6 Origin Stories of your Favorite Modern Foods

Just like all the other aspects of life, food has also evolved a lot, with time. The advancement of technology did play its rule on this journey. This opened up a new window of experimentation which, ultimately, resulted in a variety of modern foods. A lot of these modern foods have interesting origin stories and the most popular ones among them are discussed below.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

The invention of chocolate chip cookies was completely accidental (a blessing in disguise). Ruth Graves Wakefield, the Cook and Owner of the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, was the discoverer. In 1930, she was baking some chocolate cookies for her customers and had no baker’s chocolate in her stock. As a substitute, she used Nestle chocolate but it didn’t blend according to her expectations. The resulting cookies had small chunks of chocolate in them. She named these cookies as the “Chocolate Crunch Cookie” and they became a massive hit in no time. The popularity of these cookies enabled Wakefield to strike a lifetime deal with Nestle for free chocolate.

Mac and Cheese

The very look of this amazing dish indicates that its origin happened somewhere in Italy. However, the modern-day version is quite different from the original mac and cheese that was served in southern Italy. It was more like lasagna with boiled pasta sheets and layered cheese. In contrast to that, the modern combination of macaroni and cheese has multiple origin stories. One of the theories suggests that Thomas Jefferson’s wife invented this dish. On the other hand, another group of people believes that this dish was invented as a casserole dish at New England church suppers (Macaroni Pudding).

Ketchup

Ketchup is one of the most (if not the most) popular modern foods that we eat today. Following its popularity in the United States of America, Ketchup is often regarded as an American product. Contrary to that, the recipe for Ketchup finds its origin in an ancient Chinese sauce, called ke- tsiap. This sauce was derived from fermented fish and was extremely popular in southeastern parts of China. It was introduced to the western world in the 1600s when European traders visited the country. Having said that, the ketchup that we consume today didn’t emerge to the scene until 1876, when Henry J. Heinz came forward his recipe.

Chicken Nuggets

Chicken nuggets are one of the most consumed fast foods in the world. McDonald’s was the first to introduce these coated chicken chunks (McNuggets) and they did that in 1980. Since then, the popularity of this modern food has just gone up. Despite the fact that McDonald’s generally gets the credit for inventing nuggets, that’s not true.

Professor Robert C. Baker, a Food Scientist who was always hungry as a child, was the first man to come up with this idea. He did so in 1962 while he was trying to produce the highest-calorie food for the lowest price. After a lot of experimentation, he created a number of chicken products that were also tested in the market. The reports of these products were sent to more than 500 companies, including McDonald’s.

Pepsi

It is common knowledge that carbonated water is the main ingredient of Pepsi (or Coca Cola). However, it was not the original purpose of creating carbonated water. In the 2^nd half of the 19^th century, pharmacists and chemists provided carbonated water for free at their stores. It was believed that this mixture could cure a lot of diseases and was used for research purposes. Caleb Bradham, the inventor of Pepsi, was also giving it for free until 1903 when he started selling it to pharmacies. This was the beginning of the commercial battle between Coca Cola (selling since 1886) and Pepsi.               

French Fries

Probably the most irresistible of all the modern foods in this list, French fries are certainly the best form to consume potatoes. The most popular theory about their origin suggests that Belgian villagers were the first to introduce French fries. It is believed that the people near the Meuse River relied heavily on fried fish for their meals. In times of extreme winter, they used to replace fish with potatoes because the river would freeze. Given the fact that French was the predominant language of that region, the dish was named as French fries by the outsiders (US soldiers).