67 Fun Facts About Hard Food and Drink

Which Japanese chemist identified umami as a distinct taste in 1908 and co-founded Ajinomoto?

Kikunae Ikeda traced the taste to glutamic acid in kombu broth in 1908; Ajinomoto's first product, monosodium glutamate, launched in 1909.

Which USDA chemist established the mechanism of the Maillard browning reaction in 1953?

John E. Hodge, at the USDA laboratory in Peoria, Illinois, published the reaction scheme in 1953; Louis Camille Maillard had first described amino acids browning with sugars in 1912.

Saffron's golden colour comes from which carotenoid pigment?

Crocin, a water-soluble carotenoid, gives saffron its golden colour; safranal supplies the aroma and picrocrocin the bitter taste, and ISO 3632 grades all three.

Casu martzu, the Sardinian cheese containing live maggots, is made from which animal's milk?

Casu martzu starts as sheep's-milk pecorino; larvae of the cheese fly digest the paste until a liquid called làgrima, or teardrop, seeps out.

Fresh meat of the shark used for Iceland's hákarl is poisonous because of its high content of what?

Greenland shark flesh is rich in urea and trimethylamine oxide; hákarl is buried under gravel for weeks to press out the fluids, then hung to dry for four or five months.

Roughly how many copies of the first, free Michelin Guide were distributed to French motorists in 1900?

About 35,000 copies were given away in 1900, when France had fewer than 3,000 cars; the Michelin brothers hoped more driving would wear out more tyres.

Since what year has 'Worcestershire' been a generic sauce name, after a court denied Lea & Perrins a trademark?

In 1876 the High Court ruled Lea & Perrins had no trademark on 'Worcestershire', making it generic; the Worcester chemists had first sold their fermented anchovy sauce in 1837.

On which 1924 date was Caesar salad created in Tijuana, when a holiday rush emptied the kitchen?

Family legend dates it to the Fourth of July, 1924, when a holiday rush emptied Caesar Cardini's Tijuana kitchen and he improvised with what remained, tossing it tableside.

On an ice sculpture of which animal did Escoffier first serve the dessert that became Peach Melba?

Escoffier served the peaches on an ice swan at the Savoy, honouring Nellie Melba's Lohengrin at Covent Garden; the dish was first called Pêche au cygne, and raspberry sauce came later.

Nachos were invented in 1943 by Ignacio Anaya at the Victory Club in which Mexican border city?

Piedras Negras sits across the Rio Grande from Fort Duncan in Eagle Pass, Texas; in 1943 Anaya improvised fried tortillas, cheese and jalapeños for a group of officers' wives.

Under EU law, cheese may only be called Roquefort if it is aged in the natural caves of which mountain?

Only cheese ripened in the natural caves of Mont Combalou at Roquefort-sur-Soulzon may carry the name; legend has a shepherd's abandoned lunch returning months later blued by Penicillium roqueforti.

Kinder Surprise eggs are illegal in the United States under a 1938 law banning candy that contains what?

The 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act bans confectionery with a non-nutritive object embedded in it; in 1997 the Consumer Product Safety Commission also ruled the toys had small parts.

Importing traditional haggis to the US has been illegal since 1971 due to a ban on food containing what?

Lung makes up 10 to 15 percent of the traditional recipe. The separate ban on British lamb was lifted in 2022, but the lung rule remained.

Wilbur Scoville, whose 1912 test gave us the chilli-heat scale, worked in which profession?

Scoville was a pharmacist at Parke-Davis when he devised his 1912 organoleptic test, in which tasters diluted pepper extract until the heat vanished; labs now use chromatography.

Variations in which gene are blamed for coriander (cilantro) tasting soapy to some people?

OR6A2 variants make coriander taste soapy or rotten. Surveys found about 21 percent of East Asians and 17 percent of Caucasians dislike the herb, versus 3 percent of Middle Eastern respondents.

The true nutmeg tree, Myristica fragrans, is native to which island group?

Myristica fragrans is native to the Banda Islands in Indonesia's Maluku province; the same fruit yields mace from its red seed covering, and its oil contains toxic myristicin.

Under what brand name did Momofuku Ando launch the world's first instant noodles in 1958?

Ando's Chikin Ramen went on sale in Osaka in 1958, pre-cooked by flash-frying so it needed only hot water; Nissin's Cup Noodles did not follow until 1971.

