The world is filled with things that were invented by accident. A lot of the things were food and drink. For today’s blog, we look at things created by accident: Food and drink edition.
Ice lolly/popsicle
As I’m writing this blog it’s about 26 degrees celsius outside so I would love an ice lolly right now. If I wasn’t so afraid of melting if I stepped outside I might even go and get one from the shop. I bet you didn’t know the ice lolly was invented by accident- I certainly didn’t!
The ice lolly was created by an 11-year-old, that’s right an 11-year-old! I’m pretty sure the only thing I could claim to have done when I was 11 was that I become a Pokemon master for the first time.
As I’ve already said, the ice lolly was created by accident back in 1905.
Frank had had a fun day playing outside and when he returned inside he forgot to take his cup of pop (soda if you’re in America) in with him. In the cup was a stirring stick.
That night was exceptional cold, so cold it got a little icy, and when Frank stepped outside the next day (probably after being told off for not cleaning up after himself) he found his cup of pop frozen solid. Being the curious chappy he was Frank took a taste of his accidental pop freezing.
He tasted it… and it was good!
The new creation was originally called the “Epsicle” but eventually became the popsicle.
Crisps/ potato chips
Crisps (or potato chips in America) were invited when a customer kept returning his plate of fried potatoes because they weren’t thin enough.
The chef, George Crum, got so frustrated at the number of times the customer was returning the potatoes he sliced them to an incredibly thin width and put them in the fryer until they were hard as a rock.
The customer loved them and asked for more!
The crisp/potato chip was born.
Teabags
Thomas Sullivan was a New York merchant (seller of goods) and the accidental inventor of the teabag.
In 1908 he started to send customers samples of his tea in small silk bags to keep the leaves safe when being transported. When the customers received their samples they thought the silk bag was part of the product so instead of emptying the tea leaves out and using a metal infuser they put the entire bag in the tea.
And the humble teabag (a popular sight in Britain) was accidentally created- we should probably credit human stupidity for the teabag’s creation as well.
For the next stage of development, Sulivan created sachets made of gauze and they became the first purpose-made tea bags. They grew in popularity in the 1920s and originally came in two sizes. One big bag for a teapot and a smaller bag for a cup. The final edition was a string so you could easily remove the bag from the cup.
chocolate chip cookies
Ruth Wakefield was creating a batch of delicious chocolate cookies (I’m guessing they were going to be delicious- there are no facts to back it up) when she realised, to her horror, she was out of baker’s chocolate.
Being the rebel she was, Ruth decided to break up sweetened chocolate into small pieces and toss them into the cookie dough, expecting the sweetened chocolate to melt.
The sweetened chocolate pieces didn’t melt, however, so the chocolate chip cookie was born.
You can check out more things that were invented by accident here
What’s your favourite food or drink from the list?- let me know in the comments!