Watermelon

Watermelons are fruits that come from a vine-like plant. They are part of the cucumber, pumpkin, and squash family.

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WATERMELONS IN HISTORY

The watermelon originated in North East Africa. It was heavily cultivated in Egypt and India as far back as 2500 BC. as an important water source when all else failed.

These early watermelons were pale-green, and bitter. As watermelons were bred to become sweeter, their flesh slowly changed to red.

Stainless steel and plastic water bottles are all the rage now, but early explorers used watermelons as portable canteens.

The painting below is Still Life with Watermelons, Pineapple and Other Fruit by Albert Eckhout, a Dutch artist active in 17th-century Brazil.

The Watermelon War was a riot in Panama City on April 15, 1856, then the capital of Panama State in the Republic of New Granada. It started because a drunken American wouldn't pay five cents for a slice of watermelon. It led to the death of 15 Americans and two Panamanians.

During the Civil War the Confederate Army boiled down watermelons as a source of sugar and molasses.

In 2007, Oklahoma's House of Representatives declared the watermelon to be the state vegetable despite the fact that most people see it as a fruit.

FUN WATERMELON FACTS

While watermelon is a fruit, its rind can be used as a vegetable.

Watermelon is 92 percent water.

About 6% of a watermelon is sugar, which makes it very sweet.

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The average American eats 15 pounds of watermelon a year.

The heaviest ever watermelon weighed a whopping 159 kg (350.5 lb). It was grown by Chris Kent of Sevierville, Tennessee, USA, as verified by the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth on October 4, 2013. Kent's watermelon was a Carolina Cross variety, which is known for its large size and sweet flavor. He grew the melon in his backyard using a variety of techniques to maximize its size, including hand-pollination and careful fertilization. The watermelon was so large that Kent had to use a forklift to move it to the weigh-in station.

Calorie wise, a two cup serving of watermelon contains 80 calories.

Watermelons are a great source of vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin B6 and vitamin B1.

Watermelons are a good source of lycopene, an antioxidant that reduces the risk of prostate, lung, and stomach cancer.

Drinking watermelon juice before working out reduces muscle soreness, as well as the amount of time it takes for your heart rate to recover.

The scent of watermelon is hard to replicate due to the unstable nature of aldehydes, the compounds responsible for the fruit's sweet smell.

Though it's most commonly consumed as is, the watermelon can be used to make beer, and the rinds can be pickled.

The black seeds in a watermelon are mature seeds ready for planting. The white seeds are immature seeds that have not fully matured.

China produces 68% of the world's watermelons. They produce 20 times more than the second highest producer Turkey.

In Japan, they grow watermelons in square containers to make them easier to stack in supermarkets.

In Romanian, "Îl sco?i din pepeni"—literally, to pull someone out of their watermelons— means "to drive them crazy."

Vegetable

Anything that is a root, leaf, or stem of a plant is a vegetable—which is why corn, zucchini, green beans, and tomatoes are fruits.

One of oldest known vegetables is the pea, which was used by the Chinese in 2000 BC. It was also prized by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

Ancient vegetables were small and unpalatable. Ancient tomatoes were the size of berries; potatoes were no bigger than peanuts. Corn was a wild grass, its tooth-cracking kernels borne in clusters as small as pencil erasers.

The word “vegetable” has been with us since the 1400s.

The abbreviation “veggie”, for a plant used as food, only began to be used in 1907, while “veggie” meaning a vegetarian was first seen in 1942.

Lachanophobia is the fear of vegetables.

The worst U.S. state for vegetable consumption is Mississippi, where only 5.5% of people consume the recommended amount of vegetables.

Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens, kale, kohlrabi, savoy and others are all technically the same plant. Through history, different cultures bred the plant to express different qualities, creating the varied cultivars we see today.

The name of 'bubble and squeak' comes from the sound made by leftover vegetables from a roast dinner when fried.

The belief that all raw vegetables are healthier is a misconception. A host of vegetables have nutritional content which only gets unlocked when cooked. Cooked asparagus, cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, peppers and spinach are healthier than their raw counterparts.

There is as much vitamins and nutrients in frozen vegetables as in fresh ones. This is due to the fact that they have been quickly frozen after picking to preserve their properties, unlike "fresh" ones that can stay for days in a storage or display.

