Interesting Facts About Culinary Arts: The Weird and Wonderful

Interesting Facts About Culinary Arts: The Weird and Wonderful

When you are studying the Culinary Arts, its good to know a few strange and interesting facts to not only make you stand-out in class, but give you a good base knowledge to build upon in your studies. Here are some interesting facts about Culinary Arts that would make even Robert Ripley ask, “Believe it or not.”

• Popcorn kernels date back to the pre-Columbian Indians.
• To make an entire pound of honey, bees need to collect nectar from over 2 million flowers.
• Americans at the turn of this 21st century, consume as many calories at Americans at the turn of the 20th century, approximately 3,000 per day. However, today’s citizens weigh considerably more, due perhaps, to our sedentary lifestyle.
• Dutch soldiers in the 1800s drank an average of two gallons of beer PER DAY.
• Winston Churchill’s mother, Jennie, invented the popular drink known as the Manhattan.
• There are over 28,000 known diets in the United States.
• The world consumes over 1 billion tons of grain each year.
• Napoleon, in essence, invented the art of canning food. During his war campaigns, he offered a monetary prize to any French citizen who could come up with a way of storing food. Nicolas Appert was the winner.
• Humans are supposed to consume eight glasses of water per day, but students of Culinary Arts have learned that much of that liquid comes from the foods we eat. In fact, the following food contain this amount of water: Watermelon - 95%, Milk - 92%, Apples - 83%, Steak - 74%, and Bread - 35%.
• One pound of ground coffee comes from a single coffee tree.
• Coffee dates back to 850 AD in the Middle East.
• During the 18th Century, chocolate was forbidden to be eaten by anyone under the age of 6 in Central America.
• A healthy adult can go over 2 weeks without food, but only 2 days without water.
• Upper class Romans kept and raised dormice as delicacies.
• Richard Blechynden ran a hot-tea concession stand during the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. With sales being low, he decided to add ice to the drink, and sales skyrocketed, giving birth to today’s Iced Tea.
• In 1610 potatoes were banned in Burgundy, as they were thought to cause leprosy.

While there are few practical applications of these interesting facts about culinary arts, they are still fun. Culinary Arts students can use these facts to impress their teachers or fellow students.