Whether it’s a hot date or a birthday brunch, even the most seasoned among us can feel a little adrift when it comes to dining out etiquette. Where do your hands go? What do you do with your napkin when you step away from the table? How do you know what to order when it’s someone else’s treat? These eight tips could help your next big culinary outing go a little more smoothly.
Put Your Phone on Silent — and Keep It Off the Table
Etiquette for dining with smartphones is threefold. First, put it on silent so it doesn’t disturb your meal. But don’t just turn down the volume and set it on the table; put it away in your pocket or bag, along with anything else that’s not a part of the meal. Lastly, don’t check your phone while you’re eating. You can take a peek at your notifications when you’re away from the table; while some experts say to wait until the meal is finished, you can probably discreetly check in the restroom, too. Yet rules are always flexible, and there are extenuating circumstances (like getting check-ins from a babysitter) that your dining companions may understand.
It’s pretty well-trodden etiquette territory to say that your napkin goes in your lap — but when do you put it there, and what do you do with it when you leave the table?
First: Place your napkin in your lap when everybody is seated. If you get up to use the restroom, place your napkin loosely to the left of your plate. It’s less likely to soil the napkin than placing it on your plate itself, and that way you don’t risk transferring food smears from your napkin to your chair (and potentially your clothes).
If dinner’s on someone else, it can be hard to know exactly what the expectations are in terms of price point. A good general rule is to follow the lead of the person treating you. Letting them order first can give you a sense of what budget they had in mind. Regardless, you probably shouldn’t order the most expensive thing on the menu.
If you struggle to keep your elbows off the table — as your grandmother scolded you to do — there’s some good news. Originally, the rule existed to keep your elbows clean and prevent slouching, but most experts seem to agree that it’s now outdated, particularly when there isn’t any food actually on the table. The Emily Post Institute, a five-generation family powerhouse of etiquette advice, warns against putting your elbows on the table while eating, but instructs that it’s always been acceptable to have your elbows on the table between courses. In general, elbows on the table is also acceptable before and after a meal, although you might want to play it on the safe side while actually eating to avoid dipping your sleeves in gravy.
If there’s a hair in your salad or a smudge on your glass, there’s no need to turn it into a tablewide conversation topic. Flag down your server and explain your issue discreetly and politely. They should be back with a replacement momentarily, and meanwhile, the mood at the table stays light.
The global COVID-19 pandemic kept a lot of people out of sit-down dining establishments, so you may have reverted back to some old habits, like talking with your mouth full. But remember: At no point should anybody you are eating with see food on the inside of your mouth. One study says that food does taste better if you chew with your mouth open — but it’s not worth alienating your dining companions over.
Unless the establishment has a specific policy against it, tip your server — at least, if you’re dining in America. It’s not just good etiquette: Tips can amount to more than half of the income of servers and bartenders, and that money is often shared with back-of-house workers such as cooks. Experts say that 15% to 20% of the pre-tax total is customary, but 42% of Americans always tip 20% or more. A 20% tip is easy to calculate, too: Calculate 10% by moving the decimal point on the total once to the left. Then double it.
Don’t linger for too long after you finish your meal, especially if the restaurant is full or you have an especially large party. It’s disrespectful to the establishment, which needs to serve more customers to stay in business, and to other customers who are waiting for a seat. In some cases, you may even be holding up a reservation. Some diners take offense when they feel rushed away from their table; try to be understanding if you do. If you want to stay for longer and there’s not a line, order something else, like a dessert, a shared plate, or a round of cocktails, or at least check in with your server.
Sarah Anne Lloyd
Writer
Sarah Anne Lloyd is a freelance writer whose work covers a bit of everything, including politics, design, the environment, and yoga. Her work has appeared in Curbed, the Seattle Times, the Stranger, the Verge, and others.
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It’s hard to imagine life without a spoonful of sugar. It helps fuel our sweet tooth and our bursts of energy, and it just may be a future way to power high-flying jets. It’s also been with us for a while: Scientists believe the saccharine substance likely made its way into our guts by accident millennia ago, eventually becoming a standard human craving as it spread across the globe. Take a bite out of sugar’s backstory with these six sweet facts.
Not all plants are made for eating, and chances are most aren’t palatable to human taste buds. However, nearly all plants make sugar, particularly those with green leaves. Sugar, aka sucrose, consists of two simple sugars, glucose and fructose; glucose is a naturally occurring byproduct of photosynthesis, the process plants undergo to convert sunlight to energy. Plants produce glucose in their leaves and then send it to their roots, storing the energy they need to grow.
All plants store their sugar differently; some, like potatoes, transform it into starch, while others, like apple and orange trees, store sugar in their fruits. Plants with particularly high concentrations of glucose are the ones humans harvest for table sugar — specifically sugar cane and sugar beets.
More than 60 million acres of land worldwide are used for sugar cane farming, often in regions that were once tropical forests. The crops thrive in warm climates with consistent year-round temperatures — generally in spots close to the equator. However, biologists believe sugar cane plants, aka Saccharum officinarum, originated in just one spot — New Guinea — where Indigenous peoples may have cultivated the crop starting 10,000 years ago. Some researchers believe sugar cane was originally grown for chewing, like gum, and early farmers selected the sweetest, softest stalks for consumption. Over time, humans helped spread Saccharum plants through Southeast Asia, India, and the Pacific islands, where they merged with other wild sugar canes to create the modern variety we know and grow. By the 15th century, sugar cane plants made their way to the Americas, where they became established crops; today, Brazil is the world’s leading exporter of sugar cane.
More Than One-Third of the World’s Sugar Comes From Beets
Not all commercially produced sugar comes from sugar cane plants; about one-third of the world’s sugar supply comes from sugar beets, a root crop that thrives in cooler temperatures far from the equator. More than half of the U.S. sugar supply comes from sugar beets, which are grown in Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, and other northern and western states, and each year more than 4.5 million tons of sugar are produced from American-grown sugar beets. Each beet grows for about five months before reaching its maximum size: about a foot long, and weighing between 2 and 5 pounds. While sugar cane and sugar beets are grown and processed differently, the final sugar product is chemically identical. Nevertheless, some chefs believe the two sugars cook slightly differently and can have contrasting colors when caramelized or used to make syrups.
Credit: Education Images/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The 1904 World’s Fair Was a Sugar Showcase
World’s fairs may feel like a relic of the past; the last one in North America was in Vancouver in 1986. Yet they were the launching point for some of today’s favorite sugary treats. At the 1904 world’s fair (aka the Louisiana Purchase Exposition) in St. Louis, attendees got their first sample of fairy floss, the fluffy spun-sugar that’s now more commonly called cotton candy. The confection was so popular that creators William J. Morrison and John C. Wharton sold more than 65,000 boxes at 25 cents each — about half the price of admission to the fair.
“Cornucopias,” aka ice cream cones, also hit American taste buds on a wide scale for the first time at the fair, crafted from rolled waffles and stuffed with ice cream. And while Jell-O had already been around in its fruit-flavored form since 1897, the world’s fair helped launch the jiggly sweet’s advertising campaign, with demonstrations that showed how easy it was to make by just adding hot water. The fair’s influence was immediately noticeable: Jell-O sales quadrupled between 1902 and 1906, reaching $1 million in sales.