Tabasco sauce has been made by the McIlhenny family since 1868 on which Louisiana island?

Tabasco has come from Avery Island since Edmund McIlhenny, a former banker from Maryland, created it in 1868. A New Orleans politician, Maunsel White, was bottling a tabasco pepper sauce two decades earlier.

A cookie like the modern fortune cookie was being made in the 19th century in which city?

Kyoto bakeries near Fushimi Inari made tsujiura senbei, sesame-and-miso crackers folded around paper fortunes, in the 1800s; Makoto Hagiwara of San Francisco's Japanese Tea Garden served the US version in the early 1900s.

Before Escoffier's five mother sauces, which chef described four 'grandes sauces' in 1833?

Marie-Antoine Carême's 1833 L'Art de la cuisine française named espagnole, velouté, allemande and béchamel as the grandes sauces; Escoffier later dropped allemande and added hollandaise and tomate.

Swedish surströmming is traditionally released for sale on the third Thursday of which month?

A royal ordinance once barred selling the year's fermented Baltic herring before the third Thursday of August; the rule was repealed in the 1990s but producers keep the August 'premiere'.

Pule, reportedly the world's most expensive cheese, is made in Serbia mostly from which milk?

Pule is made mostly from Balkan donkey milk at Serbia's Zasavica reserve, blended with some goat milk; about 25 litres of donkey milk go into a single kilogram.

Which food technologist developed Vegemite in 1922 from yeast that breweries were throwing away?

Cyril Callister, hired by Fred Walker's Melbourne company, turned spent brewer's yeast into Vegemite in 1922 while Marmite imports were disrupted; it reached shops in 1923.

Which Neapolitan pizzaiolo reportedly created the pizza Margherita for the queen in June 1889?

Raffaele Esposito of Pizzeria Brandi made three pizzas for Queen Margherita in June 1889; she preferred the one in the flag's colours of tomato, mozzarella and basil.

Hawaiian pizza was invented in 1962 by Sam Panopoulos in which country?

Panopoulos, a Greek-born restaurateur, first put pineapple on pizza at his Satellite Restaurant in Chatham, Ontario, Canada, naming it after the tinned pineapple brand he used.

Which glycoprotein in Synsepalum dulcificum berries makes sour food taste sweet?

Miraculin binds to taste buds and switches on the sweet receptors only at low pH, so lemons taste like lemonade for up to half an hour.

The prized white truffle, Tuber magnatum, is most famously found around the towns of Alba and Asti in which Italian region?

Piedmont's Langhe and Montferrat areas are the white truffle's heartland. The black Périgord truffle is the second most valuable species and grows with oaks and hazelnuts.

Count Negroni created his 1919 cocktail by swapping which Americano ingredient for gin?

An Americano is Campari, sweet vermouth and soda water; at Florence's Caffè Casoni bartender Fosco Scarselli poured gin in place of the soda water and swapped the lemon garnish for orange.

Why did the Sazerac's base spirit switch from cognac to rye whiskey around 1870?

The Great French Wine Blight, the phylloxera epidemic that ruined French vineyards from the 1860s, made cognac scarce, so New Orleans bars poured rye instead; Herbsaint later replaced banned absinthe.

What was the Bloody Mary originally called at Harry's New York Bar in Paris in 1921?

Fernand Petiot reputedly called his 1921 vodka-and-tomato mix the Bucket of Blood, after a Chicago club; he later claimed to have perfected it in 1934 at New York's St. Regis, which sells it as a Red Snapper.

A Moscow mule combines vodka and lime with which mixer?

Ginger beer makes the Moscow mule a 'buck', so it is sometimes called a vodka buck. Health advisories say the copper mug should be lined to avoid copper leaching.

Which San Juan hotel claims its bartender Ramón 'Monchito' Marrero invented the piña colada in 1954?

Puerto Rico's governor marked the drink's 50th anniversary there in 2004. The earliest version was blended like a milkshake with vanilla ice cream.

Why did Raffles Hotel bartender Ngiam Tong Boon reputedly make the Singapore Sling look like fruit juice?

Raffles' story is that Ngiam made the pink gin sling look like fruit juice around 1915 so women could drink alcohol in public without disapproval; historian David Wondrich traces Singapore slings to the 1890s.

Joe Sheridan invented Irish coffee in the early 1940s at a flying-boat terminal in which Irish town?

