Food

These food facts are sure to satiate your weird and fun food fact appetite!

WTF Fun Fact 12935 – Pumpkin Spice Taste Mystery

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Traditionally, pumpkin spice flavorings have not contained pumpkin at all. Of course, pumpkin spice lovers have been mocked for their “fake flavor,” even though there are plenty of flavors that have no real foodstuffs in them. That pumpkin spice taste so many of us like is really just cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc.

Starting around 2015, things changed for Starbucks fans. They actually got pumpkin in their pumpkin spice drinks.

The new pumpkin spice taste

Even though Starbucks’ pumpkin spice drinks are sold in the fall and winter, they are the chain’s most popular offerings, with the pumpkin spice latte (or PSL) maintaining the #1 spot. In fact, Starbucks sells around 20 million of them per year. We don’t drink them, but we can’t deny there’s a certain tastiness there (thanks to lots of sugar and fat and stimulating spices like cinnamon and clove).

According to Newsweek (cited below): “On August 30,Starbucksofficially ushered coffee lovers into the fall season with the return of its pumpkin spice latte; however, the return has left some customers feeling disappointed, as they believe the iconic drink tastes different this year than in years past.
Posting to TikTok on Thursday, a purported Starbucks barista named Maria confirmed that the drink does, in fact, taste different this year because the company “changed” its pumpkin spice recipe.The videohas amassed over 860,000 views and more than 1,400 comments.”

How could they change such an iconic flavor?! Well, it turns out that some stores are getting an updated recipe, but pumpkin has been part of it for around 8 years.

Now with real pumpkin (kind of)

The newer Starbucks syrup contains “real pumpkin ingredient” – whatever that means.

While PSL fans on TikTok are insisting there’s something different about the 2022 lattes, Starbucks has maintained that they are using the same recipe as in previous years.

So what is pumpkin spice?

Until Starbucks relented and added some sort of pumpkin-derived flavoring, no pumpkin spice actually contained pumpkin. Even the pumpkin pie spice we buy in stores is simply a blend ofcinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and ginger.

Regardless of whether it’s “real” or not, the flavor is now iconic. In fact, Merriam-Webster added the phrase “pumpkin spice” to their dictionary in 2022. —WTF fun facts

Source: “Why Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Tastes Different This Year: Barista Explains” — Newsweek

WTF Fun Fact 12904 – The Popularity of Guinness in Nigeria

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If you go to Lagos, Nigeria, you’re just as likely to hear about how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness beer as you are in Ireland. In Nigeria and throughout the African continent, Guinness is one of the most popular beers around.

Guinness in Africa

According to Smithsonian Magazine (cited below): “The dark brew makes up about 45 percent of beer sold by Diageo, the company that owns Guinness, on the continent, and Diageo is one of four companies that split about 90 percent of the African beer market. Popularity varies from country to country, and Guinness is a particular favorite in Nigeria.”

In the US and UK, we tend to get a slightly different type of Guinness depending on whether we have it on draught or in a bottle. But the Foreign Extra Stout in Nigeria is the Foreign Extra Stout, which has the same formula as the beer the British colonies got in the 18th century.

And there’s definitely something special about it for fans in African since the continent (which is, admittedly, enormous and diverse) now rivals the UK in stout consumption.

“In 2007, Africa surpassed Ireland as the second largest market for Guinness worldwide, behind the United Kingdom, and sales have only climbed since then (by about 13 percent each year),” according to Smithsonian Magazine.

Guinness in Nigeria

In 1803, Arthur Guinness II inherited the brewery from his father and began exporting the beer to England. But after that, the British colonies were the next obvious place to export the beer. First, Guinness’ “West Indies Porter” went to Barbados and Trinidad. Then, it became known as Guinness Foreign Extra Stout and arrived in Sierra Leone in 1827.

While the beer went to soldiers of the British Empire, breweries were eventually built on the continent itself in order to bottle beer for Africans. Even as colonies gained their freedom, the beer remained. And when Nigeria won its independence in 1960, Lagos (the capital) got the first long-term Guinness brewery outside of Ireland. Now, 13 breweries produce Guinness in Africa.

Smithsonian notes: “In his book Guinness: The 250 Year Quest for the Perfect Pint, historian Bill Yenne discussed the popularity of Guinness abroad with brewmaster Fergal Murray, who worked at the Guinness brewery in Nigeria in the 1980s. ‘I’ve talked to Nigerians who think of Guinness as their national beer,’ Murray recalled. ‘They wonder why Guinness is sold in Ireland. You can talk to Nigerians in Lagos who will tell you as many stories about their perfect pint as an Irishman will. They’ll tell about how they’ve had the perfect bottle of foreign extra stout at a particular bar on their way home from work.'”