Source scientificamerican.com

Tomato

The tomato is the edible, often red, berry of the nightshade Solanum lycopersicum. The many seeded fruit is used in salads and cooking.

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HISTORY

The wild tomato originated in the Andes mountains of Peru, but the Aztecs subsequently started cultivating them. 

The word tomato comes from the Aztec "tomatl", meaning "plump thing with a navel".

The Spanish explorers brought the tomato to Spain from Mexico, a Moor brought it to Tangiers. From there, an Italian brought it to Italy.

The earliest discussion of the tomato in European literature appeared in an herbal written in 1544 by Pietro Andrea Mattioli. An Italian physician and botanist, Mattioli suggested that a new type of eggplant had been brought to Italy that was blood red or golden color when mature and could be divided into segments and eaten like an eggplant—that is, cooked and seasoned with salt, black pepper, and oil. 

However it wasn't until ten years later that tomatoes were named in print by Mattioli as pomi d'oro, or "golden apple." The Italian for tomato is still "Pomodoro," which means "golden apple."

Sheet from the oldest tomato collection of Europe, 1542–1544. Naturalis Leiden.. By Naturalis Biodiversity Center  

The word "tomato" was first seen in English in The Naturall And Morall Historie Of The East and West Indies published by Edward Grimston in 1604, which also introduced the word chocolate. However, until the 18th century, the tomato was more often called the love-apple in English. That name derived from the fact that the tomato was once seen as an aphrodisiac.

In the 1500s the wealthy had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes and led to Europeans fearing eating the fruit.

Although there was some culinary use of tomatoes by the Italians, it was not widespread, as most Europeans were convinced that tomatoes were both a lethal poison and an aphrodisiac, rendering them a danger both to spiritual and physical health. Their acceptance by Europeans as food was very slow. It was not until the 1800s that tomatoes became widely eaten in Europe.

Tomato sauce is not Italian at all but Mexican. The first tomato sauces were already being sold in the markets of Tenochtitlan when Spaniards arrived, and had many of the same ingredients (tomatoes, bell peppers, chilies) that would later define Italian tomato pasta sauces a few hundred years later.

A remarkably progressive Virginia farmer as well as statesman, Thomas Jefferson grew tomatoes at his Monticello home, not to eat but as a curiosity. Not many colonists realized tomatoes were edible, indeed many Americans still feared tomatoes to be poisonous.

Tomatoes were put "on trial" on June 28, 1820 in Salem, New Jersey. In front of a courthouse, gentleman farmer Colonel Robert G Johnson ate a basket of tomatoes in order to demonstrate they weren't poisonous. The crowd waited for him to die. He didn't.

An expansive marketing campaign by a Pennsylvania tomato canning factory in 1848 included sending samples to the American President James K Polk and Queen Victoria. As a result of this campaign tomatoes began to gain acceptance in America and Britain. 

Although tomatoes are botanically a fruit, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1893 for the purpose of levying a tariff that a tomato is a vegetable, not a fruit, under the Tariff Act of 1883.

In 1939, Maine passed legislation to make it illegal to put tomatoes in clam chowder. 

A Tomato plant in Disney's Epcot Center broke a world record in 2016 for producing over 32,000 tomatoes

FUN TOMATO FACTS

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the world produced 170.8 millions of tonnes of tomatoes in 2014.

By far the biggest producer was China with 31 per cent of the world's total.

Tomatoes are members of the deadly nightshade family.

There are 10,000 types of tomatoes.

Tomatoes have more genes and stronger survival instincts than humans.

L Ron Hubbard, the founder of scientology,  believed that tomatoes feel pain and that - if it is quiet enough - you can hear them scream when they are sliced. 

Tomatoes are picked green and ripened by exposing them to Ethylene gas. This gas changes their color to red, but does not change their flavor, leaving them bland.

By Prosthetic Head - Own work, Wikipedia

US President Ronald Reagan disliked tomatoes and is said not to have eaten one for 70 years.

Tomato juice is the official state beverage of Ohio and the tomato is its state vegetable. 

When tomatoes are stored in a refrigerator (or in an environment under 54° F o 12° C) their flavor is impacted negatively.

The annual La Tomatina Festival in Buñol, Spain, in August attracts some 20,000 visitors who throw 125,000kg of ripe tomatoes at each other. 

