Fun Facts about Food and Culinary Arts

A typical American eats 28 pigs in his/her lifetime.

Americans eat 20.7 pounds of candy per person annually. The Dutch eat three times as much.

Americans spend approximately $25 billion each year on beer.

Americans spent an estimated $267 billion dining out in 1993.

An etiquette writer of the 1840's advised, "Ladies may wipe their lips on the tablecloth, but not blow their noses on it."

Aunt Jemima pancake flour, invented in 1889, was the first ready-mix food to be sold commercially.

Caffeine: there are 100 to 150 milligrams of caffeine in an eight-ounce cup of brewed coffee, 10 milligrams in a six-ounce cup of cocoa, 5 to 10 milligrams in one ounce of bittersweet chocolate, and 5 milligrams in one ounce of milk chocolate.

California's Frank Epperson invented the Popsicle in 1905 when he was 11-years-old.

Capsaicin, which makes hot peppers "hot" to the human mouth, is best neutralized by casein, the main protein found in milk.

Cast iron skillets used to be the leading source of iron in the American diet!

China's Beijing Duck Restaurant can seat 9,000 people at one time.

Chocolate contains phenyl ethylamine (PEA), a natural substance that is reputed to stimulate the same reaction in the body as falling in love.

World wide, consumers spend more than $7 billion a year on chocolate. Annual per capita consumption of chocolate is 12 pounds per person.

Each American eats an average of 51 pounds of chocolate per year.

Fried chicken is the most popular meal ordered in sit-down restaurants in the US.
The next in popularity are: roast beef, spaghetti, turkey, baked ham, and fried shrimp.

Goulash, a beef soup, originated in Hungary in the 9th century AD.

Haggis, the national dish of Scotland: take the heart, liver, lungs, and small
intestine of a calf or sheep, boil them in the stomach of the animal, season with salt, pepper and onions, add suet and oatmeal. Enjoy!

Hostess Twinkies were invented in 1931 by James Dewar, manager of Continental Bakeries' Chicago factory. He envisioned the product as a way of using the company's thousands of shortcake pans which were otherwise employed only during the strawberry season. Originally called Little Shortcake Fingers, they were renamed Twinkie Fingers, and finally "Twinkies."

In 1860, 'Godey's Lady's Book' advised US women to cook tomatoes for at least 3 hours.

In 1926, when a Los Angeles restaurant owner with the all-American name of Bob Cobb was looking for a way to use up leftovers, he threw together some avocado, celery, tomato, chives, watercress, hard-boiled eggs, chicken, bacon, and Roquefort cheese, and named it after himself: Cobb salad.

In 1995, KFC sold 11 pieces of chicken for every man, woman and child in the US.

In an authentic Chinese meal, the last course is soup because it allows the roast duck entree to "swim" toward digestion.

In the United States, a pound of potato chips costs two hundred times more than a pound of potatoes.

Irish cream and Hazelnut are the most popular whole bean coffee flavorings.

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