How Your Favorite Foods Were Invented

Check out the strange beginnings of some of your favorite foods!

Chocolate Chip Cookies:  Ruth's Baking Mistake
A simple cooking error led to the creation of the now-classic Nestlé Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie. In 1930, Ruth Wakefield, who ran the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, added chopped pieces of a semi-sweet chocolate bar to her Butter Drop Do cookie dough, expecting the chunks to melt. But the chocolate only softened and held its shape. The cookies were a hit at her inn. Eventually Ruth's recipe was published in a Boston newspaper and ended up on the wrapper of the Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate bar.

PEZ's Anti-Smoking Start
Kids and adults alike collect PEZ dispensers to store the beloved candies. But PEZ wasn't always so fruity. It was developed as a peppermint candy more than 70 years ago in Vienna and marketed as a cigarette substitute. (In fact, the name PEZ was derived from the German word for peppermint: PfeffErminZ). Although PEZ has come a long way from its anti-smoking roots, it's still a popular treat. Today, more than 3 billion PEZ candies are consumed annually in the U.S.

Potato Chips: A Joke Gone Right
A chef reportedly invented potato chips in 1853, but he wasn't trying to make the world's best snack food. Chef George Crum sent the paper-thin potatoes cooked until they were crisp to a customer in his Saratoga Springs restaurant who complained that his fries were too thin. "Saratoga Chips" became a menu favorite, but potato chips didn't gain widespread popularity until they were mass-produced in the 1920s.

Popsicle's Kid Inventor
You can thank an absent-minded 11-year-old for your favorite summer treat. On a cold night in 1905, Frank Epperson left a mixture of powdered soda, water, and a stick in a cup on his porch. The next day, Epperson found a frozen pop he called the "Epsicle." His friends loved the frozen treats, and so did his own kids in later years (they always wanted "Pop's 'sicle"). In 1923, Epperson applied for a patent, then sold the rights to the brand name Popsicle to the Joe Lowe Company in New York.

German Chocolate Cake Hails from the U.S.
The birth tale for this dessert begins at Walter Baker Company. In 1852, chocolatier Sam German created a sweet baking bar named "BAKER'S German's Sweet Chocolate." When a woman from Texas sent a cake recipe using German's Sweet Chocolate to a newspaper in Dallas in 1957, sales for the chocolate bar spiked. Other newspapers picked up the recipe for German's Chocolate Cake, but at some point the apostrophe and "s" was dropped, leaving just German Chocolate Cake.

Breakfast Gets Corny
While experimenting with shredded wheat cereal, W.K. Kellogg and his brother, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, accidentally discovered the process of creating flaked cereal. W.K. persuaded John Harvey to start a commercial cereal business. They named it Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company. Production of Kellogg's Toasted Corn Flakes began in 1906. Although the packaging has changed, Kellogg's Corn Flakes still grace grocery shelves today.

Warm Waffles Meet Ice Cream
The International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers credits a pastry vendor at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis with the birth of the waffle cone. Ernest A Hamwi was selling a crisp, sugary, warm waffle at the fair. One day, Hamwi rolled his waffles into a cone and gave them to the ice-cream vendor next door, who filled them with ice cream. Visitors devoured what they called "World's Fair Cornucopias." At the Fair's end, fair goers took the idea home with them, across the country and around the world.

Cracker Jack's Exclaimed Name
Ever wonder how Cracker Jack got its name? In 1893, F.W. Rueckheim and Brother introduced caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts at Chicago's first World Fair. In 1896, Louis Rueckheim, F.W.'s brother and partner, discovered how to keep the popcorn morsels from sticking together. Louis gave the treat to a salesman, who exclaimed, "That's crackerjack!" F.W. had the words trademarked. The treat's name was later immortalized in the song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

And the beginning of one appliance:  Microwaves Get Cooking
In 1945, Raytheon scientist Percy Spencer noticed that a candy bar in his pocket began to melt as he stood in front of an active magnetron tube. He conducted experiments with kernels of popcorn and a raw egg, ultimately discovering that microwave radio signals cook food. In 1947, Raytheon demonstrated the world's first microwave oven, called "Radarange." Housed in refrigerator-sized cabinets, the massive microwave cost between $2,000 and $3,000.

Information provided by Delish.com.

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