49 Fun Facts About American Food

By the best-known account, Buffalo wings were first served in 1964 at which Buffalo, New York bar?

Anchor Bar co-owner Teressa Bellissimo is credited with deep-frying wings, a cut that usually went into the stock pot, as a late-night snack for her son's hungry friends.

Hot dog vendors Pat and Harry Olivieri are credited with inventing which sandwich in the early 1930s?

By the family's account, the cheesesteak began as Pat's own lunch of chopped beef and onions on a roll; a cab driver asked for one and told him to forget the hot dogs, and the cheese was only added years later.

The Caesar salad, a fixture of American menus, is said to have been created on July 4, 1924 in which city?

Italian immigrant Caesar Cardini ran a restaurant in Tijuana serving Americans dodging Prohibition; his daughter Rosa insisted the original had Worcestershire sauce but no anchovies.

Which company introduced Spam in 1937?

Hormel built Spam around pork shoulder, a cut that otherwise sold poorly; World War II then made it a household name as millions of pounds went overseas to feed Allied troops.

Which US state eats the most Spam per person?

Hawaii's Spam musubi, a slice of the meat on rice wrapped in nori, is a local staple; the taste dates to World War II, when Spam fed GIs stationed across the islands.

In which country is Ignacio Anaya said to have invented nachos in the 1940s for US military wives from Fort Duncan?

By the usual story, Anaya, working at a restaurant in Piedras Negras, Mexico, couldn't find the cook, so he melted cheese over fried tortilla triangles with jalapeños; the name is probably his nickname, Nacho.

Deep-dish pizza was invented in 1943 at which Windy City restaurant?

Pizzeria Uno's founders Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo get the credit, though their chef Rudy Malnati Sr. may deserve it; the cheese goes under the chunky tomato sauce.

Which chain, founded in Wichita in 1921, is credited as the first fast-food hamburger chain?

White Castle built small white buildings with stainless steel interiors and put its staff in spotless uniforms to win over diners wary of ground beef since Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.

Despite their Chinese-restaurant fame, fortune cookies most likely reached America with immigrants from which country?

Japan had the cookie first: bakers in Kyoto made a very similar cracker holding a paper fortune in the 1800s, and San Francisco's Japanese Tea Garden is said to have served them by the early 1900s.

Which dessert did Florida designate its official state pie in 2006?

Key lime pie leans on canned condensed milk, probably because fresh milk and refrigeration were scarce in the isolated Florida Keys; the filling should be pale yellow, never green.

Which dessert did David Strickler create at a Latrobe, Pennsylvania, pharmacy in 1904?

The banana split cost a dime, twice the price of other sundaes, yet students from a nearby college spread the word; Wilmington, Ohio, makes a rival claim dated 1907.

Which sandwich is said to be named for an Omaha grocer who ordered it at his weekly hotel poker game?

The Reuben, in Omaha's telling, was made for grocer Reuben Kulakofsky at the Blackstone Hotel, whose owner then put it on the lunch menu; New York deli owner Arnold Reuben has a rival claim.

The Cobb salad is named after the owner of which Hollywood restaurant?

Robert Howard Cobb, owner of the Brown Derby, supposedly threw it together from kitchen leftovers late one night in 1937, and it went on the menu chopped in neat rows.

Which hot dog brand began as a nickel stand on Coney Island in 1916?

Nathan's Famous was started by Nathan Handwerker, a roll slicer at Feltman's on Coney Island, who quit and undercut his old boss by charging five cents a hot dog instead of ten.

Which condiment do purists famously ban from a Chicago-style hot dog 'dragged through the garden'?

Ketchup is the outcast: purists say its sweetness drowns the dog's salty toppings, and the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council's etiquette guide rules it out for anyone over 18.

Ed Waldmire's Cozy Dog, first sold in Illinois in 1946, was an early version of which snack?

The corn dog nearly had a worse name: Waldmire first sold his batter-dipped franks as 'crusty curs' until, by the family's telling, his wife Virginia objected and they settled on Cozy Dogs.

