Do you consider yourself a “Foodie”? I love a great variety of foods and have gone out of my way over the years to try almost everything once. There are a few things I absolutely love and on the backside of that a whole lot of things I absolutely hate. That doesn’t make me a foodie it makes me a nitpicker. I pick the nits I like, and I ignore the ones that I dislike. With that thought in mind I thought maybe a class on food trivia might be called for and give you a little information you probably haven’t heard before. I’ll just throw 15 facts at you, and you can deal with them as you please.
Coca-Cola was first bottled in 1894 in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
A 12-ounce cup of brewed coffee contains 200 mg of caffeine.
The average ear of corn has 800 kernels.
A medium-sized potato provides 45% of the recommended daily value of vitamin C for an adult.
Nescafé was the first instant coffee. It was introduced in Europe in 1938.
The Chinese restaurant item, chop suey, was invented in the United States.
Fulton, Kentucky was once known as the “The Banana Capital of the World” because 70% of all imported bananas to the United States used to be shipped there.
The United States military has created an “indestructible sandwich” that can stay fresh for up to three years.
Black olives contain 10-30% more oil than green olives.
The Aztecs considered avocados an aphrodisiac.
The red and white colors of the Campbells Soup label came from the colors of the Cornell University football team, which Campbell’s executive Herberton Williams watched play in 1898.
White and brown eggs contain the same nutrients in the same quantities.
The Marquis de Sade loved chocolate so much that he had it sent to him in prison.
Post Cereals developed the first cereal, Grape-Nuts, in 1897.
The national drink of Iceland is a potato schnapps called “Black Death.”
Both William Shakespeare and Miguel D. Cervantes, who is considered by some to be Shakespeare’s literary equivalent, died on the same day, April 23, 1616.
In 1958, a Kansas tornado ripped a woman out of her house and deposited her, unharmed, 60 feet away, next to an LP record of the song Stormy Weather.
In Paris in the Twentieth Century, Jules Vern describes the Paris skyline dominated by a large metallic structure. The book was written in 1863, years before the Eiffel Tower was conceptualized in 1887.
The bubonic plague was nicknamed the Black Death because of the nasty black sores it left on its victims’ bodies.
In January 2008, the Dunkinfield Crematorium in Manchester, England, asked local residents and clergymen to support its plan for heating and powering its chapel and boiler using the heat created by burning bodies.
John Lennon’s killer, Mark David Chapman, was a church group leader. It is said that he would lead sing-alongs to the tune of Lennon’s song “Imagine”, during which he would change the lyrics to “Imagine there is no John Lennon”.
If 13 people sit down to eat at a table together, one of them will die within the year.
A grilled cheese sandwich bearing the image of the Virgin Mary was sold in 2004 for $28,000.
Novelist Ernest Hemingway and poet Hart Crane were both born on July 21, 1899. Both struggled with alcoholism and depression, and both committed suicide.
American author Norman Mailer once stabbed his wife and then wrote a novel about it (An American Dream).
These 10 items are just a mishmash of oddities. Fortunately for me the more I research the more of them I stumble upon. Like it or not I’ll be passing them on to you for your enjoyment. I’d like to finish this post with a quote from John Lennon which I found interesting:
“Everybody loves you when you’re six foot in the ground,”
“Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
I’ve come to the conclusion over the last few years after talking to a lot of my former and late friends, that after you’re labelled a Senior Citizen at age 50, you begin to think more about death than before. That’s a pretty depressing thought but in most cases I think it’s true. Today’s posting concerns death from a number of different angles and in my opinion, it makes for an interesting and depressing read.
You are 14% more likely to die on your birthday, compared to any other day of the year.
On average, more than 135,000 people will die on your next birthday and 360,000 will be born.
Wednesday by far is the most popular day to commit suicide.
More people die in New York City from suicide each year than from murder.
San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge is the most popular “suicide bridge” in the United States.
There are approximately 150 people killed each year from being struck on the head by a coconut.
Mosquitoes, human beings, and snakes are the three most deadly animals in the world in that order.
Each year more people are killed by hippopotamuses than by lions, sharks, and elephants combined.
THE BLACK DEATH
The Black Death is history’s most deadly verifiable plague. It swept through Europe and Asia Minor in the 1340’s and 50’s, killing an estimated 25 to 60 percent of Europe’s population.
THE SPANISH FLU
The Spanish Flu was a very virulent strain of influenza that spread through Asia, Europe, and North America in the spring of 1918. Healthy adults were especially hard hit. The global death toll is estimated between 25-100 million.
That should be enough depression for today. The Covid-19 pandemic is frightening but the numbers from the Black Death and Spanish Flu are even scarier. Glad I wasn’t around for either of them.
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