Disputed origins, laboratory accidents turned into recipes, ingredients whose names lie: the history of what we eat.
Margaux Hemingway bears a first name directly inspired by a Bordeaux grand cru. Her parents indeed consumed Château Margaux at the time of her conception, a wine particularly appreciated by her grandfather Ernest Hemingway. She herself modified the initial spelling of her civil status, which was written Margot, to match it with the name of the estate.
Vinho verde is a Portuguese wine protected by an appellation of origin and produced in the northwest of the country. Its vines were long cultivated at height to exploit the least available space. This very particular method led the writer Louis Orizet to note in the 1970s that a ladder was sometimes needed to harvest.
The term macreuse refers in butchery to pieces of lean meat. This name comes from an analogy established with the poor flesh of the duck. Butchers use this word to qualify specific pieces resulting from bovine cutting.
Mare milk is an animal product similar to human breast milk. It possesses high levels of lactose as well as low levels of lipids and nitrogen. The INRA and pediatricians thus recommended it in the 1990s to replace breast milk, although more recent publications advise against animal milks for infants.
Vanilla is a spice derived from certain tropical orchids placed under cultivation. It is the only orchid cultivated for food purposes alongside a few varieties of Orchis whose root is used to make salep. This cultivation requirement explains why vanilla ranks among the most expensive agricultural products in the world relative to its weight.
In Mongolia, the collection of mare's milk for human consumption only begins in June, once the foal is weaned. This practice meets an ethical need, because the presence of the young is essential to trigger lactation and depriving it of this food would harm its health. This event marks the start of production and gives rise to the traditional celebration of the güü tavix festival.
Mare's milk has been used in Central Asian regions and Mongolia for centuries before the XIIth century. Local populations ferment it, thus creating kumiz or ajrag, which allows it to be increased significantly to preserve it until winter. In Europe, its consumption remains on the other hand a recent phenomenon that developed from the 2000s with the craze for organic food.
Mare milk possesses a lipid content twice as low as that of cow milk and human breast milk. This peculiarity comes from the fact that the mare is not a ruminant and absorbs its dietary lipids without modification in the small intestine. Consequently, one liter of this milk provides less than 600 Kcal, unlike ewe milk which reaches 1100 Kcal.
Fourteenth-century Muslim graves, discovered at the Javanese site of Trowulan, feature the Majapahit Sun. This symbol is nevertheless the emblem of the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit kingdom. This singularity suggests that high-ranking figures, and probably members of the royal family, had converted to Islam.
In 1884, the French governor Charles Thomson forced King Norodom of Cambodia to sign a treaty of reinforced guardianship. Dissatisfied with the functioning of the protectorate, the governor went directly to the royal palace of Phnom Penh escorted by armed troops and a gunboat. Cornered to save his throne, the monarch gave in and agreed to entrust the control of customs duties to France.
The green iguana is a reptile highly prized as a pet and for its meat in Latin America. This popularity leads to massive captures, targeting in particular gravid females in Guatemala and Honduras. The state of Oaxaca in Mexico thus retains only 5 percent of its original population.
The green iguana (Iguana iguana) is a large arboreal reptile highly sought after for its meat and its eggs. Its meat is particularly appreciated in Central America, South America, and the West Indies despite the ban on its hunting. To recover its eggs, gravid females are directly cut open alive in order to extract them from their belly.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is the famous Indian political and spiritual activist. He completely abandoned the consumption of dairy products out of compassion for cows, after being haunted by the barbaric methods of the Calcutta govâls to milk their animals. He thus became a vegan, going so far as to state in his writings that milk could not constitute human food.
The Lithuanian Tatars of the Imperial Guard originally wore a green coat and a scarlet vest. In 1813, this outfit was modified and the green coat became entirely scarlet while the red vest was replaced by yellow. The trousers also underwent a major change by switching from green to the color indigo.
The Radhanites were Jewish merchants of the early Middle Ages who dominated trade between the Christian world and the Muslim world. Among their luxury goods were many Slavic slaves captured by the Khazars. These prisoners were frequently castrated by the merchants themselves before being sold as far as Baghdad and the Maghreb.
The Christian tattoo of the Copts has been practiced since the 7th or 8th century. This habit comes from a monastic tradition or an obligation imposed by Muslim Arabs on non-converts. Nowadays, these marks on the skin allow not only to display one's faith, but also to identify oneself easily at the entrance of churches.
The Natufian is an archaeological culture of the Epipaleolithic period extending between 12550 and 9550 BC in the Near East. It is characterized by the sedentarization of hunter-gatherer populations and the creation of their first villages, even though agriculture does not yet exist. Its name comes from the Wadi en-Natuf valley, where the British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod identified the first remains in 1928.
The sei whale derives its various names from its feeding habits and its taxonomic history. English and French-speaking countries sometimes refer to it as Rudolphi's rorqual in tribute to Karl Asmund Rudolphi, who took up the description by René-Primevère Lesson in 1828. The Japanese for their part call it the sardine whale or iwashi kujira, because of its diet observed in the Pacific.
The galette-saucisse is a Breton specialty whose accompaniment is the subject of lively debates. The association for the preservation of the Breton galette-saucisse indeed recommends adding nothing, tolerating at most mustard and pepper while ketchup and mayonnaise are very poorly regarded by purists. Historically, the dish was however consumed with yellow onions from the beginning of the 19th century, or sometimes garnished with cheese or slices of bacon.
Ramaria botrytis is an edible mushroom whose young specimens have a slight fruity taste. It contains several chemical compounds with biological activity in vitro and shows antimicrobial action. This effectiveness is exerted against several species and strains of drug-resistant pathogenic bacteria.
O'Bajan is an Arabian thoroughbred horse that arrived at the Bábolna stud farm in 1885. He served as a breeding stallion for a period of 25 years and contributed significantly to improving the local modern breed. Many specialists of the time praised him, before he passed away at the venerable age of 30.
Guyana is experiencing lightning growth in its gross domestic product driven by the development of its oil industry. This situation allowed the GDP per capita to reach 20,540 dollars in 2023 according to the IMF, with forecasts at 37,000 dollars for 2028. Despite this influx of wealth, social indicators remain alarming since malnutrition among children under 5 years old has paradoxically increased.
The blackmouth catshark is a small shark that sometimes hunts its prey in groups. Examination of the stomach contents of certain individuals revealed the presence of animals impossible to capture alone. This collective strategy allows this generalist predator to attack prey of an unusual size for a single shark.
The galette-saucisse is a Breton culinary specialty composed of a buckwheat pancake and a pork sausage. The pancake traditionally remains cold or lukewarm in order to insulate the fingers from the heat of the meat. For appetizers, there are miniature versions called chipottouses, held together by wooden sticks.
Ramaria botrytis is an edible mushroom whose light taste is reminiscent of sauerkraut, green peanuts, or pea pods. It is sold in markets in Japan under the name Hōki-take and harvested in the wild in various countries. Its consumption requires caution, however, due to possible laxative effects and its ability to bioaccumulate arsenic.
The Wallace's rail is a bird whose call resembles a low, dull drum roll. This sound is accompanied by a tuk, tuk, tuk produced by the flapping of its wings. This acoustic peculiarity has given rise to a local legend according to which the animal taps directly on wood with its feet.
The Emerald Tablet is a short and enigmatic alchemical text attributed by legend to Hermes Trismegistus. It contains famous allegorical formulas such as the one stating that what is below is like what is above. The oldest known version of this text appears in an Arabic treatise written no later than the beginning of the 9th century.