Knowledge is power. And when it comes to power in the kitchen, the more you wield, the more delicious and exciting your meals can be. So when you are throwing a dinner party or preparing a meal for your beloved partner, you might want to sprinkle some fun food facts atop their dishes, alongside that fresh parmesan you’re grating.
If you’ve got an appetite for fascinating culinary information, we’ve got the perfect list for you to devour. Below, you'll find some of the wildest cooking facts Redditors have recently shared, as well as an interview with Bintu from Recipes Recipes From a Pantry, so bon appétit! And don’t forget to upvote the tidbits of information you can’t wait to store up the sleeve of your chef’s uniform.
Credits: benacampbell15
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Cashews are not actually nuts- they are seeds that grow out of the bottom of the cashew apple, which is also edible.
To gain more insight on this topic, we reached out to Bintu from Recipes From a Pantry, and she was kind enough to have a chat with us. Bintu shares a wide variety of recipes on her website, including mouth-watering African dishes, brilliant air fryer recipes, easy instant pot recipes, delicious vegetarian recipes and much more. So first, we wanted to know what Bintu loves most about cooking. "For me, it’s all about good food made with real ingredients," she told Bored Panda. "I love creating fresh, exciting recipes with color, flavor, and a dash of spice."
We were also curious if Bintu had any wild cooking facts up her sleeve. "I don’t think this can be considered crazy, but I grew up in Sierra Leone helping my Gran and favorite Aunt cook meals for our super-extended family. Now that I live in the UK, I love being able to introduce people to foods, spices, and recipes they've never heard of or experienced before!" she shared.
The reason a bit of salt on your tomatoes tastes amazing is because they're naturally rich in glutamate, and they react with the salt to create MSG
I’m gonna try this right now. Be back later edit: I guess it kinda worked
I didn't learn this recently and it's not so crazy (so I guess this doesn't fit at all lol), but I've always thought it was cute that margherita pizza was invented/named for the Queen of Italy (Margherita of Savoy) and its ingredients were to represent Italy's flag.
When it comes to common cooking myths Bintu would like to dispel, she told Bored Panda, "I know a lot of people think that cooking is complicated and difficult. But, I truly believe that anyone can do this! It just takes practice and a little imagination."
"I want to get people excited about created dishes from whatever ingredients they find in their pantry," Bintu went on to share. "Understanding how to use an item many different ways and what flavor pairings work together makes it possible to cook affordable meals that are flavorful, colorful and never boring."
Broccoli is mutant cabbage. It wouldn’t exist in nature if not for selective breeding. That said, as a species it is still over 2000 years old.
Here’s another wild one for y’all: More or less every citrus fruit you’ve ever had is descended from the following 3 fruits: Citrons, Mandarins, or Pomelos. The Wikipedia page on Citrus taxonomy explains it well.
Cabbage, bok Choi, broccoli, cauliflower, mustard greens, Brussels sprouts… they’re all mutants of the brassica species, all the same species! Think like husky, chihuahua, great Dane, and chow are all dogs.
Apples are not true to seed. Meaning that if you plant the seed you won't get the same variety of the seed that it came from. The only way to mass produce a particular variety is to graft a branch of a known variety into the trunk of another apple tree. Then that branch starts producing the variety.
And for anyone out there looking for ways to increase their culinary knowledge, Bintu shared, "The internet is full of all sorts of amazing information and advice! I started my site with the goal of making cooking colorful, easy, and fun for all, which is why you will find really easy recipes with detailed step by step instructions, accompanying images, and some videos, so people can easily follow along in their own kitchen."
If you'd like to expand your skills in the kitchen today, be sure to check out Bintu's website Recipes From a Pantry right here!
Oregano is from the Greek meaning "mountain of joy" and I agree
You know how Hershey's milk chocolate tastes "pukey" to a lot of people? (Especially Europeans who are traditionally more used to high quality chocolate)
It's butyric acid, and it is intentionally part of the flavor. Back in 1899 shortly after Hershey started making chocolate, they developed the "Hershey method" which was "less sensitive to milk quality." What that means is the milk would spoil on the way to the factory or in holding, and you would end up with that acidic flavor. Well, people in America essentially just got used to it, especially after M&Ms became part of WW2 rations, and now it's just "their flavor." How they do it now isn't public knowledge but it's assumed they partially lipolyze their milk to produce butyric acid. Letting the milk spoil wouldn't fly with modern food safety laws.
