| a) In 1762 John Montagu, an English Earl, was
too busy playing cards to leave the table and have a formal meal.
He asked his servant to put some meat between two pieces of bread
and bring it to him. This snack was named after him and these days
it is the most popular lunchtime meal in Britain. |
| b) In 1853 a customer at the Moon Lake Lodge
resort in Saratoga Springs, New York, was being very awkward about
his French Fries - he was complaining that they were too thick. Chef
George Crum made up another batch but the customer was still not satisfied.
Annoyed by the customer, Crum made a batch that was so thin it was
impossible to eat with a fork. To his surprise, the customer loved
them, and these days so do the rest of the world. |
| c) In 1905 eleven-year-old Frank Epperson mixed
up a fruit drink in his back garden, in San Francisco, California.
By accident he left the drink outside overnight. When he discovered
it in the morning, the juice had frozen around the mixing stick. Young
Frank had invented something which would make him a lot of money. |
| d) In 1897 William Morrison and John C. Wharton,
from Nashville, Tennessee, invented a way of heating and spinning
sugar in thin threads onto a stick so that it forms a large ball of
fine material. When you eat it, it melts in the mouth. It is commonly
found, along with toffee apples, at fairs and carnivals. |
| e) In 1904, at the St. Louis World's Fair,
an unlucky ice cream vendor ran out of dishes to put his ice cream
in. Ernest Hamwi was in the next stall selling Syrian pastry and offered
to help. He rolled up some of the pastry so that the vendor could
put his ice cream inside. It was a great success and ice creams have
been sold in this way ever since then. |
| f) In 1930 Ruth Wakefield was busy making her
favourite chocolate biscuits in Whitman, Massachusetts, when she realised
that she had run out of baking chocolate. She broke some normal eating
chocolate into the mixture instead. Ruth noticed that when the biscuits
came out of the oven, the chocolate hadn't melted but were still in
small bits. These biscuits have sold very well ever since. |
| g) In 1845 Thomas Adams gave up trying to make
a synthetic type of rubber from chicle, the dried sap of a Mexican
jungle tree. He put some chicle in his mouth and started munching
on it. He realised that he had discovered another use for it. He added
some flavours such as liquorice and mint and it has not stopped selling
since then. |
| h) These soft sweets were originally made and
eaten by the Egyptians more than three thousand years ago. They made
them from the root of the plant which shares the same name and grows
by the banks of the river Nile. |
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