A list of curious facts
One: Tennis superstar Iga Świątek raised many English eyebrows in Wimbledon when she confessed to her favourite dish: pasta with strawberries and cream. No, this is not a strange food fetish but a traditional Polish dish called makaron z truskawkami (good luck ordering that on your next trip to Warsaw). It is eaten either as a “light lunch” or dessert.
To be fair, dessert pasta seems to be a European thing. Germans have dessert spaghettieis—where vanilla ice cream is put through a ricer to look like noodles. Even 16th century Italians sometimes used strawberries as a sauce—before tomatoes became part of the Italian pantry. But the Poles truly own their national fruit as an ingredient—stuffing them inside pierogies, whipping up a gazpacho-like strawberry soup, and combining it with rice pudding. Mashed has recipes for the brave and curious. (Tasting Table)
Two: Moving on to more appetising food facts: Mumbai’s favourite wrap—the Frankie—is the invention of an enterprising sardar named Amarjit Singh Tibb—who discovered the pita roll on a trip to Beirut in the 1950s. He got rid of all the redundant stuff—pita bread, hummus etc—grabbed a paratha and stuffed it with eggs, butter and veggies. And since Indians can’t help being Indians, Tibb named the wrap after a cricket god—West Indies all-rounder Frank Worrell. Most unsurprisingly, we have since stuffed every damn thing into a Frankie—including Schezwan noodles, chicken tikka and more. (Slurrp)
Three: Move over pickleball! The hottest racquet sport is called Padel. It sits somewhere between tennis and squash:
Padel is a racquet sport that uses the same scoring conventions as lawn tennis but is played on courts around a third smaller. The game is mainly played in the doubles format, with players using solid racquets with no strings. The courts are enclosed and, like in squash, players can bounce the ball off the walls.
It actually dates back to the 1960s but has been rediscovered by millions of fans around the world. The primary appeal: It requires more athleticism than pickleball—which is now considered a senior citizen pastime. And it’s more expensive to play—which is the big attraction for Indians, of course:
But besides that, the set of people who choose padel over pickleball are those who want to be seen playing a cooler, much more expensive sport that is on the rise… Padel is huge in Dubai and many people want to be associated with a sport that is trending in richer countries.
BBC News has loads more on the sport. (Mint)
Bonus fact: Scientists have created a pyramid-like shape—a tetrahedron that always lands on the same side. Gizmodo has more nerdy details on this Platonic solid. We just love the way it flips.
