Events of August 18

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

1850 Honore de Balzac died. French author. Balzac would lock himself away during creative bursts, drinking coffee and eating only fruit and eggs. When he finally took a break, he was known to consume huge quantities of food. One report recalls that at the Véry restaurant he consumed at one sitting ‘a hundred Ostend oysters, twelve cutlets of salt-meadow mutton, a duck with turnips, two partridges and a Normandy sole,’ not to mention the desserts, fruit and liqueurs he finished up with.

1953 Four cows in Stearns county Minnesota were picked up by a tornado and set down unharmed.

2004 It was reported that it rained fish at about 2:30 p.m. in Shropshire, western England.