January 5th is National Whipped Cream Day!

John-Bryan Hopkins

Here are today’s five things to know about Whipped Cream:

Whipped cream existed since the 16th century.

It was included in recipes that date back to 1549 in Italy and 1604 in France.

Normal creams consist of 30 percent of milk fat but heavy cream on the other hand consist of 36 percent fat.

“Whipped topping” is an imitation of whipped cream.

Until the 19th century, recipes for whipped cream called for whipping the cream with a willow or rush branch.

Today’s Food History

1589 Catherine de Medici, wife of King Henry II of France died. She is sometimes called the ‘mother of French haute cuisine’ because the Italian chefs she brought with her from Florence had a strong influence on the development of French cuisine. One of the things they brought with them was ice cream.
1786 Thomas Nuttall was born. English naturalist and botanist. He also collected and studied plants in the United States, especially around the Chesapeake Bay area.
1794 Edmund Ruffin born. The father of soil chemistry in the U.S.
1889 According to the ‘Oxford English Dictionary’ the word ‘hamburger’ first appeared in print on this day in a Walla Walla, Washington newspaper.
1914 Aaron ‘Bunny’ Lapin was born. Lapin was the inventor of whipped cream in an aerosol can (Reddi-Wip) in 1947. It was first sold by milkmen in St. Louis in 1948.
1943 George Washington Carver died. African American agricultural scientist and innovator. He developed hundreds of uses for peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes. He founded the George Washington Carver Research Foundation at Tuskegee, for agricultural research.
2007 Momofuku Ando died in Osaka, Japan. Mr. Ando was the founder of Nissin Food Products, and invented ‘Instant Ramen’ noodles.
2009 A locally caught bluefin tuna weighing 282 1/2 pounds sold for $104,700 ($371 lb) at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market auction. Prized by sushi lovers, the normal price for bluefin tuna is about $25 – $50 per pound. A dramatic bluefin population decline, lower quotas and bad weather are affecting prices.