Curious Facts

Everything below is in the book — each one links straight to the page it comes from.

1. Elbert Hubbard opens the book with a boast. "I have never been sick a day in my life… I neither overeat nor underbreathe. Consequently, I do not enjoy poor health." The sage of East Aurora, testifying for olive oil. Read it in the book →
2. The olive-oil science is borrowed from the Army. A section is "reprinted from United States Government Bulletin issued for the guidance of U. S. Army Quartermasters," noting the Mediterranean grows at least one hundred varieties of olive. Read it in the book →
3. The Baltimore warehouse invites tourists. Glass-enameled steel tanks holding a million and a half gallons — "the largest and finest in the world, and visitors are welcome." Read it in the book →
4. Olive oil is sold as a remedy. "People who take plenty of olive oil rarely suffer from constipation" — the health chapter reads like a patent-medicine card with a Mediterranean accent. Read it in the book →
5. Mayonnaise doctrine: drop by drop. The dressing is built "drop by drop at first, and as the mixture thickens, oil may be added more rapidly" — the physics of emulsion, taught by rote in 1920. Read it in the book →
6. The book declares war on factory mayonnaise. "The wholesomeness of a home-made mayonnaise is never equalled in a factory-made mayonnaise" — an oil company with an obvious interest in your making it yourself. Read it in the book →
7. Salads are pitched as color first. The foreword sells the salad by its palette — brilliant red of tomatoes, "delicate green, amber and gold of hearts of lettuce" — before mentioning that we need the vegetable salts of uncooked vegetables. Read it in the book →
8. White-meat chicken salad is admitted to be vanity. Proper chicken salad uses white meat only — but the book concedes this "is a concession to the appearance of the salad, as the dark meat has as much if not more value in flavor." Read it in the book →