By Madhavi Pothukuchi
June 18, 2022
Do you have a favourite food? Maybe it’s french fries, a slice of the cheesiest pizza, or even your mom’s dal and rice. Have you ever wondered where these foods come from and who invented them? There are some interesting origin stories for our favourite foods. Let’s take a look.
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The Caesar salad doesn’t get its name from Julius Caesar. It was actually invented by an Italian immigrant man named Caesar Cardini, who owned a restaurant in Mexico in 1924. Cardini found himself in a soup one day when a large group of people came to eat at his restaurant, and he had very few ingredients. So he threw together some lettuce, croutons, cheese and olives, and voila! The Caesar salad was born.
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Your favourite Doritos were actually invented in Disneyland! The Mexican restaurant Casa de Fritos had a lot of leftover tortillas (bread similar to rotis). Instead of just throwing them away, they got the idea to tear them up and deep fry the flatbreads. When an executive from Frito-Lay (makers of Lays) came across these chips, he fell in love with them, and the rest is history.
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If you love a cold popsicle or ice candy on a hot summer day, you have 11-year-old Frank Epperson to thank. In 1905, Frank accidentally left out a drink made of lemonade powder and water with a stirring stick in it on a cold night in San Francisco. He woke up to discover the first ice candy, which he called the ‘Epsicle’. He later patented it and called it the Popsicle.
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British food is synonymous with fish and chips – crispy, batter-fried fish with a good helping of fries. But did you know that this British food was actually invented by a Jewish immigrant, Joseph Malin, in the 1860s? The story goes that he set up a shop selling fries made the Belgian way and later added batter-fried fish prepared in the Portuguese and Spanish way. The combination of the two became an instant hit, and an English classic was born.
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The invention of the sandwich is credited to John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. The story goes that he went to a restaurant and asked the waiter to get him meat stuffed between two slices of bread for convenience. However, there are many historical accounts of the sandwich being eaten in other parts of the world before the Earl discovered it. From the Middle Ages in England to the ancient Chinese to the Middle East, the sandwich was eaten in various versions around the world.
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This fancy breakfast dish was reportedly invented by a Wall Street stock broker named Lemuel Benedict. After a long night of partying in 1894, Benedict made his way to a restaurant for breakfast and asked the waiter for poached eggs and ham on toast with hollandaise sauce on the side. When the Head Chef tasted the dish, he was so impressed that it was added to the menu.
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The world’s favourite dessert has many origin stories. Ice cream has been around before Alexander the Great, who enjoyed eating shaved ice with honey. Fast forward 1,000 years, Italian merchant Marco Polo came back from China with a recipe for ice-cold fruit pulp. During the 17th century, Charles I of England would often have ‘cream ice’ for dessert. Ice cream became available to the public only in 1660 in Paris. And now, we all scream for ice cream!
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