Makes you wonder why they call them hot dogs

While eating lunch today I got to wondering where the name cottage cheese came from, and was left no choice but to ask the interweb for information. It seems that it is called cottage cheese either because the people who used to eat it lived in cottages (boring) or because the term cottage was sometimes used to refer to things that were only half-finished, and became the common way to refer to this half-finished cheese food (more interesting but a little suspect).

Don't worry - I didn't stop there. I was now on a brief but intense mission to seek out the curious origin of oddly named foods.

You might be curious to learn that naval oranges were named as such not because in the old days the navy always bought so many to help sailors prevent scurvy*, but because they appear to have a belly button on one end. This clearly leaves me no choice but to refer to them exclusively as belly button oranges from now on.

I thought that the story behind the grapefruit's name might be a good one. It's not: the not terribly creative botanist who named them was inspired by the fact that they grow in clumps like grapes. Though looking at an actual grapefruit tree, I think perhaps he was more creative than I have given him credit for.

Finally, the word on the street is that "deviled" items are foods that are prepared with mustard and that are spicy, but I thought a little fact-checking was in order. It seems that deviled eggs and other deviled food items are actually made through a flavoring process that holds the oldest US food patent and the actual recipe remains a secret to this day. I guess all this time I've thought I was making deviled eggs, I've actually been making something else. I shall now refer to them as Monster Eyeballs.


*Definitely one of my favorite words.