National Oyster Day

The Five Facts you should know about Oysters:

• The average 3 inch oyster filters about 50 gallons of water a day.
• Americans eat more oysters than any other country in the world.
• Most oysters varieties in North America are actually native to Eastern Europe or Asia. Brought here by ships over the centuries
• The world’s only oyster museum is on Chincoteague Island, Virginia.
• For centuries, oysters are one of the best known aphrodisiac foods in the culinary world

Today’s Food History

• 1850 Henry-Rene-Albert-Guy de Maupassant was born. Among the subjects of his short stories are many about the fashionable life of Paris.
• 1858 Alexis Benoit Soyer died. French chef and author. Chef of the London Reform Club. He opened kitchens in Ireland during the famine to sell food at 1/2 price and was an advisor on food to the British army during the Crimean War. Invented several stoves and kitchen utensils. Wrote ‘The Pantropheon; or, History of Food’ (1853), ‘A Shilling Cookery Book for the People’ (1854), ‘Soyer’s Charitable Cookery’ (1847).
• 1909 The first corporation tax was passed by the U.S. Congress.
• 1914 The first electric traffic lights were installed in Cleveland, Ohio at Euclid Ave and East 105th Street.
• 1955 Carmen Miranda died. Brazilian singer and actress.  Miranda appeared in many Hollywood movies, and was known as “the Brazilian bombshell” and also “the lady in the tutti-frutti hat.”
• 1962 Marilyn Monroe died. American actress, primarily remembered as being crowned Artichoke Queen of 1947 in Castroville, California.
• 2008 IBM is granted a patent for storing a customers preference for ‘paper or plastic bags’ on the stores customer loyalty card. Does this really deserve a patent?! Our patent system is definitely out of control.