Food Facts for Kids
Tasty facts about the food we eat
Grapefruits are a natural hybrid of two other citrus fruits — the pomelo and the sweet orange. They were first discovered in Barbados in the 1700s and were called 'the forbidden fruit' before the name grapefruit caught on.
Almost every banana sold in supermarkets is of a single variety called the Cavendish, and they are all genetic clones of each other. This means a single disease could theoretically wipe out the entire commercial crop, as happened in the 1950s with the previous variety, the Gros Michel.
Pizza Margherita was reportedly created in 1889 in honour of Queen Margherita of Italy. The chef chose toppings in the colours of the Italian flag — red tomato, white mozzarella, and green basil.
Date palms have been cultivated for at least 5,000 years in desert regions of the Middle East and North Africa. A single palm tree can produce up to 100 kg of dates per year and live for over 100 years.
Real wasabi works differently from chilli peppers. It triggers pain receptors in the nose and sinuses rather than the mouth, which is why the heat hits you in the head rather than the throat. The sensation fades in about 15 seconds.
Parmigiano-Reggiano, commonly known as Parmesan, is aged for a minimum of 12 months and sometimes up to 36 months. It is so hard and crystalline that it must be broken with a special knife rather than sliced.
The water used to cook pasta is full of dissolved starch, which makes it an excellent ingredient for thickening and binding pasta sauces. Professional chefs almost always add a splash of pasta water to their sauces rather than pouring it down the drain.
Most mint varieties cannot produce viable seeds and can only be grown from cuttings or root divisions. This is why nearly all commercial mint — including spearmint and peppermint — is grown by planting pieces of the existing plant.
Every ear of corn has an even number of rows — never an odd number. This is because corn kernels grow in pairs, always producing an even-numbered arrangement of rows around the cob.
Gouda cheese is named after the Dutch city of Gouda, but not because it was invented there. Gouda was a marketplace city where farmers traded their cheese, so all cheese sold there came to be called 'Gouda.'