It’s no secret that some of the planet’s most popular dishes and food brands hail from the USA. But once they’ve achieved world dominance, their humble beginnings are often forgotten. We take a step back in time to find out the origins of our favorite American foods and how they’ve taken the world by storm.
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Heinz tomato ketchup
One of the world’s most loved and trusted food brands, Heinz begins its story in 1869, when business partners Henry J Heinz and L Clarence Noble launched Heinz & Noble to sell horseradish sauce. The US got its first taste of Heinz ketchup in 1876 and only 10 years later it was launched in the UK. The company grew quickly and it broadened its range to soups, sauces and even baby food.
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Heinz tomato ketchup
In the 1990s Heinz decided to expand its operations east and started distributing its products in countries like Russia and China. Today, the company exports Heinz Beanz to 60 countries, however, its most popular product still remains the Heinz tomato ketchup. The famous red sauce is available in more than 140 countries around the world and the company estimates that 650 million bottles are sold globally every year.
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Chicago deep-dish pizza
Purportedly invented in 1943 in Chicago’s Pizzeria Uno, the deep-dish pizza has long been a symbol of the Windy City. First, the dough is parbaked before it’s stuffed with layers of cheese, pepperoni, tomato sauce and more cheese. After its invention, the new style of pizza soon took off and many of Pizzeria Uno’s cooks and employees moved on to open other successful pizza places in Chicago.
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Chicago deep-dish pizza
The original Pizzeria Uno is still open in Chicago, and the Uno Pizzeria & Grill chain owns more than 100 locations around the US and beyond. The love for Chicago deep-dish doesn’t end in America either – many pizza restaurants around the world now feature deep-dish pizzas on their menus, while Chicago Town is one of the most-loved frozen pizza brands in the UK.
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Big Mac
Dreamt up by Michael James ‘Jim’ Delligatti – a McDonald’s franchisee who owned a store near Pittsburgh – the idea for a double-patty burger was turned down by McDonald’s executives several times. The new burger had a sesame seed bun that wasn’t used in any of their other products and a special sauce too. But Jim’s persistence led to the Big Mac finally getting a space on the menu in 1967 and in the first year, it was such an incredible hit among customers it soon got rolled out across all McDonald’s locations at the time.
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Big Mac
Big Mac’s superfans can visit the Big Mac Museum Restaurant in Irwin, Pennsylvania. The museum, which is also a functioning McDonald’s restaurant, displays Big Mac boxes from over the years as well as the first Big Mac bun toaster. Today McDonald’s sells about 550 million Big Macs per year in the US alone.
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Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes
Since 1952, millions of people around the world have been starting their day with a bowl of Frosted Flakes. Today it remains one of the best-selling cereals in America and internationally, with its loveable mascot Tony the Tiger earning it extra fans. In the US there are plenty of tasty variations on the original too, including Frosted Flakes with Marshmallows and Cinnamon Frosted Flakes.
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Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes
You might be surprised to learn that Tony’s favorite breakfast cereal is not known as Frosted Flakes everywhere. Most countries apart from the US and Canada know the ubiquitous cereal as Frosties; Spanish-speaking nations in the Americas call it Zucaritas; Brazil uses Sucrilhos, and the Japanese enjoy a bowl of Corn Frosty in the morning. In fact, even in America Frosted Flakes had a different name until 1983. Previously known as Sugar Frosted Flakes, the word sugar was dropped when the nation became more conscious about its daily sugar intake.
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New York cheesecake
Cheesecake has a long history and different versions of it exist throughout the world – Hawaiian cheesecake is topped with pineapple, while in the UK the dessert is generally made with cream cheese and isn’t baked. However, it’s the New York version that the world can’t get enough of. A stripped-back recipe, it has no extravagant flavorings and is rarely served with fancy toppings or indulgent sauces. The beginnings of a New York-style cheesecake can be traced back to 1872, when New York dairyman William Lawrence accidentally made cream cheese while trying to recreate a soft French cheese known as Neufchâtel.
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New York cheesecake
The cheesecake itself didn’t see daylight until the 1900s, when Arnold Reuben, a German-Jewish immigrant (apparently the same man who created the legendary sandwich), purportedly came up with the classic cheesecake recipe after having tasted variations of it at a dinner party. Reuben began serving the new recipe in his Turf Restaurant where it quickly gained popularity. Both the Turf Restaurant and the Reuben Restaurant and Deli are now closed, however, you can still get a taste of the original, no-frills New York cheesecake at a number of delis, like Katz’s.
