Mad Fact

Before the age of 13, Mark Twain nearly drowned nine documented times.

Green Fact

All that water in cucumber acts as a virtual broom, sweeping waste products out of your system. With regular use, cucumber is known to dissolve kidney stones.

Mark Twain

Available: Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Utah

Chef's Inspiration

We love pasta (who doesnt) but we know a successful pasta salad rests on the other ingredients. So the Mark Twain has plenty of assertive, bright, bold flavors to balance out the starchiness of the pasta. The red onions and roasted red peppers are both intensely flavored, the feta brings an acidic saltiness, and the cucumbers provide a refreshing zest.

MAD Story

When Samuel Langhorne Clemens was a teenager, he accepted a prep cook job on a riverboat. Sam used the Mississippi River to inspire his first recipe – Crème de Crawfish with Catfish, Snails, BBQ sauce, turnips and penne pasta. Guests were revolted, and Sam’s boss gave him two days to design a new dish. Sam revamped his recipe using roasted red pepper, cucumbers, red onions and feta cheese*. Passengers had never tasted anything like it** and they insisted Sam quit, move to New York and start a cooking show***. Sam followed their advice and pursued a cooking career. After changing his name, he landed a string of hit variety shows, wrote a cookbook, and we also heard he wrote a novel or two. But he’s best known for his pasta salad.

*Mark is the first person to milk a goat and create a cheese.

**Mark invented the pasta salad.

***Mark is also the inventor of the first licensed chain of Variety shows in 1850. MTV was originally ‘Mark Twain Vision’ before it switched to music programming in 1984.