– WTF fun facts

Source: “How Guinness Became an African Favorite” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12901 – Blue Whale Calorie Intake

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It’s no surprise that a blue whale’s calorie intake is massive – after all, they’re the largest creatures on Earth (and the largest animal to ever live). But half a MILLION calories is a lot to take in – especially in just one mouthful of food!

Blue whale feeding

The majority of a blue whale’s diet consists of tiny shrimp-like creatures called krill (interestingly, one of the smallest ocean creatures). According to Smithsonian Magazine (cited below): “A foraging whale lunges into a swarm of these shrimp-like animals, accelerating to high speed with its mouth open at a right angle. Pushed back by the rush of water, its mouth expands and its tongue (itself the size of an elephant) inverts to create more room. The whale engulfs up to 110 tonnes of water and any krill within is filtered out and swallowed.”

Jeremy Goldbogenstudies blue whales at the University of British Columbia. He tagged 265 of the massive creatures to log the amount of energy they expended while lunging to eat. His devices recorded information for 650 feeding lunges.

“The data-loggers recorded the whales’ position, their acceleration, and the noise and pressure of the surrounding water. The noise was important – by measuring the sound of water rushing past the animal, Goldbergen could work out how fast it was travelling.”

Blue whales can move up to 8 mph in less than a minute and 770 to 1900 calories just to work up the momentum to take that big gulp of ocean water. An average feeding dive takes about 10 minutes, and the whales take around 3 to 4 gulps in that time. But they consume from 6 to 240 times the amount of calories they expend.

Blue whale calorie counting

If a blue whale expends so much energy simply diving for food, it makes sense that they would have to take in an enormous number of calories to make it worth the trouble. But it’s hard to believe just how many calories they can take in.

Smithsonian Magazine states: “If a big whale attacks a particularly dense swarm, it can swallow up to 500 kilograms of krill, eating 457,000 calories in a single monster mouthful and getting back almost 200 times the amount it burned in the attempt. A smaller whale lunging at a sparse collection of krill would only get around 8,000 calories, but that’s still 8 times more than what it burned. Even when Goldbogen accounted for the energy needed to dive in search of prey, the whales still regained 3 to 90 times as much energy as they spent.”

This makes it easier to think of all of the rest of our meals as relatively low-calorie, by comparison. –WTF fun facts

Source: “Blue whales can eat half a million calories in a single mouthful” — National Geographic

WTF Fun Fact 12898 – A Restaurant Run By Deaf Staff

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Sid Nouar is deaf. The unemployment rate for deaf people in Europe is over 50%. So when Nouar opened his restaurant,1000&1 Signes in Paris, he was committed to hiring deaf staff. And he’s not the only “deaf cafe” in the world.

1000&1 Signes

When Nouar first opened his Moroccan restaurant, he couldn’t find deaf staff trained in the restaurant business (something very necessary for Parisian restaurants, where restaurant positions are careers). As a result, he ended up performing the roles of the whole front-of-house staff while his mother cooked in the kitchen.

As you might imagine, he burned out as a result.

Luckily, he was able to reopen at an even larger location a few years later and hire a full staff of deaf people.

Deaf cafes around the world

According to Atlas Obscura (cited below): “Although every country has its own unique sign language, Deaf people across the globe share many common experiences, especially the frustration of primarily communicating in a language not shared by the majority. Instead of focusing on what they cannot access, however, many Deaf people take pride in their rich sign languages, plus the arts, athletics, folklore, values, and history that make up what is known as Deaf Culture.”

Now, there is a “Deaf Ecosystem” that employs the deaf community whenever possible. And deaf travelers seek out these deaf entrepreneurs. Still, 80% of the clientele at deaf cafes are hearing people. But they’re required to adapt to their surroundings rather than the other way around.

Atlas Obscura offered an example: “When visiting Austin, Texas, Deaf travelers are sure to visitCrêpe Crazy. The birth of this popular crêpe restaurant evokes the quintessential American fairytale: two Deaf immigrants turn a secret family recipe into a pair of successful central Texas restaurants, serving an American take on a European classic.” –WTF fun facts

Source: “Deaf-Owned Restaurants Offer Cuisine and Community” — Atlas Obscura

WTF Fun Fact 12892 – McDonald’s Bubblegum-Flavored Broccoli

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People long looked for ways to make broccoli easier to eat, but we’re stumped by McDonald’s attempt to make bubblegum flavored broccoli.

I suppose it’s better than broccoli-flavored bubblegum though.

When and why did McDonald’s make bubblegum broccoli?

In light of ever-more-disturbing news about the effects of the American obesity crisis, McDonald’s has long been asked how they’re trying to help. In 2014, McDonald’s CEO Donald Thompson revealed the fast-food chain had tried out some interesting options to help children eat healthier.