If you’re trying to curb your sweet tooth, it can feel like sugar is everywhere. And in some ways, you’re not wrong — sugar isn’t just on Earth; it can also be found in space. In 2000, space scientists discovered a simple sugar called glycolaldehyde while looking for other molecules that could potentially support life outside our atmosphere. Despite being labeled a “simple sugar,” glycolaldehyde plays a huge role in DNA creation; when combined with a chemical called propenal, it makes ribose, a major component of ribonucleic acid (aka RNA, a chemical chain found in all living things). However, this clue for potential space life has only been found in two spots: the center of the Milky Way, and near a star some 400 light-years from Earth.
Man’s best friend shares our ability to taste different flavors, albeit at a diminished level. While humans have between 2,000 and 10,000 taste buds (a number that shrinks with age), dogs have a mere 1,700. Yet studies have shown that dogs can taste sweetness. This trait may have developed from ancient dogs who lived as omnivores, consuming fruits and vegetables along with meat. However, not all household pets have a sweet tooth. Cats are unable to taste sugars and sweets because they lack the necessary taste buds thanks to genetic mutations that occurred millions of years ago — meaning that while dog owners may have to give up a scoop of ice cream or order a “pup cup,” cat parents are free to indulge without sharing, guilt-free.
Nicole Garner Meeker
Writer
Nicole Garner Meeker is a writer and editor based in St. Louis. Her history, nature, and food stories have also appeared at Mental Floss and Better Report.
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The world’s love affair with coffee seemingly knows no bounds. Beginning in 13th-century Arabia and later migrating across the globe, coffee — and coffee culture — has shaped the way we work, socialize, and savor our daily rituals. Today, gourmet espresso drinks are an important piece of many people’s lives, often multiple times per day. But with so many different beverage choices, how do you choose what to order? What’s the difference between a caffè latte and a flat white, and how can you know which drinks are petite pick-me-ups and which are more, ahem, grande? Here are six captivating, caffeinating explanations of well-known espresso drinks to sort it all out.
The humble Americano is a product of World War II, born of American soldiers’ attempts to recreate their good old cup of joe from back home while they were stationed in Italy. The “black coffee” of espresso drinks, the caffè Americano is just water and espresso. It contains no dairy or plant milks, and the ratio is usually one-third espresso to two-thirds hot water — although some serve it with half espresso and half water. To make this drink, one must first pour the espresso, and then add the water. Ice can be added to serve it cold. The Americano’s close cousin, the long black, is served in Australia and New Zealand, and it’s a slightly stronger beverage, due to the espresso being poured second.
Latte means “milk” in Italian, so this drink is aptly named. In most coffee shops, if you order a caffè latte — or “latte” for short — what you’ll get is two shots of espresso poured into between 4 and 6 ounces of steamed milk. (If you order a larger size, you’ll get more steamed milk added, but the amount of espresso will stay the same — unless you request an extra shot, that is.) Coffee has been commonly taken with cream or milk, either steamed or unsteamed, in Europe since at least the 17th century. But the modern latte we know today was established on the West Coast of the U.S., starting out on the menu at the historic Caffe Mediterraneum in Berkeley, California, in the 1950s and later popularized in cafes throughout Seattle, Washington, in the ’80s. Depending on the barista, your latte may have a small amount of foamed milk added to the top — and you may even receive a pretty design in the foam, if they’re skilled at latte art. Just don’t order a “latte” when in Italy — if you don’t use its full name, caffè latte, you might end up with a regular glass of milk!
Are you a chocolate fan? Well, a mocha is just a latte with chocolate in it, usually in the form of either cocoa powder mixed with sugar or chocolate syrup. Its name alludes to the port city of Mokha, Yemen, an early center of the coffee trade starting in the 15th century. As the story goes, the beans from Mokha were said to have an element of chocolate in their flavor and tone, and eventually, around the turn of the 20th century, people just started adding the chocolate themselves. A caffè mocha — or just “mocha“ for short — is traditionally served in a glass rather than a mug and is frequently topped with a dusting of cinnamon. Because it has added sugar, some people consider the mocha a dessert rather than a breakfast drink, but be careful — because it contains chocolate, a mocha can contain significantly more caffeine than other coffee drinks, so it may not be the best choice before bedtime.
The flat white comes to us from New Zealand (though some say Australia), and it’s essentially a more intense latte with a thinner layer of foam. (Or a “flatter” layer, as some might describe it; the name may also come from the unique type of foam the drink uses, as it’s flatter than the super-airy foam in, say, a cappuccino.) The flat white is only about 6 ounces total, so it’s a smaller, shorter drink than a latte, which is lengthened with more milk. This gives the flat white a more powerful espresso flavor, thanks to the higher coffee-to-milk ratio. To make a flat white, start with a heatproof glass, pour in a single or double shot of espresso, add about 4 ounces of steamed milk, then cap it with “microfoam,” which is made at a lower temperature, in a thin layer to the top of the beverage. This special microfoam has smaller, tighter bubbles that impart a more velvety feel, which contributes to the creamy overall mouthfeel of the drink. The popularity of the flat white in the U.S. jumped significantly around 2010, and now they’re such a standard part of the American coffee repertoire that you can even order them at Starbucks.
The cortado originates in Spain — the word cortado means “cut,” because it’s an espresso that’s been cut with warm milk. This is a mini-drink, usually around 4 ounces, intended as an afternoon pick-me-up, often accompanied by a pastry or some other snack. It’s simple to make, too: A cortado is half espresso and half steamed milk, usually 2 ounces of each, and it’s typically served without sugar. If you prefer your coffee a little sweeter, you can opt for the Cuban version, the cortadito, with a dab of sugar or sweetened condensed milk added.
What’s a Cappuccino?
Named in the 19th century after the tan-and-white robes of Rome’s Capuchin monks, a cappuccino is about balance. It’s a trinity of espresso, steamed milk, and foamed milk — a third of each, layered in the cup, in equal amounts — served in a ceramic cup that’s a little wider and flatter than the usual coffee mug. The result is a rich drink, usually only 3 or 4 ounces in volume, with low acidity, a strong espresso flavor, and a mild sweetness from the milk. To correctly drink a cappuccino, one should not mix the elements together and instead sip it as is, with a visual demarcation between the ingredients, so that each flavor can be tasted separately. Although a cappuccino is usually served unsweetened, in the United States, the milk foam is often lightly dusted with cinnamon, while in Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K., cocoa is used in this way. Fun fact: In Italian, cappuccio means “hood,” which is how the monks themselves got their name, thanks to this feature of their distinctive robes.
Interesting Facts
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Interesting Facts writers have been seen in Popular Mechanics, Mental Floss, A+E Networks, and more. They’re fascinated by history, science, food, culture, and the world around them.
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The typical American grocery store carries 40,000 to 50,000 items, including hundreds of fruits and vegetables. Those photogenic displays of dew-kissed leafy greens, pyramids of shiny apples, and baskets of sunny lemons are carefully organized, of course, to entice shoppers into purchasing them. Let’s investigate some secrets of the produce aisle below.
The Produce Aisle Is Strategically Placed in the Grocery Store
Imagine walking into your favorite grocery store. You push a cart through the automatic door, and bam — a wonderland of vibrant vegetables and fragrant fruits hits your senses. Displays of colorful produce at peak freshness are designed to entice shoppers and encourage spending, even if a consumer didn’t initially come into the store to buy bananas or Brussels sprouts. Produce aisles — which, these days, can be more like smorgasbords of fruits, veg, flowers, salad dressings, fresh juices, and more — employ flattering lighting and pleasant music to whet customers’ appetites and prime them for more shopping throughout the store.
