Food is something we interact with on a daily basis – frequently, in fact. There are many very obscure facts about food that are fascinating and definitely worthy of knowing. Here are a couple interesting ones …
Feast
The Fact: The largest food item on a menu is roast camel
The camel is stuffed with a sheep’s carcass, which is stuffed with chickens, which are stuffed with fish, which are stuffed with eggs. This feast is sometimes featured in Bedouin weddings.
Soup
The Fact: The first soup was made of hippopotamus
The earliest archeological evidence for the consumption of soup dates back to 6000 BC, and it was hippopotamus soup!
Worcestershire Sauce
The Fact: Worcestershire sauce is made from dissolved fish
Worcestershire sauce, the popular English sauce, is made from dissolved anchovies. The anchovies are soaked in vinegar until they have completely melted. The sauce contains the bones and all.
Popsicle
The Fact: The Popsicle was invented by an 11 year who kept it secret for 18 years.
The inventor was Frank Epperson who, in 1905, left a mixture of powdered soda and water out on the porch, which contained a stir stick. That night, temperatures in San Francisco reached record low temperature. When he woke the next morning, he discovered that it had frozen to the stir stick, creating a fruit flavored ice treat that he named the epsicle. 18 years later he patented it and called it the Popsicle.
Microwaves
The Fact: Microwave cooking was discovered accidentally, when a chocolate bar melted in someone’s pocket
This is very true and very scary – imagine what it was doing to his leg! The fact is, Percy LeBaron Spencer of the Raytheon Company was walking past a radar tube and he noticed that the chocolate bar in his pocket melted. He then tested popcorn in front of the tube (surely turning up the power and standing out of the beam), and it quickly popped all over the room. He is (obviously) known as the inventor of the Microwave oven.
Coconut Water
The Fact: Coconut water can be used (in emergencies) as a substitute for blood plasma.
The reason for this is that coconut water (the water found in coconuts – not to be confused with coconut milk, which comes from the flesh of the coconut) is sterile and has an ideal pH level. Coconut water is liquid endosperm – it surrounds the embryo and provides nutrition.
