National Grape Popsicle Day

Five Food Finds about Grape Popsicles

• Popsicles were originally marketed as “a frozen drink on a stick”.

• Popsicles originally came in seven flavors thought to be root beer, cherry, lemon, orange, banana, grape, and watermelon, but there is no official record of Epperson’s original flavors.

• The most popular Popsicle flavor is Cherry.

• More than two billion Popsicles are sold each year.

• The dual Popsicle featuring two sticks and one Popsicle that could be split in half was introduced during the Great Depression as a way to split the treat across two children for the same cost.

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

1901 Conrad Arnold Elvehjem Born. American biochemist who identified nicotinic acid as a vitamin (one of the B vitamins), and that a deficiency on nicotinic acid resulted in the disease pellagra.

1907 Rachel Louise Carson was born; author of ‘Silent Spring.’ An American biologist, the book was concerned with the dangers of environmental pollution, especially DDT

1930 Richard G. Drew of St. Paul, Minnesota patented transparent cellophane adhesive tape. He worked out a deal with 3M to market this ‘Scotch’ tape. What did we ever do without it?

1933 The first automatic soda fountain dispenser is introduced by Coca-Cola.

1975 British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver was born. Known as the ‘Naked Chef,’ on his BBC TV cooking shows (the name refers to simplicity, not nudity). He has had several TV shows, ‘The Naked Chef,’ ‘Return of the Naked Chef,’ ‘Happy Days with the Naked Chef,’ ‘Jamie’s Kitchen,’ ‘Return to Jamie’s Kitchen,’ and ‘Oliver’s Twist.’ He has also written several cookbooks.