Sources Daily Express, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

Sweet potato

Sweet potatoes have beautiful flowers and are in the same family as morning glories.

The white/orange swollen storage root is used as a source of starch and alcohol, and eaten as a vegetable.

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The young leaves and shoots of the sweet potato are sometimes eaten as greens.

The sweet potato differs from the Irish potato, which are underground stems known as tubers. It does not belong to the nightshade family, Solanaceae, but both families belong to the same taxonomic order, the Solanales.

HISTORY

Sweet potatoes are thought to have been first domesticated in Central America at least 5,000 years ago.

The first Europeans to taste sweet potatoes were members of Christopher Columbus' expedition in 1492. After that, many explorers had discovered a wide variety of local names for different cultivars for the sweet potato.

Sweet potato, Moche culture, 300 AD, Larco Museum Collection

The sweet potato was introduced to Okinawa, Japan in the early 1600s and became a staple in the country because they were important in preventing famine when rice harvests were poor. They were later planted in Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune's private garden.

Sweet potatoes have helped reveal that Polynesians may have traveled to the Americas in pre-columbian times. Sweet potatoes originated from the Americas were found in the Pacific islands when Captain James Cook discovered them.

The Maori word for sweet potato "kumala" is almost the same as the Quechuan (indigenous South American people)'s word "k'umara" for sweet potato.

In Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Venezuela, the sweet potato is called batata. In Chile, Central America, Mexico, Peru and the Philippines, the sweet potato is known as camote, which comes from the Nahuatl word camot.

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In New Zealand, the most common cultivar is the red sweet potato called kumara, which is very popular as a roasted food, often served with sour cream and sweet chili sauce.

In 2016, global production of sweet potatoes was 105 million tonnes, led by China with 67% of the world total.

FUN SWEET POTATO FACTS

Sweet potatoes are referred to as “dry-fleshed” or “moist-fleshed.” This refers to how they feel in your mouth, not the moisture present in the root.

Sweet potato cultivars with white or pale yellow flesh are less sweet and moist than those with red, pink or orange flesh.

Sweet potatoes with different skin colors. By Pdemchick - Own work

Moist-fleshed convert more of their starch to sugars during cooking, becoming softer and sweeter than the dry-fleshed types.

Although the soft, orange sweet potato is often called a "yam" in parts of North America, the sweet potato is botanically very distinct from a genuine yam (Dioscorea), which is an entirely different plant species, grown only in tropical climates.

Sweet potatoes are high in nutrients, especially vitamins A and C.

Unlike other potatoes, sweet potatoes like long, hot growing seasons.

Sweet potatoes are recognized as the state vegetable of North Carolina, where 1.2 billion pounds a year are produced.

National Cook A Sweet Potato Day is celebrated on February 22nd each year.

Source Msue

Spinach

Spinach is a green, leafy vegetable, which is native to southwestern and central Asia. It is thought to have originated in ancient Persia and was introduced to India and ancient China, where it was known as "Persian vegetable."

Spinacia oleracea flowering By Rasbak - Own work

Nutritionists have found spinach contains a high content of vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, and folate and is rich in iron.

Spinach was introduced into Europe from Eastern Asia by Arabs in the 12th century. The leafy vegetable proved to be popular in religious communities, particularly during Lent as it appeared in early spring, when other vegetables were scarce and Lenten dietary restrictions discouraged consumption of other foods.

In 1870, German chemist Erich von Wolf was researching the amount of iron in green vegetables. When writing up his findings in a new notebook, he misplaced a decimal point, making spinach appear to contain ten times more iron than other vegetables. This created the belief that spinach makes you strong. It wasn't until 1937 that Mr von Wolf's error was spotted and corrected.

The comic book and cartoon character Popeye has been portrayed since the early 1930s as having a strong affinity for spinach. The storyline started with a long-term romance between Olive Oyl and Popeye, which saw the latter overpowering his rivals with the help of the green vegetable, which gave him superhuman strength. As time went on, whenever he faced danger, Popeye would pop the can open and gulp the entire contents of it into his mouth, or sometimes suck in the spinach through his corncob pipe, The cartoonist Max Fleischer chose spinach as Popeye's strength-giving vegetable because of its nutritious properties.

