Potato Chips: Born from Spite and Spite Alone
The story of potato chips dates back to 1853 in Saratoga Springs, New York, where a chef named George Crum worked at the upscale Moon’s Lake House. On one particular evening, a picky customer (rumored to be railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt) repeatedly sent back his fried potatoes, complaining they were too thick and soggy. George Crum, a chef at Moon’s Lake House in New York, was working the night a guest returned plate after plate of fries with the complaint that they were not crisp enough to his liking. In a fit of frustration, Crum decided to teach the demanding customer a lesson. He sliced the potatoes paper-thin, fried them until they were impossibly crispy, and doused them with salt – expecting the customer to hate them. Instead, the customer loved them, and other diners began requesting the super-thin, crunchy creation. Today, potato chips are a multi-billion dollar industry, with endless flavors and varieties sold worldwide. From classic salted chips to gourmet options like truffle or spicy jalapeño, it’s hard to imagine that this crunchy snack was born out of a chef’s petty revenge.
Chocolate Chip Cookies: A Sweet Accident in Massachusetts
Ruth Wakefield, the owner of Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, accidentally created the iconic chocolate chip cookie in the 1930s. She added broken chocolate bar fragments into her cookie batter under the presumption they would melt in the oven. Her mistake is the world’s gain, since these are now arguably the most popular and beloved cookie in the world. The exact details vary depending on which story you believe. One night in 1938, Wakefield was baking a popular Colonial-era recipe for Butter Drop Do cookies and decided to improvise by adding chocolate. Realizing she had run out of baker’s chocolate, she chopped up a block of Nestlé chocolate gifted to her by a representative from the Nestlé company. Instead of the chocolate dispersing while baking and creating a solid chocolate cookie, it remained in the form of gooey globs. The result was a hit with her guests, and Wakefield dubbed her new invention the “Chocolate Crunch Cookie.” What started as a simple substitution became one of America’s most beloved comfort foods.
Buffalo Wings: A Late-Night Improvisation That Changed Bar Food Forever
On March 4th, 1964, Dominic Bellissimo was tending bar at the now famous Anchor Bar Restaurant in Buffalo, NY. Late that evening, a group of Dominic’s friends arrived at the bar with ravenous appetites. Dominic asked his mother, Teressa, to prepare something for his friends to eat. At the time, they would take the wings off the chicken and just use them for soup or whatever. Teressa decided, because she didn’t have anything else, that she’d deep-fry the wings. She made her own sauce and tossed the wings in the sauce. What Teressa didn’t realize was that she was creating what would become one of America’s most iconic bar foods. Teressa had deep fried the wings and flavored them with a secret sauce. The wings were an instant hit and it didn’t take long for people to flock to the bar to experience this new taste sensation. The food’s popularity has only spread over the decades, with Americans now consuming an estimated 27 billion wings per year, according to the National Chicken Council. What started as a quick fix for hungry friends became a multi-billion dollar industry.
Slurpees and ICEEs: When a Broken Soda Machine Led to Frozen Gold
Omar Knedlik owned several hotels before moving to Coffeyville, Kansas, where he became the owner of a Dairy Queen in the late-1950s. It was at this Dairy Queen that he developed the Icee machine. Knedlik did not have a soda fountain, so he served semi-frozen bottled soft drinks. In 1958, Dairy Queen owner Omar Knedlik stashed some sodas in the freezer to cool them off during a hot spell that brought customers to his restaurant in droves. The sugar prevented the sodas from turning into ice cubes, and customers dug the slush. What began as a makeshift solution to keep drinks cold became something much bigger. He found that they were immensely popular, so he worked with a Dallas company to develop the ICEE machine. It took him five years to replicate the consistency in slushy soft drinks. After five years, Knedlik’s idea had become the iconic Icee Machine after drawing the attention of 7-Eleven. The convenience store chain purchased several machines and later changed the product name to Slurpee based on the slurping sound people make when drinking the beverage. Today, these frozen treats are a summer staple across America.
Worcestershire Sauce: The Condiment That Aged Into Perfection
The savory condiment was created in Worcester, England, in 1835, when a former governor of India known as Lord Sandys was looking for sauces that reminded him of his favorite flavors from the Asian subcontinent. He asked drugstore owners John Lea and William Perrins to come up with a product. The owners tested a fish-and-vegetable mixture that produced a strong odor, leading them to store the sauce in the cellar of their store – which they then forgot about. The “mistake” turned out to be exactly what the sauce needed. Two years later, the owners rediscovered the sauce while cleaning the basement. In that time, it had fermented and obtained an appealing flavor, which eventually became popular as a condiment throughout the United Kingdom. Named after the town where it was invented, Worcestershire sauce was first exported to America in 1839. What they originally considered a failed experiment that smelled too terrible to sell had transformed into one of the world’s most recognizable condiments.