The attempt to sneak veggies into children’s diets came to light in 2014 when, according to Mental Floss (cited below), “Thompson was asked what the fast food giant was doing to provide healthier food options for children.”

As it turns out, “Three years earlier, the chain had already revamped its Happy Meal by cutting the amount of French fries in half and offering fruit as a side option. But Thompson said they had also experimented with some unconventional methods of enticing children to eat healthier.”

One of those possibilities was bubble gum-flavored broccoli. They made it, but they never sold it.

What happened to this culinary curiosity?

It probably comes as no surprise that it never quite made it past the company’s focus groups. Kids were confused and not delighted enough to make up for any skepticism.

Mental Floss notes that “the vegetable creation didn’t exactly surprise or delight its intended audience…And even the powers-that-be were unimpressed.”

“It wasn’t all that,” Thompson said.

It appears that the item may have been planned as a Happy Meal option (one that was eventually replaced by fruit slices and yogurt).

Franky, we’re surprised no one revived the idea during the era when “Millennial pink” was the color of the moment. Sure, it would have gotten some bad press, but it certainly would have been a big seller for those Instagram food photos! – WTF fun facts

Source: “When McDonald’s Invented Bubble Gum-Flavored Broccoli” — Mental Floss

WTF Fun Fact 12886 – Forks Used To Be Seen As Sacrilegious

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Who knew a fork could be seen as offensive (unless you’re using it to poke someone)? But it turns out that while forks are ancient tools, using forks used to be seen as sacrilegious by the Church.

Ancient forks

Forks have been around for millennia, but they weren’t used as dining utensils until the Middle Ages. Then, only wealthy families owned such tools.

For much of human history, people have eaten with their fingers. Depending on the time period and part of the world you were in, it was appropriate to eat with all five fingers (spoons existed and were totally acceptable for soup lovers). Later on, it was seen as polite to eat with three fingers.

Touching your food was touching God’s creation (they didn’t have Twinkies back then, which are most decidedly not God’s creation). By using a technically unnecessary utensil, it was seen as blasphemous not to touch the food you were about to ingest.

Smithsonian Magazine (cited below) found old references to the inappropriateness of forks in the Middle Ages. For example:

“In 1004, the Greek niece of the Byzantine emperor used a golden fork at her wedding feast in Venice, where she married the doge’s son. At the time most Europeans still ate with their fingers and knives, so the Greek bride’s newfangled implement was seen as sinfully decadent by local clergy. ‘God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks—his fingers,” one of the disdainful Venetians said. “Therefore it is an insult to him to substitute artificial metal forks for them when eating.’ When the bride died of the plague a few years later, Saint Peter Damian opined that it was God’s punishment for her hateful vanity.”

Harsh.

From blasphemous to ridiculous

Eventually, forks became less of a religious matter and simply socially unacceptable. Royalty and nobility – particularly in Italy – often had forks. but their use of the utensils was often used to mock them.

At this time, people were still using two-pronged forks. It would take at least a hundred more years for the third and fourth prongs to be added.

It wasn’t until the early 18th century that forks became acceptable and available in England (and a few decades after that in America).

As one 1887 book of manners noted, “The fork has now become the favorite and fashionable utensil for conveying food to the mouth. First it crowded out the knife, and now in its pride it has invaded the domain of the once powerful spoon. The spoon is now pretty well subdued also, and the fork, insolent and triumphant, has become a sumptuary tyrant. The true devotee of fashion does not dare to use a spoon except to stir his tea or to eat his soup with, and meekly eats his ice-cream with a fork and pretends to like it.”

Who knew forks had such a long and sordid history?! – WTF fun facts

Source: “A History of Western Eating Utensils, From the Scandalous Fork to the Incredible Spork” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12816 – Peas Are the Oldest Cultivated Vegetable

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No matter how you feel about peas on your plate, it’s hard to deny that they’re one of the most important vegetables in mankind’s history. If we want to make the case that civilization starts when humans settle down to become farmers rather than hunter-gatherers, then peas are a major part of that story. Peas are the oldest vegetable – or one of the oldest – mankind has cultivated.

Stone Age peas

Peas have been found in Stone Age settlements roughly 8000 years old, but it’s likely that in some parts of the world (namely the Middle East – and Iraq and Afghanistan, specifically) they’re older than that.

But we doubt Stone Age kids had the ability to push away their peas and refuse to eat dinner.

Of course, peas would have looked and tasted different thousands of years ago. As we cultivate vegetables, we tend to choose the ones that match either our taste buds or our ability to grow lots of them (preferably both).

