Food is a feast for all of the senses and can trigger many emotions too. Different meals conjure up special moments while some foods can also make us laugh out loud. Here are some fun facts about food.
Image Credit
The yolk’s on you
If you’re a bit heavy-handed with the nutmeg on your eggnog, it can cause mild hallucinations in some cases.
It’s pasta joke
Way back in 1957, the BBC played an April Fool’s Day hoax with a documentary about spaghetti growing on trees. The world was a much more innocent place back then. They even had footage of women harvesting the pasta from spaghetti trees in Switzerland.
Everything’s coming up roses
Edible fruits including apples, pears, plums, cherries, apricots, raspberries, strawberries and peaches are all members of the rose family.
Chocolate money
Ancient civilisations in Mexico and South America, particularly the Mayans and the Aztecs, used the cocoa bean as a form of currency as early as 250AD. Maybe that’s where the idea for giving chocolate money at Christmas comes from.
Colour affects flavour
Research has shown that colour changes how we perceive flavour. Using red and white wine as an experiment, Bordeaux University research found that when students were given white wine which had been coloured red, they used adjectives usually connected with red wine, even though it still tasted like white wine.
Food flavouring can be added to many recipes to enhance the taste. You can find sweet, savoury, fruity and gourmet flavourings to enhance your food and you can find out about different food flavouring from a company such as http://www.foodieflavours.com.
Mind over matter
Aroma is detected by receptors in our nose and mouth. Different parts of the brain are stimulated depending on whether the aroma was detected by the nose or the mouth.
Monster mash
Potatoes are the star of the festival in Barnesville, Minnesota, which includes potato wrestling. Participants enter the ring filled with mashed potato and have to wrestle in it. No food is wasted as the leftover mash is given to the local cattle to enjoy.
Butt of all jokes
Castoreum, which can be used as an artificial vanilla flavouring, is taken from the anal glands of beavers. How anyone found out that the secretion tasted of vanilla is a complete mystery to us!
