Food Trivia - Chef Boyardee

Besieged by customer requests, Cleveland restaurant owner Hector Boiardi decided to bottle his famous spaghetti and meat sauce.  With local success came an offer national distribution, but, fearing that Americans would have trouble pronouncing his Italian last name, he marketed and sold his food under the phonetic spelling, "Boy-ar-dee."

Famous Food Flop - McDonald's HulaBurger...

Yes, this was actually on the McDonalds’ menu in the mid-1960s. Ray Kroc noticed that he was losing lots of sales on Fridays. When he realized that Catholics don’t eat meat on Fridays, he decided he needed to come up with a non-meat replacement for hamburgers. His first choice? The Hula Burger. It consisted of a bun, a piece of cheese and a slice of pineapple. That’s it. Sounds kinda kooky, and it was. Unfortunately, people wanted real food and not just toppings on their sandwich so the Hula Burger flopped. A popular phrase during the time was, “I love the Hula, but where’s the burger?

Foods that Flopped - Funky Fries from Ore-Ida

In 2002, hoping to follow the success of Heinz's new "kiddie" ketchup versions (in green and purple), Ore-Ida introduced Funky Fries: chocolate-flavored, cinnamon-flavored, and blue-colored French fries.

An awful lot of money was sunk into the product, but after a year of marketing, consumers still found the idea funky -- in the bad way.

Funky Fries were pulled off the shelves in 2003, and images of blue fries with green ketchup were once again relegated to the world of Warhol-esque pop art.

Did You Know? The History of Jell-O

In 1845, industrialist, inventor, and philanthropist Peter Cooper, of Thom Thumb engine and Cooper Union fame, obtained the first patent for a gelatin dessert. Coopernever promoted the product.

In 1895, Pearl B. Wait, a cough syrup manufacturer from Le Roy, New York who dealt in patent medicines, bought the patent from Peter Cooper and turned Cooper's gelatin dessert into a prepackaged commercial product. His wife, May David Wait, renamed the dessert "Jell-O." However, they were also unsuccessful in selling the product.

Frank Woodward, a school dropout and, who by the age of 20 had his own business, bought the rights to Jell-O for $450. Among the products Woodward marketed were several patent medicines, Raccoon Corn Plasters, and a roasted coffee substitute called Grain-O. Sales were still slow, so Woodward offered to sell the rights to Jell-O® to his plant superintendent for $35. However, before the final sale, intensive advertising paid off. By 1906, sales reached $1 million. By sending out nattily dressed salesmen to demonstrate Jell-O and distributing 15 million copies of a Jell-O recipe book containing celebrity favorites, popularity rose. Woodward’s Genesee Pure Food Company was renamed Jell-O Company in 1923, and later merged with Postum Cereal to become the General Foods Corporation.

Famous Food Flops - Bing's Ice Cream

Valley Farm's Bing Crosby Ice Cream copyright 1953, with photos of Bing Crosby on the front, back, and end flaps of the carton. The ice cream was manufactured and licensed by Bing Crosby Ice Cream Sales, Inc., Hollywood, California.

Did You Know? Vegetable Trivia

A fresh onion, when cut, releases a gas called propanethiol-S into the air. When this gas reaches your eyes, it mixes with the water in the eye to form a weak acid. This acid irritates the eye and causes the tear-producing glands to flood the eye with water in an attempt to wash away the irritant. These tears are what makes you look like you're crying.

Food Trivia - Hagen Dazs

HÄAGEN DAZS


Sounds Like: An imported Scandinavian product.

The Truth: It was created by Ruben Mattus, a Polish immigrant who sold ice cream in New York City, who used what the New York Times called the "Vichyssoise Strategy":

Vichyssoise is a native New Yorker. Created at the Ritz Carlton in 1917, it masqueraded as a French soup and enjoyed enormous success. When Mattus created his ice cream, he used the same tactic ... He was not the first to think Americans would be willing to pay more for a better product. But he was the first to understand that they would be more likely to do so if they thought it was foreign. So he made up a ridiculous, impossible to pronounce name, [and] printed a map of Scandinavia on the carton.

The ice cream was actually made in Teaneck, New Jersey.