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Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
In the early 1900s peanut butter was a luxury served at the elegant Manhattan tea rooms and it wasn’t until the invention of sliced bread in the 1920s that the peanut butter sandwich was eaten by the masses. Also, around the same time, popular peanut butter brands like Skippy hit the shelves and during the Great Depression the popularity of this simple yet filling sandwich grew. After the Second World War jelly came into play too. Alongside peanut butter and bread, jelly was on the US military’s ration list, so it didn’t take long for thrifty parents to put two and two together.
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Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
Traditionally made with two slices of white bread, two tablespoons of strawberry jelly and two tablespoons of peanut butter, the iconic sandwich has crossed continents and its flavor has gained an almost cult-like status. PBJ was a popular Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor from 1989 to 1990; there are peanut butter and jelly-flavored vodkas and beers; and a flurry of cake, brownie and donut recipes incorporate the classic PBJ flavor too. The world just can’t get enough of this simple yet classic combination.
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BLT
The history of the BLT is not entirely clear, though there is little evidence that the tasty sandwich existed before the 1900s. In fact, a recipe in the 1903 Good Housekeeping Everyday Cook Book (pictured) that included bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and a slice of turkey is thought to be one of the first mentions of a BLT-like sandwich. It gained popularity rapidly after the Second World War when the rise of supermarkets meant ingredients were available throughout the year.
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BLT
It wasn’t until the 1970s that the abbreviation BLT (bacon, lettuce, tomato) came into common use – but fast-forward to today and it’s hard to find a deli or a sandwich shop that would shy away from the classic combo and its catchy name. It’s long been recognized as a national favorite in both the US and the UK.
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Oreo
Developed in 1912 by National Biscuit Company (today known as Nabisco), the first Oreo was sold on 6 March 1912 to a grocer in Hoboken, New Jersey. It was here that the nation’s – and indeed the world’s – obsession with the black-and-white cookies began. Today, Oreo is the best-selling cookie in the world, sold in more than 100 different countries and bringing in over $2 billion in annual sales. Apart from in the alternative versions, like Mini Oreos and Oreo Thins, there’s a very precise biscuit-to-filling ratio that has to be exactly 71% cookie and 29% cream.
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Oreo
Oreo cookies have gained a lot of popularity thanks to the weird and wonderful flavors and limited editions that are available around the world. China, Indonesia and Japan are known for having the taste for more unusual flavors like green tea and birthday cake. China is also known for doubled up flavors like orange and mango or raspberry and blueberry. In Chile and Argentina you can get your hands on banana and dulce de leche Oreo.
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Cosmopolitan
A version of a Cosmopolitan could be found in cocktail recipe books as early as the beginning of the 20th century – however, it wasn’t until 1987 that the modern-day Cosmo was born. Largely credited to Toby Cecchini of The Odeon in Manhattan, the cocktail was given a fresh spin and saw Absolut Citron and Cointreau mixed with cranberry juice and fresh lime juice.
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Cosmopolitan
Of course, it wasn’t until Sex and the City hit screens around the world in the late 1990s that the Cosmo achieved the status of a pop culture icon. It topped bar menus around the world as it became synonymous with independent, working women and the budding cocktail revolution.
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Coca-Cola
In 1886 pharmacist John Pemberton, inspired by simple curiosity, mixed a fragrant, caramel-colored liquid with carbonated water and gave it out for Jacobs’ Pharmacy’s customers to sample. The new drink was such a hit that the pharmacy started selling it for five cents a glass and the rest is history. After decades of success with Coca-Cola, the company developed more drinks like Fanta and Sprite, however, it was the Coca-Cola that slowly but surely conquered the world.
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Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough Ice Cream
Given Ben & Jerry’s worldwide appeal, it’s hard to believe that the ice-cream titan had such humble beginnings. The company began in the 1970s with two men (Ben and Jerry, of course) and a scoop shop in a renovated gas station in Vermont – word spread quickly, though, and over the next couple of decades Ben & Jerry’s became a household name. Described by Ben & Jerry’s itself as “the World’s Most Popular Pint”, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, came onto the scene in 1984.
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Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough Ice Cream
The well-loved flavor was actually a customer idea, but Ben & Jerry’s saw the sweet suggestion as a no-brainer and soon whipped up a recipe. It was an instant hit, in pint form by 1991, and across the pond in the UK by 1994. Ben & Jerry’s is still widely credited with inventing the cookie dough ice cream flavor, and it’s ubiquitous today in supermarkets and parlors around the globe.
