First, came the news that the lion on Lyle’s Golden Syrup packaging has been a decaying, bee-filled beast for a long time.
Then, it turned out that Twix’s name has a secret meaning (it’s a portmanteau of ‘twin sticks,’ if you’re interested).
These revelations left us at HuffPost UK to share food mysteries we’d never admitted to not knowing ― and one of them was where the patently not-garlic-coloured green flecks that appear on garlic bread come from.
So, if you’re suffering from a similar culinary confusion, let us share the news we’re a little embarrassed not to have known in the first place...
It’s parsley
Yep, the green flecks are finely-chopped parsley.
Recipe after recipe calls for the addition of the herb to the top of the bread ―- and if Mary Berry says it’s parsley, then parsley it surely is.
And if (like me) you’re more used to the frozen supermarket type of garlic bread than the obviously herby, fresh kinds, checking the back of the pack will reveal that yup, those are covered in parsley too.
I mean, it makes more sense than the chopped-up garlic shoots I am deeply ashamed of having suspected before, doesn’t it?
I’m sending myself to the corner...
What’s the history of garlic bread?
Depending on how you define garlic bread, the dish could have gone back to 15th-century Italy.
The New York Times said in 1987 that bruschetta, the bread-based dish that may have come into being in the 1400s, was regularly coated in garlic and oil before being toasted.
“Wherever olive oil is produced in Italy, it’s traditional to celebrate the olive harvest and the pungent new oil with a feast of bruschetta,” the article reads.
“This is the original garlic bread, made with thick slices toasted over a fire, rubbed with fresh garlic and saturated with intense green olive oil,” they add ― in this case, the verdant oil adds a green hue rather than parsley.
However, Epicurious puts the pillowy, parsley-covered baguette invention we all know today down to 1950s America.
Whatever way you slice it, though, the food is delicious ― and, it turns out, often covered in parsley.