"snopes" news and stories

Like the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919, the story of a Swiss freighter that almost exploded with cooked tapioca is safely behind us but still bears mentioning. In August 1972, the cargo of the Cassarate included timber and tapioca. The former caught fire and the hot water and steam created while dousing the blaze caused the 1,500 tons of Thai tapioca below deck to swell in the oven-like conditions. The Cassarate made an emergency stop in Wales, where the fires were finally extinguished. The hundreds of thousands of portions of tapioca, bound for Holland, never did wind up bursting the ship's hull. A recently updated Snopes page has excerpts from local newspapers that covered the incident.

For the next three years, Baby Ruth will be the official candy bar of Major League Baseball. In addition to having a logo proclaiming it as such on the packaging, the candy will also be featured in a number of in-game and TV promotions. The candy bar is nougat, coated in peanuts and dipped in chocolate. The fact that the name is almost identical to that of one of the greatest players of all time can only help endear it to fans.

Many people believe that the candy is named after the baseball player Babe Ruth, due to the similarity in the names. A Snopes article tends to support this theory, but the company that invented the bars, before they were sold to Nestle, says that they were named after President Grover Cleveland's daughter - who was named Ruth. Unfortunately this explanation has a few flaws, as Snopes points out. Not only were the bars introduced in 1921, but Ruth Cleveland died at the age of 12 in 1904, making her an odd choice to have a candy bar named after her.

 

 

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