So yes, it does taste like puke, and it's totally on purpose.
I'm European and I never forget, when I was a kid and my aunt brought us some candies from America, mostly chocolate. I tasted it expecting something delicious, and was so shocked when it tasted like vomit and nothing like real chocolate. I wondered for sooo long why, thanks for explanation!
As and American, when I first travelled to Europe and tried quality chocolates, I though I would die from joy.
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I'm American and will be visiting Austria and Switzerland later this year. I plan to do some extensive field research on this chocolate issue. I'll report my findings. 😊
This American won't touch Hershey's. I have better chocolate standards and you can get far better chocolate here. Not just foreign stuff, but chocolate made right here.
I'm also European. Swiss and Belgian chocolate are absolutely heaven. And the first time I tasted Hershey I was like: "No, no... NO!!"
You forgot Dutch chocolate, German chocolate and French chocolate, although Godiva (Belgian) is still my favorite.
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Peanut M&Ms dumped in a bowl of freshly buttered and popped corn is absolutely delicious 😋😋😋!
It's interesting to me that in Europe, the word "chocolate" without qualifiers means dark chocolate, while in the US, the word "chocolate" without qualifiers means milk chocolate.
uhm no? If I send someone to buy Schokolade they will either bring Vollmilch (milk chocolate) or the favourit.
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Being Canadian, I grew up eating Cadbury's chocolate and Lindt was also a staple. I gagged the first time I tried Hershey's chocolate that was manufactured in the U.S. This was before the Google search engine, so I asked around as to why U.S. made Hershey chocolate tasted like c**p, and if there wasn't something wrong with their cows. Canadian made Hershey tastes fine, by the way because of our more stringent requirements.
Hershey's would seem like s**t after the amazing, and english, Cadbury's. Yum! And yes, I'm English
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I knew Europeans were pretentious, but turning your nose up at chocolate..... Take it easy europhiles I'm just joking. Kind of.
But don't ever express the opinion the Hershey is poor quality on Reddit because 'Murica and you're not allowed to say anything against the land of the "free" (to eat something that tastes like vomit).
Ive never eaten Hershey's but I've eaten cheap/low-quality chocolate that tastes like a mix of puke and laundry soap. Its absolutely disgusting. I'm imagining that that must be kind of how Hersheys tastes
I wish I was european so I could taste this “puke” flavor. To me, cadbury is too caramel-ly. I guess hershey really has brainwashed us!
At least you've got the better end of that trade off. Chocolate or caramel vs chocolate or puke.
Load More Replies... Guess everyone who is so disgusted at the butyric acid in Hershey chocolate should stop eating parmesan cheese too lest they be condemned as an ignorant rube with an unsophisticated palate.
Yes because the taste of slightly off milk is as unexpected in parmesan as it is in chocolate. /s
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But the Eminem Mars company and the Hershey company are two separate entities so this is bull.
Hershey originally had a 20% share in M&Ms, so they were made with Hershey chocolate as they controlled all rationed chocolate at the time
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Once I had my first taste of German chocolate, Hershey’s just hit different. Now I know why.
At least it's not just me! Someone gave me a Hershey bar and I've never tasted anything as disgusting as that! VILE stuff.
I live in America, my first taste of chocolate in London was divine. Cant even eat candy bars from here anymore. Tastes vile compared to Europes.
Same. North American chocolate bars are disgusting.
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Hershey's had a workers strike at a certain point in it's history. It also meant that the local providers of the ingredients (including milk) were out of work as well. The entire community was dependent on the chocolate factory production. Essentially the town would not have existed had it not been for Hershey. The locals went to protest at the factory for the workers to cease and desist the strike....or else. The workers went back to work, however it is possible that the dairies who had been stuck with milk beginning to go bad, insisted on using up that commondity first in the production following the strike.