The popularity of spinach increased rapidly because of Popeye's affinity with the vegetable. It is believed that the cartoon character is responsible for boosting consumption of spinach in the US by a third. His popularity also led to American children listing spinach as their third favorite food, after turkey and ice cream.

Spinach is used to make pasta green.

Americans eat an average of 3 lbs a spinach a year.

The world's largest can of spinach is on display in Alma, Arkansas, the 'Spinach Capital of the World'. It contains a million gallons of spinach.

Your teeth feel weird after eating spinach because it's full of oxalic acid and calcium, which form crystals that spit can't dissolve.

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Spinach can be engineered to detect explosives by putting sensors into the part of the leaf where photosynthesis happens.

Scientists were able to use a spinach leaf as scaffolding to build a mini working human heart.

Sources Food For Thought by Ed Pearce, Daily Mail

Seaweed

THE PLANT 

Seaweed is the general name for a vast collection of marine algae. Red algae, green algae and brown algae are commonly considered to be seaweed.

They grow from about high water mark to depths of 100 to 200 metres (300 to 600 ft).

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Seaweed gets its energy from photosynthesis just as plants do. However seaweeds aren't plants, but instead belong in the kingdom Protista. Seaweeds lack the vascular system and roots of a plant; they can absorb the water and nutrients they need directly from the ocean.

Seaweed can be an aggressive species: it invades areas of the ocean, chokes out other seaweeds and damages local ecosystems.

The fresh, salty smell of beach air is actually the smell of rotting seaweed.

The largest known seaweed, the Macrocystis pyrifera, or Giant Kelp, has been measured at 215 ft long and can grow at up to one and a half feet a day.

USES 

From the 1960s to 70s seaweeds have been farmed and the alginates extracted are used in chocolate milk, processed meat, ice cream, and animal feed, as well as toothpaste, soap, air freshener gel and the manufacture of odine and glass.

The colouring in blue Smarties comes from a seaweed called spirulina.

Seaweed baths are said to soften skin and fight cellulite.

Many types of seaweed have traditionally been gathered for food, such as purple laver, green laver and carragheen moss.

People living on the coast often eat seaweed, especially those in East Asia.

Laver and toast. Wikipedia Commons

Seaweed accounts for 10 per cent of the Japanese diet, with an average consumption of nearly 8lb per person.

Traditionally, Koreans eat seaweed soup on their birthdays. People believe the soup is also good for pregnant women.

It's illegal to sell seaweed in the UK without a license.

Adding a type of seaweed to the diet of cows reduces their methane production by nearly 60%.

Sources Hutchinson Encyclopedia, Daily Mail 

Salad

A salad is a serving in a meal that includes leaf vegetables and sliced small pieces of uncooked or cold cooked vegetables. A salad dressing or vinaigrette is then poured on top of the vegetables.
Some also add other foods to the salad, such as beans, croutons, cheese, egg, pasta, olives, cooked potatoes, rice, or tuna.

The Romans and ancient Greeks ate mixed greens with dressing. Pythagoras favored a cucumber salad with raisin-coriander vinaigrette.

Medieval European royal salad chefs often combined as many as 35 ingredients in one enormous salad bowl, including items such as rose petals, marigolds and violets.

Mary Queen of Scots ate a salad containing boiled celery root diced and tossed with lettuce, creamy mustard dressing, truffles, and hard-cooked egg slices.

One of the most noted salad makers of all time was Marquis of Albignac, a French nobleman who fled the French Revolution and went to live in London. Unlike contemporary émigrés who resign themselves to menial labor, Albignac took up the fine art of salad making. He became known as the Salad King, and outrageous sums of money were paid to the Frenchman to prepare the "sallets" for prominent dinners held in Governor Square.

In order to fulfill the constant demands of his elegant customers, the Marquis of Albignac hired a servant, "who followed him with a mahogany box, containing all the requisites for a good salad."

The English landscape artist Joseph Turner was discriminating when it came to salads. Presented with one at his table, he commented to his neighbor "nice cool green, that lettuce, isn't it? And the beetroot pretty red- not quite strong enough; and the mixture delicate tint of yellow, Add some mustard and then you have one of my pictures."

The French author Alexandre Dumas was also a gourmet. He often prepared his own salads seasoned with almond milk, a liqueur or champagne.

