For many years I’ve considered myself a true “foodie”. I’ve always made a point to try damn near anything called food. Of course, that has changed dramatically as I’ve aged. Truthfully, I don’t really miss my entrees of “dog soup” and “cat spring rolls” I once tried in Korea. So, when I started collecting odd facts and trivia, food always seems to be mentioned in some fashion. Here are a few little-known facts about food I’ve collected. How many have your heard before?
- What is the name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box? Bingo.
- What is the American name for the British delicacy known as trotters? Pig’s feet.
- Under US government regulations, what percentage of peanut butter has to be peanuts? 90%.
- Who originally coined the phrase that has been appropriated as the slogan for Maxwell House coffee; “Good to the last drop”? President Theodore Roosevelt
- What recipe did Texas ice cream maker Elmer Doolin buy for a $100 from the owner of a San Antonio café in 1933 and later used to make a fortune? The recipe for tasty corn chips that was later marketed as Fritos. He made them at night in his mother’s kitchen and peddled them from his Model-T Ford.
- A California winemaker from Napa Valley once named a wine in honor of Marilyn Monroe. What was it called? Marilyn Merlot.
- What food product was discovered because of a long camel ride? Cottage cheese. An Arab trader found that milk he was carrying in a goatskin bag had turned into a tasty solid white curd.
- Peter Cooper, best known for inventing the locomotive “Tom Thumb”, patented a dessert in 1845. What was it? A gelatin treat that eventually became known as Jell-O when it was marketed in 1897.
- In 1867 Emperor Napoleon III had a chemist develop a food product “for the army, navy, and the needy classes of the population.” What was it? Margarine.
- What was the drink we know as the Bloody Mary originally called? The Red Snapper, which was it’s name when it crossed the Atlantic from Harry’s New York Bar in Paris.
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