*Between the 30 Long Island wineries are 3,000 acres of vineyards.
*Some historians are claiming that the first Thanksgiving was not in 1621, but actually took place in September 1565 after Spanish settlers arrived in St. Augustine, Florida. It was a religious ceremony to give thanks for a safe Atlantic passage.
*The word “restaurant” first appeared in the 16th century and comes from the French restaurer, to restore. It first referred to a particularly hearty soup.
*The sacred status of cows in India means that the country’s Dominos Pizza joints cannot offer pepperoni, which is beef-based. Instead, spicy chicken sausage is available.
*“Bricks” of grape juice were sold by US wineries during the 1920-1933 Prohibition era. Some bore warning labels about how not to make the juice into wine.
*Refried beans are not actually cooked twice. The prefix re- in Spanish means very or well, while in English it describes repetition. Thus, the beans are well cooked, not twice cooked.
*The Irish potato chip company Tayto came out with the first seasoned potato chips in the 1950s: Cheese & Onion and Salt & Vinegar.
*One theory (of many) on the origin of the name “turkey” was that the bird is said to make the sound “turk-turk-turk” when afraid.
*Cranberries bounce when they are at their ideal ripeness.
*Carrots contain a lot of carotene. Eating too many will give you carotenemia and turn your skin yellowish-orange.
*Sitting completely still burns about 1-2 calories a minute.
*4,000-year-old millet grass noodles were discovered in 2005 at the Lajia archaeological site on the Yellow River in China.
*In 408 AD, the Visigoths demanded a bounty of gold, silver and pepper to end their siege of Rome.
*According to a German price table from the 14th century AD, 1 pound of nutmeg was worth the same as 7 “fat” oxen.
*Spotted on nutrition labels: “Mechanically separated meat.” This is a final step in slaughterhouses to separate the last meat fragments from bones by forcing both through a sieve. A fine paste is produced.
*Currently, the hottest pepper in the world is the Naga Jolokia or King Cobra Chile, a native of the Indian subcontinent. At most it is 1,001,304 Scoville units, meaning that it has to be diluted that many times to neutralize the heat.
*The “navel” on the navel orange is technically a vestigial conjoined twin.