In early 1920s America, salad dishes were greens with a plain dressing of salt and vinegar and oil. Alex Cardini, an Italian Air Force pilot living in exile in Tijuana ran a small restaurant, Caesar's Sports Bar & Grill Family Restaurant next to an equally small hostel. One day in 1924, some hungry Italian Air Force friends arrived so Cardini, with the help of an old aunt of his who worked in the kitchen, used his leftover ingredients to create a salad. It contained Cos lettuce, coddled eggs, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, Worcester sauce, freshly grated Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. The salad was a success and with the addition of anchovies smoothed onto a paste it was put on the menu of not only Caesar's but many other restaurants. It became known as Caesar's Salad, after Cardini's restaurant.

Wallis Simpson, a visitor to Tijuana in the 1920s, reputedly brought the Caesar's Salad recipe to the UK.

Geoff Peters from Vancouver, BC, Canada - Wonderful Caesar salad,

Ranch dressing was invented by a plumber working in Alaska in the 1950s. He and his wife opened a Dude ranch called Hidden Valley Ranch in Santa Barbara County, California in 1954. Ranch style has been the best selling salad dressing  in America since 1992

The use of salad bar, referring to a buffet-style table or counter at a restaurant or food market on which salad components are provided for customers to assemble their own salad plates, first appeared in American English in 1976.

American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.

In 2014 a man set up a kickstarter to get ingredients to make his first ever potato salad and ended up receiving $53,000.

Research shows, diners who sit next to a window are 40% more likely to order a salad.

Most salads are served at room temperature or chilled, with a notable exceptions being the south German potato salad which is served warm.

A McDonald's Caesar Salad has more calories, fat and salt than a Double Big Mac burger.

Macedonia is famous for its rich Šopska salad, an appetizer and side dish which accompanies almost every meal,

Shopska salad By Biso

Brazilians use begonias as an ingredient in salads.

Sources Geri Walton, Food for Thought by Ed Pearce

Rhubarb

Rhubarb root has been used for medical purposes by the Chinese for thousands of years. In around 2,700 BC, the Chinese Png-tzao-kan-mu, ("The Classic Herbal"), the first ever treatise on pharmacology, mentioned the plant. It recorded rhubarb being cultivated for medicinal purposes, primarily for its internal cleansing qualities.

The ancient Greeks imported rhubarb from a barbarian area called Rha in Russia, where it grew in abundance around the Volga river. Because of its source, the Greeks called the plant "rha-barbaros".

In 6th century AD China, rhubarb was given to the Wu emperor of the Liang dynasty to cure his fever but he was warned that the plant being a most potent drug must be taken with great moderation.

Rhubarb was introduced to medieval Europe by Marco Polo, who brought it back from the court of the Chinese emperor Kublai Khan.

The culture of rhubarb for medicinal purposes in England began in the 1570s when the plant began to exported from China to Europe. Its usage rapidly spread due to the belief that eating rhubarb improves one's state of health, as it results in "pouring" excess humors from the body. William Shakespeare made mention of rhubarb in this very sense in his play Macbeth.

The first records of the rhubarb stalks being used not as a medicine but as a food in their own right first appeared in 17th century England. This usage was first recorded after affordable sugar became available to common people and the stalks were used in tarts and pies.

John Bartram was the first recorded American to cultivate rhubarb. He grew medicinal and culinary rhubarbs in Philadelphia from the 1730s, planting seeds sent him from London by the botanist Peter Collinson.

Rhubarb was not grown commercially in England until the 1770s when a doctor and pharmacist named William Hayward started a plantation at Banbury in Oxfordshire, using seeds sent from Russia in 1762.

During the first Opium War in 1839, the Chinese believed the interruption of Chinese rhubarb exports would incapacitate British soldiers because of constipation. Their ploy failed.

At Buffalo, New York, the US Customs Court ruled in 1947 that despite rhubarb being botanically a vegetable, it is in fact a fruit as that it how it is normally eaten.

Rhubarb thrives in the wet cold winters in Yorkshire, England. The Rhubarb Triangle is a 9-square-mile (23 km2) triangle in West Yorkshire famous for producing early forced rhubarb. From the first decade of the 20th century to 1939 the rhubarb industry expanded and at its peak covered an area of about 30 square miles (78 km2).

