Sunday, July 12, 2026Daily Trivia Questions are below TODAY’S FOOD QUOTE“You will never get out of pot or pan anything fundamentally better than what went into it. Cooking is not alchemy; there is no magic in the pot.”
Martha McCulloch-Williams (1913)
FOOD HOLIDAYS - TODAY IS:• National Pecan Pie Day
(Pecan Pie Recipes -- Pecan Trivia & Facts) • St. Veronica's Day, patron of laundresses. • [Spain: Fiesta de San Fermin] - Running of the Bulls, Pamplona, Spain (July 6-14, 2026) • National Salad Week (July 7-13, 2026)
(Salad Recipes) • UK: [Great British Pea Week] (July 6-12, 2026)
TODAY IN FOOD HISTORY1730 Josiah Wedgwood was born. English inventor, artist, world renowned pottery designer and manufacturer. His daughter, Susannah, was the mother of Charles Darwin. 1817 Henry David Thoreau was Born (died May 6, 1862). American author, philosopher, and naturalist. Author of 'Walden; or, Life in the Woods.' 1819 A plague of locusts devours every plant in the Red River district of Manitoba. (Locust Trivia) 1834 David Douglas died (born June 25, 1799). A Scottish botanist, he collected plants in Scotland, North America and Hawaii. The Douglas Fir is named for him. He was gored or crushed to death in Hawaii by a wild bull when he fell into an animal trap pit with the bull. 1859 William Goodale of Clinton, Massachusetts patented a paper bag manufacturing machine. At one time this was a very hot field of research.
(Paper Bag Trivia) 1861 or 1864 George Washington Carver was born (exact year is unknown). African American botanist, educator, agricultural chemist and innovator. He developed hundreds of uses for peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes. He established the George Washington Carver Research Foundation at Tuskegee, for agricultural research. 1873 It is reported that it rained frogs in Kansas City, Missouri. (Missouri Food Trivia) 1874 Canada: Ontario Agricultural College was founded (now the University of Guelph, Ontario). 1876 Acrobat Maria Spelterina walks across Niagara Falls backward on a tightrope, with peach baskets on her feet. 1896 The first public beach in the nation opens in Revere, Massachusetts. The newly-created Metropolitan Parks Commission had taken over the longest natural beach in the Boston area and built a broad boulevard, an elegant public bathhouse, shade pavilions, and a bandstand. 1920 President Woodrow Wilson 'officially' proclaimed the opening of the Panama Canal. The first ship actually passed through the canal on August 15, 1914, but clean-up operations and the start of WW I put off the originally scheduled grand celebration. 1927 The 'Green Giant' trademark was registered (canned peas). (Jolly Green Giant Bio) 1932 Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa, received a patent for the first whole loaf bread-slicing machine with multiple cutting bands.
(see also July 7, 1928). 1934 Ole Evinrude died (born April 19, 1877). He invented the first practical outboard motor in 1909. The idea came to him while rowing a boat to a picnic one day. He decided there must be an easier way to move a small boat on the water. 1948 Richard Simmons was born. Creator of the weight loss program, ‘Sweatin' to the Oldies’. 1962 In Pennsylvania, a garbage dump begins to burn underground, and the fire spreads to nearby coal mining tunnels. It was still burning in 1984. It is still burning. 1982 The last Checker taxi cab rolled off the assembly line in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** June 19-July 12, 2026 Alameda County Fair
Alameda County Fairgrounds, California July 13-14, 2026 Mango Festival
Coral Gables, Florida July 15-18, 2026 41st Annual Mattoon Bagelfest
Mattoon, Illinois July 15-18, 2026 Wabasha County Fair
Plainview, Minnesota July 16-18, 2026 - Annual Johnson County Peach Festival - Clarksville, Arkansas July 16-18, 2026 75th Pageland Watermelon Festival
Pageland, South Carolina July 16-19, 2026 Picklesburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (SEE ALL FOOD FESTIVALS and OTHER FOOD EVENTS)
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** FOOD TRIVIA QUIZ (new DAILY questions)1) All of the following events took place in the same year. What year is it?
· The movie 'A Chef’s Voyage' premiered.
· Pakistan struggles to contain the most devastating locust swarms in 25 years.
· A man in Vienna, Austria was fined 500 euros ($536) for standing on a park bench and loudly breaking wind during an encounter with police.
· Former CEO of Bumble Bee Foods was sentenced to a 40 month jail term and a $100,000 fine for his role in a canned tuna price fixing conspiracy.
· Waffle House and Oconee Brewing Co. of Georgia released Bacon & Kegs, a bacon infused red ale. 2) What did Native American Chef George Crum of the Moon Lake House in New York invent, and when? 3) The European and American species of these freshwater fish all return to the same area in the to spawn.
Name the fish and the area that they all return to spawn. 4) The fruit of this plant is harvested in the immature stage, 50 to 70 days after planting. As a crop, they rank 12th in cash value among all vegetables grown in the United States. In the United States, each person consumes more than four pounds of them each year. It is just as popular in northern and eastern European cookery as in Mediterranean countries. Stuffed ones are popular in Poland. Columbus brought the first ones to the New World, planting them in Haiti in 1494. There are reddish brown, green, long, egg shaped, smooth and rough skinned varieties.
Name this vegetable.
Click Here for Today’s Quiz Answers
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** Read an article about Chef James and the FoodReference.com website published in the Winona Daily News, Minneapolis StarTribune, and numerous other newspapers: Click here for the Article
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** Dedication
This website is dedicated to:
· Gladys Ehler, my mother, who taught me patience and how to make Sauerbraten (it is still my favorite)
· Edward Ehler, my father, who taught me a love of books and history.
· Barbara Saba, my sister, who taught me how to dance.
· Cpl. Thomas E. Saba, my nephew. Died in action on Feb. 7, 2007 in Iraq. He was 30 yrs. young. Chef James
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