35 Culinary Facts You Need to Know

Shepherd's pie is made with minced lamb or mutton, while one with minced beef is properly called a cottage pie.

27. Mett (raw minced pork) is a popular dish in Germany, which is eaten for breakfast on bread rolls with chopped raw onions or alternatively shaped as a hedgehog, where sliced raw onions form the spikes.

28. The largest menu item in the world is the roasted camel, claimed to be a traditional Bedouin wedding dish. Like turducken; the steps are: “cook eggs and stuff into fish, cook the fish and stuff into cooked chickens, stuff the chickens into roasted sheep, stuff the sheep into a whole camel that is cooked to taste.”

29. When serving apple pie in Vermont, you must make a good faith effort to serve it with a glass of cold milk, a slice of cheddar cheese of at least 0.5 oz in weight, or a large scoop of vanilla ice cream.

30. Xylitol is a sugar alcohol rapidly growing in popularity for it's benefits to human health, is highly toxic to dogs and several other animals. A dose of only a teaspoon can be fatal to even large breed dogs.

In Singapore, there is a drink known as a "Michael Jackson", made from white soy milk and black jelly.

32. Worcestershire sauce is made by mixing 18-month old anchovies (fishes) cured in salt for several months, onions and garlic pickled in malt vinegar for two years, then aged further in salt, vinegar, tamarind concentrate, and other spices.

33. Soaking beans helps eliminate gas-producing compounds. This can alleviate bloating and flatulence, common side effects of consuming beans. Lentils lack sulfur so there is no need to soak them before cooking.

34. When any starchy food (Pasta) is cooked, cooled, and reheated, it reduces the rise in blood glucose by 50%.

35. The terms “Dash”, “Pinch” and “Smidgen” apparently are concrete measurements in recipes equating to 1/8 teaspoon, 1/16 teaspoon, and 1/32 teaspoon.