The fascinating origin stories of three of your most favourite foods
You can't resist munching snacks, whether it's for watching your favourite movie, as a lunchtime pick-me-up, or during a nocturnal raid on the fridge. There are snacks for every taste starting from salty, crunchy, sweet and chewy to spicy and creamy, to fruity and sour. Today, we will take you through the origin stories of some of your most beloved snacks and beverages.
Railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt: The inspiration behind potato chips
While there are many stories surrounding this delicious snack, the most popular version of the origin of potato chips centers around Moon's Lake House, a well-known eatery in the tourist destination of Saratoga Springs, New York. The story goes something like this: One day in 1853, the railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt visited the Moon’s Lake House for dinner. Disappointed with the fried potatoes served to him, he requested for more finely-thinly sliced potatoes. George Crum, a veteran Native American chef, took umbrage to this and in a mood to "I will show him" served crisply fried, super-thin potato slices. To Crum's surprise, Vanderbilt loved the crisps, and the rest is history!
The accidental discovery of chocolate chip cookies
While there are many tales regarding the origins of the cookies, from chocolate inadvertently falling into the cookie batter to a hurried last-minute ingredient miracle, the true story is less of a fiction.
The credit for the discovery of chocolate chip cookies goes to Ruth Wakefield, who ran the Toll House Inn, a lodge for travellers, in Whitman, Massachusetts, back in the late 1930s. Wakefield was an inexperienced baker with a degree in home arts. She used to make all the meals at the inn. One day, while baking a batch of Butter Drop Do cookies, Ruth added pieces from a Nestle chocolate bar. She intended to create solid chocolate cookies, but time had other plans. The chocolate chip cookie that got accidentally created was called the ‘Toll House Crunch Cookie’. and its recipe was published in a Boston newspaper. The original recipe for this crunchy cookie with melted chocolates appeared in Wakefield’s cookbook Tried and True in 1939. That year, she sold the rights of her recipe and the name Toll House to Nestle. Today, America's most popular chocolate chip cookie is more than 80 years old!
Pepsi Cola: From a digestive aid to a bubbly beverage
Today, it is hard to find a person who has not tasted this cola at least once. Pepsi evolved from its modest origins in a drugstore 125 years ago to become a beverage that entered every household.
Pharmacist Caleb Bradham of New Bern (1866 –1934), North Carolina, created the original Pepsi Cola formulation in 1893. He ran a soda fountain in his drugstore where he served medicinal drinks that he made himself, like many pharmacists in those days. Known as Brad's Drink, this was a digestive aid made of a concoction of sugar, water, caramel, lemon oil, kola nuts, nutmeg, and other flavors, was his most well-liked beverage. As the popularity and sales kept growing, he gave it a more catchy name, Pepsi-Cola to replicate the success! He patented the name Pepsi Cola in 1903. By 1910, franchisers were running businesses in 24 states, imagine the popularity! Pepsi-Cola began as a digestive drink in a pharmacy and evolved into a multi-billion dollar brand with bottles in every household across the world.