Genetic analysis indicates that kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts were all cultivated from the same plant between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago.

Ancient fruits vs vegetables

Fruits are a different story. Yes, they’ve changed a lot from their ancient and even prehistoric counterparts, but we can find evidence of dates, plums, and of course apples, dating back 30,0000 to 40,0000 years.

So, while we don’t know if the so-called “Caveman” (aka Neandertals) ate exactly what the “caveman diet” says they did, we do know they had a bit of a sweet tooth.

According to Slate: “They definitely ate fruit. Last year, paleoanthropologists found bits of date stuck in the teeth of a 40,000-year-old Neanderthal. There’s evidence that several of the fruits we enjoy eating today have been around for millennia in much the same form. For example, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of 780,000-year-old figs at a site in Northern Israel, as well as olives, plums, and pears from the paleolithic era. Researchers have also dug up grapes that appear to be 7 million years old in northeastern Tennessee (although, oddly, the grapes are morphologically more similar to today’s Asian varieties than the modern grapes considered native to North America). Apple trees blanketed Kazakhstan 30,000 years ago, oranges were common in China, and wild berries grew in Europe. None of these fruits were identical to the modern varieties, but they would have been perfectly edible.”

But veggies are another story. Turns out those needed more work before people liked them.

–WTF fun facts

Source: “Peas” — Encyclopedia.com

WTF Fun Fact 12800 – Monkeys and Bananas Don’t Mix

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Color us shocked by this one. We had no idea that monkeys don’t actually eat bananas in the wild OR that bananas are actually really bad for monkeys!

Monkeys love bananas, but…

Monkeys love bananas the same way we love junk food. And when people first started to keep monkeys as pets, they would give the creatures choices of things that grew locally. It turns out, that monkeys often chose bananas simply because they’re tasty.

If someone asked you what you’d like to eat and put down your favorite snack next to a bunch of vegetables, you’d probably reach for the sugary snack. Our brains love sugar. Unfortunately, for all of us primates, sugar isn’t good for us. It can affect our teeth, interfere with our digestion, make us gain weight, and lead to diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

The same goes for monkeys.

Bananas are for humans

We think of bananas as healthy because they have a lot of potassium and our bodies are a lot bigger than a monkey’s. When we eat a banana, we taste the sugar, but it’s not really enough for it to be considered “junk food.”

The way bananas are grown, they simply don’t have enough protein or fiber for them to be of much nutritional use to monkeys.

According to Dr. Amy Plowman at Paignton Zoo in Devon (who made news when she banned bananas for monkeys) said: “People usually try to improve their diet by eating more fruit – but fruit that’s cultivated (grown) for humans is much higher in sugar and much lower in protein and fiber than most wild fruit because we like our fruit to be so sweet and juicy…Compared to the food they would eat in the wild, bananas are much more energy-dense – they have lots of calories – and contain much more sugar that’s bad for their teeth and can lead to diabetes and similar conditions.”

Of course, weaning monkeys off bananas is just as hard as telling humans to stop eating sugar. Monkeys should be eating leafy greens instead. Of course, a captive monkey can be stripped of the choice of what to eat, so improving their diet is a lot easier than improving our own. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Monkeys banned from eating bananas because they’re unhealthy” — BBC UK

WTF Fun Fact 12796 – Russian Beer Only Recently Considered Alcohol

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Until 2011, any drink with less than 10% alcohol was not really considered alcohol. Instead, it was a “foodstuff.” That made beer more of a soft drink, of sorts. It wasn’t until 2011 that Russian then-President Dmitry Medvedev signed a bill that officially classified beer as alcohol in 2011.

Russian beer becomes alcohol

Now, that doesn’t mean Russian kids were drinking beer and calling it a Coke. It was all about who and how regulated beer could be in Russia. And we know Russians like their vodka, so they’re used to some thing a little bit stronger.

Once the law was signed, it allowed ministers to control the sale of beer in the same way they did spirits.

Overconsumption of alcohol is a problem in many places in the world, but Russian alcohol consumption at the time the bill was signed was twice the critical level set by the World Health Organization.

Beer becomes alcohol

The 2011 bill likely came in response to a soaring interest in beer in Russia. And it didn’t seem to be for the same reasons we saw a beer Renaissance in the states. In Russia, it was seen a healthier alternative to spirits. So perhaps people just needed reminding that it was, in fact, still booze.

According to a BBC News story at the time (cited below): “Over the past decade, beer sales in Russia have risen more than 40% while vodka sales have fallen by nearly 30%. Correspondents say it is common to see people swigging beer in the street and in parks as if they are drinking soft drinks. It is not restricted to certain stores and is sold around the clock.”

To bring the consumption of beer under control, the Russian beer industry saw a 200% tax hike by ministers. That would probably discourage our drinking habits too!