Sheridan was chef at the Foynes flying-boat terminal on the Shannon estuary when he warmed delayed passengers with whiskey-laced coffee in 1943; Stanton Delaplane took the recipe to San Francisco's Buena Vista in 1952.

Which London bartender is most often credited with inventing the espresso martini in the 1980s?

Dick Bradsell mixed the first espresso martini at London's Soho Brasserie around 1983, where the coffee machine sat beside his station and vodka was the drink of the day.

A Bellini pairs peach purée with which sparkling wine?

Giuseppe Cipriani of Harry's Bar in Venice topped white peach purée with Prosecco sometime between 1934 and 1948, naming the drink for the pink tones of a Giovanni Bellini painting.

The 1976 Judgment of Paris wine tasting was organised by which British wine merchant?

Steven Spurrier, who ran a Paris wine shop and mostly sold French wine, expected France to win; instead Stag's Leap Wine Cellars and Chateau Montelena from Napa topped the red and white rankings.

The famous Bavarian beer purity law was adopted across Bavaria on 23 April of which year?

Duke Wilhelm IV issued the Reinheitsgebot at Ingolstadt on 23 April 1516, limiting beer to barley, hops and water; it built on a Munich law of 1487 and later spread across Germany.

Arthur Guinness's 9,000-year St. James's Gate lease of 1759 set what annual rent?

Arthur Guinness signed the 9,000-year lease on the St. James's Gate brewery on 31 December 1759 at £45 a year; the harp trademark, modelled on the Trinity College harp, followed in 1862.

By Mexican law, tequila must contain at least 35% alcohol and no more than what?

Mexico's tequila standard fixes the strength between 35% and 55% alcohol; the spirit must come from blue Weber agave grown in Jalisco or designated municipalities of four neighbouring states, with 'mixto' allowed down to 51% agave.

Bourbon sold in the US must be made from a grain mix containing at least what share of corn?

Federal standards require a mash of at least 51% corn, distillation to no more than 160 proof and ageing in new charred oak; Congress declared bourbon a distinctive US product in 1964.

Which Tennessee whiskey maker did a 2013 state law exempt from the Lincoln County Process?

Tennessee's 2013 statute requires charcoal mellowing, the Lincoln County Process, for anything labelled Tennessee whiskey, but grandfathered Benjamin Prichard's of Kelso, which skips the step; Jack Daniel's and George Dickel both use it.

Masataka Taketsuru, the 'father of Japanese whisky', apprenticed in 1919 at which Scottish distillery?

Taketsuru spent his first apprenticeship at Longmorn in Speyside in 1919, then Hazelburn in Campbeltown; he later ran Yamazaki for Shinjiro Torii before founding Nikka in 1934.

The Royal Navy's daily rum ration, abolished on Black Tot Day in 1970, was how large from 1866 onwards?

The tot was one eighth of a pint, about 70 ml, a half gill; junior ratings took it as grog with two parts water, and New Zealand's navy was the last to end the issue, in 1990.

Which trace compound in absinthe was blamed for 'absinthism', leading to bans by 1915?

Thujone, from grand wormwood, was blamed for 'absinthism'; Switzerland banned the green fairy in 1910, the US in 1912 and France in 1915, though modern analysis finds only trace amounts.

Chartreuse liqueur is said to contain how many herbs, plants and flowers?

The Carthusians say 130 herbs, plants and flowers go into Chartreuse, working from a 1605 'elixir of long life' manuscript given to them by a marshal of Henry IV; the elixir has been made since 1737.

Which spirit outsold whisky, vodka, gin, rum and tequila combined in 2018?

Baijiu, China's sorghum-based grain spirit, sold about 10.8 billion litres in 2018, more than whisky, vodka, gin, rum and tequila together, almost all of it drunk inside China.

Kopi luwak coffee is made from cherries that have passed through the digestive tract of which animal?

The Asian palm civet eats ripe coffee cherries and passes the beans, whose proteins its digestive enzymes alter; it is a processing method, not a variety, and wild-collected beans have sold for over $1,000 a kilogram.

Red Bull was adapted from Krating Daeng, a Thai drink whose name translates as what?

Krating Daeng means 'red gaur', the gaur being a wild Asian bovine; Dietrich Mateschitz found it eased his jet lag and founded Red Bull with Chaleo Yoovidhya in 1984, carbonating it for Western tastes.

Gatorade was developed in 1965 at the University of Florida by a research team led by whom?

