35+ Fascinating Food History Facts That We Can’t Stop Thinking About

One of the most expensive things at almost every restaurant is lobster. That is why many of us consider it a reward or special meal when it comes to celebrations. But at one time, the U.S. had so many lobsters that they would also be used as fertilizer.

At one point in U.S. history, those states that had a coastline sometimes would find piles of lobsters on the beaches. The Native Americans would use these piles as meals, bait, and also fertilizer for their crops.

Corn flakes are pretty bland and often not the most favorite choice of young children when it comes to cereal. Many adults eat corn flakes because they think they’re healthy for them. But that cereal was not intended to be used for health.

The blandness of this cereal was actually intended as the inventor, Mr. Kellogg, thought that enjoying any type of experience was bad for your health.

Potatoes have become a staple in many cuisines across the globe. At one point, to make potatoes seem like they were worth more than they were, a French pharmacist put up guards around his potato field.

He would then remove the guards at night so people could steal the potatoes. This seemed to be one of the elaborate ploys Antoine Augustine Parmentier used to make potatoes so popular.

Sometimes when we think of specific cuisines, there are certain ingredients that we associate with them. For instance, when you think of Italian food, you often think of tomatoes. When you think of Ireland, you think of potatoes, and of course, Asian food wouldn’t be what it was without those chilies.

But none of those come from the culture that they’re associated with. In fact, all of these foods originated in the new world and were brought to the rest of the world via trade.

That thick, crispy crust with that doughy interior of ciabatta has made it one of the most popular types of bread out there. You can do everything from make bruschetta to a nice sandwich with it.

But though most of us think that this bread is a traditional form of Italian bread, it actually only had its origins in the 1980s. An Italian Baker looking to create an alternative to the French baguette crafted this bread and began marketing it. The rest, as they say, is history.

Chicken is pretty much a mainstay in every restaurant and home in the Western Hemisphere. But it wasn’t always the go-to choice. In fact, it didn’t become super popular until after the Second World War.

In the 1940s, a special contest was held called “chicken of tomorrow”, and the winning bird became the blueprint for the chickens of today in the United States. This contest was defined as a chicken that would meet the growing needs of the populace.

Black pepper may seem today like a staple of every kitchen and one of the simpler spices you can have in your cabinet. But back in the day, black pepper was actually worth quite a bit to the people.

In fact, there was even a situation that happened in Rome where peppercorns were actually used to pay a ransom. That seems a little crazy, doesn’t it?

Nowadays you wouldn’t think about eating most meals without a fork. But these utensils weren’t always customary to be used, and in fact, at one point, using them was considered insulting to God.

Many people back in the early centuries all the way up to the 17th century felt that using a fork was a little redundant. After all, you were made with fingers that you could use to pick up food.

There is nothing like a crispy waffle soaked in maple syrup alongside the rest of your breakfast goodies. Making waffles is easy as long as you have a waffle iron, and surprisingly enough, these are not new appliances to the kitchen at all.

The truth is the ancient Greeks actually had a form of waffle maker. These devices were exactly the same as the ones we use today that are plugged into electricity just heated with fire instead.

During WWII, there were a lot of shortages when it came to food. It seems that one of the roughest for the British was the lack of available bananas. But they came up with a pretty clever way of beating that shortage.

In 1940, bananas were banned from import which made them impossible to come by. But it seems they were greatly missed, and so many people began adding banana essence to parsnips so they could enjoy their favorite treat (sort of).

During the war, each side had a lot of crazy ideas of how to get rid of key figures and the other side. The CIA had it with Castro, and the Germans had it with Churchill in WWII. One of the craziest plans was to feed Churchill a very special chocolate bar.

In essence, the Germans planned to code an explosive with chocolate and deliver it to Churchill in his dining room. The bar would have detonated just a few seconds after being unwrapped; luckily, MI5 agents nipped that plan in the bud.

When you’re done shopping or at dinner, you often ask for the receipt. This word once had more meanings than that and actually was used as the word to define what we now call today a recipe.

Both of these words come from the same core word in Latin. Recipere literally translates to receive, and so you can see why these two words are used in the way they are used in the modern language.

When you’re a kid, almost every child’s favorite meal at one point or the other is that cheesy goodness called mac and cheese. Though we might think this is a modern invention, it is actually quite old.