“Local” Produce Might Come From Hundreds of Miles Away
According to a 2017 study by the Food Marketing Institute, 54% of shoppers want a large selection of locally grown produce in their grocery stores. The USDA doesn’t have a set definition for what “local” means in terms of miles, though, so grocery store chains have devised their own. In 2018, ABC10 in Sacramento surveyed several chains operating in Northern California and found widely varying radii: Safeway considers produce grown and packaged in the state to be “local,” Sprouts Farmers Market pegs its definition to produce grown in state or within 500 miles of a store, and Raley’s said that produce tagged with a “living local” label had been grown within 50 miles of the location.
Cooking Demos, Salad Bars, and Pineapple Corers Helped Popularize the Produce Section
In the early 1970s, produce sections accounted for only 3% of space in mom-and-pop grocery stores. Fresh fruits and vegetables were considered specialty items instead of an essential food group. After concluding that there was a communication breakdown between fruit and vegetable producers and consumers, grocery managers launched campaigns to educate shoppers about their products, complete with cooking demonstrations, free samples, and salad bars in the produce aisles. Displays of pineapple corers and other tools were positioned near the fresh items, demystifying the prep involved with buying and eating produce. By 1993, the average grocery store carried around 250 different produce types (up from 100 in 1980), fresh fruit and vegetable consumption had increased, and produce aisles contributed 20% of stores’ net profits.
Flowers Are Placed in the Produce Aisle for a Specific Reason
Cut flowers and potted plants are commonly placed in the produce aisle for the same reason that the aisles are positioned in the front sections of grocery stores: They reinforce consumers’ perception of freshness. Flowers introduce color, texture, fragrance, and beauty to shoppers as soon as they walk through the doors. That makes shoppers more likely to associate freshness and desirability with the other items in the store — even things that are canned or frozen — and feel encouraged to buy additional products.
The Freshest Produce Is at the Back of the Display
Have you ever moved a piece of fruit to the front of your fridge so you eat it before it rots? The same technique is at work in the produce aisle. Managers frequently rotate the fruit or veggies in the displays so that older items are brought to the front, a system dubbed FEFO (for “first expired, first out of the store”). The arrangement encourages shoppers to buy the older bananas or boxes of blueberries, which translates to less waste and higher profits for the store. Thus, it pays to reach to the back of the bags of spinach or piles of pears to glean the freshest and most flavorful specimens. Another tip: Produce deliveries usually arrive in the middle of the week, so if your favorite store gets shipments on Tuesdays, for example, you’ll find the freshest foods on Wednesdays.
The bananas you see at the grocery store are Cavendish bananas — a cultivar that the banana industry adopted in the 1950s after a tropical fungus wiped out an earlier variety. Growers produce more than 60.6 million tons of Cavendish bananas every year for export all over the world. The bananas are prized for their sweetness, creamy texture, and appealing bright-yellow skin.
Stores buy unripe green bananas from growers so that by the time the fruit hits grocery store shelves, it has ripened to its more well-known yellow shade. Marketing expert Martin Lindstrom has written that bananas matching Pantone 12-0752 TPX Buttercup — a warm, inviting yellow — tend to sell better than bananas in Pantone 13-0858 TCX Vibrant Yellow, just one shade cooler.
Misting Produce Is a Clever Way To Make You Buy More
Many grocery stores display produce in open cases fitted with tiny jets to periodically bathe the veggies in a cool mist. (Some supermarkets even pipe in the sound of thundering rain to add to the rainy vibe.) The purpose behind misting is not to keep produce clean or extend its shelf life — it’s a clever way for grocers to make the fruits and vegetables look fresher and healthier so consumers purchase more. Water clinging to leafy greens also adds weight, which increases revenue for the store when vegetables are sold by the pound.
Ironically, misting actually shortens produce’s shelf life because water allows bacteria and mold to take hold. Misted veggies will likely not last as long in your fridge as those that weren’t misted in the produce aisle — which is another, perhaps sneakier, way to get you to buy produce more often.
Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli, and Kale Are All Subspecies of the Same Plant
A surprising number of veggies in the produce aisle are the same species, Brassica oleracea — but you wouldn’t know it by looking at them. Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collard greens, purple and green cabbage, and kohlrabi are all domesticated cultivars of wild cabbage, a plant native to western and southern Europe. For the last few thousand years, farmers have selectively bred the wild plant to augment some part of its form, such as the leaves, buds, or stems. Today, each cultivar is classified as a subspecies of B. oleracea.
Botanically speaking, a nut is a fruit with a hard shell containing a single seed. The true nuts you might encounter in the produce aisle include hazelnuts and chestnuts. Many of the products sold as “culinary nuts” belong to other botanical classifications. Cashews, almonds, and pistachios are known as “drupes,” a type of fruit with thin skin and a pit containing the seed. (Peaches, mangos, cherries, and olives are also drupes.) And the jury is still out on whether walnuts and pecans fall into the nut or drupe category since they have characteristics of both. Some botanists call them drupaceous nuts.
Like any business, the produce industry has its own slang, describing everything from a cosmetic flaw in a tomato (“catfacing”) to the practice of hiding some less-than-ideal specimens in a box of otherwise fresh fruit (“stovepiping”). In produce slang, veggies “with legs” are those that have a longer shelf life than those that require special handling and rotation on the display. A flawless fruit, whether it’s a peach, pear, or pineapple, is a “diamond.” A quality cantaloupe will exhibit a “full slip” on the blossom end, meaning it separated easily from the vine when it was picked, indicating the best flavor.
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Who invented the pumpkin spice latte? What country has its own national standard for brewing the perfect cup of tea? And what fierce bicoastal debate surrounds the martini? We’ve rounded up our favorite facts about beverages from around the website, so brew up a cuppa or pour yourself a cold one and pore over these facts about coffee, tea, wine, beer, cocktails, and more.
It turns out that the name we use for those tiny pods that are ground and brewed into a cup of joe is a misnomer. Coffee “beans” are actually the seeds found within coffee cherries, a reddish fruit harvested from coffee trees. Farmers remove the skin and flesh from the cherry, leaving only the seed inside to be washed and roasted.
Coffee farming is a major time investment: On average, a tree takes three to four years to produce its first crop of cherries. In most of the Coffee Belt — a band along the equator where most coffee is grown that includes the countries of Brazil, Ethiopia, and Indonesia — coffee cherries are harvested just once per year. In many countries, the cherries are picked by hand.
This may be a shocking revelation, but herbal “teas” like chamomile and peppermint aren’t officially teas at all. In order for a drink to be classified as tea, it must come from the Camellia sinensis plant, from which many white, green, oolong, and black teas do. Herbal teas, however, are tisanes, or infusions that incorporate various leaves, fruits, barks, roots, flowers, and other edible non-tea plants. So while the experience of drinking a minty tea may be quite similar to drinking a warm cup of green tea, the two beverages fall into completely different categories from a scientific gastronomic perspective.
Seltzer Water Was Named After the German Town of Selters
Germany loves its beer, but seltzer is a close second. The country is so entwined with the fizzy beverage that the word “seltzer” comes from the name of the German town of Selters (located about 40 miles northwest of Frankfurt), which is famous for its naturally carbonated mineral springs. The springs have been well known in the area for more than 1,000 years, and by 1791, fizzy water from Selters was so popular, it was exported throughout the world in jugs stamped with the name “selters-wasser,” or “Selters water.” The word transformed into “seltzer” when the beverage became popular in North America, especially in New York and Philadelphia, around the early 19th century. Today, the Selterswassermuseum (in Selters, of course) chronicles the local spring’s long history.
