National Lemon Meringue Pie Day

Five Food Finds about Lemons

  • Lemon trees bloom and produce fruit year-round. Each tree can produce between 500 and 600 pounds of lemons in a year.
  • Add the juice of one lemon to an equal amount of hot water for an anti-bacterial gargle.
  • Food historians say lemons have been in cultivation around the Mediterranean from as early as the first century A.D.
  • High in vitamin C, lemons prevent scurvy, a disease that causes bleeding gums, loose teeth and aching joints. To this day, the British Navy requires ships to carry enough lemons so that every sailor can have one ounce of juice a day.
  • California and Arizona produce 95% of the entire U.S. lemon crop.

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

1794 Elias Fries was born. A Swedish botanist who developed the first system for classifying fungi.

1796 John Torrey was born. American botanist who did extensive studies of North American flora. He was the first professional botanist in the New World.

1835 C.H. Farnham was issued a patent for a hand cranked rotary washing machine.

1848 M. Waldo Hanchett patented a dental chair.

1911 Crisco is introduced by Procter & Gamble. Crisco is a hydrogenated shortening made from vegetable oil, which keeps its solid form even in warm weather.

1912 Julia Child was born. American cooking authority, cookbook author, TV Cooking show host, etc. During World War II, she also worked for the OSS from 1941-1945 (The OSS is the forerunner of the CIA).

1914 The Panama Canal was officially opened when a ship sailed from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

1928 Walter E. Diemer died. While working for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company, he experimented with recipes for chewing gum as a hobby. He invented bubble gum in 1928.

1943 Sgt. Edward Dzuba received the Legion of Merit award because of his talent to use food scraps in unusual and appetizing recipes.

1969 The 3 day Woodstock Music and Arts Fair began on a dairy farm in Upstate New York.

2009 In Detroit, Michigan, GourmetGiftBaskets.com set a new record for the world’s largest cupcake at 1,224 pounds.