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Tater tots
Whether you prefer them as tasty snack or as an easy accompaniment to a TV dinner, tater tots are an American classic that the world has got on board with. They’ve been known by different names around the globe over the years – “oven crunchies” in Europe and “potato gems” in Australia – but ultimately they’re the same thing: fluffy bites of potatoey goodness deep fried until golden brown.
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Tater tots
The name and the product itself was the invention of frozen food company Ore-Ida, which now sits under the Kraft Heinz umbrella. Founders F. Nephi and Golden Grigg dreamt up the potato nuggets in the 1950s as a way to use up leftover potato created when making French fries. Decades later tater tots had become Ore-Ida’s signature product in the States, and offshoots are still well-loved around the globe.
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Hot dog
Although the history of the humble sausage can be traced to a time way before Columbus sailed to the New World, the American hot dog was born a little later. Either wrapped in bacon, covered in cheese or topped with chili, the classic frankfurter and bun combination was invented by German immigrants in America. It is widely believed that the first hot dog – then known as ‘dachshund sausage’ – was sold out of a food cart in New York City in the 1860s.
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Hot dog
The hot dog really took off when Nathan Handwerker opened a hot dog stand in Coney Island in 1916. By the 1920s Nathan’s Famous was exactly that – famous. Hot dog fever had taken America by storm and it hasn’t shown any sign of stopping since. Hot dogs have become an indispensable part of American-style diners and cafés around the world, and new hot dog stands are popping up in trendy food markets, where you’ll find delicious takes like Korean kimchi hot dogs.
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Eggs Benedict
Eggs Benedict is such a quintessential brunch staple that even McDonald’s based its breakfast hero Egg McMuffin on the recipe. The classic combination sees a toasted English muffin topped with Canadian bacon and a poached egg all slathered in hollandaise sauce. But many variations of the dish exist, including eggs Blanchard, which substitutes hollandaise for béchamel sauce, and eggs royale which sees the Canadian bacon switched out for smoked salmon.
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Eggs Benedict
Several eggs Benedict origin stories exist, however, the most widely accepted is that of Lemuel Benedict, a Wall Street stockbroker. Hungover and hungry, Benedict wandered into New York City’s Waldorf Hotel (now Waldorf Astoria) in 1894 and ordered “buttered toast, poached eggs, crisp bacon and a hooker of hollandaise”. According to the story, Oscar Tschirky, the maître d’hôtel, was so impressed with the dish, he put eggs Benedict on the menu, swapping toast for an English muffin and crisp bacon for Canadian bacon. The dish has remained an icon at the hotel, served to everyone from presidents to movie stars. Discover 28 tips for cooking eggs at home here.
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Waldorf salad
Another dish invented by Oscar of the Waldorf (a popular nickname for Oscar Tschirky), the Waldorf salad took New York City by storm when it was first served in the 1890s. While the original recipe – outlined in Oscar’s cookbook The Cookbook by Oscar of the Waldorf – only contained apples, celery and mayonnaise, chopped walnuts, grapes and blue cheese have all become an integral part of the dish over time.
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Waldorf salad
In Europe, one of the first Waldorf salad mentions can be found in the legendary chef Auguste Escoffier’s cookbook Complete Guide to Modern Cookery. Close to a culinary bible, the cookbook left an impact on restaurants across the continent, who all started including versions of the Waldorf salad on their French-inspired menus. Back at the Waldorf, despite the dish’s age and divisive reputation, it’s still one of the most ordered plates of food, with more than 20,000 servings leaving the Waldorf’s kitchen every year.
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Buffalo wings
A reference to Buffalo, New York rather than an actual buffalo, the wings were invented in 1964 at the Anchor Bar (pictured) by Teressa Bellissimo. Three versions of the story exist: one, her son came in late with his friends and demanded a snack; two, the bar received a wrong delivery of too many chicken wings; and three, Teressa’s husband came up with the idea of serving a quick meat snack at midnight on Friday (at the time Catholics used to eat only vegetarian or pescatarian on Fridays).
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Buffalo wings
Whoever Teressa was supposed to feed, she came up with the idea of broiling the wings before slathering them in a spicy sauce and serving them with celery and blue cheese sauce. And the whole world has had a love affair with this zingy and delicious appetizer ever since. In fact, Americans eat an estimated 1.35 billion chicken wings on Super Bowl Sunday, according to the National Chicken Council.
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