Pickled tea
In Myanmar you can drink tea or you can eat it.
Citric panic
Beginning in 1976 a pseudoscientific pamphlet spread like wildfire across Europe, stating that many common food additives caused cancer – including cellulose and citric acid.
Ancient heart
The heart symbol may have originated with an ancient Roman form of birth control, a plant that is probably now extinct.
Oldest cookbook
Mix egg yolks, dates, honey, vinegar, oil, wine, shallots, and herbs, and then add a roasted flamingo. This is Apicius, one of the earliest surviving cookbooks.
Edible glass
Ever see someone get hit over the head with a bottle in an old film? They could probably eat the glass afterwards.
Oldest wine
A bottle of wine on display in a German museum is more than 1600 years old. There are none older – but it probably tastes terrible.
Mad honey
Honey takes on the chemical properties of nectar gathered by bees. This fact turns out to be quite useful if you’re fighting the ancient Romans.
Twelve grapes
What is it about this time of year and the number twelve? In Spain and countries culturally connected to Spain, twelve grapes is a New Year tradition.
Flapdragon
A Christmas Eve parlour game played in Victorian England involved grabbing burning raisins with your hands and eating them while they were still alight.
Oldest winery and shoe
The Areni-1 cave in southern Armenia is the site of the oldest shoe, and also the oldest winery, in the world.
Largest kitchen
Jagannath, the deity from whom we get the word juggernaut, receives offerings of food from the world’s largest kitchen.
Rotten before it is ripe
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Rabelais all wrote about the medlar fruit, which must rot before it is ready to eat.
Can’t opener
The first tin cans of food were manufactured around 1813. The first can openers arrived more than thirty years later.
Australian tablespoons
If you’re using an Australian recipe book, watch out for the tablespoon, or your baking will turn out all wrong.
Original cabbage
What’s your favourite green vegetable? Kale? Broccoli? Cabbage – regular, red, or savoy? Brussels sprouts? Cauliflower? Trick question. They’re all the same species.