Which frozen-food company created Tater Tots in 1953 to use up leftover slivers of cut potato?

Ore-Ida's tots sold slowly at first because, the founders guessed, the low price made them seem worthless; sales took off once the company charged more.

Which state's pork barbecue splits between a vinegar-pepper sauce east and tomato-tinged 'dip' west?

North Carolina takes the split seriously: a bill to give Lexington's barbecue festival a statewide official title stalled in 2005, and a 2007 compromise confined the title to the Piedmont Triad.

Which barbecue city is best known for pork ribs served either 'wet' or 'dry'?

Memphis ribs come dry, coated in a spice rub and served without sauce, or wet, basted as they cook; Charlie Vergos opened his basement Rendezvous in 1948 selling ham sandwiches and added the dry ribs in the 1950s.

At a Cincinnati chili parlor, what does ordering a 'three-way' get you?

Spaghetti, chili and cheese make a three-way; the Kiradjieff brothers, who sold chili-topped hot dogs beside a burlesque theatre from 1922, devised the 'way' system of ordering.

Which Cincinnati chili chain did Greek immigrant Nicholas Lambrinides found in 1949?

Skyline Chili is named for the city view from its first restaurant; Lambrinides had cooked at Empress, the original Cincinnati chili parlor, before opening his own place with his sons.

Which US president served 'a pie called macaroni' at a state dinner in 1802?

Thomas Jefferson's enslaved chef James Hemings, who trained in France, is credited with bringing the dish home; dinner guest Manasseh Cutler recorded the 'pie called macaroni' in his account of the meal.

In which country is Kraft macaroni and cheese known as Kraft Dinner, or simply KD?

Canada took to it in wartime, when rationing made meatless meals common and a box kept for ten months without a fridge; by a 2012 count Canadians ate 55 percent more per person than Americans.

Green bean casserole was created in 1955 in whose corporate test kitchen?

Dorcas Reilly devised it at Campbell Soup for an Associated Press feature that wanted a quick dish from things most homes kept on hand, green beans and cream of mushroom soup.

Since 1989, what happens to the turkey presented to the US president each November?

It is given a mock pardon, a ritual the elder George Bush made permanent in 1989; President Kennedy had sent his 1963 bird back to the farm with no pardon, saying he would let it grow.

What flavour was the original Twinkie filling when James Dewar invented the snack cake in 1930?

Dewar's original was banana cream; a wartime banana shortage forced the switch to vanilla that stuck. The name came from a billboard for Twinkle Toe Shoes.

The Oreo, launched by Nabisco in 1912, was an imitation of which earlier sandwich cookie?

Hydrox, launched by Sunshine in 1908, came first, yet the later Oreo far outsold the cookie it copied.

By company lore, Cracker Jack was first shown to the public at a world's fair in which city in 1893?

Brothers Frederick and Louis Rueckheim are said to have sold the popcorn, peanut and molasses mix at Chicago's 1893 exposition; it clumped until Louis found a way to keep the kernels apart in 1896.

Cracker Jack is named in the chorus of a 1908 song about which sport?

Baseball's Take Me Out to the Ball Game was written, by lyricist Jack Norworth's account, after he saw a subway sign for a game at the Polo Grounds; he did not attend a major league game himself until 1940.

Which style of clam chowder is made with a clear broth, with neither milk nor tomatoes?

Rhode Island keeps its chowder clear; the earliest recorded clam chowders had no milk either and were thickened with crackers or stale bread.

Which dish has the Louisiana legislature named the state's official cuisine?

Gumbo's name probably comes from an African word for okra, one of three thickeners alongside French roux and filé, the ground sassafras leaves borrowed from Native American cooks.

What three vegetables make up the 'holy trinity' at the base of Cajun and Creole cooking?

Celery, bell peppers and onions echo French mirepoix, but Louisiana cooks swapped the carrots for bell peppers, which were cheaper and easier to grow there.

The Hot Brown, an open-faced turkey sandwich in Mornay sauce, was created in 1926 in which city?

