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September 30th is National Mulled Cider Day!

palm beach personal chef

Five Food Finds about Cider

  1. The cider industry uses 45% of all apples grown in the UK.
  2. The UK cider industry grew nearly 200,000 tonnes of cider apples in 2010; Bulmers alone has 10,000 acres of cider apple orchards under its control.
  3. There are more than 300 varieties of cider apple grown in the UK – all with the sole purpose of making cider.
  4. Varieties include Foxwhelp, Brown Snout, Ball’s Bittersweet, Kingston Black, Merrylegs and Slack-ma-Girdle.
  5. Cider apples are different from dessert apples in that they contain tannin, which is also found in coffee and red wine. It gives the cider a full-bodied flavour and drying of the mouth (astringency).

Today’s Food History

on this day in…
1861 William Wrigley, Jr. was born. William Wrigley Jr. started out as a traveling salesman at the age of 13, selling soap for his father’s company. He had a series of sales jobs, one which gave chewing gum as a premium. Customers liked the gum better than the product, so he was soon marketing his own gum, Juicy Fruit in 1893, and later that year Wrigley’s Spearmint. He was an advertising genius, and his company became one of the largest advertisers in the U.S., and the largest chewing gum manufacturer in the world.
1958 The Frisbee was patented. The pie tins of the Frisbee Pie Company of Connecticut were the inspiration for the creation of the Frisbee. A Wham-O employee supposedly saw drivers for the pie company showing Yale students how to throw the pie tins.
1960 The last episode of ‘The Howdy Doody Show’ airs on NBC.
1962 The United Farm Workers union is founded by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.
1982 The TV show ‘Cheers’ debuted.
2004 California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a bill that bans the production and sale of foie gras beginning in 2012.


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