Love it or hate it, the pumpkin spice latte is a part of the American coffee identity. It’s hard to imagine that the drink didn’t exist as recently as the early 2000s. We have Starbucks to thank for the seasonal treat — they introduced it in 2003. Pumpkin spice lattes were created by the “Liquid Lab” at Starbucks’ Seattle headquarters, and are considered to be the brainchild of Peter Dukes. Dukes had the idea for the latte back in 2001, at a time when Starbucks was trying to conceive of a fall-themed beverage that would become as popular as their seasonal holiday drinks. Short of an actual recipe, the testers brought pumpkin pies into a lab, poured espresso atop, and ate the pie in what proved to be a delicious treat. After matching the taste in drink form, the result blew up into a worldwide sensation.
Pumpkin spice lattes were first tested in 100 Starbucks stores in 2003 before launching worldwide the following year. They went on to sell upwards of 500 million cups in the drink’s first 18 years on the market. The drink has expanded far beyond Starbucks ever since, becoming an autumnal staple of coffee shops everywhere.
In 1919, Count Camillo Negroni bellied up to the bar at Café Casoni and asked for something stronger than his usual Americano (Campari, club soda, and vermouth). Fosco Scarselli obliged, replacing the club soda with gin, and the Negroni was born. While the ownership and name have changed a few times, you can still visit the original space on Piazza della Libertà, now known as Caffè Lietta.
The British Have Their Own Official Standard for the Perfect Cup of Tea
The British are serious about tea. So much so that British Standards — a national body that produces technical specifications for products and services — released an edict in 1980 on the official British guidelines for making the perfect cup of tea. Though some may disagree with the standard, the rules include the following: Use a porcelain pot and a ratio of 2 grams of tea per every 100 ml of water, brew for six minutes, maintain a temperature of 60 to 85 degrees Celsius (140 to 185 degrees Fahrenheit) when serving the tea, and add milk to the mug first if using tea that’s already been steeped.
For years, dairy producers have sued alternative milk companies for using the word “milk” on their packaging — but history is not on their side. Evidence suggests that Romans had a complex understanding of the word “milk,” as the root of the word “lettuce” comes from “lact” (as in “lactate”). Many medieval cookbooks make reference to almond milk, and the earliest mention of soy milk can be found on a Chinese stone slab from around the first to third century CE. However, coconut milk has the longest history; archaeologists have recovered coconut graters among relics from Madagascar and Southeast Asia that date back to around 3000 to 1500 BCE.
California Wines Beat French Rivals in a Blind Taste Test
In a legendary event dubbed “The Judgment of Paris,” held on May 24, 1976, French wine experts preferred upstart California wines to the finest French ones in a taste test. An English wine shop owner staged the event to drum up business, and everyone assumed a French victory was a foregone conclusion. The nine experts swirled, sniffed, and sipped a variety of reds and whites, then tallied the number of points they awarded to each sample; shockingly, a cabernet sauvignon and a chardonnay from Napa Valley won out, proving that countries besides France could produce the world’s finest wines. A bottle of each winning wine is now in the Smithsonian collection.
Decaf coffee has helped coffee drinkers enjoy the taste of coffee without (much of) the jolting effects of caffeine, but its creation was entirely accidental. According to legend, around 1905 German coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius received a crate of coffee beans that had been drenched with seawater. Trying to salvage the beans, the salesman roasted them anyway, discovering that cups brewed with the beans retained their taste (with a little added salt) but didn’t have any jittery side effects. Today, the process for making decaf blends remains relatively similar: Beans are soaked in water or other solvents to remove the caffeine, then washed and roasted. However, no coffee is entirely free of caffeine. It’s estimated that 97% of caffeine is removed during preparation, but a cup of decaf has as little as 2 milligrams of caffeine — compared to regular coffee’s 95 milligrams.
Dr Pepper was first served around 1885 at Morrison’s Old Corner Drug Store in Waco, Texas. The drink was created by Charles Alderton in an effort to capture the fruity and syrupy smells wafting through the store. Though Dr Pepper was initially served cold, the drink was briefly marketed as a warm beverage, a plan that was developed to ensure the brand’s continued popularity throughout the colder holiday months.
Hot Dr Pepper was first conceived of in 1958, when company president Wesby Parker found inspiration while visiting a bottling plant during a blizzard. The result was a new recipe developed by the company that encouraged consumers to heat Dr Pepper over a stovetop to 180 degrees and then pour it over a thin slice of lemon. The drink was marketed in ads using taglines such as “Devilishly Different” and “Winter Warmer,” and an alcoholic version containing rum, called the Schuss-Boomer, was later popularized. Hot Dr Pepper remained a beloved holiday drink into the 1970s, and though it has since faded in popularity, the beverage continues to be made each year by certain pockets of loyal fans.
There’s a Debate Over Whether the Martini Was Invented in California or New York
The “shaken or stirred” debate has nothing on the origin of America’s most iconic cocktail, which is vigorously argued by both of the nation’s coasts. The historic town of Martinez, California, swears the gin-and-vermouth classic was created as a celebratory Champagne replacement for a gold miner who struck it rich. New Yorkers insist it’s solely the invention of the bar staff at the Knickerbocker Hotel, named after the Martini in Martini & Rossi vermouth. As for us? We’ll think about it while we have another.
Wendy Kaufman was hired in 1991 to work in Snapple’s shipping department. A hardworking, dedicated employee, she noticed the fan mail piling up in the mail room and made it her mission to answer the letters personally, writing or even calling fans back to thank them for their devotion to the brand. Kaufman ultimately rocketed to stardom after being cast as “Wendy the Snapple Lady,” a character who appeared in 37 commercials between 1993 and 1995. The commercials featured a fictionalized version of Wendy doing what she did best — reading and answering fan mail — and some of the ads even involved filming at the homes of fans who had written letters.
Coke advertisement with Santa Clause.
Coca-Cola Ads Helped Popularize Santa Claus’ Modern-Day Likeness
Coke has a surprising connection to Santa Claus. In 1931, Coca-Cola hired illustrator Haddon Sundblom to paint Santa Claus for a series of holiday advertisements. Using friend and retired salesman Lou Prentiss as a model, Sundblom produced a version of Santa that depicted the jolly, bearded man with rosy cheeks that we all recognize today. Sundblom would continue painting Santa for Coke’s advertisements until 1964.
While the character of Santa Claus predated Coke, of course, he had been depicted in a variety of ways, ranging from tall and thin to looking like an elf. An 1862 drawing of Santa Claus by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly portrayed Santa as a tiny figure compared to the booming presence he is today, though Nast would also be the first to draw Santa wearing a red jacket, and some other Nast drawings showed a version of Santa that resembles the jolly man we now know. Yet all in all, it wasn’t until Coca-Cola debuted its holiday advertisements that Americans began to fully associate Santa Claus with the large, jovial figure we know him as today.
The Czech Republic Consumes the Most Beer of Any Country
For over 25 years running, the country that drinks the most beer per capita — by quite a large margin — is the Czech Republic. The average resident there guzzles 142.6 liters of the golden bubbly beverage annually. By comparison, people in other major beer-drinking countries such as Austria and Germany barely crack 100 liters.
It’s fair to say that the Czech Republic has a strong beer culture. After all, it is the birthplace of pilsner, one of the most popular styles of beer, and in many Czech cities, a beer will set you back less than a bottle of water. And it doesn’t seem likely that the country will reverse course anytime soon. Each year, consumption is increasing, although trends in recent years favor take-home bottles from breweries rather than old-fashioned pints at a local pub.