Fred K. Schmidt devised it at the Brown Hotel in Louisville as a late-night alternative to ham and eggs for the hotel's dance crowd.

General Tso's chicken is named after a statesman from which Chinese province?

Hunan-born chef Peng Chang-kuei is credited with the dish and brought it from Taipei to New York around 1973; when he later opened a restaurant back in Hunan, customers there did not take to it.

Which was the only apple native to North America when European colonists arrived?

The crabapple was the only native; the sweet orchard apple arrived with European colonists, and its wild ancestor still grows in the mountains of Kazakhstan.

New Orleans po' boys reportedly got their name in 1929 when the Martin brothers fed strikers from which trade for free?

Bennie and Clovis Martin, former streetcar conductors themselves, fed striking streetcar workers free sandwiches in 1929; order one 'dressed' and it comes with lettuce, tomato, pickles and mayonnaise.

Chili con carne became the official state dish of which state in 1977?

Texas legislators made chili the state dish in 1977; San Antonio's 'chili queens' were famous for selling inexpensive bowls of the stew, and purists insist the real thing has no beans.

By the most repeated origin story, the ice cream cone went mainstream at the 1904 World's Fair in which city?

Syrian concessionaire Ernest Hamwi supposedly rolled a waffle into a cup at the St. Louis fair when a neighbouring ice cream seller ran out of dishes; Agnes Marshall had printed a cornet recipe in 1888.

An 1817 English cookbook has the earliest known recipe for which snack, long credited to an 1853 Saratoga Springs chef?

Potato chips appear in William Kitchiner's The Cook's Oracle as potatoes 'fried in slices or shavings', decades before George Crum supposedly invented them to spite a fussy diner.

Ruth Wakefield created the Toll House cookie in the 1930s at an inn in which state?

Wakefield ran the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, and sold Nestlé the recipe for a dollar and, by some accounts, free morsels for life; Massachusetts made it the official state cookie in 1997.

Louis' Lunch in New Haven says its first hamburger came from the ground trimmings of what?

Lassen ground the trimmings from his steaks, grilled the patty and served it between two slices of toast in 1900, which Louis' Lunch counts as the first hamburger sandwich.

Which candy maker sold his caramel company in 1900 to bet on mass-produced milk chocolate bars?

Milton Hershey used the proceeds to turn milk chocolate from a luxury into an affordable treat, and the bars sold so well that he built a company town around his factory.

Which comedy troupe's 1970 sketch is credited with naming junk email 'spam'?

Monty Python's Vikings drown out every conversation by chanting the word, which is probably why early internet users borrowed it for messages that swamp everything else.

Which snack-cake maker's 2012 bankruptcy shutdown took Twinkies off US shelves for eight months?

Hostess halted Twinkie production in November 2012 during its bankruptcy; investors bought the brands and had the cakes back in stores nationwide by July 15, 2013.

A 1901 Boston cooking magazine first suggested which sandwich, now a lunchbox staple, as a dainty for afternoon tea?

Peanut butter and jelly began as a delicacy for the wealthy; mass-produced peanut butter and sliced bread made it cheap, and it became a Depression staple and a wartime soldiers' meal.

Which state named grits its official prepared food in 2002?

Georgia made grits its official prepared food in 2002; a similar bill to make them South Carolina's state food never advanced, though that state has a whole chapter of law on corn meal and grits.

Which dessert did Texas legislators name the state's pie in 2013?

Pecan pie fit a state whose official tree has been the pecan since 1919; the same 2013 session also made peach cobbler the official state cobbler.

Wells Supper Club, opened in Harlem in 1938, helped popularise which soul-food pairing?

Chicken and waffles spread from Harlem spots such as Wells; former Harlem resident Herb Hudson carried the pairing to Los Angeles in 1975 as Roscoe's.

Unlike Maine's cold, mayonnaise-dressed version, which state's lobster roll is served warm with butter?

Connecticut's hot buttered roll is traced to Perry's, a restaurant in Milford, as early as 1929, though the lobster roll is more often associated with Maine.