Complex Numbers

Food History

Once again, Cracked exposes some of the scurrilous lies we've been subjected to our whole lives.

15 Foods That Aren't From Where We Thought  

As usual, I'm not copying all of them here; just a few I feel the need to comment on.

Gone are the days when you were stuck eating whatever your grandma learned how to make from her grandma.

Yeah, Grandpa gets a shot now too.

Today, you can host an international culinary gang bang if you want, but in the process of globalizing food, some people became fusion pioneers, tried to pull one over on us, or just plain got confused.

One thing that's always bugged me is "authentic" cuisine. I don't give a ratatouille's patoutille if a food is "authentic." I only care that it tastes good. One of the few perks to living in the declining days of civilization is being able to get food from all over the world, and to mix it all together if you want.

15. Philly Cream Cheese is From New York

When the inventors of cream cheese were trying to come up with a name for their product in 1880, they settled on “Philadelphia cream cheese” because the city was known to be off the chain, dairy-wise, even though everything about the product was distinctly New Yorkian.

I have no idea if this (or many of the things on this list) are verifiably true or not, but come on, now, New York and Philadelphia? It's not like they called it London Cream Cheese.

14.Hawaiian Pizza is Canadian

Everyone’s least favorite flatbread could more accurately be called “Hawaiian-inspired pizza,” as it was created in Ontario by a Greek immigrant inspired by the sweet-and-savory flavors of Americanized Chinese food to capitalize on the growing Tiki trend.

On the flip side, Canada needs to stay in its lane, food-wise. As an aside, if you want to start an internet argument, the only surer way than to call Chicago "pizza" "not pizza" (as I always do) is to come down hard on liking or disliking ham and pineapple pizza.

The fact that it's ham and not Spam should, incidentally, be your first clue that it's not actually Hawaiian pizza.

12. French Fries Are Belgian (And Kind of Spanish)

Potatoes are a distinctly New World food, first brought to Europe by Spanish explorers and sliced and fried in Galicia in the 16th century, but the crispy little salt delivery vehicles didn’t really take off until Spanish colonists brought them to Belgium, which was called the Spanish Netherlands at the time, just to confuse us in the future.

This is debatable. The name "French fries" is almost certainly American, but as the article points out, potatoes themselves are definitely American (at least continentally speaking). At least one notable source claims that fries (chips, whatever) were a French thing.   That link claims (in French) that they were originally called "pommes de terre frites", which is either "fried potatoes" or "scorched earth apples," depending on how well I've been learning French. Today, the French, and French-speaking Belgians, just call them frites (you probably already knew this; it was one of the French words I learned before I seriously started learning French). Still no word on what the English call English muffins. Actually, I'm kidding; from what I understand, they just call them "muffins."

And yet, an Uber driver from Paris whom I've had occasion to ride with (and practice pronunciation on) says that frites are Belgian, so who do you trust? A food historian or an expat Uber driver?

On the other hand, Parisians are like New Yorkers in that they think everything of note was invented in their home city. In some cases, it's even true. So. Like I said. Debatable.

10. Croissants Are Austrian

Case in point.

8. Vindaloo is Portuguese

and

7. Tempura is Also Portuguese

Look, I've got nothing against the Portuguese, but I'm not taking culinary lessons from a culture that's primarily known for salted cod.

5. Egg Rolls Are American

Those Chinese-American restaurateurs also created the egg roll as a version of the lighter and crispier spring roll that would appeal more to their American customers, who we all know hate the lighter versions of things.

Which of course explains why they're no longer making Bud Light. Just kidding. They piss out way too much of that.

And finally (seriously, go to the article for more of this)...

1. No One Wants to Claim Danishes

Legend has it that Danishes were invented by accident by a thoughtless French chef in the 17th century, who opened a bakery in Paris to sell the “thousand leaves” pastries that became so popular that he franchised to Italy, where Austrian tourists apparently noticed them. Fast forward to 1850, when striking Danish bakers were scabbed over by bakers from Vienna, who didn’t know how to make Danish pastries, so they made … Danish pastries. It became a hit in Denmark, where it’s called a “Viennese,” while Germans call it a “Copenhagener” and Americans, of course, a “Danish,” because despite its universal popularity, no one apparently wants to take the credit.

With a history like that, one wonders how Europe ever devolved into World Wars.

Anyway, food is like language: constantly changing and borrowing shit from other countries. While it's of academic interest to me to figure out the origins of certain foods, ultimately, it was all because some primitive proto-human once decided to eat a morsel that accidentally fell into this newfangled "fire" thing. It caught on, and deliberately burning their food enabled humans to more easily digest protein, which in turn enabled us to power our enormous brains, which eventually led to people continuing to be stupid anyway.

Or something like that.