It’s simply a pasta and cheese dish, and the very first dish similar to this was actually in a cookbook written in 14th century Italy. Though this recipe was a little bit different, it is the first recipe that resembles this comfort food.

When you sit down to enjoy a film, most people, especially when doing it in a movie theater, have to have a big bucket of buttery popcorn. This makes the experience complete. But popcorn is not something that started with the invention of cinema; it is quite older.

There have been archaeologists that have found popped corn kernels in the ruins of Peruvian archaeological sites. When dated, some of these sites show that up to 6700 years ago, these native South American people were snacking on the delicious and healthy treats.

Unless you’re a vegetarian or vegan (or have religious rules against eating pork), most of us enjoy the salty goodness that is bacon. It’s a staple not only of breakfast but also can be added to sandwiches and other foods to make them even better.

But did you know the first meal eaten on the moon actually was bacon? That’s right, Aldrin and the crew of the Apollo 11 mission enjoyed bacon squares as they looked out the window staring at the surface of the moon.

Chocolate cake may be one of the most popular types of cake there is in the world. But there was a time when chocolate cake wasn’t as popular. In fact, it wasn’t till the 1800s when America had its first chocolate cake.

This cake was a mahogany cake and was iced with ermine frosting. This type of frosting was a whipped buttercream-style frosting. Sounds pretty good to us!

There are just some people in history that have a knack for inventing things that last. Names like Tesla and Edison come to mind when you think of iconic inventors. But have you ever heard of William A. Mitchell?

Most likely not, but if you’ve ever enjoyed a dollop of cool whip on top of your cake or dropped some pop rocks in your mouth, you have him to thank for that. Oh yeah, and he invented Tang too!

Jello is one of those treats that most kids love to eat. But as you get to be an adult, typically, it loses a little bit of its luster. That wasn’t always the case, especially back in the 50s when jello molds were a big thing.

One magazine really wanted to push a particular type of jello mold called the sequence salad. This was a vinegar-soaked cauliflower with red peppers all molded in lime Jell-o. That doesn’t sound too tasty!

Some of the best things in life happen out of pure happenstance. That statement goes from everything from life to food. In fact, one of the best things to enjoy during hot summers is popsicles, and they just so happened to be created by accident.

Sometimes when you’re a kid, you forget things when you’re outside playing, which happened to young Frank Epperson. Busy playing, he forgot to bring in his glass, and the temperatures dropped, freezing the soda in it. It was such a great treat that it soon began spreading and now is a standard summer treat.

If you’ve ever met someone from Saint Louis, then you’ve probably heard about the gooey butter cake. This is a favorite regional dessert, and it is pretty tasty. But like with many other tasty things we enjoy, it was a pure accident the first time.

This cake finds its origins in the 1930s. Apparently, a baker put too much butter in a coffee cake, and when it came out, it came out gooey.

Who doesn’t love a nice warm Toll House chocolate chip cookie? Not only does it melt in your mouth, but the smell that it leaves in the kitchen is one of those iconic smells. Of course, we wouldn’t have that if it wasn’t for a bit of a mistake back in 1930.

The woman who ran the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, Ruth Wakefield, wanted to make chocolate cookies but didn’t have everything she needed. Instead, she used semi-sweet chocolate in her cookie dough, expecting it to melt. It didn’t, and now we all get to enjoy those beautiful chocolate chip cookies.

Fast food restaurants over the decades have tried to debut a lot of unique ideas. These are often associated with trends and regions, but not all of them make the cut. Even McDonald’s has had a few blunders.

For instance, in the 70s, the fast-food chain tried to market onion nuggets. The onion rings are pretty popular; these little deep-fried bite-size onion pieces didn’t hit the spot. Instead, just a few years later, McDonald’s brought us the classic chicken nugget.

When you think of carrots, we are sure the first thing that comes to mind is a batch of orange vegetables topped with bright green shoots. But carrots weren’t always orange. We owe that to a bunch of 17th-century Dutch farmers.

Most carrots were originally purple, but because of the Dutch’s love for orange (their royal house is the House of Orange), there was a group of Dutch farmers that decided to develop a new carrot with that bright orange color they love so much.

