Every country is famous for creating a certain culinary concoction.
Whatever you eat you can guarantee there’s a story behind it and a certain country attached
to its creation.
But you shouldn’t always rely on these commonly told countries of origin because some famous
foods don’t actually come from where you thought.
Here are nine extremely common foods with unexpected and surprising countries of origin.
You’ve just had an enjoyable meal at a Chinese restaurant, what would be the perfect thing
to end your meal.
A scoop of ice cream?
A coffee, perhaps?
No don’t be silly, you need to know your fortune of course!
Yes, you must find out if you’re going to come into considerable wealth or if your partner
secretly hates your guts and desires to leave you.
Fortune cookies are popular in most western countries, and foolishly most western countries
believe they’re actually Chinese.
Whereas in China they’re actually well known for being an American invention.
But here’s the twist, you’re all wrong!
It’s true they showed up in the US well before they were a thing in China.
They were brought to California by the Japanese, yes Japan!
Their origin dates back to the 19th century in Kyoto, Japan.
The Japanese version of the cookie is called “tsujiura senbei” and they are slightly
different from the ones we know today.
They are a little bit bigger, darker in colour and their batter contains sesame and miso,
instead of vanilla and butter.
The cookies do contain a fortune, but the small piece of paper is wedged into the bend
of the cookie, rather than placed inside.
The cookies were modified to resemble the ones we know today after they were brought
to America.
The original variation of the cookies are still sold today, in some regions of Japan.
Next up is the supposed Indian balti dish, Chicken Tikka Masala.
Whilst you would be forgiven for thinking that this curry originated in India, it is
actually believed to have been originally invented in the United Kingdom.
Glasgow, Scotland, to be precise.
The story goes that in the early 1970s, a customer dining at the Indian restaurant Shish
Mahal in Glasgow complained about the dryness of the chicken dish he was served and sent
it back to the kitchen.
The chef, Ali Ahmed Aslam, quickly prepared a sauce which included various spices and
a tin of Campbell’s condensed tomato soup and the famous dish was born.
The dish is completely unheard of in India.
When you think of France you probably think of the Eiffel Tower and Beret’s.
And just to throw some more fuel onto the stereotypical fire, sitting outside a café,
smoking, drinking coffee and eating a croissant, but it turns out that this classic French
breakfast pastry isn’t actually French.
I know, it rather shocking.
Going back as far as the 13th century, an early ancestor of the croissant can be found
in the form of a traditional Austrian yeast roll, which was made into crescent shapes
called a “Kipferl”.
Although these types of pastries were found throughout Europe, they were primarily Austrian.
Austrian artillery officer August Zang brought these to France when he founded his Viennese
bakery in Paris called “Boulangerie Viennoise” between 1938 and 1939.
Kipferl’s were a hit with the Parisians, so they nicked it, modified it a tiny bit
and the French version of the Austrian pastry was born.
They named it croissant after it’s cresent shape.
Speaking of things that aren’t French: French Toast.
In fact, there’s evidence to suggest that the recipe of fried eggy bread was around
long before France was even a country.
In 4th century Rome, instead of discarding their stale bread, they would try to make
it more edible by soaking it in a mixture of egg and milk.
This origin is still seen today in what we know as French Toast, the French call it “Pain
Perdu”, which literally means “Lost Bread”.
But how did it get the name “French Toast?”
Whilst this topic is widely debated, a popular myth is that in 1724, an innkeeper named Joseph
French in Albany, New York, created the dish and advertised it as “French Toast”.
He meant to advertise it as “French’s Toast” but the silly bugger forgot the apostrophe
“s” at the end.
Next up is the Caesar Salad.
Whilst it may be easy to assume that this came from Rome and was probably named after
Julius Caesar, it may surprise you to learn that this popular salad was actually invented
in Mexico.
The salad’s creator is widely recognised as restaurateur Caesar Cardini, who is an
Italian immigrant that operated restaurants in Mexico where he created the dish on an
alleged Fourth of July in 1924 when he ran out of ingredients and had to make do with
what he had, adding a bit of flair by table-side tossing.
