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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
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
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.
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#2
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
HelluvaHedgehogAlien 1 year ago (edited)
I’m gonna try this right now. Be back later edit: I guess it kinda worked
#3
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."
#4
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.
LeighAnne Brown-Pedersen 1 year ago
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.
#5
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!
#6
Oregano is from the Greek meaning "mountain of joy" and I agree
#7
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.
Katarzyna Drozd 1 year ago (edited)
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!
#8
Margarine used to be the color pink to let people distinguish between it and real butter.
#9
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.
#10
The fruit was named orange before the colour. Before that, the colour orange was just considering a type of mild red
HelluvaHedgehogAlien 1 year ago
Finally, The Mighty and Majestic Question To Life has been answered
#12
Japanese curry was created in attempt to replicate British stew, not Indian curry
#13
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.
Ronald Bradford 1 year ago
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.
#14
You can "cook" shrimp in lemon or lime juice. Or both! Just throw them in a bowl of juice and watch them turn pink.
#15
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!
#17
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.
#19
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.
#20
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.
#21
The top global exporter of caraway (aka Persian cumin) is Finland, exporting approximately 30% of the world's caraway.
#22
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.
Annik Perrot 1 year ago
And that's why croissants and other similar pastries are named "viennoiseries" in French.
#23
Fermented horse milk is a beloved drink in Kyrgyzstan (it’s also the absolute worst thing I’ve ever tasted in my life)
#24
That fried chicken was invented in Scotland. To think what they could have done with it if they kept with it
#25
Pineapples take around a year to grow. Pineapples are also considered to be a group of berries.
#26
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.
#27
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).
David 1 year ago
Onion rings are cut sideways rather than top to bottom. And for most uses of onions they are cut in both directions. Not too many recipes using full length top to bottom wedges.
Nick Boccanfuso 1 year ago
That's probably because if they were cut and other way.. they wouldn't be rings...
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Matthews 1 year ago
If memory serves, the info is available on Serious Eats. From what I’ve seen, slicing them perpendicularly breaks far more cellular walls than otherwise. That, in turn, releases more of their juices. With proper technique and a sharp knife, though, this can be somewhat reduced (as well as the eye irritation).
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Raymond Core 1 year ago
What if you cut them both ways as when chopping/dicing? When I stir fry, I always cut root to stem.
Craig Silberman 1 year ago
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/07/11/485235765/slice-dice-chop-or-julienne-does-the-cut-change-the-flavor
Katherine Kunhiraman 1 year ago
In most Indian cooking, they are cut top to bottom, and mostly we have red onions.
#28
Oreida potatoes stand for Oregon and idaho
#29
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
#30
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.
What do you think ?
TAG86 1 year ago
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...
Billy Harrelson 1 year ago
You too? Guess they really don't want us to see this article.
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Ula Grzesiuk 1 year ago
this article keeps on crashing my ios app, every time I click, the app closes
SomeoneTookMySweetRoll 1 year ago (edited)
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.
Marie BellaDonna 1 year ago
They served it to prisoners, too, for the same reason.
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Olivia The Cloud 1 year ago
I can't access this article. Every time I try to, my boredpanda app turns off
BluEyedSeoulite 1 year ago
I knew canola oil was renamed from rapeseed oil, didn't know how they came to canola
Julie Ann Al buzbeba 1 year ago
Sorry if I ruin this for anyone...but drinking Sunny D juice is like drinking mucus...
Mike Beck 1 year ago
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... TAG86 1 year ago
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...
Billy Harrelson 1 year ago
You too? Guess they really don't want us to see this article.
Load More Replies... Ula Grzesiuk 1 year ago
this article keeps on crashing my ios app, every time I click, the app closes
SomeoneTookMySweetRoll 1 year ago (edited)
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.
Marie BellaDonna 1 year ago
They served it to prisoners, too, for the same reason.
Load More Replies... Olivia The Cloud 1 year ago
I can't access this article. Every time I try to, my boredpanda app turns off
BluEyedSeoulite 1 year ago
I knew canola oil was renamed from rapeseed oil, didn't know how they came to canola
Julie Ann Al buzbeba 1 year ago
Sorry if I ruin this for anyone...but drinking Sunny D juice is like drinking mucus...
Mike Beck 1 year ago
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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