Almost All Wines Are Grown From a Single Species of Grape
The mother vine of almost all wines today is Vitis vinifera, a grape likely native to Western Asia. Over millennia, winemakers have domesticated and crossbred the vines to create subspecies with distinct colors, flavors, and suitability to different climates. About 8,000 cultivars exist today, including well-known varieties like pinot noir, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and merlot. V. vinifera vines have long been cultivated in regions with hot, dry summers and mild winters, such as Italy, Spain, and France, but the U.S., Chile, Australia, and South Africa are also major producers, among other countries.
Your Genes Might Determine How Much Coffee You Drink
If you can’t get through the day without several cups of coffee, you may have your genes to blame. A 2018 study suggests inherited traits determine how sensitive humans are to bitter foods like caffeine and quinine (found in tonic water). Researchers found that people with genes that allow them to strongly taste bitter caffeine were more likely to be heavy coffee drinkers (defined as consuming four or more cups daily). It seems counterintuitive that people more perceptive to astringent tastes would drink more coffee than those with average sensitivity — after all, bitter-detecting taste buds likely developed as the body’s response to prevent poisoning. But some scientists think that human brains have learned to bypass this warning system in favor of caffeine’s energizing properties. The downside? Constant coffee consumers are at higher risk of developing caffeine addiction.
Before individual tea bags came into wide use, it was more common to make an entire pot of tea at once by pouring hot water over tea leaves and then using a strainer. In 1901, Wisconsin inventors Roberta C. Lawson and Mary Molaren filed a patent for a “tea leaf holder,” a concept that resembles the tea bags we use today. It wasn’t until about seven years later, however, that another individual inadvertently helped popularize the concept of tea bags — at least according to legend. Around 1908, American tea importer Thomas Sullivan reportedly sent samples of tea inside small silken bags to his customers. His clients failed to remove the tea leaves from the bags as Sullivan assumed they would, and soon Sullivan realized that he’d stumbled onto an exciting new concept for tea brewing. He later reimagined the bags using gauze, and eventually paper.
Tea bags were booming in popularity throughout the United States by the 1920s, but it took a while for residents of the United Kingdom to adopt the concept. In fact, tea bags wouldn’t make their way to the U.K. until 1952, when Lipton patented its “flo-thru” bag, but even then the British weren’t keen to change their tea-brewing ways. By 1968, only 3% of tea brewed in the U.K. was done so using tea bags, with that number rising to 12.5% in 1971. By the end of the 20th century, however, 96% of U.K. tea was brewed with bags.
In 1857, French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur discovered that microorganisms in the air caused lactic acid fermentation, aka the souring of milk. Pasteur also discovered (after a request from Emperor of France Napoleon III) that certain microbes caused wine to go bad, but briefly heating the libation to around 140 degrees Fahrenheit caused those microbes to die off, leaving behind a sterilized (or as it would be later known, “pasteurized”) liquid that would stay fresh for longer.
Pasteurization for milk wasn’t introduced until 1886, but it was a game-changer, as diseases introduced via contaminated milk killed scores of infants in the 19th century. With the introduction of pasteurization, that number dropped significantly.
Humans Invented Alcohol Before We Invented the Wheel
The wheel is credited as one of humankind’s most important inventions: It allowed people to travel farther on land than ever before, irrigate crops, and spin fibers, among other benefits. Today, we often consider the wheel to be the ultimate civilization game-changer, but it turns out, creating the multipurpose apparatus wasn’t really on humanity’s immediate to-do list. Our ancient ancestors worked on other ideas first: boats, musical instruments, glue, and alcohol. The oldest evidence of booze comes from China, where archaeologists have unearthed 9,000-year-old pottery coated with beer residue; in contrast, early wheels didn’t appear until around 3500 BCE (about three millennia later), in what is now Iraq. But even when humans began using wheels, they had a different application — rudimentary versions were commonly used as potter’s wheels, a necessity for mass-producing vessels that could store batches of brew (among other things).
Foods tend to get their names from their appearance or ingredients, though not all are so clear-cut. Take, for instance, the egg cream, a beverage that has delighted the taste buds of New Yorkers (and other diner patrons) since the 1890s. But if you’ve never sipped on the cool, fizzy drink known for its chocolate flavor and foamy top, you should know: There are no eggs or cream in a traditional egg cream drink.
According to culinary lore, the first egg cream was the accidental invention of Louis Auster, a late-19th- and early-20th-century candy shop owner in New York’s Lower East Side. Auster’s sweet treat arrived in the 1890s, at a time when soda fountains had started selling fancier drinks, and it was a hit — the enterprising inventor reportedly sold upwards of 3,000 egg creams per day by the 1920s and ’30s. However, Auster kept his recipe well guarded; the confectioner refused to sell his formula, and eventually took his recipe to the grave. The origins of the drink’s name have also been lost to time. Some believe the name “egg cream” came from Auster’s use of “Grade A” cream, which could have sounded like “egg cream” with a New York accent. Another possible explanation points to the Yiddish phrase “echt keem,” meaning “pure sweetness.”
Ernest Hemingway had more than one favorite bar, but in Cuba, it was El Floridita. The bar was founded in Havana’s Old Quarter in 1817, and it was already an institution as la cuna del daiquiri — the cradle of the daiquiri — when the famous author walked in. After sampling the original, Hemingway requested “more rum, less sugar” from legendary barman and owner Constantino Ribalaigua. You can still order a Papa Doble, Hemingway’s favorite, while sitting next to his life-sized statue.
Though they’ve since updated the ingredients to list both apple and pear concentrate, there was a time when Snapple’s apple juice drink didn’t contain a single drop of real apple juice. Instead, the company used pear juice flavored to taste like apple, perhaps because the flavor of altered pear concentrate more closely resembled what the public expected out of an apple drink than did apple juice itself.
It Takes Eight Years To Grow Agave Plants for Tequila
When European colonists first encountered Mexico’s native agave plants, they were intrigued by the succulents the Aztecs had been using to make clothing, rope, and intoxicating drinks. The spike-tipped plants, which grow as tall as 20 feet, were dug up and transplanted to greenhouses and botanical gardens throughout Spain, Portugal, and other parts of Europe starting in the 16th century. But most agave plants struggled to flourish in areas lacking their natural arid climate; in cooler countries, they were dubbed “century plants,” because those that survived the overseas journey didn’t bloom for nearly 100 years. Agave plants mature much faster when left in their natural habitats, but growing the crop for today’s tequila production is still a time investment. It traditionally takes about eight years before the plants are ready to harvest, though some agave crops are left to grow even longer.
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7Up Once Contained Mood Stabilizers
While it’s somewhat common knowledge that early versions of Coca-Cola contained cocaine, it wasn’t the only soda to contain unusual and potentially harmful ingredients. In fact, 7Up’s formula used to contain prescription mood stabilizers upon its launch in 1929 — specifically, a drug known as lithium citrate, which is used in modern times to treat conditions such as bipolar disorder.
At the time of 7Up’s inception, the soda was called “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda,” which was descriptive of the product’s actual ingredients back then, even though it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. Though the product’s name was later shortened to 7Up in 1936, it wasn’t until 1948 that lithium citrate was deemed potentially harmful and removed from the recipe after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration outlawed the use of the chemical in sodas.
Portugal Drinks More Hot Chocolate Than Any Country in the World
Hot chocolate is a decadent treat for children and a guilty pleasure for adults, and no country in the world drinks more of it per person than Portugal. The Portuguese drink a whopping 100.2 cups per capita annually — an amount that sounds either soothing or sickening, depending on your sweet tooth.
