We can all thank poker for the accidental invention of sandwiches, which are perhaps America’s favorite lunch food. John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, was settled at the gambling table and unwilling to leave, so he requested something to munch while he continued playing cards.
His cook brought him meat sandwiched between two slices of bread. The Earl was a fan, and soon the dish became popular, eventually being named after the town where its original eater was from. Nowadays, of course, sandwiches come in every style and shape; their convenience and ease of making are just some things we most love about them.
Tarte Tatin
The story behind Tarte Tatin's came from Hotel Tatin, 100 miles south of Paris, run by two sisters, was this famous pastry's birthplace. Stephanie Tatin, one of the sisters, was so exhausted that she overcooked apples in butter and sugar.
She smelled apples burning in the pan; even though they were meant to be for a traditional apple pie, she covered it with a pastry base and then jammed it inside the oven. She decided to present the apple pie regardless, and it proved to be a pure success among their guests.
Waffle Cones
The ice cream cone comes in various different forms. The softer cone is associated with soft serve, the harder, crunchier type, and everyone's favorite, waffle cones. But these cones have an unusual story going back more than a century. Even though Italo Marchiony was awarded a patent for producing his ice cream cone in December 1903 in New York, it was a pastry vendor named Ernest A. Hamwi whose invention at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904 that was made in a hurry.
He ran out of dishes to serve the ice cream on, so Hamwi quickly rolled up a freshly baked waffle-like pastry that had cooled down and then placed the ice cream on top. The customers couldn't have been happier. This may be solid proof that sometimes necessity is the mother of invention.
Yogurt
Before Stonehenge was erected, before the Egyptians built the pyramids, we made yogurt before we even invented the wheel! Evidence suggests yogurt existed as early as 6,000 BC. Our Neolithic ancestors began domesticating livestock, put some goat milk in a leather pouch, and after a while in the sun, yogurt was made - similar to cheese, by the way.
Since then, almost every culture (pun intended) and the country has begun to consume yogurt - whether it's topped with fruit and granola, served as a blended drink with rosewater, or used in recipes.
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola has reached a level of brand-recognition envied by many companies. There aren't many places you can't grab a Coke — if you're driving through Djibouti and get a craving for a Coke, guess what? You can pick one up even in this semi-desert in Africa. That's the kind of power Coke has; when aliens arrive on Earth, they'll be like, "Oh, you guys have Coke too? That's neat."
Apparently, Coca-Cola was designated as a medicine when John Pemberton invented it back in 1885. He promoted it as 'brain tonic and intellectual beverage,' keeping the recipe under wraps but not hiding the fact that it contained a secret extracted from the coca leaf and caffeine from kola nuts (ergo, the name Coca-Cola). During Prohibition, it became popular as a 'soft' drink as people enjoyed its taste, without the added addictive stimulants, of course.