Woah, all this time I thought I "didn't like chocolate unless it's really good chocolate". No freaking wonder.... I'd rather splurge on Godiva once a year than eat cheap stuff. Potato chips are a whole different thing for me, lol. I'll eat any of them.
my friend went to canada for a school trip and brought back a bunch of chocolate. ive never had non american chocolate (ive had high quality non s****y chocolate but still) it was amazing the best ive ever eaten. plus it was super dark chocolate :D
I wonder if this has anything to do with the WW2 D-ration chocolate issued to American soldiers? Made by Hershey, it was formulated to be a sustaining item producing quickly-available energy , but it was meant to be an 'emergency' item. Fearing that soldiers would eat it first, it was DELIBERATELY given an unappealing flavour so that it would be more likely to be left until other ration pack items were eaten. Is this some hangover from so many Americans having been exposed to this repellent taste?
American (?) here. I love the IKEA dark chocolate. Industrial milk chocolate has always tasted overly sweet and gross to me. This just makes it worse.
M&Ms were not part of soldier's rations in WW2. It was the Hershey chocolate bars. I don't believe this story so, 'citation please'.
I have yet to puke anything up that tastes remotely like Hershey's milk chocolate.
I was used to to European chocolate, so this was a rude awakening when I tried it
OMG! I’m also European and when I told people that it tastes like vomit, they laughed at me and told me I’m imagining things. I’ve lived in the US for almost three decades and never touched Hershey’s, because it’s just the nastiest thing in the world. What I did do, though, is bring some German chocolate to my friends, who then also never wanted to eat puke chocolate again
I can't stand Hershey's chocolate, but for some reason it's traditional and works for s'mores.
Took some college-level culinary courses and had Belgian chocolate for the first time. Real, quality chocolate tastes worlds better than whatever is sold in the US.
While I love Hershey's chocolate, I do agree it tastes FAR inferior to most (if not all) British/European chocolates
Ugh, didn't eat chocolate for a year after tasting American stuff, vile!
I thought Hershey's was the best until I began working at a gourmet food wholesaler. Oh dear God, I cannot begin to explain the difference!
That explains why I've always thought European chocolate was more chocolate flavored than local chocolate
I mostly hate the taste of Hershey’s ever since I stopped eating the candy some years ago and now I know why. Wow.
I can’t eat Hershey’s anymore after I read that years ago and I did used to like it. Man, and I wanted to visit Hershey, Pa one day too. Good thing we still have Cadbury’s Dairy Milk…
So I've been eating puke chocolate all my life? lol I personally prefer dark chocolate, but I would've never related the "milk chocolate" taste to puke. However, when I visited the M&M store in Las Vegas, I almost threw up because the whole building smelled like hot milk, I don't know how people could tolerate it.
hershey's is not only a low quality chocolate, it's a full on gmo product! we've boycotted them for over a decade and are not sorry...
I never noticed that. I’m gonna eat some and see if it tastes like that to me
My sister and I bought a bar of Hershey’s amazing American chocolate, couldn’t wait to try it … it tasted like vomit .. vomit flavoured chocolate, we know the Americans are weird but vomit chocolate tops it all (I think! )
Well, that's not nice. So are there any companies that make real chocolate the way it really tastes?
I knew I wasn't crazy! Nobody believed me when I said it tastes of puke.
True for Canadian chocolate too? Doesn't taste like puke to me, lol
I love and respect Milton Hershey for the contributions he made to his community and for sharing his wealth. A lot of today's rich could take a page from his book. But I never liked his chocolate may he rest in peace. His contribution to American society will not be forgotten.
‘High quality’ is entirely subjective and arrogant. I find most European chocolate to be sickly sweet pap. Very few I’ve tasted are tolerable let alone good. Too sweet. Most are just a sugar high in a wrapper. I prefer a more robust adult chocolate not sweet pap for children.
They brought me one of those and I thought I am just weird!!!I couldn't eat it and I love chocolate.i will stick to my Milka!!!
WHAT??? Hershey's is not high quality chocolate, but if your vomit tastes like Hershey's chocolate, then WTF? i mean i am ASSUMING it;s your own vomit being equated here. i don't want to think someone is going around using the flavor of OTHER people's vomit to compare to the taste of chocolate.
I dislike all milk chocolate (American here). I'm a dark or white chocolate fan, and I definitely don't like Hershey's. I did go to the park though, for a singing competition lol.
Isn’t it also true that American chocolate doesn’t use cocoa butter in their recipe as well?
