The Surprising Origins of 10 Famous Foods (#7 Will Annoy Pizza Purists)
Behind almost every famous food is a story that’s stranger than you’d expect — accidents, inventors with odd ideas, and names that make no sense until you hear the backstory.
1Caesar salad
It’s not named after Julius Caesar. It’s credited to Caesar Cardini, an Italian-born restaurant owner in Tijuana, Mexico, who is said to have thrown it together in 1924.
2The Popsicle
The popular story: in 1905, an 11-year-old named Frank Epperson left a cup of soda with a stirring stick outside on a cold night. It froze. He patented the idea as an adult in 1923.
3Chocolate chip cookies
Ruth Wakefield created them at the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts in the late 1930s. She later sold Nestlé the right to print her recipe on its chocolate bars — reportedly in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate.
4Nachos
In 1943, in Piedras Negras, Mexico, a group of customers arrived after the kitchen had closed. Maître d’ Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya improvised with fried tortilla chips, cheese and jalapeños. The dish took his nickname.
5Graham crackers
They’re named after Sylvester Graham, a 19th-century preacher who promoted a bland diet of plain whole-wheat foods. He believed spicy, rich food led to unhealthy “passions.”
6Corn Flakes
John Harvey Kellogg and his brother Will developed flaked cereal in the 1890s at a health sanitarium in Michigan, also as part of a bland “healthy” diet. Will later added sugar — which John reportedly hated.
7Hawaiian pizza
It was invented in Canada. Sam Panopoulos, a Greek-born restaurant owner in Ontario, first put pineapple and ham on a pizza in 1962. The “Hawaiian” part came from the brand of canned pineapple.
8Fortune cookies
They aren’t really from China. Historians trace them to Japanese bakers, and they were popularized in California in the early 1900s.
9Buffalo wings
Created in 1964 at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York. Chicken wings were a cheap cut at the time — now they’re a Super Bowl staple.
10Coca-Cola
Pharmacist John Pemberton created it in Atlanta in 1886 and sold it as a medicinal tonic. The original recipe included extract from coca leaves — yes, the same plant cocaine comes from. That was removed in the early 1900s.
