I began my career in food journalism by accident. Before that, I attained B.Ed. in French and English as a Second language. I taught New Canadians for several years and I was a social worker. In the late 1970s, my journalist friend assigned me a few restaurant reviews for Toronto Life. Next, I heard that the Toronto Sun was searching for a food editor – I spent the role from 1983 to 1989. In that year, a Life Editor for The Toronto Star reached out to me – I accepted the offer. I found my calling and my consuming passion – writing about chefs, home cooks and recipes. My role as a food editor/columnist at the Star lasted 18 years. I resigned in 2007 as a freelance Food Sleuth® creating podcasts and blogs on social media. This is a feature, illustrated by the above photo of me, from the Toronto Sun appeared in 1989.

By MARION KANE
Food Editor

Are carrots really good for your eyes?

Who invented the Caesar salad?

What does julienne mean?

Answers to these and other burning questions need no longer be food for thought. Read on and digest the following. This is an abridged version. Let’s start with those carrots:

• Carrots are extremely high in vitamin A, which is essential to development of the eye. A deficiency of this vitamin can cause blindness in young children and night blindness in adults. However, don’t go overboard with carrots — too much carotene (the vitamin A in carrots) can cause carotenemia, which causes skin to turn yellow. Too many vitamin A pills can cause even more severe toxicity.
• In the mid-1800s, Sylvester Graham — one of North America’s first health nuts-advocated sleeping on hard mattresses, drinking soft drinks and engaging in sex only in moderation. He also contended that eating baked goods made with unsifted wholewheat flour was “soothing to the bowels”. This flour became known as “graham flour” as did bread crackers made from it. Later, molasses, honey and other flavorings were added to graham crackers to make them tastier.
• Caesar Cardini was an Italian immigrant who opened several restaurants in Tijuana, Mexico, in the early 1900s. In the mid-1920s, he created a main. course salad of romaine, garlic, olive oil, croutons, Parmesan and Worcestershire sauce. The dish became popular with Hollywood movie types visiting Tijuana and it soon appeared on menus at L.A. restaurants, Chasen’s and Romanoff’s. Cardini argued against the inclusion of anchovies, insisting the salad be subtly flavored, and decreed that only Italian olive oil and imported Parmesan be used. In 1948, he patented the dressing, which is still packaged and sold as ‘Cardini’s Original Caesar dressing mix’, distributed by Caesar Cardini Foods, Culver City, California. Cardini died in 1956 and his daughter, Rosa, carried on the business.

Who First Dished it Up?

• Contrary to some assertions, pizza comes from Italy, not America. Pizza couldn’t have existed before the 16th century when the tomato was brought to Italy from South America. The first simple pizza was created when the poor people of Naples added tomato to yeast dough and, by the 17th century, visitors would frequent the poor section to sample this peasant dish made by men called pizzaioli. Not until the 19th century was cheese added when, legend has it, Neapolitan pizzaioli Raffaele Esposito made a buffalo milk mozzarella pizza in 1899 to honor the visit to Naples of Queen Margherita, consort of King Umberto 1. Pizza evolved into a round pie when immigrants from Naples settled the U.S. eastern seaboard, especially New York City, where it is thought Gennaro Lombardi’s, which opened in 1905, was the first pizzeria.
• There’s much debate about the origin of pasta, which dates back to the beginning of recorded history. One popular theory is that the 15th century explorer Marco Polo introduced it to Italy from China. In fact, records exist of Italians eating pasta long before then. A bas-relief on a 4th century B.C. tomb north of Rome depicts the Etruscans making pasta. Noodles have also been an important part of the Chinese diet since the Han Dynasty (about 200 B.C.). Thomas Jefferson gets the credit for introducing the stuff to North America in the late 1700s along with other goodies like rice, figs, dates, almonds and ice cream.

What’s in a Name?

