Curio Cabinet

Peanuts—you either love them or hate them. Probably the latter, if you’re one of the millions of people who are deathly allergic to them. Soon, though, preventing a reaction to peanuts may be as simple as wearing a patch. As reported cases of peanut allergies have increased in recent years, few novel treatments have been developed to address the growing problem, with most sufferers relying on emergency epinephrine autoinjectors in case of emergencies. Unlike other food-related allergies, peanut allergies are particularly dangerous because peanuts are often processed in facilities that also process other, unrelated products like spices and grains. That means not only do patients have to avoid peanuts themselves, but a seemingly random assortment of pre-packaged grocery items that may have come in contact with them. Some people grow out of their peanut allergies, but for many others, it’s a lifelong medical concern.
 
Exposure can cause mild symptoms like a runny nose or an upset stomach, but peanuts are the leading cause of food-induced anaphylaxis, which causes constriction of airways and other deadly symptoms. Fortunately, a group of researchers working on a solution have published the promising results of a phase 3 trial for a new type of treatment in the The New England Journal of Medicine. Phase 3 clinical trials involve up to 3,000 volunteers who are monitored for up to 4 years, and it’s the penultimate step before a drug or treatment goes to market. In this case, the epicutaneous immunotherapy was provided to 300 children by way of skin patches over the course of 12 months, and at the end of the trial, 67 percent of the children developed a tolerance to peanuts, or twice that of the placebo group. That doesn’t mean that they’re ready to chow down on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but accidentally eating a few peanuts could now lead to milder, less deadly symptoms. Moreover, the trial proved that the skin patches are safe, so even if they’re ineffective, they’re unlikely to cause further harm. Let’s see this thing from soup to nuts!

 
[Image description: A white bowl of peanuts with shells.] Credit & copyright: Creativegen, Pixabay

The Indianapolis 500 might claim to be the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” but some racing enthusiasts might argue that the title really belongs to the Coopers Hill Cheese Roll! This year, fans of the centuries-old competition were treated to a particularly eventful race, as the women’s cheese roll was won handily by an individual who wasn’t even conscious as she crossed the finish line. As absurd as it may sound, cheese rolling has been around for a while in Great Britain, with some proposing it may have started in pre-Roman times. The premise is simple: a 7 pound wheel of Double Gloucester cheese is sent rolling down a steep, 200-yard hill, and competitors must chase after it. Due to the challenging topology of the “track,” that almost always results in people tumbling down the hill alongside the cheese. Fortunately for the competitors, that doesn’t really matter; regardless of the form of locomotion, the first person to get to the finish line wins the wheel of cheese—all 7 pounds of it!
 
To vie for the enviable prize, competitors from all around the world gather at Coopers Hill in Gloucestershire, where the race takes place every year. Onlookers chant “Roll that cheese!” before the race starts, and competitors waste no time in rushing down the hill once the master of ceremonies gives the signal. Chasing the cheese down the hill is no easy task, and plenty of people have been injured during the race. The winner this year for the women’s race was a Canadian named Delaney Irving, who traveled all the way from Vancouver Island to participate in the event. While making her way down the hill, she lost her footing and was knocked unconscious, but her body tumbled to the finish before anyone else. She told The Guardian, “I remember running, then bumping my head, and then I woke up in the [medical] tent. I still don’t really believe it, but it feels great.” Don’t worry, the wheel of cheese also survived intact.
 
[Image description: A wheel of cheese surrounded by cheese paper, being held aloft with one hand.] Credit & copyright: Federica Gioia, Pexels

We all scream for ice cream…and we’ve been doing so for a long time! Even though freezers and refrigerators didn’t become common in homes until the 1930s, people have been eating sweet, frozen treats for thousands of years. The exact inventor of modern ice cream is still a bit of a mystery, though.
 
As early as 4000 B.C.E., people in Mesopotamia were building icehouses and using them to keep food fresh. Icehouses were rooms with heavily-insulated walls where blocks of ice from frozen lakes and rivers were stored throughout the summer. Usually, the ice was coated with its own insulation, such as straw or sawdust. It may not sound appetizing, but it allowed for the world’s first sweet, frozen drinks, like one from China’s Tang dynasty (618-907 C.E.) made with sweetened buffalo milk, crushed ice, and camphor, a waxy substance from an evergreen tree. An even more ice-cream-life dessert became popular in 16th-century India: kulfi. This frozen dish is made with full fat milk, sugar, and flavoring agents (traditional flavors include rose and saffron) and it remains popular to this day.
 
Modern ice cream is made with cream, condensed milk, butterfat, sugar, flavoring agents, and sometimes eggs. It’s far creamier than frozen treats of the past due to the churning process, which creates smaller ice crystals and adds in air. It’s a process that dates back to Italy, in the 1600s. Churned ice desserts containing no dairy were called sorbets, while those with dairy were referred to as “ice creams” and were reserved for the rich, since churning the desserts in a pan was a long, laborious process. Early American colonists, including George Washington, ate homemade ice cream. But it wasn’t until 1843, when inventor Nancy Johnson created the hand-cranked ice cream freezer, that the dessert really took off, stateside. Her invention allowed for much faster, easier churning, and ensured that the dessert remained cold throughout the entire process. By 1851, American businessman Jacob Fussell had opened the world’s first ice cream factory in Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania. In 1926, another American inventor, Charles Taylor, created the first soft serve ice cream machine. When fast food chains began popping up across the country, so too did soft serve machines—in fact, Taylor’s company still manufactures McDonald’s ice cream machines to this day. We may not know ice cream’s exact inventor, but there’s no doubt that soft serve is as American as apple pie!

 
[Image description: A cup of ice cream and an ice cream cone surrounded by candy against a pink background.] Credit & copyright: Teejay, Pexels