The internet is full of fabulous facts about everything from current events to the history basket weaving and fruit cocktail fun facts. 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?”

Fruit Cocktail Fun Facts: Fruit cocktail is a dish consisting of various kinds of fruit, sometimes served in a liquid, either in their own juices or a syrup.

• Fruit cocktail is often sold canned and is a staple of cafeterias, but can also be made fresh.
• The use of the word “cocktail” in the name does not mean that it contains alcohol, but refers to the secondary definition “An appetizer made by combining pieces of food, such as fruit or seafood”.
• Fruit cocktail is sometimes used to make pruno.
• May 13th is National Fruit Cocktail Day.
• In the United States, the USDA stipulates that canned “fruit cocktail” must contain a certain percentage distribution of pears, grapes, cherries, peaches, and pineapples to be marketed as fruit cocktail. It must contain fruits in the following range of percentages:

1. 30% to 50% diced peaches, any yellow variety
2. 25% to 45% diced pears, any variety
3. 6% to 16% diced pineapple, any variety
4. 6% to 20% whole grapes, any seedless variety
5. 2% to 6% cherry halves, any light sweet or artificial red variety (usually maraschino cherries)

• Both William Vere Cruess of the University of California, Berkeley and Herbert Gray of the Barron-Gray Packing Company of San Jose, California have been credited with the invention of fruit cocktail.
• Canned fruit cocktail and canned fruit salad are similar, but fruit salad contains larger fruit while fruit cocktail is diced.
• The World’s Largest Can of Fruit Cocktail is a Watertower, painted in a retro label to commemorate an industry of the area. It used to tower over the Libby, McNeil and Liggy cannery, but is now the only remnant of the 1906 establishment. In 1982, Lincoln Property Company bought the former Libby, McNeil, and Libby cannery site and by 1985 had turned it into the Sunnyvale Industial Park. The developers were required to save the towering fruit cocktail can.

Fruit Cocktail Fun Facts We Missed

Let us know if we may missed any fruit cocktail fun facts in the comment section below. If we can verify that the facts is just that, a fact, we will give the reader credit in the article.

Reference: Wikipedia: Fun Facts about Fruit Cocktail

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