"DidYouKnow" news and stories

Did you know that -

• three new interspecific hybrid grape varieties were launched this week - Noiret and Corot Noir, which are red, and Valvin Muscat, which is a white variety. [details] 
• Mackerel is a common North Atlantic and Mediterranean fish with brilliant 'metallic' green, blue and black colourings. This brazen display accounts for its name being used in the past to describe a dandy gentleman in England, and in French its name 'maquereau' also means a pimp. (from the BBC)
• that the Iberico pig (used for Spanish pata negra ham) puts away 11kg of acorns every day they are in season
• apparently eating a few rounds of Marmite and toast makes your skin emite an odour that acts as an effect mosquito repellant. (Don't actually think this one has been scientifically proved)
• the earlist recorded recipe for a cheese tart (for-runner of cheesecake) appeared in 1390 in the first English cookery book 'Forme of Cury'
• Cury being the Old English word for cooking, derived from the French cuire meaning to cook, boil or grill

Did you know -

• that olive oil tasters taste the oil when it is at a temperature of 28 degrees
• that the colour is not that important so they often use blue glasses
• a cloudy olive oil is not a guarentee of quality it just means the oil has not been filtered too much
• olives are picked while green in September/October or when black at full maturity from December to March
• there are five main varieties of French olive - La Picholine (rustic with a bitter taste), La Grossane (flavoursome), La Tanche, La Salonenque and L'Aglandau (very fruity)
• that there is an international olive oil council [website]
• two million metric tonnes of olive oil is used by the worlds population (I assume this is yearly) [from]
• the Olivastra olive, is one of the original wild varieties and unique to the Italian village of Seggiano. [details]