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Fact-based Kitchen Science
Shake oil and vinegar and they part within minutes, yet mayonnaise is about four fifths oil and stays smooth for weeks, because the egg yolk wraps every droplet in a thin coat.
Fact-based Word Journeys
Ketchup, the Spanish kétchup and the Russian ketchup all go back to a word from the coast of southern China that meant the juice of pickled fish, with no tomato anywhere in it.
Fact-based Kitchen Science
Fresh pineapple carries an enzyme that snips apart the proteins holding a jelly together, so the dessert stays liquid, while the same fruit behaves perfectly once it has been heated.
Fiction Made-Up Words
(n.) The grave, expert-looking knock given to a watermelon in a shop, followed by a slow wise nod, by somebody who has no idea what a good one is supposed to sound like.
Fact-based Kitchen Science
The purple water from a soaked red cabbage turns bright pink with vinegar and green with baking soda, because a single pigment changes shape depending on the liquid around it.
Fact-based How It Started
A father watching his daughter struggle with a straight straw at a soda counter reached for a screw and some dental floss, and the first customers for his idea were not children at all.
Fiction Useless Inventions
A handsome enamel tin with a tiny clipboard on its side, whose lid stays shut until you have written down your name, the time and the purpose of your visit.
Fact-based Kitchen Science
A bar forgotten at the back of a cupboard can come out dusty and grey, and the reason is that the same fat inside it can set in at least six different ways.
Fact-based Kitchen Science
A pale slice goes into the toaster and a golden, crunchy, nutty-smelling one comes out, thanks to a chemical reaction first spotted by a French scientist in 1912.
Fact-based How It Started
Long before plastic flying discs, people in Connecticut were said to be sailing empty pie tins from a Bridgeport bakery across the grass, and the bakery's name stuck.