This is not true. The FDA requires that it has to have cocoa butter to be labeled "chocolate." There are companies that make holiday candies without cocoa butter; these can be labeled "chocolate flavored," but not "chocolate" or "milk chocolate." For some reason the US has some of the strictest laws about this, but people are so motivated to see us as uncultured rubes that we get a reputation we didn't earn.
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Margarine used to be the color pink to let people distinguish between it and real butter.
Fresh pineapple contains an enzyme that digests protein. If you make chicken salad with fresh pineapple and leave it in the refrigerator, the chicken will start to dissolve and get mealy.
The fruit was named orange before the colour. Before that, the colour orange was just considering a type of mild red
Finally, The Mighty and Majestic Question To Life has been answered
Japanese curry was created in attempt to replicate British stew, not Indian curry
When tomatoes were first discovered in the Americas by European colonizers, they thought the plant was poisonous. They recognized some of the plant's features as a member of the nightshade family, and in Europe they immediately thought of nightshades such as *Atropa belladonna*, a fairly well-known poisonous plant. Plus, they noticed that when they sliced the fruits, and left them on metal plates, their juice would eat away at the plates' surfaces. This was actually because of the low amount of acids in the tomatoes, and wasn't actually dangerous to humans.
But when you would use a leaded utensil or leaded bowl for your tomatoes The acids would Leach the lid into the juices and you would get lead poisoning and die and people blame the tomatoes, or so the Legends would have you believe.
You can "cook" shrimp in lemon or lime juice. Or both! Just throw them in a bowl of juice and watch them turn pink.
Palmolive (the soap company) was literally named after the two oils they use(d) to make their soaps. Learnt that at a soap making workshop!
Mac and cheese was considered a really fancy food at one time, during the start of modern-style restaurants in America in the early-mid 1800s, it was the go-to dish to be served to you in a fancy restaurant (because all restaurants were a bit fancy then) in America.
Another etymological fun fact: vindaloo, the Indian dish, comes from the port city of Goa, where Portuguese traders introduced the locals to a stewed pork dish with wine (vinha) and garlic (alho), named "meat with wine and garlic," or "carne de vinha d'alhos." Eventually the wine became replaced with vinegar, and taboos elsewhere in India against pork eventually caused the dish to branch out to all sorts of different meats.
Interestingly, "aloo" means potato in most South Asian languages, so despite the etymology having nothing to do with potatoes, many versions of the dish eventually included potatoes, too.
It was posted recently on TIL that ketchup was originally a Chinese Fish Brine Sauce in the 17th century. then Brits encountered it in Malaysia, and made a mushroom-based sauce out of it in the 18th century. And theeennn in the 19th century, it became tomato based, and finally by 1850 it dropped anchovies as an ingredient and all semblance of its original fish-based existence was lost.
The top global exporter of caraway (aka Persian cumin) is Finland, exporting approximately 30% of the world's caraway.
People often think of France when they hear mention of the croissant, but Austria is the true country of birth for this pastry. Its Viennese, not French! The 'kipferl' was believed to be the spiritual ancestor of the croissant. Was created as a propaganda technique by the Austrians, made in the shape of the Crescent Moon of islam so that when Austrians ate it they would be "Devouring" the Ottomans.
So mesay it was also made in Romania around 1683.
But it was brought to widespread recognition by the Austrians and their hate for the Ottomans who at the time were frequently attacking.
And that's why croissants and other similar pastries are named "viennoiseries" in French.
Fermented horse milk is a beloved drink in Kyrgyzstan (it’s also the absolute worst thing I’ve ever tasted in my life)
That fried chicken was invented in Scotland. To think what they could have done with it if they kept with it
Pineapples take around a year to grow. Pineapples are also considered to be a group of berries.
Everyone always makes a big deal about tomatoes being fruits not vegetables, but no one seems to notice green beans being fruits all sneaky like.
Thanks to Kenji at SE, I learned that the direction you cut an onion affects the type of flavor it imparts. So, cutting from root to stem end produces milder, sweeter flavor whereas slicing in perpendicularly will be more pungent (and should also be reserved for raw applications only).
Oreida potatoes stand for Oregon and idaho
Cilantro and oregano are cullinary important in Mexico, they also grow everywhere and many local produce shops give customers a small bouquet of one of them as a gift for buying at their shop.
