Tuesday Trivia

Halloween is just around the corner, so here is a little bit of trivia about the holiday.


HALLOWEEN

Great supplies of licorice were found in King Tut's tomb. Licorice, famed for its medicinal qualities as well as its taste, was a favorite of the pharaoh.

It used to take 27 hours to make Marshmallow Peeps! Before the process was mechanized in the 1950s, the Peeps were hand-squeezed out of a pastry tube, then allowed to dry before being hand-painted.

Chocolate was introduced to Europe in the sixteenth century when the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes brought home the delectable dessert after conquering the Aztecs. Chocolate was said to be the favorite drink of the Aztec emperor Montezuma II.

In the early 1800s spruce sap became the first popular chewing gum. Modern gum has its origins in chicle, the sap of the tropical sapodilla tree, first used in gum in the 1860s.

The Pez dispenser was intended to resemble a cigarette lighter. Invented in Austria in 1927, Pez was originally a candy marketed at adults who were trying to stop smoking. The plastic heads were a later addition.

Schrafft's candy in Boston urged families to send jelly beans to their loved ones in the Union Army during the Civil War. The colorful candies would provide quick energy and resist melting.

An average pumpkin weighs 10-20 pounds, though some varieties can weigh 600-800 pounds.

One of the first published recipes for pumpkin pie was in Amelia Simmons’ 1796 cookbook, American Cookery. This the first cookbook to be written by an American and published in the United States.

Pumpkin halves were supposedly used as guides for haircuts in colonial New Haven, Connecticut, giving rise to the nickname pumpkinhead.

Pumpkin takes its name from the medieval French word 'pompom', meaning 'cooked by the sun.' (Ultimately, probably from the Greek 'pepon.')

At one time, pumpkins were used as a home remedy to heal snake bites and to remove freckles.

In Ireland, the original Jack O' Lanterns were made of hollowed-out turnips, a plentiful fruit readily obtainable throughout the British Isles. However, upon reaching America, the settlers found a plethora of already hollowed-out pumpkins, ready to use.