Over the decades and centuries, many religious individuals have touted some pretty interesting ideas when it came to dampening the urge to have one on one connection with a member of the opposite sex.

In fact, in the 1800s, a man named Reverend Sylvester Graham, who resided in Connecticut, preached to his congregation that a bland diet could help get rid of these urges. Out of this, we got the key component in s’mores- the Graham cracker.

A nice pound cake with a little bit of fresh fruit and a dollop of whipped cream is a perfect end to a summer party. The pound cake we eat today is very different from the original recipe penned in 1795.

The name pound cake was chosen for a reason. When looking at the recipe, each ingredient of the said recipe was to be measured out at 1 pound. That means one pound of eggs, butter, sugar, and flour. That’s a pretty dense cake!

There are a lot of people in the world that collect Pez dispensers. But we wonder how many of them know that the candy house within those cute little collectibles was originally intended to be an anti-smoking mint.

The name itself Pez is short for the German word for peppermint. This was the original flavor of the candy, and in the 1920s, it was marketed as a way to quit smoking.

In 1783 the population of the colonies in the United States had something to celebrate. After a lengthy battle, the British had decided to evacuate and leave them to govern themselves. Because of the need to celebrate, there was a need for some pastries.

So at the feast thrown by General George Washington in New York City, the revolutionaries sat down to enjoy a carrot cake as a way to celebrate.

Surprisingly, there are a lot of plants out there that you would never guess all came from the same origin. Among these happen to be some of the least favorite vegetables in the world- kale, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli.

Along with cabbage, cauliflower, and kohlrabi, these detested vegetables all came from the plant Brassica oleracea. But over the centuries, carefully cultivated farmers have had this plant deliver a wide variety of vegetables.

Nowadays, West Coast cuisine is one of the most popular options when it comes to American food. Though most would say that the popularity of this cuisine type didn’t show up until the 70s and 80s.

But the so-called California cuisine that we’re used to nowadays finds its roots in a much different type of cuisine. In fact, one of the very first examples of California cuisine is the Hangtown fry. This was a dish created during the gold rush that is basically an omelet with oysters and bacon.

Rhubarb is an acquired taste, but the harvesting process is quite fascinating. The process actually used to be done by candlelight, and in some places, people still do it this way. Why would they do that?

To get rhubarb to grow quickly, you can deprive it of light, making it grow faster. For this reason, a lot of people grew rhubarb in cellars and didn’t want to pick it in the daylight, so they would use candlelight to harvest their crops.

It seems like every time you turn around, a new diet or lifestyle has come into its own. These diet fads and trends go and come, which means somewhere, there are some pretty interesting examples that we have yet to find.

One of them that we know of is a diet released in the 70s in Vogue. This diet allowed you to eat nothing but eggs, white wine, steak, and black coffee for several days. Apparently, this would allow you to lose five pounds.

Getting from place to place used to be a lot more difficult because you had to sail everywhere. This meant you had to have enough supplies on the ship to last for the entire trip. It didn’t take long for European explorers to figure out that they could leave things along the way to pick up on their way back.

One of these things just happens to be livestock. The sailors would place livestock on islands along their route just in case. This, however, left islands full of livestock, including horses that ended up going wild because they were never picked up.

Every home in the United States has somewhere in its kitchen a loaf of sliced white bread. This is a staple for every meal from breakfast to dinner. But there was actually a time when sliced bread was banned.

In 1943, the United States government banned the sale of sliced bread. This was done to help save bakers and the wax paper industry. But the housewives who had to purchase the bread became very irate. So you can imagine the ban didn’t last long.

Cocoa beans get turned into the world’s favorite sweet treat chocolate. But they weren’t always only used for culinary purposes. The Aztecs actually had a unique use for these beans.

The Aztecs used these beans as a form of currency. It seems that one bean was worth a tamale, and if you wanted to buy a turkey, you’d have to fork over 100 beans. That seems like a pretty good deal!

When you hear the word disaster, you don’t often think of food-related disasters. Though over the decades, there have been a few. But one of the strangest probably was the great molasses flood of 1919.

This disaster happened when a storage tank located in Boston exploded. When it exploded, over 2,000,000 gallons of molasses flooded the streets of Boston. Buildings were crushed, and more than 150 people were injured. 21 people died during the disaster.