In 2015, a jar of Nutella was sold every 2.5 seconds around the world. Here’s the sweet, delicious history of the hazelnut and chocolate spread.
Without immigrants, the ice cream cone would not exist
- This summer, as your ice cream (likely vanilla if you’re like the rest of America) drips down the sides of your preferred cone, take a moment and thank the brilliant innovators who brought you this incredible edible creation more than a century ago.
- Peggy Armstrong, vice president of communications for the International Dairy Foods Association, explained in an interview that there are two distinct men of honor in the annals of American ice cream cone history. The first is an Italian immigrant named Italo Marchiony.
- “Marchiony came to America in the late 1800s,” Armstrong said. “He invented the ice cream cone in New York City and was granted the first patent in December of 1903. So he gets credit for the first.”
- His cone, Armstrong said, is more or less the flat cake cone served at ice cream shops today. However, there was another man, Syrian immigrant Ernest A. Hamwi, who accidentally introduced his waffle cone creation at around the same time. Read more (7/12/17)
The complete history of Donald Trump’s forgotten cameos in fast food commercials
- On Thursday, Trump found out that his love for McDonald’s might be unrequited.
- It was a scandal that lasted seconds: Without any prior warning, after its usual tweets about McDonald’s fries, the fast food giant’s corporate Twitter account tweeted — and deleted — a critique of Trump’s leadership and, well, hand size.
- Let’s use this moment to reflect on happier, lesser known times: Donald Trump’s long, long history with burgers, soda, pizza and other trans-fat-soaked goodness.
- Before Trump was president, before he hawked immigration bans and Paul Ryan’s healthcare dream, before he proposed a complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States, Donald Trump was something of a fast food celebrity. Read more. (3/18/17, 6:40 AM)
To save Jewish children from Nazis, this brilliant man hid passports in sandwiches with mayo
- Mayonnaise takes the spotlight in a new documentary about courage and survival during the Holocaust.
- Australian filmmaker and graphic novelist Philippe Mora recounts his father’s participation in the French Resistance in Monsieur Mayonnaise, NPR reported.
- His father Georges Mora was a German-Jewish member of the French Resistance who died in 1992. Philippe Mora knew his father had the nickname “Monsieur Mayonnaise” but it wasn’t until in 2009 that he learned about how his father fought Nazis with sandwiches, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
- Georges Mora escaped Germany after the “burning of the books” bonfire in Berlin in 1933.
- While living in France and working in the French Resistance, he noticed German soldiers would not search mayo-laced sandwiches for fear the drips got on their uniforms, the Sydney Morning Herald noted.
- Thus, the French Resistance began stuffing “resistance documents and passports” into baguette sandwiches that were smeared with mayonnaise, NPR noted.
- The documents were wrapped in protective wax paper, lest you were worried the oily condiment might sully the important documents.
- Mora suspected that The Gestapo — the secret police of Nazi Germany — wouldn’t thoroughly investigate the children’s food. And he was right.
- According to Variety, Mora helped Jewish children flee from Nazi-occupied France to Switzerland. Read more (3/10/17 1:12 PM)
Detained immigrants were served rancid meat in one of California’s wealthiest counties
- This week in disgustingly inhumane happenings across the country: A detention facility in Orange County, California, has been serving expired deli meat to hundreds of immigrants, the Los Angeles Times reported.
- An internal report published on Wednesday revealed the details of the horrific conditions. During a surprise inspection last October, inspectors found that immigrants were being served “slimy” lunch meat that they had to wash off before eating, the Times said.
- The report also revealed the detention center had moldy showers, another significant health risk.
- This all went down at the Theo Lacy Facility in Orange and the James A. Musick facility in Irvine. Read more (3/10/17 11:56 AM)
After the Oscars parties, hundreds of homeless people dined on gourmet leftovers
- The Oscars isn’t exactly the type of event where you’d think people care about wasting food.
- Yet after stars dined on short ribs, taro root tacos, gold-dusted truffle popcorn and more, the untouched leftovers were whisked away and redistributed to hungry Los Angeles residents.
- Thanks to actress Freida Pinto, no piece of lavish party food went to waste this year.
- The actress joined forces with Copia, a food recovery startup, to ensure the luxe leftovers from several of the Oscars weekend parties could be given to LA residents in need of food. Read more (3/2/17 11:26 AM)
Wait, why are neo-Nazis suddenly obsessed with milk?
- On Shia LaBeouf’s live stream Friday night, neo-Nazis and other trolls danced shirtless in front of a camera.
- Amid all the tattoos of Third Reich iconography bouncing around, one thing stood out: They were all drinking milk.
- Some white supremacists think white ethnic identity has a geographic, historical correlation with the body’s tolerance for milk — specifically, the production of the lactase enzyme humans use to break down lactose.
- On 4chan, one anonymous poster laid this thesis out using the above graphic from a study in Nature, showing hotspots of where certain populations have higher milk tolerances.
- The discussion thread also contained references to seemingly benign academic studies of “Lactose tolerance in a Slavic population,” conversations about whether modern industry has tainted the purity of milk, and several milk-based poems about white pride. Read more (2/10/17 2:57 PM)
You can donate to the ACLU this weekend simply by drinking coffee
- Sprudge, a coffee blog, has launched a #RefugeesWelcome #YesEqual campaign, using coffee to support the cause.
- From Friday, Feb. 3 through Sunday, Feb. 5, Sprudge has partnered with coffee shops across America to help raise funds for the ACLU.
- 278 brands, which operate 530 cafes across America, will be participating in the weekend fundraiser. Read more
Eating out could get even more expensive in 2017
- Time to break out the old cookbooks: Restaurants are likely to get more expensive in 2017.
- For one, a wave of state-level minimum-wage hikes across the country could make labor more expensive
- That could prompt restaurants to raise their prices by as much as 5% in 2017.
- That’s roughly double the typical inflation-driven annual hikes of 2-2.5%, he said.
- What’s more, there are pressures beyond minimum wage laws pushing U.S. restaurants to pay workers more:
- The number of eateries has grown since 2009, according to Thrillist, while the number of immigrant restaurant workers has fallen
- Those workers therefore have more bargaining power over pay. Read more