Food Trivia - Kohlrabi

This member of the Mustard Family was developed in Germany sometime around the 16th century. (Although one source claims that Charlemagne ordered it planted throughout his domain during the 9th century). It matures in about 2 months when started from seeds, and about 40 days from transplants. Available from May to December, there are green and purple/ red varieties.
Although not widely grown commercially in the U.S. it is popular in Israel, Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, and Hungary. It is frequently grown as a kitchen garden vegetable in some U.S. regions, and is also grown for livestock feed in Europe. In Asia it is popular in northern China (where it is called gai laarn tau), India (ganth gobhi or knol-khol) and Nepal.
It can be eaten raw in salads, or cooked. Its leaves can be used much like spinach. Although traditional dishes are usually quite elaborate, stuffed, creamed, etc., it stands up excellent on its own.

Trends from the 2008 Summer Fancy Foods Show

Did You Know? Food Trivia

Did You Know? Ice Cream


Ice cream debuted in China 4000 years ago among the nobility in the form of a milk and rice concoction packed in snow. Fruit ices and a form of sherbet followed.

In the Middle Ages travelers brought these treats back to Italy, where it was still a dessert reserved for the upper crust.

Improved cheaper refrigeration techniques in the 16th century brought ice cream to the masses, probably the most important dot on the timeline of history until the discovery of antibiotics 400 years later.

Did You Know? Peach Melba

The "king of chefs" and Peach Melba

The tall chef's hat is called a "toque." During the 16th and 17th centuries, toques came in all shapes: berets, stocking caps, and even pointed hats with tassels. During the 18th century the tall hat came into use to show order of importance among the kitchen staff.

One of the greatest chefs is Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935). He started working in his uncle's restaurant at age 14 and went on to work in the world most famous hotels. Recognised as the "king of chefs and the chef of kings." During a visit to Paris, William II of Germany is said to have remarked to him: "I am the emperor of Germany, but you are the emperor of chefs."

Escoffier's most famous recipe was Peach Melba, created for Australian opera star Nellie Melba (1861-1931) when she was staying at the Savoy in 1893. Dame Melba also liked her toast made in the way that today bears her name: Melba toast.

DID YOU KNOW? Food Trivia

An espresso has less caffeine than a cup of coffee!

A cup of drip brewed coffee has about 115 milligrams of caffeine, an espresso (and percolated coffee) about 80mg, while instant coffee has about 65mg of caffeine. Decaffeinated coffee is not totally caffeine free, containing about 3mg of caffeine. A can of Coca-Cola has about 23mg of caffeine, Pepsi Cola 25mg, Mountain Dew 37mg, and TAB 31mg. Tea has about 40mg of caffeine, while an ounce of chocolate contains about 20mg.

The first Espresso machine was introduced in 1822 by the French, but it was the Italians who perfected and distributed it.
Coffee business

Coffee is the world's most popular stimulant: 4 out of 5 Americans drink it, consuming more than 400 million cups a day. Consumption in Scandinavian countries is more than 12kg (26lb) per capita. With more than 25 million people employed in the industry, coffee is one of the largest trade industries in the world.

Although coffee is believed to have been grown near the Red Sea since the 7th century, an Arabian author of the 15th century, Shehabeddin Ben, wrote that Ethiopians enjoyed coffee ever since anyone could remember. By the 16th centuries, coffee plants were found throughout the Yemen region of Arabia. After a Turkish ambassador introduced it to the court of Louis XIV in 1669, Europeans quickly acquired a taste for it. A few years later, the Dutch introduced coffee into Java. In 1714, the Frenchman Desclieux planted a single cutting of a coffee tree on the island of Martinique. Plantations soon grew from French Guiana to Brazil and Central America. Today, coffee is planted in moist regions around the world.

Instant coffee was invented in 1906 by Mr. G. Washington, an Englishman living in Guatemala.

DID YOU KNOW? Food Trivia

Crisco, introduced in 1911, was the first solid hydrogenated vegetable shortening. Initially it was not a huge success - women were even reluctant to accept 1 1/2 pound cans of Crisco as free samples! Many of the early users of Crisco were Orthodox Jews, since it contained neither lard or butter (meat & dairy) it could be used at any meal without violating kosher dietary laws. Commercial success for Crisco came during the First World War due to shortages of lard.

DID YOU KNOW? Food Trivia

The lettuce that we see today, actually started out as a weed around the Mediterranean basin. Served in dishes for more than 4500 years, lettuce has certainly made its mark in history with tomb painting in Egypt and identification of different types of lettuces by various Greek scholars. Christopher Columbus introduced lettuce to the new world and from there, lettuce in the United States began cultivating.