Interesting Food Facts

During the Alaskan Klondike gold rush, (1897-1898) potatoes were practically worth their weight in gold. Potatoes were so valued for their vitamin C content that miners traded gold for potatoes.

Astronaut John Glenn ate the first meal in space when he ate pureed applesauce squeezed from a tube aboard Friendship 7 in 1962.

Fortune cookies were invented in 1916 by George Jung, a Los Angeles noodle maker.

In 1990, Bill Carson, of Arrington, Tennessee, grew the largest watermelon at 262 pounds.

In a true Chinese meal, the last course is soup because it allows the roast duck entree to "swim" toward digestion.

In the United States, a pound of potato chips costs two hundred times more than a pound of potatoes.

Pine, spruce, or other evergreen wood should never be used in barbecues. These woods, when burning or smoking, can add harmful tar and resins to the food. Only hardwoods should be used for smoking and grilling, such as oak, pecan, hickory, maple, cherry, alder, apple, or mesquite, depending on the type of meat being cooked.

Refried beans aren't really what they seem. Although their name seems like a reasonable translation of Spanish frijoles refritos, the fact is that these beans aren't fried twice. In Spanish, refritos literally means "well-fried," not "re-fried."

Rice is the staple food of more than one-half of the world's population.

Saffron, made from the dried stamens of cultivated crocus flowers, is the most expensive cooking spice.

Since Hindus don't eat beef, the MacDonald's in New Delhi makes its burgers with mutton.

The colour of a chilli is no indication of its spiciness, but size usually is - the smaller the pepper, the hotter it is.

The difference between apple juice and apple cider is that the juice is pasteurized and the cider is not.

The dye used to stamp the grade on meat is edible. It's made from grape skins.

The fungus called truffles are sniffed out from the ground by female pigs, which detect a compound that is in the saliva of male pigs as well. The same chemical is found in the sweat of human males. One variety, Tuber melanosporum, can cost between $800 and $1,500 a pound.

The largest living organism ever found is a honey mushroom, Armillaria ostoyae. It covers 3.4 square miles of land in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon, and it's still growing

The world’s deadliest mushroom is the Amanita phalloides, the death cap. The five different poisons contained by the mushroom cause diarrhea and vomiting within 6 to 12 hours of ingestion. This is followed by damage to the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system - and, in the majority of cases, coma and death.

When honey is swallowed, it enters the blood stream within a period of 20 minutes.

When Swiss cheese ferments, a bacterial action generates gas. As the gas is liberated, it bubbles through the cheese leaving holes. Cheese-makers call them "eyes."

Unit 11