The internet is full of fabulous facts about everything from current events to the history basket weaving. Because of this, as we research for our daily content on food trucks, food carts and street food, we stumble upon some items of knowledge that we just did not know. We have decided when these fun facts pop up, that we would share them with our readers in our section titled “Did You Know?”

For today’s Did You Know fun food facts we will look at Ambrosia.

The Facts: Ambrosia is a variation on the traditional fruit salad. It contains sweetened whipped cream, sour cream, or yogurt, pineapple, mandarin oranges, miniature marshmallows and coconut. Some versions also contain maraschino cherries, bananas, strawberries, also crushed pecans can be used. The mixture is then refrigerated for a few hours.

• According to the Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, “Ambrosia is a dessert made from fruits, sugar and grated coconut, most popular in the South.”
• December 12th is National Ambrosia Day.
• Recipes specifically titled ambrosia begin to appear in American cookbooks in the last quarter of the 19th century. Prior to this time there were several recipes that would produce somewhat similar results, listed under different names such as iced oranges. The key ingredient that separates these from “true” ambrosia is coconut.
• In classical Greek mythology, ambrosia is known as “The food of the god”.