• The origins of the word mayonnaise may be derived from mahonnaise, for the Spanish port of Mahon, where the French defeated the British in a 1756 naval battle. Others say it’s from the French verb manier, to mix or blend, or from the Old French moyeu (egg yolk). Regardless, it seems the French are always involved.

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• Rye is a hardy substance. It can grow in poor soils with less sun and at higher altitudes than wheat, and it can thrive through dampness and drought. The bread made from rye also lasts longer. And for some, it is a spiritual thing.

• George Washington had a much-loved recipe for rye whiskey that combined rye, corn and malted barley (in 1799 it was the most profitable part of his plantation). In 2011, his distillery was reopened briefly to produce 600 bottles of the famous mixture at a price of $95 each (and a limit to two per customer) for those who wanted a literal taste of history.

• Rye fields are also good for creating some amazingly creative crop circles.

• Speaking of the work of the devil, could rye have led to the Salem witch trials? Rye (as a cereal or as a bread) can be infected with ergot, a fungus which invades developing kernels under warm and damp conditions – known to have been the case in Salem at the time. “Convulsive ergotism causes violent fits, a crawling sensation on the skin, vomiting, choking, and–most interestingly–hallucinations.  The hallucinogenic drug LSD is a derivative of ergot.”

• Is rye a better alternative to wheat? In a study done in 2010 it was found that mice that ate wheat gained significantly more weight than mice on a rye diet. “A possible explanation would be that wheat prompts a higher insulin response than rye, which means that the cells in the body can store more fat. The fact that rye contains more soluble fibers than wheat also plays a role, since they probably prevent the uptake of fat and other nutritional substances in the intestine.”

• This may be my favorite Dietribe fact of all time: “Pumpernickel, ‘a coarse, dark, slightly sour bread made of unbolted rye’, is from German, as one might expect. The word was originally used in German as an insulting term for anyone considered disagreeable. Its elements are pumpern (to break wind) and Nickel (a goblin; devil; rascal), originally a nickname from Nicholas. Pumpernickel, in other words, literally means ‘farting bastard‘.”

• What exactly is the significance of the “pocket full of rye” in “Sing a Song of Sixpence“? Essentially just what you would expect: an ingredient for making bread, cake or pie crust. But the rest of the nursery rhyme’s meaning may not be what you remembered …

• As of 1985 (so we can assume that it has increased dramatically since then), 7500 copies of Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” checked out of the public libraries in Chicago had never been returned.

• A book billed as the sequel to “Catcher in the Rye” has been banned from release in the US.

• Are any of you partial to rye bread? Do you find pumpernickel indigestible? Can you really distinguish the difference between rye whiskey and bourbon? Do tell!

Hungry for more? Venture into the Dietribes archive.

‘Dietribes’ appears every other Wednesday. Food photos taken by Johanna Beyenbach. You might remember that name from our post about her colorful diet.

• A bean by any other name … would still be a bean. Green beans are also known as French Beans (if you’re British), string beans or snap beans.

• The Green beans we eat today are not, as many think, a native of North America but rather of Central and South America. Early varieties were especially stringy, with the fiber developing along the seam. Through the years, plant breeders have almost eliminated this trait making the beans, well, snappier!

• Before the 1880s, Green beans had to be cooked for an extremely long time to be considered edible. Then Calvin Keeney, “Father of the Stringless Bean,” developed snap beans for Burpee Company in 1889. But by the 1950s the beans had evolved again – the Blue Lake variety were (and are) “dark green, round, firm, straight, and stringless,” and a favorite ever since.

• Beans, beans they’re good for your heart, the more you eat them the more … Protein, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Copper you have! Green Beans are also low in Sodium, and very low in Saturated Fat and Cholesterol.

• Green beans can be grown on a bush (producing a low to the ground, very bountiful crop) or a pole (with less output but with what many consider a better, “nuttier” flavor).

• Other varieties include a purple snap bean! And, in China, you can get Green bean ice cream.

• Green bean casserole is still the most popular of all casseroles, having been invented for an Associated Press article in 1955. Of the hundreds of soup-based recipes created, the Green bean casserole remains king, and apparently is a dish that is rather hard to get wrong.

• The French idiom “C’est la fin des haricots” means “it’s the end of the green beans,” i.e. it’s hopeless.

• Unusually, researchers at the University of Murcia and the University of Complutense in Spain have determined that Green beans not only retain their antioxidant value after boiling, they actually increase their antioxidants after most cooking treatments.

• Finally, a food festival in my (relative) neck of the woods! The annual Green Bean Festival in Blairsville, Georgia includes a green bean pizza eating contest (this is something I could get behind).

• For a long time I was a known and vehement hater of Green beans until I learned you could roast them! But no one’s hatred of the Green bean matches my childhood friend Anna, who sat at the table refusing to eat them for a marathon amount of time, an incident known ever since as “The Green Bean Caper.”

• What about you, Flossers? How do you like (or loathe) your Green beans? Is Green bean casserole your favorite? Have you ever grown the beans yourself?

Hungry for more? Venture into the Dietribes archive.

‘Dietribes’ appears every other Wednesday. Food photos taken by Johanna Beyenbach. You might remember that name from our post about her colorful diet.

• The word “tuna” has not been around particularly long. It came into American lexicon from the Spanish-American derivation of the English “tunny,” itself derived from the Latin “Thunnus.”

• Atlantic bluefins, an endangered species of tuna (almost all members of the family Scombridae are referred to as “tuna” even though there are over 50 species) are warm-blooded, a rare trait among fish.

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• Vinegar is, essentially, fermented fruit, though it can be made from anything containing sugar. “Typical retail varieties of vinegar include white distilled, cider, wine (white and red), rice, balsamic, malt and sugar cane. Other, more specialized types include banana, pineapple, raspberry, flavored and seasoned (e.g., garlic, tarragon).”