West Yorkshire once produced 90% of the world's winter forced rhubarb from the forcing sheds that were common across the fields there.

Rhubarb shed in the Rhubarb Triangle. Wikipedia

At the peak of British rhubarb production in the 1940s, special 'Rhubarb Express' trains would carry 200 tons of the stuff a day from where it was grown in Yorkshire to London's Covent Garden.

There is a method of growing rhubarb known as "forcing" where the plant grows in complete darkness and is tended to in candlelight. It grows so quickly during this process that you can hear it grow.

Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

Radish

RADISHES IN HISTORY

The ancient Egyptians are known to have cultivated radishes since 2700 BC at least.

When the Ancient Egyptians were building the pyramids, they paid the workers in radishes.

The Ancient Greeks revered radishes and made gold replicas of them to be offered to the god Apollo.

The ancient Roman writer Pliny described the radish as "a vulgar article of the diet...with a remarkable power of causing flatulence."

RADISHES IN LITERATURE

Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit enjoyed radishes. His favorite was a rather long variety called Long Scarlet.

In the novel Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O'Hara said: "As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again," after eating a radish.

FUN RADISH FACTS

Varieties of radish include Bunny Tail, French Breakfast, Plum Purple and Sicily Giant.

The weight of radishes sold in the UK in 2012 was more than the weight of the Eiffel Tower.

The Mexican town of Oaxaca has a festival called Noche de rabanos (Night of the radishes) on December 23rd every year. It features a number of radish-themed events including radish carving.The radish carving competition has been held in Oaxaca every year since 1897.

Dulces Tradicionales Oaxaqueños entry at the 2014 Night of the Radishes

The centrepiece of Noche de rabanos is an exhibition of radish carvings usually including a Nativity scene carved out of radishes.

Sources Daily Express, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

Pumpkin

 HISTORY

In the 16th and early 17th-centuries a pumpkin was called a 'pompon' or 'pompion'. The word 'pumpkin' was first used in 1647.

The name "pumpkin" originated from "pepon", the Greek word for "large melon."

Native Americans used pumpkin seeds for food and medicine.

When early settlers arrived in America, they discovered that Native Americans were growing and using pumpkins. They roasted strips of pumpkin over an open fire for food.

Pumpkins were once recommended for removing freckles and curing snake bites.

In early colonial times, pumpkins were used as an ingredient for the crust of pies, not the filling.

Halloween pumpkin carving stems from a Celtic tradition of turnip carving to ward off evil spirits. The "head" of turnips were used, with the belief that the head was the most powerful part of the body, containing the spirit and the knowledge. However, it wasn't until 1866 that the pumpkin became associated with Halloween - a tradition originating from North America, where pumpkins were readily available and much larger, making them easier to carve.

On the morning of October 8, 1997, Cornell students, faculty and staff strolling by McGraw Tower noted an unusual sight: a 60 pound pumpkin impaled on the spire 173 feet up. To this day, no one is really sure how this was accomplished without anyone noticing.

CULTIVATION

Illinois, California, Pennsylvania and New York are the four major pumpkin growing states, together producing 1.1 billion pounds of pumpkin in 2008.

A pumpkin patch in Winchester, Oregon

Morton, Illinois calls itself the 'Pumpkin Capital of the World' and holds an annual pumpkin festival in the second week of September.

Nestlé, operating under the brand name Libby's, produces 85% of the world's canned pumpkin at their plant in Morton, Illinois.

USAGE

In the United States and Canada, pumpkin is a popular Halloween and Thanksgiving staple. Pumpkin pie was among the dishes at the first Thanksgiving.

Commercially canned pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie fillings are usually made from different kinds of winter squash than the pumpkins frequently carved as jack-o'-lanterns for decoration around Halloween.

Pumpkin flowers are edible. In the southwestern United States and Mexico they are used to garnish dishes, and they may be dredged in a batter then fried in oil.

Pumpkin leaves are a popular vegetable in the Western and central regions of Kenya; they are called seveve, and are an ingredient of mukimo respectively, whereas the pumpkin itself is usually boiled or steamed.

Raw pumpkin can be fed to poultry, as a supplement to regular feed, during the winter to help maintain egg production, which usually drops off during the cold months.