Heck even in american English their names are in Spanish because people associate them with Mexico, but the origin of these plants has nothing to do with the Americas but the Mediterranean
You can tell the approximate temperature of meat by comparing its toughness to the toughness of your thenar eminence.
Relax your hand, pressing the thenar eminence (muscular pad between wrist and first thumb joint) is comparable to rare. Gently touch the thumb and index finger of one hand. Use the other to touch the thenar eminence. You should notice it is slightly tougher, this is medium rare. Middle finger and thumb is medium. Ring and thumb is medium well. Pinky and thumb is well done.
Hmm, I may add "Thenar Eminence" to the titles of nobility in my Empire.
My favorite (though the broccoli one is interesting too but its already been mentioned) is probably the fact that Triscuits are named after the fact that for the first time in a food product, electricity was used to bake them, and the name is a portmanteau of Electricity + Biscuit.
The word "milk" has been used to describe non dairy drinks (like almond, soy, and rice beverages) since the 13th century!
So the EU saying that only cow lactation can legally be labeled "milk" in order to avoid confusing people is well... effing nonsense.
Beer was classified as a soft drink in Russia until 2011 (well, not just beer, any drink with less than 10% ABV)
Domestic ice cream machines from 1885 made ice cream up to 10 times faster than today’s ice cream machines.
"CANada Oil, Low Acid"
Natural rapeseed oil is high in erucic acid, and canola was originally a trademark for a hybridized cultivar that contains less acid.
Now it's a generic name for the product.
Gelatin, which is a thickening agent, can be found in frosted cereals, yogurt, candy, and some types of sour cream.
The gelatin in desserts, for instance, comes mainly from pig skin.
Tapa means cover in Spanish. It is said that a small portion of food used to be put on top of the cover of the drinks.
Some argue that the name comes from how they used to give food with the drinks to "cover" the smell of bad wine.
Pubs in Britain used to put bowls of peanuts or salty biscuits on the bar (our own tapas!) to make you thirsty and buy more.
Cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, and more are just variations of the same kind of plant.
Asparagusic acid is processed by the kidneys as rapidly as 15 minutes after ingestion. And is what makes your pee smell when you eat asparagus.
This is sooooo rookie - no judging - but I don’t bake at all and never use the stuff… parchment paper isn’t the same as wax paper lol 🤯🤯
Panko bread crumbs are Japanese. I use them for breading everything and I never knew that the panko-style is specifically a Japenese style bread crumb. I thought it was a brand name or something.
Ketchup was used as a medicine in the 1800s to treat diarrhea, among other things.
The greyish crust of aged Mimolette cheese is the result of cheese mites intentionally introduced to add flavor by their action on the surface of the cheese.
Sushi was originally a method of preserving rice, not necessarily related to raw fish.
There's a theory that people domesticated grains because they were super easy to make alcohol from. Bread invention was secondary, according to this theory. Also, earliest beer was like thin porridge, and consumed as nutrient-rich food, not beverage. Brewers started using hops only in Late Middle Ages.
There were times when a large enough fish was considered a gift fit for a king. Medieval English kings were presented with huge pikes. Even before that, in Roman Empire, red mullet was such a delicacy, sometimes the emperor himself got them as presents and rewarded the fishermen with gold. One Roman noble was exiled to what is now Marseilles, and Cicero (who tried to defend him in court, unsuccessfully) wrote a letter to him, basically to say sorry for what happened. The man answered "that's okay, if I wasn't exiled, I wouldn't be able to try the wonderful mullet they serve here". Romans surely loved good food!
and IPAs weren't meant to be drank in that way. The English super hopped beer because the hops acted as a preserver. So they did this to get the beer to not go bad when shipping to their men in India... The flavor would mellow out a little more because hops pungency fades over time
Mold is an essential component in food production.
All from sausages, to cheese, to some kinds of rice and beans, mold is used frequently to spice or break down certain chemicals in food.
Also in some spirited drinks.
Artificial banana flavoring was available in the US for decades before most of the nation had access to real bananas. Also, the chemical, isoamyl acetate, was marketed in the UK originally as artificial pear flavoring.