While the new law was signed in 2011, it did not go into effect until 2013 and was set to “stop alcohol being sold in unlicensed kiosks, ban its sale from stores between certain hours and restrict its advertising.” – WTF fun facts

Source: “Russia classifies beer as alcoholic” — BBC News

WTF Fun Fact 12794 – Pineapples As Luxury Items

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Pineapples were once luxury items in Europe and America. In fact, the fact that they were so exotic-looking and hard to grow made them worth hundreds or thousands of dollars (in today’s currency). Pineapple luxury seems absurd, but they were only grown in South America and the Caribbean in the 1800s. Even hothouses throughout Europe had a hard time producing proper pineapples.

Pineapple luxury centerpieces

According to Mental Floss, When the fruity fad made its way to America, “one pineapple could cost as much as $8000 (in today’s dollars). This high cost was due to the perishability, novelty, exoticism, and scarcity of the fruit. Affluent colonists would throw dinner parties and display a pineapple as the centerpiece, a symbol of their wealth, hospitality, and status, instantly recognizable by a party’s guests. Pineapples, however, were mainly used for decoration at this time, and only eaten once they started going rotten.

To underscore just how lavish and extravagant pineapples were, consider the pineapple rental market. The fruit evoked such jealousy among the poor, pineapple-less plebs that people could, if they wished, pay to rent a pineapple for the night. Before selling them for consumption, pineapple merchants rented pineapples to people who couldn’t afford to purchase them. Those who rented would take the pineapple to parties, not to give as a gift to the host, but to carry around and show off their apparent ability to afford such an expensive fruit!”

Pineapple pictures

In the 18th and 19th centuries, artists often depicted pineapples in paintings of elites, and you could also find them emblazoned on napkins, china, and more. Pineapples graced finials, bed posts, fountains, teapots, and other high-class decor.

Pineapples go from luxury to mass production

In 1900, James Dole started a pineapple plantation called the Hawaiian Pineapple Company in Hawaii, which later become the Dole Food Company. Eventually, he produced 75% of the world’s pineapples, and they went from being luxury items to food for the masses.

In the UK, importing pineapples from the colonies became common enough that nearly anyone could get their hands on one, ending their time as a status symbol.

According to the BBC (cited below): “Steamships started to import pineapples to Britain regularly from the colonies and the prices consequently dropped. And it wasn’t just the middle classes who could afford a pineapple, but – horror of horrors – the working classes could too.” – WTF fun facts

Source: “The rise, fall, and rise of the status pineapple” — BBC News

WTF Fun Fact 12792 – Hazelnuts In Nutella

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Nutella was invented during WWII when cocoa was so hard to find that Italian chocolatier Ferrero decided to mix in hazelnuts. And that’s how Nutella was born.

However, our worldwide love of Nutella makes it pretty hard to produce enough hazelnuts. In fact, a quarter of all hazelnuts grown go into Nutella.

Nutella is hogging the hazelnuts

Don’t get us wrong, we’re not complaining. In fact, that’s how we prefer to eat out hazelnuts, and Nutella has a nice, small ingredient list. It’s just most nuts come from a small strip of land on the coast of Turkey – and they’re not easy to grow. However, those farmers have been growing hazelnuts for over 2000 years!

According to NPR (cited below), “Ferrero, the Nutella-maker, now a giant company based in Alba, Italy, uses about a quarter of the world’s hazelnut supply — more than 100,000 tons every year.”

Hot commodities

Of course, this has pushed up the price of hazelnuts. And any time something goes wrong with the strip of land in Turkey, things get even worse (for example, they had a frost in 2013 that drove prices up 60%).

There are other places in the world where the nuts can be grown, for example, Chile and Australia – and even Oregon. But a disease called Eastern Filbert Blight has also threatened crops.

If you’re thinking of getting in on the hazelnut growing business, you might want to think twice. As Thomas Molnar, a Rutgers plant scientist told NPR: “If you just want to get one of these trees and grow hazelnuts in your backyard, though, Molnar does have a warning. “I haven’t seen any other food that drives squirrels more crazy than hazelnuts. Squirrels will do almost anything to get their greedy little paws on the nuts before you do.”

– WTF fun facts

Source: “Thanks To Nutella, The World Needs More Hazelnuts” — NPR

WTF Fun Fact 12791 – When Were Doritos Invented

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Actually, the interesting question isn’t when were Doritos invented but where. And those answers are: in 1960s, and at Disneyland of all places!

The invention of Doritos

Not only were Doritos invented at Disneyland, but they also started off as trash.

