food folktales

[touaregsand]

I think we Asians are in a firm lead with food and skin color.

[touaregsand]

Someone told my mother, when she was a girl, if she swallowed her gum, it would wrap around her heart and kill her.

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My friend told me if I swallowed my gum it would stick to my heart and I would die. I was horrified.

An old Yiddish saying: if you're a "nosher" it will rain at your wedding.

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I heard it would stick my lungs. Come to think of it food and skin color doesn't sound as crazy as some of the other stuff. Bread crusts and straight hair for instance.

[Radio7]

(

ChefDanBrown @ Feb 21 2005, 01:06 PM)

Rub the end of a cucumber back where you sliced it off, or the cucumber will be bitter.

That's one I've heard from my Japanese friends. You're supposed to rub the two cut sides together until you produce white froth. Is your mom Japanese?

This post has been edited by SuzySushi: Yesterday, 04:54 PM

Are you sure we're talking about cucumbers here?

[Viola da gamba]

Cool thread - interesting that (I think) it's mostly women responding!

Sparrowgrass, I got most of those too, and the one about chewing gum taking seven years to dissolve.

Washing a knife in cold water will remove the onion smell. Leaving the stone in whatever section of avocado remains will stop it from going brown. If you lick your ice cream, you're undersexed, if you bit it, you're oversexed (hey - you asked).

Mum also told me that eating raw bread dough/raw pastry dough would give you worms - not that it made a difference. Another weird one? Eating ice cream on a hot day would make your nose bleed. I also got the eating brussel sprouts/cabbage/pick a fruit, vegetable or main course you don't much like would put hair on your chest - I too questioned that one at a very young age. And this one from my grandfather (the source of all indulgences) - eating crunchy fruit before bedtime would clean your teeth (I hated cleaning my teeth as a kid). The standard one for why I didn't get to eat something - "when you're a daddy, you can have it too" - apparently I worked that one out at age 5 - much to my mother's distress - it took her until age 7 to realize that she'd never be a daddy (she always said I was precocious)

Edited February 22, 2005 by Viola da gamba (log)

[CompassRose]

Ah! Raw dough! If you eat it, it will blow up in your stomach and you'll die! (which if it was true, would have me in my grave hundreds of times over).

[khm99]

I am of Japanese descent via Hawaii,

My aunt who had beautiful black hair nearly untouched by grey in her 60s attributed her raven locks to the daily consumption of nori (dried seaweed - the kind you find wrapped around sushi).

[TurtleMeng]

Slightly off the topic, but it's amazing how Asian women (mostly) prize and chase white skin.

I have very fair skin, almost Caucasian, guess what I've been hearing since childhood:

"Oh your one beauty (fairness) covers(i.e. = makes up for) 3 uglinesses" (a rough, literal translation)

Thanks a lot.

My mom, upon hearing that, would actually proudly tell people it was all the apples and milk she took while pregnant.

[malarkey]

Going swimming after eating results in Certain Death.

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Oh god, how can one forget that one. For me it was "wait a half-hour after eating to go swimming... OR, you'll get cramps and sink to the bottom like a stone"

Drinking out of the garden hose will give you worms. Now, a friend told me that one, as kids we ALWAYS drank out of the garden hose.

[WHT]

Rubbing lemon juice on your skin will lighten your freckles or help them disappear.  Never an issue for me, but I remember elementary school friends trying this to no avail.

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It will lighten hair. citric acid is the main ingrediant in sun in hair highlighter.

[rooftop1000]

Grandma says if you have ice cream with a hot drink like dessert and coffee your teeth will crack

[Foodie in Vancouver]

I think the reason why, as kids, we were told to wait an hour to go swimming was because the grown-ups didn't want to have to leave the table so quickly and come and supervise us.

[jerkhouse]

Ah! Raw dough! If you eat it, it will blow up in your stomach and you'll die! (which if it was true, would have me in my grave hundreds of times over).

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I think I've posted this story before under another thread, but when I was a kid my mom caught me eating a [sandwich?] of cereal in hot dog buns, covered in orange juice. (I thought cereal would be better as a sandwich, and the hotdog bun was a good shape for it. And I had always wanted to eat cereal with orange juice - since I liked orange juice better than milk, it made sense to me that cereal with orange juice would taste better than cereal with milk). Anyway, my mom told me that eating the dough would kill me. I wasn't smart enough to figure out (1) that she was lying, and (2) that hotdog buns are bread, not dough.

Edited March 2, 2005 by jerkhouse (log)