Did you Know?
Interested in food trivia or history? Here are a few tidbits
of foodie lore which I found interesting. Send me an email if you come across some
interesting trivia and I will gradually expand this section over time.
Tempura is a Portuguese invention
I was surprised to discover that that Japanese food
stalwart, tempura, was actually invented by Portuguese sailors. On Friday the Catholic Portuguese were
forbidden from eating meat, and somewhere in the mists of time they started to
deep fry fish and vegetables using a recipe brought back by the Crusaders from
their Arabian campaigns. These were
adapted for the quarter day feasts of the Christian calendar, which are known
in Latin as quattuor tempora – hence the derivation of tempura. The Japanese were introduced to this by
Portugese traders and adopted it.
(source:
Economist Intelligent Life, summer 2006)
The origin of sorbet
Supposedly Richard the Lionheart, at a negotiation,
was presented by Crusader leader Saladin by a dish called “sharbet” made with
snow from the mountains in
(unconfirmed)
Who invented the fork?
The idea of
using forks to aid in eating was apparently introduced from Byzantium into
Greece about AD 1100 and traveled northward into Italy and France However
several sources credit Catherine de Medici with popularising the fork, as she
brought some with her to the court of France when she married King Henry
II. Prior to that however, Domenico
Selvo, Doge of Venice, married a Greek princess who introduced the practice of
eating with a fork to his court in the 11th century. It seems fair
to credit the Italians though.
(source:
various)
How did they open tin cans in the
early days?
It
intrigued me that the tin can was patented in 1810 by Peter Durand and the first
commercial canning factory opened in
(source: www.inventors.about.com)
What did Indian cooks do before the chilli?
Chilli peppers are native to
(source: Wikipedia)
The most expensive wine ever?
The most paid at
auction for a single bottle of wine is a 1787 Chateau Lafite
owned by Thomas Jefferson, bought for GBP 105,000 (USD 160,000 at the time) in
1985 at Christies by Christopher Forbes.
It resides in the Forbes Collection in
(source: Forbes magazine)