The Post Quiz: Junk Food History - Answers
Created | Updated Mar 8, 2015
Life's simple pleasures. Enjoy, but don't overindulge.
Junk Food History: Answers
You might be surprised – or you might not. Depends on how much you knew about the history of your favourite junk foods.
Where and when were these hitchhiker delectables introduced?
Short answers.
- Popcorn: Mexico, 4000 years ago. At least, that's where the oldest popcorn has been found. In the Bat Cave. (We are not making this up.) Thank a Native American for this treat.
- Ice cream: China, 200 BCE. The original recipe involved rice and buffalo milk. Yummy.
- Cake: If you said something about Marie Antoinette, shame on you. Ancient Egypt, over 4000 years ago. Yep, back when the Toltecs were eating popcorn, an Egyptian named Pepionkh was being buried with a vacuum-packed piece of cake. The recipe included sesame seeds and cat pee. (He couldn't keep his kittehs out of the kitchen either.)
- Bangers: Britain in World War II. No, they weren't enemy weapons, though they might make you jump if you were gun shy. Wartime swossages had water in, and tended to explode in the pan.
- Coney Island hot dogs: New York, 1871. Brits have loud sausages, Yanks have frankfurters inna bun. A German butcher first peddled these 'dachshunds' at the beachfront fairground in 1871, and sold 3,684 the first year. (Somebody counted.)
- Cracker Jack: Chicago, 1893. The messy but delicious combination of peanuts, popcorn, and molasses hit the midway at the Chicago World's Fair. The name was 1890s slang – a salesman tried it and said, 'That's cracker jack!', meaning 'awesome', we suspect. But Awesome wouldn't make a very good brand name.
- Jelly babies: Lancashire, 1864. The Doctor probably knows this. Originally, they were invented by an Austrian candymaker, who called them 'unclaimed babies', which, frankly, is a bit weird. (Rather like The Doctor.) In 1918, they were called 'Peace Babies', aww.
- Jammie Dodgers: Wales, mid-20th Century. Believe it or not, they appear to be dodgy about the exact dates of Jammie Dodgers. But it's the UK's most popular biscuit, and The Doctor likes to eat them when he's not using them to fool gullible Daleks. Not too bright, Daleks.
- Pork scratchings: West Midlands, early 19th Century. That's as close as we can get. US people call them 'pork rinds', and there have been presidents who indulged.
- Potato crisps (chips in the US): Moon Lake Lodge, Saratoga, New York, 24 August 1853. Yes, that specific. That Saratoga, too. On the very spot where the brave Colonists defeated the perfidious British Army1, an angry German chef got into a contest with an impossible customer. It seems Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt liked his chips crisp, by gum, and thin. Chef George Crum was annoyed. He cut them thinner and thinner, fried them harder and harder, and buried them in salt. He had a hit on his hands: the potato crisp (or chip) was born, and the Rest Is History, as they say.
Humans, the ever-inventive. Go out and celebrate this quiz with a jammie dodger. Or some cake. Just leave out the cat-related ingredients.
1Okay, shutting up now.