Robert Cade, a University of Florida nephrologist, led the team after football coach Ray Graves asked for help with players wilting in the heat; the drink took its name from the Gators.

Until the 1930s, 7 Up was marketed as containing which mood-stabilising drug?

The soda launched in October 1929 as Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda, with lithium citrate as its selling point; the name shrank to 7 Up in 1936 and the lithium was finally removed in 1948.

Fanta was created in 1940 in which country, because a trade embargo cut off Coca-Cola syrup?

Max Keith of Coca-Cola Deutschland devised Fanta in Germany from whey and apple pomace, selling three million cases in 1943; the orange version most people know was developed in Naples, Italy, in 1955.

Angostura bitters was created as a tonic by Johann Siegert, a German surgeon general in whose army?

Johann Siegert was surgeon general in Simón Bolívar's army when he compounded the tonic at Angostura, Venezuela, in 1824; it is made in Trinidad and contains no angostura bark.

Until 2006, Campari got its red colour from carmine, a natural dye derived from what?

Carmine comes from crushed cochineal insects, and Campari dropped it in 2006. Gaspare Campari invented the bitter in Novara in 1860; it is one of the three equal parts of a Negroni.

Under French law, Beaujolais nouveau is released at one minute past midnight on which day each year?

The third Thursday of November was fixed in 1985. The Gamay wine is fermented just weeks before release, and distributors race to be first to foreign markets.

Which sparkling wine, first made by Benedictine monks near Carcassonne in 1531, is the oldest recorded?

Blanquette de Limoux was first made in 1531 at the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Hilaire, where monks bottled wine before fermentation finished; Dom Pérignon, contrary to legend, did not invent sparkling wine.

Modern vermouth, the aromatised wine behind the martini and Manhattan, was first produced in the 1700s in which Italian city?

Turin's fashionable cafés served the aromatised wine around the clock in the mid-to-late 18th century, long before bartenders adopted it for the martini, Manhattan and Rob Roy.

Sake brewing depends on which mould to convert rice starch into fermentable sugar?

Aspergillus oryzae, known as koji, saccharifies the rice so yeast can ferment it, making sake closer to beer brewing than winemaking; Chinese and Korean rice wines traditionally used Rhizopus and Mucor instead.

Irn-Bru was forced to change its name from Iron Brew in 1946 because of what?

The Scottish drink contained little iron and was not brewed. It has outsold Coca-Cola in Scotland for decades and even has its own tartan.

Pepsi was renamed from Brad's Drink in 1898 because its formula was said to include what?

Caleb Bradham sold it at his drugstore in New Bern, North Carolina, as an aid to digestion. The company went bankrupt in 1923 before being revived.

Much of the world's arabica coffee descends from a plant taken in the 1720s to which island?

Naval officer Gabriel de Clieu nursed a seedling from Paris to Martinique around 1723, sharing his water ration with it; by 1788 Saint-Domingue, now Haiti, supplied half the world's coffee.

Which Havana bar's wall inscription, attributed to Hemingway, claims his mojito was drunk there?

La Bodeguita del Medio displays the line 'My mojito in La Bodeguita, my daiquiri in El Floridita', though biographers doubt Hemingway wrote it or even liked mojitos.

Which 12-year-old enslaved boy on Réunion discovered in 1841 that vanilla could be hand-pollinated?

Albius's technique enabled vanilla cultivation worldwide; botanist Jean Michel Claude Richard later falsely claimed credit.

Which apothecary to Elizabeth I created chocolate-free, vanilla-flavoured 'sweetmeats' in the early 1600s?

Until Hugh Morgan's sweetmeats, Europeans saw vanilla mainly as an additive to chocolate.

Who published the first known tomato ketchup recipe, in 1812?

Philadelphia physician James Mease printed the first known tomato ketchup recipe in 1812, calling tomatoes 'love apples'; Heinz did not bottle its version until 1876.

The word 'balsamic' was first used for vinegar in a 1747 catalogue of wines held by which ducal family?

The duke of Este's 1747 catalogue used the term to single out one type; by 1830 the court graded vinegars from 'balsamic' down to 'common'.

What is traditionally used to grate fresh wasabi rhizome in Japan?

A samegawa oroshi, a wooden paddle faced with coarse sharkskin, grates wasabi into a fine paste; the flavour fades within minutes, so it is grated to order.