Mindless Crap Food & Drinks Trivia

Weekly Droppings

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Crap About Food & Drinks

The following are all of the Weekly Droppings that have appeared on Mindless Crap, dating back to the first one posted on October 1, 2000.

Grapefruit got its name because they often grow in bunches on the tree. Typically, fruits are scattered throughout the tree.

Choking on food is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.

Besieged by customer requests, Cleveland restaurant owner Hector Boiardi decided to bottle his famous spaghetti and meat sauce. With local success came an offer national distribution, but, fearing that Americans would have trouble pronouncing his Italian last name, he marketed and sold his food under the phonetic spelling, "Boy-ar-dee."

Eighteen ounces of an average cola drink contain as much caffeine as a cup of coffee.

The candies most likely to cause tooth decay are dark chocolate and fudge. Those least likely to damage the teeth are nut- or coconut covered candies.

Popcorn pops because of the moisture content inside the shell. Each kernel of corn consists of a soft starch inside and a hard shell outside. As the kernel is heated, the moisture inside the kernel expands, the soft starch is cooked, and it bursts the outer shell with a pop. The kernels must contain at least 13.5% water in order to explode.

Peanut butter was invented by St. Louis physician Ambrose Straub, who, concerned about the nutrition of his elderly, toothless patients, concocted a health-food product that was high in protein and easily digestible.

Celery has negative calories. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.

The strongest any liquor can be is 190 proof. This means the drink is a little more than 97 percent alcohol.

The original filling in Twinkies was banana. It was replaced by vanilla-flavored cream during World War II, when the United States experienced a banana shortage.

If Jell-O is hooked up to an EEG (heart monitor), it registers movements virtually identical to the brain waves of a healthy adult.

Honey is believed to be the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found to still be edible.

Popcorn has been a food product for over 6,000 years.

A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continually from the bottom of the glass to the top.

The French cooked fish soup in a kettle called a chaudi�re, and from it comes the word chowder.

Boiling the cork for a few minutes makes it easier to place it back into a wine bottle.

The flavor we think of as bubblegum is a combination of wintergreen, vanilla and cassia, a form of cinnamon.

Almost without exception, cows are milked from the right side. The reason is because most farmers have been right-handed since the start of the dairy business and it's easier for a right-handed milker to work from the right side.

The Aztecs of Mexico roasted and ground up the cacao bean, mixed it with water, added peppers and other spices, stirred it up to a froth and drank the pungent mixture they called "chocolatl."

The banana is the most prolific of all food plants with as many as 300 bananas growing on the same stalk.

Cheese closes the stomach and should always be served at the end of a meal.

Dry wine is a wine that has been completely fermented, meaning that only 0.1% of the sugar remains.

Jim Delligatti, a McDonald's franchise owner in Uniontown, PA, invented the Big Mac in 1968. He originally named it the Big Mac Super Sandwich. The following year McDonald's sold it nationwide.

Peanuts are salted in the shell by boiling them in a heavily salted solution, then allowing them to dry.

There are 1,218 peanuts in a single 28 ounce jar of Jif peanut butter.

The canning process for herring was developed in Sardinia, which is why canned herrings are better known as sardines.

Americans use about 100 million pounds of tea leaves every year.

A quarter of raw potato placed in each shoe at night will keep the leather soft and the shoes smelling fresh and clean.

When the English colonists sat down for their first Thanksgiving dinner on February 22, 1630, an Indian chief named Quadoquina offered a deerskin bag filled with freshly popped corn. Thus popcorn made its first appearance to non-native North Americans.

There is no difference in flavor or nutritional value between brown and white eggs. Aside form color, they are identical. Most white eggs come from White Longhorns and browns come from a commercial cross of Rhode Island Reds and Barred Plymouth Rocks.

Beer has a bitter taste and slightly pungent aroma because of lupulin, a substance found in hops.

Pineapples are classified as berries.

The apricot can be traced back to China at least four thousand years ago, and it first appeared in Greek mythology as the "golden apple."

Two-thirds of the world's coffee comes from Brazil.

One pound of tea can make nearly three hundred cups to drink.

Whiskey was first brewed in the United States in 1640. It was made from a mixture of corn and rye.

Vanilla is the extract of fermented and dried pods of orchids.

Chewing gum was created by the Mayans over 300 years ago. They boiled the sap of the sapodilla tree and chewed it.

Milk is actually considered to be a food and not a beverage.

Imperia, Italy is the home of the Agnesi Historical Museum of Spaghetti.

Forks weren't widely used in the United States until the 1800s.

Italians in Italy consume a million and a half tons of spaghetti every year.

According to bar sales across the U.S., here are the top 15 cocktails:
1) Dry martini
2) Manhattan
3) Whiskey sour
4) Bloody Mary
5) Gimlet
6) Daiquiri
7) Tom Collins
8) Old Fashioned
9) Margarita
10) Screwdriver
11) Bacardi
12) Stinger
13) Harvey Wallbanger
14) Gin & Tonic
15) Rum & Coke

The national dish of Scotland, haggis, is made of the heart, liver, lungs and small intestines of a calf. It's then boiled in the stomach of the animal, and seasoned with salt, pepper and onions. Oh, and don't forget to add the suet and oatmeal.

