The thread of learning something new every day
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@taniwharugby said in The thread of learning something new every day:
The prevailing view was that New Zealanders were of superior stock to their counterparts across the Ta$man.
@NTA @barbarian they're trolling you from 119 years ago!
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@nzzp said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@taniwharugby said in The thread of learning something new every day:
The prevailing view was that New Zealanders were of superior stock to their counterparts across the Ta$man.
@NTA @barbarian they're trolling you from 119 years ago!
Well facts are facts.
The prevailing view was that New Zealanders were of superior stock to their counterparts across the Ta$man.
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I learned that Anne Boleyn was beheaded kneeling upright by sword, not on a block by axe as I had assumed
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@taniwharugby said in The thread of learning something new every day:
I learned that Anne Boleyn was beheaded kneeling upright by sword, not on a block by axe as I had assumed
Yup, Henry imported a professional executioner from France. Because beheadings were rare in England, the job was normally given to the hangman. They were not efficient, sometimes taking several hacks to get the job done
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@Machpants yeah I just always assumed it was by axe, on a block, that I assumed would be easier than a sword...but there you go.
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@Machpants said in The thread of learning something new every day:
A sword easily does it, but you do need a steady hand and swing, I would imagine!
Yes you do.
Umm, yes what he said, "I would imagine". Moving along, nothing to see here. -
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Holy crap, just found out where Cranberries grow. In a mofo bog ... I had no idea.
These good ol' boys are knee deep in water harvesting. Wild!
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on this day in 1959, Chinese gooseberry becomes kiwifruit
The prominent produce company Turners and Growers announced that it would from now on export Chinese gooseberries as ‘kiwifruit’. Introduced to this country in 1904, kiwifruit are now cultivated worldwide, with New Zealand-grown fruit marketed as ‘Zespri’.
Despite the name, kiwifruit are not native to New Zealand. Seeds were brought to New Zealand in 1904 by Mary Isabel Fraser, the principal of Wanganui Girls’ College, who had been visiting mission schools in China. They were planted in 1906 by a Whanganui nurseryman, Alexander Allison, and the vines first fruited in 1910. People thought the fruit had a gooseberry flavour and began to call it the Chinese gooseberry. It is not related to the Grossulariaceae family to which gooseberries belong.
New Zealand began exporting the fruit to the US in the 1950s. This was the height of the Cold War and the term Chinese gooseberry was a marketing nightmare for Turners and Growers. Their first idea, ‘melonettes’, was equally unpopular with US importers because melons and berries were subject to high import tariffs. In June 1959, Jack Turner suggested the name kiwifruit during a Turners and Growers management meeting in Auckland. His idea was adopted and this later became the industry-wide name.
The Bay of Plenty town of Te Puke, where New Zealand’s kiwifruit industry began, markets itself as the ‘Kiwifruit Capital of the World’. In 2017 China was the world’s leading producer of kiwifruit, followed by Italy, New Zealand, Iran and Chile. Most New Zealand kiwifruit is now marketed under the brand-name Zespri, partly as a way to distinguish ‘Kiwi’ kiwifruit from the produce of other countries.
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@taniwharugby I did not realise the name change was so long ago. In the sixties they were still being sold locally as Chinese Gooseberries and I'm certain I remember a news article about them changing their name to kiwifruit. Maybe Kiwifruit was initially only for the export market.
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@dogmeat I recall as a child in the early 80s people still sometimes referred to it as a Chinese Gooseberry, so yeah think it was more the exports it became exclusively a Kiwifruit
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@dogmeat Yeah. I worked in a greengrocers as a kid and they were Chinese gooseberries then. I was not alive in 1959, this was early eighties. They must have done it for export first, then it caught on here.
Completely worthless knowledge that I will no doubt remember instead of something that I actually need to know. Thanks @taniwharugby
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@taniwharugby said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@dogmeat I recall as a child in the early 80s people still sometimes referred to it as a Chinese Gooseberry, so yeah think it was more the exports it became exclusively a Kiwifruit
Snap.
Cranberry - Wikipedia