The hot chocolate that originated in Spain during the 1600s consisted of ground cocoa beans, water, wine, and chili peppers. Although the powdered packets today are quite different, Spain is fourth worldwide in per-capita consumption (76.6 cups). Ahead of Spain are Finland (90.1 cups) and Colombia (84 cups).
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A dash of pepper, a teaspoon of cumin — most of our interactions with spices are limited to tossing them into dinner dishes. However, some of the spices stashed in kitchen cabinets have uses besides cooking, or interesting backstories of their own. These seven facts about common household spices may surprise you, or at least give you something to think about while you’re hovering over the stove.
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There’s a Difference Between Spices and Herbs
The terms “herbs” and “spices” are often used interchangeably, but there is a difference between the two. Herbs come from the leaves of herbaceous plants — aka those that don’t have woody stalks. Spices also come from plants, of course, but can be harvested from any portion, including the roots, bark, fruit, or seeds. (So, for example, mint leaf is an herb, while cumin seed is a spice.) And while you may find salt adjacent to cinnamon and oregano at the grocery store, or store it on your spice rack, it’s actually a mineral.
Researchers believe cinnamon may be one of the world’s oldest spices, and during its earliest known history, the heavily scented bark was actually more valuable than gold. However, the civilizations that collected this spice back then had a variety of uses for it besides eating. In ancient Egypt, cinnamon was used for medicine and religious practices. Similarly, ancient Romans considered the scent sacred, sometimes burning it at funerals of the wealthy. Cinnamon eventually gained its most common modern use — as a food flavoring — around the Middle Ages.
Historians believe humans have been harvesting garlic for about 5,000 years, with people in ancient Egypt and India being the first to adopt the pungent spice. Garlic has remained a pantry staple ever since, though unlike most spices, it’s botanically a vegetable (even if it’s also one we use as a spice). Garlic belongs to the onion family, and the entire plant — bulb, leaves, and flowers — is edible.
Before they’re cracked or ground down, peppercorns tend to resemble seeds, though they’re actually dried fruit. Black pepper plants (aka piper nigrum) are flowering vines native to India and Southeast Asia, where their fruits grow in tiny, grape-like clusters. Peppercorns are initially green and turn darker as they dry, eventually reaching their deep, nearly black color.
Nutmeg sees most of its use during the holiday baking season, added into pies and baked goods from Thanksgiving through the winter holidays. However, researchers believe adding the antioxidant-rich spice into your diet more regularly can help you sleep better and longer. Nutmeg can also boost your mood and even help balance blood sugar.
Feathery dill leaves are best known for flavoring pickles, though their seeds contain an anise-like flavor when chewed. Colonial Americans took advantage of this refreshing flavor, using dill seeds as a natural breath mint and giving them another name: “meetinghouse seeds.” During long church services, the edible seeds were occasionally given to fidgety children to keep them calm or help perk up sleepy congregants.
Archaeologists Have Discovered Preserved Spices on a Sunken Ship
If your pantry contains ginger, peppercorns, and clove, you have something in common with King Hans, the 15th- and 16th-century ruler of Denmark and Norway. Researchers have unearthed spices, along with peppercorns, dill, and the remnants of other foods, from the Gribshunden, a ship once owned by the king that has sat at the bottom of the Baltic Sea since 1495. Despite being underwater for more than 500 years, the spices have been preserved thanks to cold waters and low salinity. Some, such as the five-centuries-old saffron, even maintained their aromas. As for spices in your above-ground pantry, most stay fresh between two and four years before losing their potency.
Nicole Garner Meeker
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Nicole Garner Meeker is a writer and editor based in St. Louis. Her history, nature, and food stories have also appeared at Mental Floss and Better Report.
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On any given day, 37% of adults in the United States pick up a greasy bag of treats from their local fast-food joint. Fast food has been blamed for all kinds of societal ills, particularly ones that are nutrition-related, but we keep eating it anyway. Whether you consume fast food every day or avoid it at all costs, you might not know these six facts about some of America’s most popular fast-food chains.
Like many fast-food restaurants, Burger King expands with franchising — individual locations with separate owners who license the larger brand’s identity and business model. When the first Burger King franchise hit Australia in 1971, there was already a local (unrelated) restaurant called Burger King, trademark and all. So Canadian Australian entrepreneur Jack Cowin decided to call his new restaurant Hungry Jack’s, even though it was otherwise identical to any other Burger King.
Over the next couple of decades, Hungry Jack’s expanded throughout Australia, but when the Australian Burger King trademark expired in the mid-’90s, things got a little weird. The American Burger King bought the naming rights, and the head office opened a bunch of different Burger King locations under the Burger King name, then tried to terminate its agreement with Hungry Jack’s.
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Colonel Sanders Opened a Competing Fried Chicken Spot
Harland Sanders, better known as Colonel Sanders, opened his first restaurant, Sanders Court & Café, in Kentucky in 1940. He licensed his chicken recipe in 1952 to a restaurant in Utah, which became the first KFC franchise. By 1963, the chain had 600 franchised locations. Sanders sold his company to food conglomerate Heublein Inc. in 1964, but maintained a promotional role in the brand as “goodwill ambassador.”
By the time the 1970s rolled around, he didn’t have a lot of goodwill left. The new corporate ownership had changed the recipes, and the quality had, in his words, “slipped mightily.” So Sanders and his wife Claudia decided to open their own sit-down restaurant, originally called The Colonel’s Lady, and began talks of franchising the new concept in 1972. Heublein sued, claiming it had exclusive rights to the Colonel’s name, and the Sanderses countersued, claiming that Heublein was interfering with their business operations. They eventually settled out of court for $1 million.
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Subway Used to Be Called Pete’s Super Submarines
Subway started as a partnership between a 17-year-old kid named Fred DeLuca, who needed to raise money for college, and Dr. Peter Buck, a family friend who was able to lend him $1,000. Their sandwich shop, Pete’s Super Submarines, opened in August 1965. The pair opened a second store in 1966, and in 1968 changed their business’s name to Subway.
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White Castle Sold Paper Hats to Other Restaurants
White Castle, founded in Wichita, Kansas, in the 1920s, grew in clever ways — including creating other businesses to meet its needs. In 1932, co-founder Billy Ingram grew frustrated with how quickly linen caps looked dingy and gray, and devised a machine to make paper ones; he then started manufacturing them under the subsidiary Paperlynen. That business expanded quickly beyond White Castle; the company made 240,000 hats the first year and 42 million by 1955. The hats shipped all over the world, including to other restaurants. Paperlynen even manufactured hats for Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1956 presidential campaign.
That’s not the only part of the White Castle economy to exceed its scope. In 1934, the business launched a subsidiary called Porcelain Steel Buildings to construct its iconic castles, and that subsidiary ended up manufacturing amphibious vehicles during World War II (and, after the war was over, lawn equipment from the spare parts).
Think McDonald’s chicken nuggets shapes develop randomly from the raw pink goo? Think again! The nuggets actually have four shapes, although they’re all a little rough around the edges: the boot, the bow tie, the ball, and the bell. They come out of a rotating mold and everything. After getting shaped and dropped on a conveyor belt, they’re breaded and slightly cooked before going out to restaurants, where they’ll finish cooking and be served to customers.
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There Is No Taco Bell in Mexico (But Not for Lack of Trying)
Taco Bell has locations all around the world, but they can’t break into Mexico — the country that very loosely inspired the restaurant’s fare. They’ve attempted twice, trying to correct for the difference between Taco Bell’s approximation of a taco and an actual Mexican taco.