• The word tomato first appears in print about. 1604 when it was also referred to as a “love apple”. The eggplant, on the other hand, named thus because of its shape, was referred to in the U.S. Encyclopedia of Practical Cookery published in the late 1800s, as a “mad apple”.
• Wild rice is not rice at all but was named thus. by early explorers who found American Indians eating. it in the Great Lakes region because, like rice, it grows in water. French explorers called it “crazy oats”.
• Bird’s nest soup is indeed made of birds’ nests and is one of the most expensive, sought-after dishes in Chinese cuisine. It is the gelatinous spittle used by birds similar to swifts to fasten their nests to the walls. of caves in Southeast Asia. The nests must be collected. in semi-darkness. The white nests are most prized; the black are cheaper and must be cleaned to make them edible.
• White chocolate is not real chocolate at all. It’s made by cooking whole milk with sugar until condensed to an almost solid state. Cocoa butter is then added.
• Capers come from the caper bush — a small, brown shrub with small, oval leaves that grows wild around the Mediterranean basin. Bottled capers are the pickled buds of this bush.
• Although the word “caviar” officially refers to the roe (eggs) of sturgeon, it is increasingly used to describe the roe of other fish such as salmon and whitefish. Most sturgeon caviar, which is black, comes from the Caspian Sea bordering Russia and Iran. The most prized is beluga, followed by osetra and sevruga. Salmon caviar has larger eggs than the sturgeon and ranges from light orange to dark red depending on the type of salmon. Whitefish caviar, also called golden caviar, consists of small, bright yellow eggs.
• Tapioca comes from the root of the cassava, a South American and African plant.

Cooking Compendium

• If you’ve burned a pot of soup, pour off the unstuck part to another pot. Add more water if necessary. The addition of onions also helps overcome any burnt flavor that remains.
• If your hollandaise sauce curdles, beat in 2 tbsp. whipping cream or 1 beaten egg yolk.
• If you don’t have chocolate for cooking, substitute 3 tbsp. cocoa plus 1 tbsp. shortening for 1 square unsweetened chocolate. For most herbs, 1 tsp. of fresh equals about 1⁄2 tsp. dried. And in both cases, vice versa.
• To stop an avocado darkening, place the pit next to its flesh when storing. Rubbing with lemon juice also works. An unripe avocado (hard and green-skinned) will ripen in a few days if placed in the dark (or in brown paper bag) in a warm place.
• Don’t use fresh pineapple in a gelatin dessert. It contains an enzyme that stops gelatin from setting. 
• If using dried mushrooms, always save the soaking liquid to make sauce.
• To make a good cup of tea, use about a teaspoon of dried leaves for every 6 fluid ounces cup of water. The water should come cold from the tap and be poured just after reaching the boil to maximize its power to penetrate the leaf and dissolve the components of color and flavor. The pot is preheated to prevent it from cooling the water.

Recipe for Success

• To simmer: To keep a liquid just below the boiling point. First, bring liquid to boil, then reduce heat so surface is kept just moving or “shivering”. Bubbling indicates the temperature’s too high.
• To julienne: A term presumed to come from a French chef called Julien who, in the late 17th century, introduced food finely cut into strips.
• Zest: Simply another term for rind of oranges, limes or lemons that comes from the French, zeste meaning the peel of citrus fruit.
• To deglaze: From the French deglacer. When a food (usually meat or poultry) is browned in butter or fat, the excess fat poured off, a liquid added (usually wine, water or broth) and the glaze caused by browning scraped from the bottom of the pan – this deglazing makes the sauce.
• A coddled egg: Egg mollet in French, this is somewhere in between a soft- and hard-boiled egg. The egg is cooked until the white is firm but the yolk still moist.
• To marinate: To let food sit in a wet or dry mixture of herbs and spices to tenderize and/or increase flavor — usually applied to meat, fish or vegetables.
• To macerate: To place food in a flavored liquid to improve flavor and texture — usually applied to fruit soaked in spirits.