-The first official Thanksgiving celebration in North America was Canadian (take that, USA!). It was celebrated in Newfoundland in 1578. As noted on the Wikipedia entry, though, that is a bit of a Euro-centric fact, since Native American cultures had probably been celebrating informal harvest-time festivals for quite a while before Martin Frobisher showed up and put a name on them.
-Tryptophan, the chemical compound in turkey widely held to cause drowsiness, is probably getting a bad rap. While it is present in turkey, the concentration isn't much different than most other meats. The most likely culprit of the post-meal coma: stuffing your face with food until you can barely move. A little wine certainly doesn't help the alertness, either.
-At the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever", John Lennon repeats the same thing over and over, which some conspiracy theorists (who claim Paul McCartney died in 1966) interpret as "I buried Paul". The actual lyric is "Cranberry Sauce".
-Wikipedia's entry on cranberry sauce has the following to say about it's sauce status: "Despite being called a sauce, cranberry sauce is most often consumed as a food itself, not as a garnish for other food items (a fact which has confused generations of American children)." Apparently, American children confuse easily.
-The terms "sweet potato" and "yam" are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. Yams are way bigger (up to 2.5 metres long!), and not as sweet.
-Cornucopias are incredibly impractical-looking baskets. That's not really trivia, just an observation.
Figure 1: This basket is supposed to carry what, exactly?
1 comment:
Very small yams probably.
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