Frankie and Slim

Frankie and Slim
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Sunday, April 18, 2021

SUNDAY (INTERESTING STUFF) SELECTIONS

DO YOU KNOW? 

I took these interesting facts from my QUIZ DAILY.

 Do you know the original purpose of a toaster was to preserve bread? Making toast began as far back as Roman times, when bread was toasted to prolong its shelf life. Before electric appliances, the toaster was often a special fork or wire rack held over a hot stone or fire. The word “toast” comes from the Latin word “tostum,” for scorching or burning.  

Josephine Cochran invented the dishwasher to avoid breaking china.  She was a socialite in the mid-1800s, with many occasions to break out the fancy china — “break” being the operative word, as she found her dishes easily broke with hand-washing. Previously invented dishwashers used hand-turned scrubbers, which also caused damage. To save herself the headache, she built a new kind of washing machine that used water pressure to treat the dishes more gently and got the job done even faster.

 An early version of the blender helped create the polio vaccine. Dr. Jonas Salk used the Waring Blendor — originally designed for milkshakes — to help him create the polio vaccine. He pureed the dead polio virus with a serum, which then got injected into a patient, effectively preventing the virus. The blender he used was made specifically for scientific usage when Fred Waring was asked to make a special sealed blender for labs.

 A Norwegian kitchen invention was based on a cheese slicer. Thor Bjorklund made furniture for a living. When he needed a way to get even slices of cheese, he looked to his toolbox. In 1925, after many tries, he invented a cheese slicer based on a carpenter’s plane, which created perfect slices and wasted less cheese. The design has barely changed since the original.

Why can’t metal be put in the microwave? Microwaves can pass through many different materials, including paper, plastic, and glass. Food heats when water molecules inside it absorb the microwaves. But microwaves bounce off metal, reflecting them all over the inside of the appliance. The electromagnetic activity creates an electric field, which can lead to popping noises or even a fire.

Italian noblewoman Catherine de Medici popularized the fork in England. Forks were once thought of as ridiculous and unnecessary utensils. When Catherine de Medici married King Henry II in 1533, she brought her forks with her from Italy, where they were already popular. Forks were not commonly used in America until the 1850s, when they began contributing to the uniquely American style of using utensils that Emily Post called the “zig-zag method.”

 

 

11 comments:

  1. Love these and the cheese slicer was my favorite.

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  2. Those were really interesting, we didn't know any of that!

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  3. Thank you. When I saw you title I thought you were joining the photographic Sunday Selections meme but I loved learning these facts.

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  4. I learned some new facts! Although I did find out the hard way not to put anything metal in a microwave.

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  5. These were quite interesting. But I am wondering what was used to pick up food before the fork? Goodness, seems they used stale bread. Probably not toasted:)

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  6. I did know about toast (the only advantage of taking a lot of Latin) and one of my relatives (my grandmother maybe) had one of the wire toast baskets.
    Other than that it was all new info to me, but does not surprise me that the dishwasher was invented by a woman!

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  7. Oh these are wonderful. The only one I knew was the blender. This is a fun post.

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  8. When forks began to be used in Italy, the clergy were horrified and incensed. How dare you say that the fingers G-d gave you aren't good enough for picking up your food and putting it in your mouth!

    Fascinating facts, thanks.

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  9. Interesting facts, particularly about the fork.

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  10. Fiction and fact from Annie's Almanac? Fun information!

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