On the subject of Mexico….
Fajitas aren’t Mexican, they’re Texan.
Just across the border in Texas in the 1940’s, Mexican ranch workers living in Texas were
given the least appetising parts of animals, which were later butchered for food.
Such as the head, intestines and a part which came to be known as the “fajita” which
was a thin layer of muscle that covered the diaphragm.
The workers tenderised the meat by pounding it, marinating it in lime juice and cooked
it on an open fire before serving it rolled up in a flour tortilla.
The word “faja” is the Spanish word for “strip”.
The term “fajita” has developed over the years from meaning a cheap piece of meat to
describing pieces of meat wrapped in a tortilla, but the word “fajita” according the Oxford
English Dictionary did not appear in print until 1971.
“Ninfa’s Restaurant” in Houston, Texas is said to be the biggest development in what
we today know today as “Fajitas”.
In 1973, an item appeared on the menu called “Tacos al Carbon”, consisting of grilled
meat strips, condiments and flour tortillas.
They later changed the name to “Fajitas’ in 1981.
Next up is the surprising origin of chips, or French fries.
They’re thought to have been invented in 17th century Belgium, although there is some
debate going on about this as France claims to have invented them first.
But they totally didn’t.
The tale goes that the people of Namur, Andenne and Dinant in Belgium used to fry the little
fish that they caught from the Meuse River.
When the river froze over during harsh winters, they would instead cut potatoes into the shape
of little fish and fry those instead.
As to the confusion of why they are called “French Fries”, it is said that the Belgian
national dish “les frites” was simply just given the wrong name by American servicemen
at the end of the First World War when they arrived in Belgium.
They named the fried potatoes after the French language spoken in Wallonia, the predominately
French-speaking region of Belgium, therefore translating “Les Frites” into “French
Fries”.
If you think that Spaghetti and Meatballs is a traditional Italian dish, you’d be
wrong.
In fact, if you travel to Italy, it would be very difficult to find Spaghetti and Meatballs
on the menu, and if you do happen to find it, it’s probably only being served to satisfy
the tourists.
It turns out that Spaghetti and Meatballs as we know it today was actually invented
in the USA by Italian immigrants.
Between 1880 to 1920 around 4 million Italians immigrated to America, and went from spending
75% of their income on food to just 25%.
Whereas before they had to make do with the ingredients they could find and afford, they
were now able to put meat on the table quite easily, such as meatballs.
With canned tomatoes being an easily accessible source of food at most local stores, The Italian
marinara sauce, otherwise known as “Sailor Sauce” governed Italian-American food.
Combing these ingredients together with one of the only Italian ingredients available,
spaghetti, the dish of Spaghetti and Meatballs was born and made its way on to dinner tables
all over the world.
It was consequently given the false image of an authentic Italian meal.
Last but certainly not least is the famous flavoured icy treat that is ice cream.
This sumptuous dessert that we know and love today is said to have been created in 17th
Century Italy but the reality is that ice cream in some shape or form actually dates
back as far as 3,000 BC in China.
The ice cream back then however was a far cry from the pre-packaged cornettos and magnums
that we enjoy today.
The Chinese would use a mixture of milk and rice to make their iced cream.
But in 3,000 BC, I’m fairly certain they didn’t have freezers.
So how did they make their ice cream, ice cold?
They accomplished this by pouring a mixture of snow and saltpetre around containers filled
with their ingredients.
Just how salt raises the boiling point of water, it also lowers the freezing point to
below zero.
And there you have it, ice cream.
Fast forward to 1533, and Italian duchess Catherine de’ Medici is credited for bringing
ice cream to Europe.
She is said to have brought to France with her some Italian chefs who had knowledge and
recipes for flavoured sorbets and ices.
100 years later a legend tells the tale of how Charles I of England was so taken with
the “frozen snow” that he gave his personal ice cream maker a lifetime pension in return
for keeping the formula a secret, so that ice cream could be a royal prerogative.