The first attempt in 1992 was met with confusion because customers didn’t know exactly what they were ordering. Crispy tacos are very rare in Mexico, so Taco Bell had to rename the dish a Tacostada — a blend of “taco” and “tostada,” which has toppings on top of a flat, crisp tortilla. The effort was still unsuccessful, and Taco Bell pulled out of Mexico two years later.
The chain tried again in 2007. This time, they decided to embrace their Americanness by adding French fries and soft serve ice cream to the menu, but they were again unsuccessful. The closest thing that Mexico has to a Taco Bell is a little independent taco stand coincidentally called Taco Bell, which has nothing to do with the chain.
Sarah Anne Lloyd
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Sarah Anne Lloyd is a freelance writer whose work covers a bit of everything, including politics, design, the environment, and yoga. Her work has appeared in Curbed, the Seattle Times, the Stranger, the Verge, and others.
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Big grocery brands carefully plan the layouts of their stores, and it’s not usually about convenience for customers. Even if you’re perfectly prepared for a grocery shopping trip — you’re not hungry, you have a list, your coupons are clipped — one well-laid psychological trick can leave you with a higher bill than you planned at checkout. Even some more obvious sales strategies, like free samples, are deeper than they appear. Here are six ways that stores upsell you even on the quickest of grocery runs.
You’ve probably seen a sale tag that advertises multiple items at a certain price — like two cans of soup for $5 — but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to buy two to get the deal. Take a closer look, because chances are those cans are actually $2.50 each. It’s worth looking carefully at the tag just in case you do actually have to buy multiple things, but most of the time it’s just a technique to upsell you.
Chocolate syrup isn’t frozen, so why do you sometimes find it near ice cream? It’s the same reason you might find marshmallows next to graham crackers, whipped cream in the produce aisle, or red pepper flakes near frozen pizza: to get you to go in for one thing and leave with two. You were perfectly happy to just buy cheese when you walked in the store — you don’t need fancy crackers, too.
The short sides of the aisle are called end caps, and they’re often the source of deals. Sometimes the producer negotiates a low price with the store for visibility, and other times, especially in the back, it’s where discontinued or clearance items go. But new or seasonal products sometimes end up in flashy end-cap displays, too — at full price, occasionally with the bonus upsell of pairing up two items from different aisles that go together.
One thing you might notice about shopping at a grocery store is that staples like eggs, cheese, and bread are rarely placed toward the front entrance — making you walk through a labyrinth of potential impulse purchases (and other sales techniques) on your way to your essentials. That makes it hard for even the most diligent list-makers to stay immune from heavy merchandising. Keep this in mind on your long journey to the back, especially if you can’t afford to buy extra snacks.
Ever notice that store brands tend to be lower on the shelves than name brands? This makes the more expensive items easier to spot and more likely to end up in a shopping cart. There’s a very common exception to this rule: More expensive children’s cereals tend to be a little lower down, at eye level with smaller shoppers. Some are even designed so that the cartoon characters on the boxes are looking directly at the kids.
This one may seem obvious. Of course you’ll want to buy an item you try first if it’s delicious — and that’s a big part of it. Sales of an item can go up as much as 2,000% if customers get to sample it, partially because they know what they’re getting, but partially because they feel bad for getting something for free.
Yet the psychology goes deeper than just the product itself. After sampling something good, customers may be more likely to buy other things that they like throughout the store, not just the sampled product. In other words, while free samples can be great, just make sure to check your instincts after filling up on tiny bites.
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Some flavors just beckon with the changing of the seasons. When fall rolls around, many of us begin craving the layered, warming flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg, and the infamous mix known as “pumpkin spice.” It’s not unusual to turn to spices as we celebrate shorter days and sweater weather — as it turns out, humans have been relying on spices to flavor the season for centuries. Here are seven tantalizing facts you might not know about our favorite autumn spices.
Pumpkin Spice Is Almost as Old as the United States
Food trends come and go, but pumpkin spice has an enduring power over Americans, perhaps because it originated here in the days of the Founding Fathers. Colonial newcomers learned quickly to cook pumpkins, taking the once-unfamiliar squash and turning it into table fare and brewed beer. So it makes sense that the first cookbook written by an American and published in the U.S., Amelia Simmons’ 1796 work American Cookery, offered up two recipes for “pompkin” pie — which just so happened to be flavored with a blend of nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and mace (a spice made from the webbed covering that grows around nutmeg).
It would take a while, but spice companies eventually caught on to pumpkin spice’s harvest-time popularity, launching their own blends around the same time canned pumpkin puree hit the market in 1929. Despite having few ingredients and being easy to replicate, pumpkin spice has become a spice of its own — McCormick’s first pumpkin pie spice, released in 1934, features the same ingredients nearly 90 years later: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice.
Cinnamon Trees Were Once Guarded by Secrets and Myths
Cinnamon may just be fall’s favorite spice, considering how much we use its scent to freshen our homes and sprinkle it onto desserts and flavored coffees. But as popular as cinnamon is now, it was once so in-demand that spice traders concealed its real origins to help line their pockets. Cinnamomum trees are native to India, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar, but early merchants drove up the price by telling outlandish tales of how it was dangerous to harvest the bark of the trees thanks to aggressive “winged creatures” in distant lands. Amazingly, their efforts helped keep cinnamon’s real habitat secret for centuries.
Cloves are grown in Madagascar, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere, but a staggering amount of the spice — 74% in 2019 — comes from Indonesia, where the dried flowers of the native Syzygium aromaticum tree are harvested. Today’s cloves are mostly used to add sweetness and warmth to dishes, but these pods — also called “nails” for their resemblance to the fastener — were once used in ancient China as breath mints. To avoid the offense of bad breath, visitors to the Han dynasty royal court around 200 BCE would pop a clove into their mouths before meeting with the emperor, though the spice could also be used as a natural anesthetic to treat toothaches.
By the Middle Ages, cloves had reached Europe, where they were used to season food at a high price that wouldn’t deflate for centuries. In the 1600s, Dutch traders who held the clove monopoly regularly destroyed Syzygium trees and portions of the clove harvest to create scarcity and drive up spice prices. But starting in 1770, French smugglers whisked clove seedlings out of Indonesia to create their own supply, eventually pushing down the price. Today, you don’t have to go far to find cloves: They’re commonly found in ketchup but get the most use in autumnal fare like pumpkin pie and spice cake.
Humans have revered ginger for more than 2,500 years, rightly crediting the spicy root with calming nausea and upset stomachs. But a few things aren’t so true about ginger — it can’t cure the plague as medieval doctors once believed, and it’s not a naturally growing plant species. Botanists consider ginger a cultigen: a plant that doesn’t exist naturally in the wild, and was instead bred by early humans so much that it became fundamentally different from its wild ancestors.
Ginger slowly spread across the world from India over the centuries, thanks to Arab, Spanish, and Portuguese traders. In Europe, the pungent rhizome was a 16th-century favorite — even beloved by British monarch Queen Elizabeth I, who’s credited with serving gingerbread men cookies at royal banquets.
Cardamom is native to India, where farmers have undertaken the labor-intensive harvest of its green, seed-filled pods for at least 5,000 years. With a spicy citrus flavor, the spice is commonly used in rice, desserts, and chai spice blends for a warming tea on a crisp day. But nowhere is it more sought-after than in some Nordic countries: Sweden claims the second-highest cardamom consumption, following only Norway, whose citizens consume almost 30 times more per capita than any other nation.
