I learned this today. How does a desalination plant work? A desalination plant makes freshwater from seawater by using reverse osmosis. Humans and animals obviously cannot drink salt water. Fish have adapted to be able to do it, but we have not. There is about 35g of salt in every liter of sea water. If […]
#278 How does a desalination plant work? Read More »
I learned this today. Instant coffee was technically invented in 1771, but this wasn’t really instant. Instant coffee that we would recognize today was invented in 1890. These days, instant coffee is coffee that has either been freeze-dried or spray dried. The two methods differ slightly, and freeze-drying is more expensive. When coffee is freeze-dried,
#277 When was instant coffee invented? Read More »
I learned this today. Hardtack is a dense biscuit made from flour, water, and sometimes salt. It was sometimes called “ship’s biscuit” because it was a staple on long voyages. The word “hardtack” comes from the British sailor slang for food, “tack”. It was called “hardtack” because it was extremely hard. Hardtack is a very
#262 What is hardtack? Read More »
I learned this today. A nut is a hard-shelled pod that contains the fruit and a seed. The difference between a nut and a seed is the hard outer shell. A seed is an embryonic plant. It contains protein, vitamin B, minerals, fat, and dietary fiber. These are all of the things that the seed
#161 What is a nut? Read More »
I learned this today. The first drink put in a can was beer in the 1930s, but it took a while before drink canning could be perfected. The process of canning was invented by Nicolas Appert in France in 1809. He was responding to a challenge by Napoleon Bonaparte for anyone that could come up
#143 When did people start putting drinks in cans? Read More »
I learned this today. Fruits have been preserved as jams since at least before the ancient Greeks. Since the Paleolithic period, people have been preserving foods in different ways. Drying was the easiest way and probably the first form of preservation. Chilling would have been possible in cold climates, but not all year round. People
#121 When did people start making jam? Read More »
I learned this today. Gin was sold from a cat in London in 1739 because Captain Dudley Bradstreet found a loophole in the 1736 Gin Act. Between 1690 and 1751, England went through a period of high consumption of gin. In 1743, it was estimated that people were drinking an average of 10 liters of
#120 Why was gin sold from a cat in London in 1739? Read More »
I learned this today. Bees make honey as a way to store food through the winter. Flowers cannot move, so they need insects to help them reproduce. To pollinate another flower, the pollen from one flower has to reach another flower. The best way for flowers to do this is to have the pollen stick
#92 Why do bees make honey? Read More »
I learned this today. Sugar came to England in 1069 but it wasn’t eaten by most people until 700 years later. The average British person eats about 90kg of sugar a year. This is not only unhealthy, it is also a relatively recent trend. In 1750, it was about 1kg a year. By 1820, that
#90 When did people in Europe start eating sugar? Read More »
I learned this today. Blue cheeses (like stilton and gorgonzola) are blue because they have veins of penicillin running through them. Legend says that blue cheese was discovered in the 7th century in a cave outside the village of Roquefort in France. The story is that a shepherd was eating a lunch of bread and
#53 What are the blue bits in blue cheese? Read More »