Doritos is a Spanish word meaning “little pieces of gold.” And these valuable little things started out their lives as pieces of tortilla thrown out at Disneyland’s Mexican restaurant in Frontierland, called Casa de Fritos. (The restaurant is now called Rancho del Zocalo Restaurante).

As you may have guessed, that early restaurant was owned by one of Disney’s corporate sponsors, Fritos (another delicious snack).

From trash to treasure

According to the Disney blog Walt’s Disneyland (cited below: “All non-Fritos ingredients served at Casa de Fritos, such as the tortillas, meat, beans, and fresh produce, were supplied by Alex Foods…

And it was a salesman for Alex foods who “noticed that Casa de Fritos was tossing unused tortillas in the trash at the end of each day” in the 1960s. “He suggested that the cook cut the surplus tortillas into triangles, deep fry them, and season them in the style of a Zapotec Mexican snack called totopos. The cook took the salesman’s advice and fried up the first batch of what we now know as Doritos.”

Once the chips became popular at Disneyland, Fritos realized they might have greater commercial success.

The invention of mass Dorito production

When a Frito executive tasted the new treat in 1964, he asked Alex Foods if Fritos could mass produce the snack. And they were so popular that Alex Foods could not keep u with demand.

That’s when Frito-Lay took over Doritos production at its Tulsa, Oklahoma plant for nationwide distribution in 1967. And the rest, as they say, is history! – WTF fun facts

Source: “Disneyland: The Birthplace of Doritos?” — Walt’s Disneyland

WTF Fun Fact 12776 – Swedish Banana Pizza

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The rumor about Swedes liking bananas on their pizza started in 2017. In fact, Snopes (cited below) traced it back to a Tweet on August 11 of that year from Curators of Sweden. In it, “a social media campaign initiated by the Swedish Institute and VisitSweden, the pineapple-banana-curry topping trifecta made up the ‘most Swedish pizza there is.'”

We know what you’re thinking.

Eww, why?

Well, to each their own. Maybe you’d like if it you tried it. As pizza purists, we’re just planning to let them be about the whole thing without venturing into dough-destroying territory.

Is Swedish banana pizza real?

As with all internet rumors that sound too weird to be true, the folks at Snopes did the research for the rest of us. And we give them props for being really good at it. Who even knows what’s we’d believe at this point if not for them.

In this case, the Snopes folks did us a public service by reviewing a bunch of Sewdish menus from pizzerias in Stockholm only to find that many really did offer some sort of banana pizza monstrosity…we mean, combination.

Banana pizza with…curry? And tomato?

Ok, so for the American palate (which is eclectic at best, we’re not claiming to be conniseurs of anything other than pizza here, trust us!), it sounds a little gross. But believe us when we say it actually gets worse.

According to Scopes: “Two such pizzerias were Corella Kungsholmen and Stockholm Pizza, both of which offered the ‘Tropicana’ pizza, described as topped with tomato sauce, cheese, ham, pineapple, curry, and — you guessed it — bananas. In the U.S., the Swedish-style food joint Viking Pizza, which is located in Glendale, California, included its version of ‘Tropicana’ pizza, complete with all of the above toppings and finished off with the addition of shrimp and peanuts.”

Ok, so leave it to the U.S. to take an already sketchy-sounding pizza and somehow make it worse. You took an already questionable Hawaiian pizza and added pizza AND curry? Astounding.

We kid though – it’s never nice to “yuck someone’s yum,” as they say.

How Swedish banana pizza came to be

Snopes did some more research and if it didn’t seem rude, we’d just copy and paste it all because they really went out of their way to add some context. In fact, Sweden really likes their bananas, and “this love affair dates back to the early 20th century when Caribbean-grown bananas were first introduced to the Scandinavian nation, according to historical records.”

Picture it. Sweden, the earth 20th century. Boats comes into the harbor weighed down with tons of bananas. The descendants of apes (aka humans) no longer even know how to enjoy a banana. In fact, they asked the age-old question about every new fruit humans encounter: which parts are edible.

If you think about it this way, maybe it’s no surprise that some confused Swedes eventually put it on a pizza. Sadly, there are no extant written accounts of early attempts to try to figure out what to do with bananas, but we hope there’s a history grad student out there combing Swedish archives to find them. It should add some levity to all the reading about colonial oppression that it probably took to get those bananas out of the Caribbean in the first place.

Of course, there’s a lot to unpack here, historically, about how foods travel around the world, but we’re left with knowing that the banana trade has obvious interruptions during war time. What’s interesting is that as far as Snopes can tell, the banana pizza (with curry) thing started in the 21st century.

We’re going to need a food anthropologist to unpack the rest. The best we can do is tell you it’s not a rumor.