Canned pumpkin is often recommended by veterinarians as a dietary supplement for cats and dogs and cats that are experiencing certain digestive ailments such as constipation, diarrhea, or hairballs. The high fiber content helps to aid proper digestion.

NUTRITION

Pumpkins are 90% water, which means they are a great low-calorie food.

Pumpkins contain potassium and Vitamin A.

Pumpkin seeds are a popular snack, which are a good source of protein, magnesium, copper and zinc.

RECORDS

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest pumpkin pie ever baked weighed 1,678 kg (3,699 lb). It was made by New Bremen Giant Pumpkin Growers (USA) at New Bremen Pumpkinfest in New Bremen, Ohio (about an hour north of Dayton) on September 25, 2010. The diameter of the pie was 6 m (20 ft). The crust was made of 440 sheets of dough and the filling ingredients were canned pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, salt, sugar, cinnamon and pumpkin spice. It was baked in a custom pie pan before before being served up into approximately 5,000 slices for hungry community members.

The farthest distance a pumpkin was fired is 5,545.43 ft using the Big 10 Inch air cannon in Utah, USA in 2010.

The world record for pumpkin pie eating is 20lb 13oz in eight minutes, set by Matt Stonie in 2014 at the Elk Grove Giant Pumpkin Festival.

The Guinness Book of World Records states that the fastest time to carve a face into a pumpkin is  16.47 seconds achieved by Stephen Clarke of the United States. Clarke accomplished the feat on New York City's PIX11 Morning News on October 31, 2013. The jack-o'-lantern is required to have a complete face, including eyes, nose, mouth and ears.

The world record for the heaviest pumpkin is 1,295.8 kg (2,856 lb 12.8 oz), grown by Ian Paton of Hampshire, England. Guinness World Records confirmed the record on October 3, 2026, at the Wargrave Nursery Giant Vegetable Weigh-off in Berkshire. The pumpkin, nicknamed Bagheera after the panther in The Jungle Book, broke Paton's previous record of 1,278.8 kg (2,819 lb 4 oz), set in 2025 with his twin brother, Stuart.

FUN FACTS

In Ukraine if a marriage proposal isn't accepted by the bride or her family, the would-be groom is given a pumpkin, so he doesn't leave empty-handed.

Source Muscatinejournal.com

Potato

HISTORY

The Andean Mountains of South America was the birthplace of the white potato. By around 2000BC The Aymara Indians had developed over two hundred varieties on the Titicaca Plateau at elevations above 10,000 feet.

The influence of potatoes permeated the Incan culture in medieval Peru. For instance, Incan units of time correlated to how long it takes for a potato to cook to various consistencies. Potatoes were even used to divine the truth and predict weather.

The Incas stored their potatoes and other food crops on the Andean mountain heights. The cold mountain temperature freezed the food and the water inside slowly vaporised under the low air pressure of the high altitudes. This was the first instance of freeze drying food.

The 16th century Spanish invaders in South America first came across the potato when entering a Colombian village from which the inhabitants had fled. They originally thought they were truffles.

The Spanish introduced the potato to Europe. They became a standard supply item on the Spanish ships as it was noticed that the sailors who ate potatoes did not suffer from scurvy.

Thomas Harriot was credited with bringing the first potato to Britain on July 28, 1586. The mathematician, astronomer and translator had just returned from Sir Walter Raleigh’s English colony on Roanoke Island in modern-day North Carolina, where he had made detailed studies of the wildlife.

Despite their use by Spanish sailors most Europeans were originally suspicious of them, in part because people realized that the potato is a member of the nightshade family, all of which are very poisonous.

For the next 200 years it was generally damned as an evil food in Europe. The Scots refused to eat the potato because it wasn't mentioned in the Bible and in other European countries they were blamed for starting outbreaks of leprosy and syphilis.

By the late 17th century the Irish had recognized the food value of potatoes and became the first country in Europe to plant them as a staple food crop rather than using it primarily as animal fodder. And in 1719 the first permanent potato patches in North America were established near Londonderry, New Hampshire.

In the mid 18th century the Prussian ruler, Frederick the Great ordered his people to plant and eat potatoes, as a deterrent to famine. The people's fear of poisoning forced him to enforce his orders by threatening to cut off the nose and ears of those who refused. Unsurprisingly, this was effective and with a decade potatoes became a basic part of the Prussian diet.