It’s unclear how cardamom — often considered the world’s third-most expensive spice because it must be harvested by hand — became so popular in Scandinavian countries. Some historians believe the spice took hold between the eighth and 13th centuries, and it continues to fuel cold-weather dishes like meatballs, sweet buns, and holiday glögg.
Nutmeg Enthusiasts Once Carried Their Own Spice Graters
Modern chefs reach for nutmeg when cooler temperatures linger, generally using the warm and nutty flavor to spice up pies, drinks, and other sweets. But at one point in history, nutmeg was used just as frequently as black pepper is today. Sourced from the seeds of theMyristica fragrans, an evergreen tree found in Indonesia’s Banda Islands, nutmeg was first used as far back as 3,500 years ago, archaeologists believe. By the 14th century, spice traders considered it more valuable than gold. Nutmeg flourished in popularity in the 17th and 18th centuries, and wealthy connoisseurs of the spice began carrying their own miniature graters so they could season meals to their liking.
Allspice has gone by many names. Because the dried berry harvested from Pimenta dioica trees found in the West Indies looks like a peppercorn, it’s sometimes called Jamaica pepper or myrtle pepper. In the 17th century, Londoners introduced to the spice deemed it the unimaginative “newspice.” But the name we most commonly use was given around the 1600s because the flavor resembled a blend of cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Over time, the name has become something of a confusing misnomer, but the spice used to flavor apple cider, spiced wine, and other autumnal treats is really in a category of its own.
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Gone With the Wind, the 1939 film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, has a complicated and even contradictory legacy. It is a towering achievement of Old Hollywood, as well as an overly long melodrama of more than three and a half hours; a faithful re-creation of the ways of the antebellum South and a whitewashed representation of the horrors of slavery. But regardless of one’s views, Gone With the Wind was undeniably a seismic force in Depression-era America, and it remains a cultural touchstone even now. Here are eight facts about this famous book and even more famous movie.
In 1926, Mitchell began work on her sweeping Civil War-era novel as she recovered from a badly sprained ankle. Featuring a main character named Pansy O’Hara, under a title that swayed between options including Bugles Sang True and Tote the Weary Load, the story was largely written in secret over the following decade. After a friend tipped off Macmillan Publishers editor Harold Latham to the manuscript’s existence, Mitchell declined his initial offer to read the story during his trip to Atlanta in 1935, only to hand it over shortly before his departure. Latham sensed a bestseller within the yellowed, scribbled-out pages, and his instinct bore fruit when Gone With the Windsold 1 million copies in the first six months after its 1936 release.
Some Arm-Twisting Was Required To Get Clark Gable on Board
Having already garnered acclaim for his starring roles in It Happened One Night (1934) and Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Clark Gable was the preferred choice of producer David O. Selznick for the screen version of Rhett Butler. However, because Gable was under contract with MGM (which was run by Selznick’s father-in-law, Louis Mayer), the star was made available only after a profit-sharing agreement that also gave the film’s distribution rights to MGM’s parent company. Gable himself nearly torpedoed the arrangement, as he was unsure of his ability to handle the demanding role, although he reportedly acquiesced for financial reasons because of his looming divorce from Maria Langham.
Shooting Began Before the Film Had its Scarlett O’Hara
After a nationwide search for Scarlett O’Hara failed to yield anyone promising, and a deal for would-be star Paulette Goddard was scrapped, the film was still lacking a female lead when shooting commenced with the burning of Atlanta sequence in December 1938. That same evening, Selznick’s agent brother Myron was dining with a group that included English actress Vivien Leigh, who coveted the part of the Southern belle. When Myron arrived to the set with his dinner party, his brother was struck by the intensity of Leigh’s gaze, which seemed to echo Mitchell’s very description: “The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor.” A hastily arranged screen test revealed that Leigh possessed a plucky attitude to match her appearance, and the film had its long-awaited leading lady.
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Only One Screenwriter Was Credited for the Work of Many
Although Sidney Howard is the sole credited screenwriter for the movie, some 15 different people contributed to the script. After Howard completed his long-winded draft, Oliver H. P. Garrett, John Van Druten, Jo Swerling, and F. Scott Fitzgerald all took their turns at meeting Selznick’s exacting standards. Ben Hecht later worked on an intensive weeklong rewrite alongside Selznick and director Victor Fleming, with 20-hour days fueled by peanuts, bananas, and Dexedrine, a drug used to treat ADHD. Ultimately, however, much of these efforts were undone by Selznick, who claimed 80% of the shooting script as his own work.
There Were Nearly Two Dozen Alternate Choices for the Film’s Riskiest Line
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a hoot!” That was one of the proposed alternate choices for Butler’s memorable final line, as Selznick was unsure whether “damn” would make it past the censors of the Motion Picture Production Code (more popularly known as the Hays Code). Although it’s been reported that the producer was fined $5,000 for electing to go ahead with the line as is, an amendment to Production Code rules enacted before the film’s release actually permitted the use of mild swearing in “proper historical context” or in “a quotation from a literary work.” Thus, “I don’t give a damn” was given the green light, sparing the audience from decidedly less juicy put-downs such as “the whole thing is a stench in my nostrils” or “it makes my gorge rise.”
Hattie McDaniel Accepted Her Landmark Academy Award in a Segregated Venue
While Hattie McDaniel made history as the first Black actor to win an Academy Award, for her performance as Mammy, her victory was clouded by the attitudes of a society that in some ways hadn’t changed much since the Reconstruction era. With the awards ceremony set to be held in February 1940 at the segregated Ambassador Hotel’s Cocoanut Grove nightclub, Selznick reportedly had to make a special request to have McDaniel admitted — and even then, she was seated at a back table separate from the film’s other stars. This came two months after McDaniel and other Black cast members were told not to show up for the film’s lavish premiere in Atlanta, an act that nearly pushed an angered Gable into boycotting the event.
It Is the Highest-Grossing Film Ever When Adjusted for Inflation
Made for the then-whopping cost of around $4 million (estimates vary), Selznick’s opus proved worth the investment when audiences flocked to theaters to watch Scarlett and Rhett match wits on screen. Gone With the Wind took home $189 million during its initial domestic release, a jaw-dropping sum at a time when movie tickets cost around a quarter. Worldwide, the feature grossed approximately $393 million, translating to about $3.44 billion in 2014 dollars, which puts the Hollywood classic above more recent blockbusters such as Avatar (2009) and Avengers: Endgame (2019) on the list of the highest-grossing films when accounting for inflation.
Multiple Prequels and Sequels Have Appeared in Print
Although Mitchell had no intention of delivering a sequel, the heirs to her intellectual property had different ideas, resulting in the 1991 publication of Alexandra Ripley’s Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. Featuring a story line that brings its heroine to Ireland, Scarlett drew plenty of criticism but nevertheless sold well enough to be adapted into a 1994 TV miniseries starring Joanne Whalley-Kilmer and Timothy Dalton. Two more authorized novels by Donald McCaig followed: Rhett Butler’s People (2007), which expands on the original book from the title character’s point of view, and Ruth’s Journey (2014), which tells Mammy’s backstory. Meanwhile, the Mitchell estate attempted to block the 2001 release of Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone, about Scarlett’s enslaved half-sister, before publication was permitted with an “unauthorized parody” label on the cover.
Tim Ott
Writer
Tim Ott has written for sites including Biography.com, History.com, and MLB.com, and is known to delude himself into thinking he can craft a marketable screenplay.
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