david55

I have two as of late......

1. Why don't the raisins in Raisin Bran all settle to the bottom of the box?

2. How do waffle makers know when a waffle is done?

Other food related enigmas?

deniah

1. the large cereal flakes form a matrix support. if they were all crushed, the raisins would settle.
2. simple temp sensor. lights up when the iron is hot, turns off because the batter is cold, and lights up when batter reaches sufficient temperature.

JBord

For me, the enigmas are more about "how and why did someone decide to eat this, and how did such a foul-tasting item become a common food?"
Your first point's object, raisins, are a case in point. How about we just throw the grapes away when they go bad instead? Nasty little critters.
But also "spoiled" items like yogurt or sauerkraut. I love sauerkraut and most fermented foods. But I still wonder. It's not that I don't understand the history of the food or fermentation as a food preservation method, I just want to go back in time and meet the person who found a forgotten barrel of old cabbage sitting in their basement a year later and decided to go find a fork. And I'd want to see the other daredevil things they tasted before and after that discovery that didn't turn out so well.

heyaroot

That's what I'm always wondering about too. It's strange to think we wouldn't have some foods if it wasn't for the people who first tried eating them. I think it would be cool to go back in time and see those people inventing all the "strange" foods.

braslvr

Until recently, I thought everyone loved raisins. I mean, who doesn't like oatmeal-raisin cookies, or raisins in bread pudding or carrot cake?
However in the past 3-4 years I've heard at least 6 people say they despise them. Shocking I say.

Badenoch

My food mystery is kopi luwak, a coffee that is wildly expensive that has passed through the digestive system of a civet cat. How was it first discovered? Who was the unnamed person who first recovered coffee beans from cat turds and brewed them. What prompted him to do it? Did he share it with friends? "Ah Rahim, come try my new coffee but don't ask where it came from."

magXY

I made it a point to try "sataw" aka "stink beans" in Southern Thailand. Even the most hardcore local restaurants looked at me funny when I inquired about them
Pleasant while eating.... interesting, to say the least, in the after effects

cblaisd

Balut.

wrp96

For me it's the texture on raisins. Who thought this was pleasant to eat? And why ruin a good cookie with them?

JBord

Me. My wife. Anyone with functioning taste buds.

Perfect examples of my point. I was actually trying to remember the word "balut" and couldn't, but didn't feel like leaving a description just to have someone respond with the name!

jerseygirl

Answer to most of these food questions-starvation inspired

LapLap

More than 10 years ago, back when my teenager hadn’t yet learned to talk, my parents took her to London Zoo.

They had a buggy with them but the preferred method of transport was for LapChild to sit on Granddad’s shoulders and enjoy the world from up high.

At some point later in the day there arrived a mystery. A riddle that has never been resolved, a solution to which we can’t even guess at.

LapChild was discovered to be holding a piece of fried chicken in her little fist.

Wondering how it got there still keeps us up at night. How it got there we will never know. None of them ate fried chicken that day… except my daughter.

gaobest

Who thought of live drunken shrimp - had it in Shanghai in 1998

and Sardinian cazu marzu - maggot cheese on dry crackers. Who considered this to be good?

we love foie gras and how’d this come to fruition?

FindingFoodFluency

Get that rubbish outta my bread pudding!

Don't mind raisins in cookies, though.

FindingFoodFluency

Why are hot dog buns stuffed with noodles?
Why is a bowl of ramen with a bowl of rice a meal?
Who thought to turn sea cucumber reproductive organs into ?
If a kitchen has two ingredients I like, and separately puts them on two pizzas, how come I can't get them both on one pizza?
And who first discovered what "food" was?

(ya got me; the first three deal with my current temporary residence being Japan.)