That it's Brussels sprouts, not Brussel sprouts. In my defense, I almost never saw it in writing, and when heard aloud, it's easy for the 's' at the end of Brussels to disappear into the first 's' in sprouts.
I also hadn't seen them [on the stalk](https://kirbiecravings.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/spicy-garlic-brussels-sprouts-stalk-17.jpg) until way to long in life. It was a real mind-bender. Like learning peanuts grow underground.
"Bistec" in Spanish comes from "beef steak" in English
"Barbecue/Barbeque" in English comes from "barbacoa" in Spanish, which comes from Arawak "barbacoa". This is the wonderful travel of words.
Fanta, a soda sold in the US, is what the Nazi's created when the US embargoed Germany and they couldn't get "the real thing" Coke.
that you don't have to have a rolling boil to cook pasta
A chef on SortedFood youtube channel said that you can put pasta into cold water and that you don't need a whole pot full of water either.
The english word "pasta" comes from the italian word "pasta", which comes from the latin word "pasta", which comes from the greek word "pasta" (barley porridge).
Those oval/rectangular-shaped ice cream tubs are called “squrounds”.
Lima beans are actually Lima (Peru) beans because they come from Peru and Americans weren't going to go through the trouble of enunciating foreign sounding words. See also Pierre (pronounced Pier) South Dakota.
English pronunciations of words in various English-speaking countries have developed different pronunciations. Changing the "i" sound is not about Americans refusing to "go through the trouble of enunciating foreign sounding words" since the sounds of the "proper" pronunciation of this simple word are present in American english. I agree that many Americans won't "go through the trouble," but this is a terrible example and another incidence of bending over backwards to insult Americans.
Calrose rice has 'Cal' because it is grown in California
In the United States companies can legally sell
Curry Powder that contains Less than 100 insect fragments per 25 grams
Hops with Less than 2500 aphids per 10 grams
and Coffee as long as less than 10% of beans are moldy.
Even with modern technology, all defects in goods cannot be eliminated. As a result, the Food and Drug Administration has set allowable defect or "tolerance levels". The defect levels (i.e. “tolerance levels”) set by … The level represent an amount below which the defect is both unavoidable under current technology and presents no health hazard.
That's why the British are worried about imported U.S. chicken, treated with chlorine, after Brexit. . EU food standards are much higher than those in the U.S.
The history of the Oreo is pretty fascinating. I heard it on a podcast once, and I wish I could remember all the details. Many people know that the Hydrox cookie actually came first, and the Oreo was a rip-off of it, but the naming of it was also supposed to be trolling. Iirc, it relates to the laurel wreath, which was the design on the Hydrox cookie.
Pure Corn Sugar is the most delicious pure ingredient you will ever taste.
For some reason, this specific article keeps crashing my BP app... all other articles are fine. I could get to comments, but the content causes the app to reboot repeatedly...
You too? Guess they really don't want us to see this article.
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this article keeps on crashing my ios app, every time I click, the app closes
In colonial and pre-20th century U.S., lobster was considered a garbage food whose only value was to be served to and eaten by the household servants.
They served it to prisoners, too, for the same reason.
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I can't access this article. Every time I try to, my boredpanda app turns off
I knew canola oil was renamed from rapeseed oil, didn't know how they came to canola
Sorry if I ruin this for anyone...but drinking Sunny D juice is like drinking mucus...
I've never tried drinking mucus but at least now I know I'm missing out since I like Sunny D occasionally. Thanks!
Load More Replies... For some reason, this specific article keeps crashing my BP app... all other articles are fine. I could get to comments, but the content causes the app to reboot repeatedly...
You too? Guess they really don't want us to see this article.
Load More Replies... this article keeps on crashing my ios app, every time I click, the app closes
In colonial and pre-20th century U.S., lobster was considered a garbage food whose only value was to be served to and eaten by the household servants.
They served it to prisoners, too, for the same reason.
Load More Replies... I can't access this article. Every time I try to, my boredpanda app turns off
I knew canola oil was renamed from rapeseed oil, didn't know how they came to canola
Sorry if I ruin this for anyone...but drinking Sunny D juice is like drinking mucus...
I've never tried drinking mucus but at least now I know I'm missing out since I like Sunny D occasionally. Thanks!
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