Frederick II also used reverse psychology on his peasants who refused to eat potatoes because they tasted horrible. To persuade them he sent his guards to guard fields of potatoes and the peasants started stealing them and growing their own.

Later in the 18th century a young French agriculturist and chemist, Antoine Augustin Parmentier, made it his mission to popularize the potato after his experience as prisoner of war in Prussia when the spud was part of his diet. He wrote books and pamphlets to dispel the beliefs of many that potatoes causes leprosy and fevers and even persuaded the queen, Marie Antoinette to wear potato flowers to ornament her dress.

Parmentier achieved his goals, and by the 1780s potato dishes were being created in great varieties and the humble spud had even become a delicacy enjoyed by the nobility. Meanwhile the French populace was coveting potatoes for themselves and by the end of the century most of Europe were eating them.

In the late 18th century, Belgian street vendors were selling thin fried potatoes called "Belgian fries" from pushcarts and soon the French adapted the idea and their version became known as "French Fries".

 In 1789 Thomas Jefferson brought back with him to America the joys of fried potatoes after sampling them in Paris. He described them as "potatoes, fried in the French manner" with beefsteak.

In the 1860s the popularity of fried potatoes in England increased as a result of the opening of fish and chip shops such as Joseph Malin's in London.

Ioannis Kapodistrias, an early 19th century governor of Greece, introduced potatoes to the country. Initially, he tried giving seed potatoes to skeptical farmers. When this failed, he piled them in public under guard, convincing people of their value. They stole the potatoes and planted them.

In early 19th century Ireland, potatoes were the mainstay of the diet of poor peasants. However between 1845-48 there was a crop crisis caused by potato blight and the ensuing famine was extreme.

A potato ruined by late blight

The famine devastated the crop and depopulated the island. Some 750,000 people died and over one million emigrated, most of them to the United States. As a result the Irish adopted a more cautious attitude toward dependence on potatoes.

During the 1898 Alaskan Klondike gold rush, potatoes were virtually as valuable as gold. Potatoes were so esteemed for their nutritious content that miners were trading gold for potatoes.

In Britain during the Second World War there was a Ministry of Food campaign which used the slogan, " potatoes are good for you." This proved so successful that a new campaign had to be started saying "potatoes are fattening."

In 1974, an Englishman named Eric Jenkins grew 370 pounds of potatoes from one plant.

In 1995 the potato became the first vegetable to be grown in space. NASA and the University of Wisconsin, Madison created the technology with the goal of feeding astronauts on long space voyages, and eventually, feeding future space colonies.

POTATO FUN FACTS

The English word potato comes from the Spanish patata.

The name spud is understood to come from a sharp implement of the same name used to create a hole in the soil before planting.

There are 5,000 varieties of potato worldwide, of which 3,000 are found only in the Andes where a single valley can contain 100 different types.

In Western Australia, it’s illegal to possess more than 50 kgs/110lbs  of potatoes. The reason is tied to the farmers’ monopoly and a desire to keep supply low, and prices and quality high.

The world's biggest potato weighed 18 pounds, 4 ounces, according to Guinness Book of World Records. Seventy-three medium fries at McDonald's could be sold with that big of a spud.

About 3 billion pounds of potatoes are used to make McDonald’s fries every year; this is about 8% of all potatoes grown in the United States or a half a percent of all potatoes grown in the world per year.

Ten per cent of Britain’s potato crop goes to fish and chip shops.

China grows 88.99 million metric tons of potatoes per year, accounting for 22% of the world’s potato supply.

The International Potato Center has successfully grown potatoes in a simulated Mars environment. They grew the plants in a CubeSat which mimicked the Martian air pressure and atmosphere, and used saline desert soils analogous to Martian soils as the growing medium.

Potato skins are packed with 60 phyto-chemicals, many of these are flavonoids which help lower bad cholesterol and keep arteries clear.

Potatoes have more potassium than bananas.

Potatoes should never be refrigerated. Not only does it ruin the flavor, it produces high levels of a carcinogen called acrylamide.

Norwegian jack-of-all trades call themselves "potato" because they go with everything.

Potatoes absorb and reflect radio wave signals much the same way as the human body does.

Source Food For Thought: Extraordinary Little Chronicles of the World by Ed Pearce