6 Secret Origin Stories of Modern Foods

What do you do when you feel hungry but are too tired to go through all the messy process of preparing the ingredients, cutting and cooking them, only to be left with a pile of dirty dishes? You order out, of course! Pizza, sushi, tacos, burgers – these days you can have pretty much anything you want at any time of day or night, as long as you have the dough. Most of this is thanks to the invention of refrigeration, which led to the revolution called “processed food”.

Since then the factories were able to process more food (hence the name) and store it for a lot longer, which meant saving money and more time to develop new products. Some of those products have wild origin stories, and you’re about to see some real conversation starters!

Here are 6 secret origin stories of modern foods!

1. Ketchup

Statistically speaking, almost every person reading this has a bottle/pack of ketchup in their fridge right now. Well, that and mayonnaise. Coincidentally these two condiments make the best sauce for chicken. So where did ketchup come from? Some sources claim that sometime during 1600s traders coming from China would bring red chunky fish-based sauce which they called “ke-tsiap”. It instantly conquered the taste buds of the entire Europe and then the Americas. Naturally, the chefs began playing around with the formula, making thousands of variations, which is why today there’s only one sauce that supposedly tastes like the original – Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce.

2. Pepsi

We all know about the Coca-Cola/Pepsi rivalry that has been going for over 100 years now, but how did Pepsi even came to be? About 100 years ago a bunch of chemists and pharmacists got a completely wrong idea that carbonated drinks improve health, and their own Coca-Cola was served for free inside their pharmacies. Pepsi was created in the same way just a few years later. Both Coke and Pepsi were sold everywhere in the early 1900s. But in 1923 Pepsi went out of business only to come back stronger and even more refreshing! They’ve started using 12 oz bottles instead of 6 oz ones, and that was a critical success among the customers. I personally would take Pepsi over Coke any day of the week.