– WTF fun facts

Source: “Do Swedes Really Put Bananas on Pizza?” — Snopes

WTF Fun Fact 12770 – Grapes In A Bottle Of Wine

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Have you ever wondered how many grapes are in a bottle of wine?

Well, it all depends on the type of wine you’re drinking, but typically it’s around 600-800. However, some bottles contain up to 1200 grapes.

Harvesting grapes for a bottle of wine

Protecting a vineyard from birds, bees, deer, and other pests that enjoy poking into and picking off grapes takes a lot of work. But if you’re able to get around ten good clusters, you’d be able to make at least one bottle of wine (although the wine-making process is pretty laborious for such a small payoff).

As grapes are harvested in the fall, imperfect clusters get tossed to the side. And many high-end vineyards will pick off each grape and try to inspect them individually to ensure they’re in good shape and free of pests that might change the taste of a wine (such as ladybugs).

The number of grapes in a bottle of wine may vary

You can’t make good wine out of just any old grapes. For example, concord grapes often get sold to big corporations such as Welch’s for grape juice (the non-fermented kind).

Wine grapes need extra help and aren’t sold at grocery stores. But if you want to get a sense of how many grapes are in a bottle of wine, think of it this way – most bags of grapes at the grocery store have about 3 – 4 clusters inside. So it would take at least three bags to make just one bottle of wine.

So, if three bags of grapes costs you a few dollars, you know that wine you’re getting at the under $10 price point is probably not all that special (though it can still be tasty!).

Vineyard vines

A vineyard can produce anywhere from 2 to 10 tons of grapes per acre, depending on the farming methods they employ. For example, organic vineyards will produce close to 2 tons per acre.

According to VinePair (cited below): “The output level of a vineyard is where price and quality get determined. A vineyard that produces less grapes per acre results in grapes that are usually fuller in flavor and more concentrated, whereas a vineyard with a large output generally creates grapes whose juice is watery, which means it ultimately will take more grapes to create a flavorful wine.”

When we’re talking about grapes per bottle, we’re looking at around 700+ bottles per acre (or around half a million grapes).

So if you’re buying wine from a small estate, chances are they are producing far less wine and are typically charging more. Of course, if the vineyard had a famous brand name attached, you’re also paying for that. –WTF fun facts

Source: “How Many Grapes Are Inside Your Bottle Of Wine?” — VinePair

WTF Fun Fact 12726 – New Zealanders Eat The Most Ice Cream

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If you thought Americans were the biggest ice cream eaters in the world (or maybe Italians with their gelato), think again. New Zealanders come in first, consuming an average of 7.5 gallons of ice cream per year. Americans eat about 4.4 gallons, so while they come in second, they’re pretty far behind.

New Zealand is known for its epic dairy products, and they have a highly competitive ice cream industry.

The two main ingredients, milk and sugar became readily available in New Zealand in the 1800s. Sugar was readily imported from Australia, and Durham dairy cows were introduced in 1814, followed by Jerseys, Friesians, and Ayrshires in the 1860s and 70s, once people realized the grazing land was ideal.

But what about the ice? That’s also integral in making ice cream.

Interestingly, New Zealand’s ice originally came from the US Great Lakes area. International ice sale was big business in the 1940s, and Great Lakes ice was shipped around the world on large ships. Giant cubes were stacked together and insulated by wood shavings. Melting did occur, but the giant cubes managed to make it to New Zealand!

Upon arrival, the ice was stored in insulated ice houses.

However, it was ice from Massachusetts’ Wenham Lake that went into making New Zealand’s first ice cream. It was harvested by the Wenham Lake Ice Company, founded by “Ice King” Frederic Tudor, and the “Wenham Ice” is mentioned in New Zealand’s earliest ice cream ads. – WTF Fun Facts

Source: “The New Zealand Ice Cream Industry” — New Zealand Ice Cream Manufacturers Association

WTF Fun Fact 12720 – Let Them Eat Cake

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We’ll spare you some of the legal jargon, but we did actually read the 51-page judgment of an Irish court declaring that the bread used by restaurant chain Subway is now basically considered a confectionary in Ireland.

It wasn’t exactly riveting, but it was enlightening. And to summarize – it all had to do with paying taxes. Otherwise, we doubt Ireland would have bothered to consider it any more closely. And no one is saying you can’t call it bread – the judgment is only referring to how the bread is categorized for tax purposes.

This started when an Irish Subway franchisee, Bookfinders Ltd. filed a suit claiming that they were due a refund for value-added tax (VAT) payments between January 2004 and December 2005.

Their argument hinged on 2 paragraphs of the Value Added Tax Act of 1972, which described which goods and services should have VAT added to them. Bookfinders claimed that the majority of their goods fell into the category requiring a 0% rate (rather than the 13.5% they had paid).

