" onto the interiors of the ovens and baking pans of the professional boulangers of the era. At the end of the day, the baker would scrape the leavings from his pans and ovens and set them outside the door for the benefit of beggars and scavengers. Thus, the lady in question was simply giving practical, if somewhat flippant, advice to her poor subjects: If one cannot afford the bourgeois bread, he can avail himself of the poor man's "cake?"
Kraft introduced its famous boxed version of macaroni and cheese in 1937. During the first year, nine million boxes were sold. Today, Kraft sells more than one million boxes of its macaroni and cheese every day?
Legend has it that folks carved a cross on soda bread to "let the devil out" while it's baking for good luck, and others say that it made it easy to divide into 4 pieces. It was also a symbol for a cross during Christian holidays?
In 1987 Larry Shaw at the San Francisco Exploratorium started thinking about “rotation into another dimension”, which coincidentally is what pi (3.14...) describes: the relationship between two dimensions. Shaw and his colleagues built a pi shrine that displayed the first 100 digits of pi, walked in a circle around it and ate pie. Later, Shaw’s daughter discovered that 3/14 aligned with Einstein’s birthday and the popularity of Pi Day grew from there?
French toast was created by medieval European cooks who needed to use every bit of food they could find (including day-old bread) to feed their families. The term "french toast" first appeared in print in the Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink in 1871?
Last year, over 1,000 tons of hummus was eaten during Israeli Independance Day (Yom Haatzmaut). Of that thousand, 881 pounds was consumed out of a single, Guiness-Record sized plate?
The white ribs inside a pepper that we all trim away actually contain heart healthful bioflavonoids, so use them in your soups?
The name "Flan" begins with a word in old French "flaon," which comes from the Latin "flado," meaning "custard." According to Platina's De Honesta Voluptate, an Italian cookery text published approximately 1475, custard-type dishes were considered health food. In addition to being nourishing, they were thought to soothe the chest, aid the kidneys and liver, increase fertility and eliminate certain urinary tract problems?
White shelled eggs are produced by hens with white feathers and white ear lobes. Brown shelled eggs are produced by hens with red feathers and red ear lobes. Brown egg layers usually are slightly larger and require more food, thus brown eggs usually cost more than white eggs?
The Italian city of Verona, where Shakespeare's lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet every Valentine's Day?
The sugar concentration in honey is so high that no bacteria can live in it. It has even been used in hospitals as a dressing for wounds, burns, and cuts?
Scientists believe that turmeric, the spice which turns curry dishes yellow, stops the growth of leukemia cells, and seems to protect against damage from cigarette smoke and some processed food?
In 1995 the potato was the first vegetable grown in outer space?
Just like humans, mushrooms can produce Vitamin D upon exposure to sunlight and UV radiation. A four-ounce serving of Maitake mushrooms, produced by the Hokto-patented methodology, contained 85% of the Daily RDA for Vitamin D?
Milton Hershey did not initiate his chocolate empire with chocolate, but with caramel. The chocolate took off in his search for new coatings and toppings for his caramel candies?
Legend has it that the Roman emperor Nero used to send his slaves scurrying to the mountains to collect snow and ice to make flavored ices, the precursors to ice cream, in the first century?
Ricotta, meaning twice-cooked, is made from the whey that is drained off while making cheeses such as mozzarella and provolone, and is technically not a cheese at all?
Lemon trees bloom and produce fruit year-round. Each tree can produce between 500 and 600 pounds of lemons in a year?
The word "ascorbic," as in ascorbic acid (the name for Vitamin C), means "no scurvy"?
Under ideal conditions, an asparagus spear can grow 10" in a 24-hour period, and will continue to produce spears for 15-20 years without being replanted?
According to a 2002 survey, Brussels sprouts are the most hated vegetable in Britain?
The brownie, also known as the Boston Brownie, traces all the way back to the 1800s. And although sources aren't clear on the exact date the first brownie recipe was published, they do know the recipe stemmed from a Boston-based cookbook?
The "pocket" in pita bread is made by steam. The steam puffs up the dough and, as the bread cools and flattens, a pocket is left in the middle?
The pineapple is not a single fruit, but a cluster of 100-200 tiny fruitlets?
Women in the Orient used to use the peel of the eggplant as dye to stain their teeth gray because that was all the rage?
German Chocolate Cake was not brought to America by German immigrants. The cake took its name from an American with the last name of "German?"
Of the 70,000 species of the mushrooms in the world, only about 250 are actually edible?
In London, during the seventeenth century, gingerbread bakers had the exclusive right to make gingerbread, and only at Christmas and Easter were other citizens allowed to join in?
Egyptians believed onions had strength-producing powers, therefore, they were fed to laborers who built the pyramids?
Noodles got their start in China, not Italy as many people might think?
There are over 1,000 varieties of pecans. Many are named for Native American Indian tribes, including Cheyenne, Mohawk, Sioux, Choctaw and Shawnee?
In rural homes in the 19th century, apple, and other fruit pies were often served for breakfast, and considered a good hearty beginning for a hard day's work?
It was not until 1941, that congress declared Thanksgiving as a national holiday?
Early American colonists made grey paint by boiling blueberries in milk?
There was no milk, cheese, bread, butter or pumpkin pie at the original Thanksgiving Day feast?
Chickens are the closest living relative to the T-Rex?
There are about 4,400 cranberries in one gallon of juice?
Mushrooms will double in size every 24 hours, so a Portabella is not that much older than a Cremini?
It takes 9 seconds for a combine to harvest enough wheat to make about 70 loaves of bread?
During Ancient Greek and Roman weddings, brides carried bouquets of garlic and herbs instead of flowers?
The largest pumpkin pie ever made was over five feet in diameter and weighed over 350 pounds. It used 80 pounds of cooked pumpkin, 36 pounds of sugar, 12 dozen eggs and took six hours to bake?
Habanero peppers are 30-50 times hotter than Jalapeno peppers?
Dollar for dollar, butternut squash provides more value than any other squash?
During the nineteenth century, American cookbooks warned that tomatoes should be cooked for a minimum of three hours before eating to eliminate the raw taste. People were cautioned not to eat tomatoes raw because they were still suspected to be poisonous?
