The Secret History of Food

by Matt Siegel

  * Chilies actually contain a number of chemical compounds for this purpose, called capsaicinoids, including dihydrocapsaicin, nordihydrocapsaicin, homocapsaicin, and homodihydrocapsaicin. However, capsaicin is by far the most abundant, making up roughly 70 percent of capsaicinoids.

  * Brillat-Savarin was ahead of his time here, too, proclaiming way back in 1825, “Anyone who has been born without a tongue, or whose tongue has been cut out, still has a moderately strong sense of taste. The first instance can often be found in literature; the second has been fairly well described to me by a poor devil whose tongue had been amputated by the Algerians, to punish him for having plotted with one of his fellow prisoners to break out and flee.”

  * Other methods used to repel elephants from crops include cutting off their tusks with power saws to improve the efficacy of electric fencing and covering fences with beehives to release swarms of agitated African honeybees when disturbed.

  * At least one recipe for shark deterrents was developed with the help of Julia Child, who, before introducing mainstream America to French cuisine, worked for the Office of Strategic Services (the World War II equivalent of the CIA), where she was tasked with cooking up coatings to prevent sharks from accidentally bumping into and setting off underwater explosives. This is also where she met her eventual husband, intelligence officer Paul Child, who, in 1948, was transferred to the US Information Agency in France, fatefully exposing Julia (and thereby much of the world) to the joys of French cooking.

  * One would think the presence of rampant germs alone would have been deterrent enough, but seasoning the token slots wasn’t effective either, as enterprising teenagers began bringing buckets of water with them to wash off the coin slots before sucking on them—then dumping the remaining water on transit employees.

  * Note that we’ve also taken them higher, as you can now buy so-called space peppers grown from experimental seeds that have been launched into space to test the effects of zero gravity and cosmic radiation on genetic plant mutation, which would make a great opening for a zombie-pepper film.

  * Other Aztec punishments involving pantry items included binding the hands and feet of naked children and stabbing them with the spines of agave leaves.

  * Sort of opposite of chilies and their induced cooling effect through sweat, fermented foods might also make it easier to survive in colder climates by reducing the metabolic energy needed to chew and metabolize food, thus conserving more energy for bodily heat production.

  * As Seneca wrote in the first century, “Quæ fuit durum pati meminisse dulce est” (“What was grievous to endure is sweet to remember”).

  * Your author can attest that these were still going on in the 1990s.

  * Many soldiers found Spam to be a better tool than food during World War II, using it, for example, to lubricate their guns or waterproof their boots, while others report having used its metal can as an emergency field patch for bullet holes in aircraft wings.

  * One wonders if savvier lawyers might have appealed the decision, citing Brillat-Savarin’s insistence that a dessert course “without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye” and presenting tomato dessert recipes from the era, such as tomato jellies and tomato tarts.

  * The consumption of corn, of course, surpasses all of these, officially accounting for roughly sixty pounds per capita annually if we count products such as corn syrup, cornstarch, and corn flour (and somewhere in the neighborhood of one thousand pounds per capita if we count foods such as meat and dairy products from corn-fed animals). However, when eaten purely as a vegetable (e.g., fresh, frozen, or from a can), it accounts for only about six pounds per person.

  * Unless you’re pregnant or breastfeeding, in which case you should follow the guidelines set by the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine), the National Research Council, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency, not included.

  * Others claim that its low smoke point makes it susceptible to degradation and oxidative instability under high heat, resulting in potentially toxic or carcinogenic by-products, though more recent research tends to negate this.

  * Note that Bourdain revised this guidance sixteen years later, explaining that although it’s probably still not a great idea to order the mussels special at “the local fake Irish pub,” on the whole, “Things have changed. Eat the damn fish.”