That category includes: “chocolates, sweets and similar confectionary (including glacé or
crystallised fruits), biscuits, crackers and wafers of all kinds, and all other confectionary and bakery products whether cooked or uncooked, excluding bread…”

And “bread” is specifically defined as “food for human consumption manufactured by baking dough composed exclusively of a mixture of cereal flour and any one or more of the ingredients mentioned in the following subclauses in quantities not exceeding the limitation, if any, specified for each ingredient…”

To spare you more jargon, we’ll just say that the subclause in question is the one that says that in order to be considered bread, the weight of any fat, sugar, or “bread improver” cannot exceed 2% of the weight of the flour included in the dough.

It actually gets pretty complicated since there are different tax rates for different items and part of the argument is about averaging out tax rates, how tax rates might differ for businesses offering primarily take-out goods, and whether the temperature of the food makes a difference when it comes to taxing it.

This might be the very best (and by best we mean absurd) sentence: “They [Bookfinders] also submitted that the 1972 Act breached the principle of legal certainty by making the difference between ambient air temperature and the temperature of the food central to their VAT classification.”

Anyway, in the end, the fact that Subway’s bread had too much sugar in it (5 times as much as allowed by the tax code), means it is not considered bread for tax purposes.

Subway was pretty miffed at the implication that their bread was not bread, saying:

“Subway’s bread is, of course, bread. We have been baking fresh bread in our restaurants for more than three decades and our guests return each day for sandwiches made on bread that smells as good as it tastes.”

Our favorite commentary on the matter is this Tweet:

If anything, people got a warning that their sandwich bread had a lot of sugar in it, but there doesn’t seem to be much proof that anyone cared. — WTF fun facts

Source: “For Subway, A Ruling Not So Sweet. Irish Court Says Its Bread Isn’t Bread” — NPR

WTF Fun Fact 12704 – The World’s Oldest Wine

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It turns out we’ve always loved fermenting grapes!

The evidence is an archaeological find around 20 miles away from Tbilisi, Georgia (the country!). Amidst low, mud-brick houses, there is a mound called Gadachrili Gora where Stone Age farmers lived around 8,000 years ago. Archaeologists found pottery decorated with grapes and a pollen analysis conducted on the surrounding hillsides found evidence that grape vines were grown there. (It turns out we’ve always liked to draw grapes on things as well!)

In a 2017 paper published in PNAS, called “Early Neolithic wine of Georgia in the South Caucasus,” an international team of archaeologists laid out the proof that the people who lived around Gadachrili Gora were likely the world’s earliest vintners. And while we could have guessed the area, it was hard to believe how early in human history people were producing, storing, and enjoying wine on a large scale – since 6000 BCE! We were still prehistoric and used stone and bone tools (hopefully not while drinking).

National Geographic explained the evidence and talked to the archaeologists involved in the dig (which began in the 1960s but was only finished up recently):

“When the samples were analyzed by University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Patrick McGovern, he found tartaric acid, a chemical “fingerprint” that shows wine residues were present in fragments of pottery from both sites.

Combined with the grape decorations on the outside of the jars, ample grape pollen in the site’s fine soil, and radiocarbon dates from 5,800 B.C. to 6,000 B.C., the chemical analysis indicates the people at Gadachrili Gora were the world’s earliest winemakers. (Tipplers at a Chinese site called Jiahu were making fermented beverages from a mixture of grains and wild fruit a thousand years earlier.)

Because they didn’t find many grape seeds or stems preserved in the village’s soil, archaeologists think the wine was made in the nearby hills, close to where the grapes were grown.

“They were pressing it in cooler environments, fermenting it, and then pouring it into smaller jugs and transporting it to the villages when it was ready to drink,” says University of Toronto archaeologist Stephen Batiuk, who co-directed the joint expedition alongside archaeologist Mindia Jalabdze of the Georgian National Museum.” – WTF fun facts

Source: “Oldest Evidence of Winemaking Discovered at 8,000-Year-Old Village” — National Geographic

WTF Fun Fact 12675 – How We Prefer Our Potatoes

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At first, it seems unsurprising that Americans prefer their potatoes as french fries. Until you remember just how great mashed potatoes are. Then you really have to start thinking about it. But either way, we love our potatoes and we prefer them in their most convenient form (for eating, at least).

The details come from a YouGov survey of 20,000 Americans, and they even broke down the results between region, political affiliation, genders, age, and income. (However, if you’re a 50-something woman from the West who doesn’t bother with political affiliations, you come pretty close to preferring a baked potato – but french fries still win in every category.)

Here’s how it breaks down:

–  WTF fun fact

Source: “Which, if any, of the following ways to eat potatoes is your favorite?” — YouGov