National Chocolate Pecan Pie Day

Five Food Finds about Pecans

  • If the body does not get enough zinc, it may have difficulty producing testosterone – a key hormone in initiating sexual desire in both men and women.  Pecans provide nearly 10 percent of the recommended Daily Value for zinc.
  • It would take 11,624 pecans, stacked end to end, to reach the top of the Empire State Building in New York City.
  • Texas adopted the pecan tree as its state tree in 1919.  In fact, Texas Governor James Hogg liked pecan trees so much that he asked if a pecan tree could be planted at his gravesite when he died.
  • Albany, Georgia, which boasts more than 600,000 pecan trees, is the pecan capital of the U.S.  Albany hosts the annual National Pecan Festival, which includes a race, parade, pecan-cooking contest, the crowning of the National Pecan Queen and many other activities.
  • Pecan trees usually range in height from 70 to 100 feet, but some trees grow as tall as 150 feet or higher.  Native pecan trees – those over 150 years old – have trunks more than three feet in diameter.

 

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

1913 Stainless steel was cast for the first time in Sheffield, England. Harry Brearly of Thomas Firth & Sons discovered how to make ‘the steel that doesn’t rust’ by accident.

1948 Robert Plant of the music group ‘Led Zeppelin’ was born.

1955 ‘The Popcorn Song’ by Cliffie Stone hit number 14 on the charts.

1968 The largest sea bass caught with a fishing rod weighed over 563 pounds. It was caught off the coast of California.