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• Parsley’s popularity dates back to antiquity, where the herb was an integral part of life for both the Greeks and Romans. It was used in prized crowns for races, and given as a strengthening feed to Homeric chariot horses. 

• Though parsley was considered an “herb of life” at funerals, superstition dictated that it must never be transplanted or there would be a death in the family.

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• So what exactly is in a Bloody Mary? With its combination of vodka, tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, lime juice, celery salt, cayenne pepper (or Tabasco sauce) and black pepper, the drink contains hundreds of compounds and has been called “the world’s most complex cocktail.” A flavor wheel shows how the drink hits pretty much every note for the senses.

• Many successful Bloody Marys include “secret” ingredients including fresh seasonal vegetables, pickled brussels sprouts, turnips, green beans, radishes, caper berries, Kim Chi and up to twenty ingredients in a single mix (and don’t forget the bacon-flavored vodka!)

• One thing you don’t need? Celery. “What is the celery doing there? It adds nothing, flavour-wise, and you have to drink around it, like a nervous vicar, or it gets impaled in your nostril. Are you meant to lick the vodka and tomato juice off the celery? Or nibble it like a rabbit? Puh-lease. I have yet to meet anyone who orders a Bloody Mary and says: ‘…And make sure you add a stick of celery, Marcus old chap.’”

• A (disputed) history is that the drink was created in 1920s Paris, because it was popularized by Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, though the exact origins are unknown. What is known is that the recipe change of substituting Tabasco sauce for cayenne pepper occurred in the 1950s when Tabasco was exported to France for the first time.

• Despite what many of us would guess, the drink’s name has nothing to do with 16th Century Queen Mary I of England. According to a 2008 article, the beverage’s name “comes from a customer’s fond memory of a waitress named Mary who worked at a Chicago bar called the Bucket of Blood” (which seems a lot more spurious to me….)
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• It takes four maple trees that are at least 40 years old over six weeks to produce 35 to 40 gallons of maple sap, which equates to one gallon of maple syrup (which sells for about $50).

• So what makes sap rise? “The sap we call maple syrup is a special case involving stem pressure,” or the way that nutrients are distributed throughout the tree. “‘In daytime in late fall through spring, when the leaves are not out, cells in the stem start metabolizing. The process, which is not fully understood, produces carbon dioxide, which collects in the spaces between the cells. The pressure forces the sap out when a hole is made.”

• Don’t fake it! In 2011, a bill was introduced to make it a felony to sell fake maple syrup (meaning it is just pure cane sugar). Have you ever been fooled?

• Both the U.S. and Canada have strong ties to maple syrup: Vermont’s state quarter and two Canadian coins depict sugar maples or parts of them. And as most of you know, the maple leaf is the national symbol of Canada, appearing on currency, flags, and government logos (and the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team).

• But the real King of Maple Syrup is the Province of Quebec, which produces more maple syrup than all other U.S. states and Canadian provinces combined (in 1998 they made over 4.9 million gallons!)

• You can toast Quebec’s success with a Maple Syrup Liquor or have a delicious-looking maple syrup cocktail. (Has anyone tried these?)
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• Grapefruit, like all citrus fruit, is a Hesperidum: a large modified berry with a thick rind. If you see grapefruit growing on a tree, you will notice that they grow in clusters that resemble the shape of large yellow grapes, likely giving it its name. As for origins, most botanists agree that the grapefruit is a cross between a Pummelo and a sweet orange.

• In 1929, A. E. Henninger spotted something new – a limb of red grapefruit growing on a pink grapefruit tree. Before then, grapefruit in Texas and elsewhere were either white or pink inside. Five years later, his “Ruby Red” received the first U.S. patent awarded to a grapefruit.

• Grapefruit is harvested by hand and eaten by spoon. And somewhere in between, the waste from grapefruit packing plants has long been converted into molasses for cattle.

• Grapefruit peel is candied and is an important source of pectin for the preservation of other fruits. Naringin, extracted from the inner peel, is used as a bitter in “tonic” beverages, bitter chocolate, ice cream and ices. It may also cause the liver to break down fat while increasing insulin sensitivity, a process that naturally occurs during long periods of fasting, giving rise to the idea of a Grapefruit diet.
 
• Ladies, want to look younger? All you need is citrus. According to the Smell and Taste Institute of Chicago, banana, lavender and other odors made no difference when it comes to men’s perception of female age. But the smell of grapefruit caused men to believe that women were, on average, about six years younger than they are. However, the reverse is not true – women were not fooled by the scent on men.
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• Walnuts may have originated in Persia, but they were used and discussed at length by the Greeks and Romans (particularly by Pliny the Elder). Pliny recommended walnuts for all sorts of things, from breath fresheners to helping eliminate gas in the intestines. Walnuts were also used in wedding customs, scattered by the groom among young people while they sang “obscene songs.” Paintings of walnuts and their carbonized remains in the ash of Mt Vesuvius appear to point to their popularity in that region at the time.

• During a time when the “doctrine of signatures” was popular (the principle being that plants resembling organs and body parts could aid in healing those organs or body parts), the walnut was known to the Greeks as karyon, or “head” (you can guess why). The Romans, however, thought the nut looked more like testicles, and called walunts the “glands of Jupiter.” Eventually this lead to its scientific name, Juglans regia, literally, “royal nut of Jupiter.”

• When the plague hit England again in the mid-seventeenth century, walnuts (combined with other ingredients) were often recommended for those wishing to avoid “this pestilence.”

• What we do know for sure about the health benefits of this nut is that walnuts are loaded with antioxidants and may help fight breast cancer.
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