The brewing of beer is recorded as far back as 6,000 years ago. Until the 12th century (when skilled experts took over), women performed the task of making beer as part of their household chores.

An African American chef in Albany, NY is thought to have been the inventor of potato chips sometime in 1865. Unfortunately, nobody knows his name.

Follow-up:
George Crum invented potato chips in 1853 at the Moon Lake Lodge in Saratoga Springs, New York. Crum was part Indian, part black, a former guide in the Adirondacks.
- Georgia B.

The table fork was introduced into England in 1601. Until then people would eat with their knives, spoons or fingers. When Queen Elizabeth first used a fork, the clergy went ballistic. They felt it was an insult to God not to touch meat with one's fingers.

Apple pie was brought to England from France sometime around 1066 by William the Conqueror. It made it to America when the Pilgrims arrived.

Africa's 8,000-year brewing history began with ancient Egyptian commercial brewing dynasties and still includes handmade tribal beers.

The Mai Tai cocktail was created in 1945 by Victor Bergeron, the genius of rum, also known as Trader Vic. The drink got its name when he served it to two friends from Tahiti, who exclaimed "Maitai roa ae!," which in Tahitian means "Out of this world - the best!"

Salt caravans crossing the Sahara desert sometimes numbered as many as 40,000 camels.

On average, every American consumes 109 pounds of beef a year. It takes eight pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef.

Dolley Madison is credited with inventing ice cream. Nancy Johnson, the wife of a naval officer, is credited for inventing the ice cream freezer.

Chopsticks are called "o-hashi" in Japan and "kwai-tse" in China.

Before Columbus, Europe had never tasted cord, potatoes, tomatoes, red peppers, sweet potatoes, tapioca, chocolate, pumpkins, squash, coconuts, pineapples, strawberries, and much more. Why? All these food items are native to America.

The citrus industry started in the United States in 1873 when two Riverside, CA ranchers obtained some orange saplings from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Two years earlier, the government had secured a dozen saplings from Brazil.

An apple tree is at its prime when its about 50 years old. The United States produces about 100 million barrels of apples a year. That's a lot of old trees.

The first cookbook published in the United States was Compleat Housewife, or Accomplished Gentlewoman's Companion, printed in Williamsburg, VA in 1742.

When potatoes were first introduced to Europe, people were skeptical and only ate the leaves, which made them sick. They would then throw away the rest, including the actual spud.

Americans drink about five billion bottles and cans of soda, and about a billion and a half pounds of coffee every year.

The cashew nut in its natural state contains a poisonous oil. Roasting removes the oil and makes the nuts safe to eat.

Bourbon whiskey gets its name from Bourbon County, Kentucky, where local distillers developed the drink around 1800.

An ear of corn always has an even number of rows because of the genetic formula which divides the cells.

Although explorers brought potatoes back from the New World in the early 1500s, Europeans were afraid to eat them for fear that the spuds would give them leprosy. It wasn't until Louis XVI, who was looking for a cheap food source for his starving subjects, served them at the royal table that people were convinced potatoes were safe to eat.

Argentineans eat more meat than any other nation in the world - an average of 10 ounces per person per day.

Human beings can't smell or taste a substance that is not soluble. On a dry tongue, sugar has no taste. In a dry nose, the smell of a flower would not be noticed. Anything to be smelled must float in the air.

In the Middle Ages, chicken soup was believed to be an aphrodisiac.

A hard-boiled egg will spin. An uncooked or soft-boiled egg will not.

There is no alcohol left in food that's cooked with wine. The alcohol evaporates at 172 degrees Fahrenheit.

The average person ingests about a ton of food and drink each year.

Cabbage is 91% water.

Wine is kept in tinted bottles because it will spoil if it's exposed to light.

Whole wheat bread has more iron, vitamins and dietary fiber than white bread.

The strawberry is the only agricultural product that bears its seeds on the outside.

Tequila is thought to be the first distilled liquor in the Americas. The Aztecs were known to have drunk it before Cortez arrived.

A ton of potatoes will yield 28.6 gallons of absolute alcohol. Potatoes are an important source for commercial alcohol.

Watermelons grown along the Tigris River have been known to reach as much as 275 pounds.

Tapioca is made from the starch in the roots of a poisonous plant known as bitter cassava.

Americans drink over a billion pounds of coffee every year and around five million bottles of soda.

It takes, on average, 345 squirts from a cow�s udder to yield one gallon of milk.

Ever wonder how Swiss cheese is made? As the cheese ferments, a bacterial action generates gas. As the gas is liberated, it bubbles through the cheese, leaving all those holes.

The word "pure" appears on the scroll held by the Quaker pictured on the packages of Quaker Oats cereal.

Cheese fondue is said to have originated in the Gourmet Room of the Schweizerhof in Luzern, Switzerland.

Cheese is the oldest of all man-made foods.

The white part of an egg is called the glair.