At a time when we want to know everything about what is on our plates, certain truths sometimes come to the surface, like hair in the soup. Like the fact that some of our favorite dishes are not specialties of the countries we thought… A bit like the croissant good from our home !
1. Burgers were invented in Germany
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Even though the term “hamburger” is used less and less often, it gives a small clue to its origins. This meat sandwich was indeed invented in Hamburg, Germany, before German migrants took it with them to America where it enjoyed the success that we know. In its beginnings at ounce Sam, that is to say around 1870, hamburgers were prepared without bread, but with minced meat mixed with onions and herbs, all sold in restaurants and then in lunches. wagons installed in the streets. Junk food was born!
2. Hot Dogs too!
Everyone knows Frankfurt sausages, but few know (me the first) that they were at the origin of the creation of the first hot dogs under the sweet name of Frankfurters! Landed on the other side of the Atlantic at the same time as the hamburgers, the recipe adapted to the mode of consumption of the big cities where it was eaten literally on the go, that is to say with the hands. . Enough to go everywhere, until a smart guy decides to slip these frankfurters into bread! The name of hot dogs would come from the bad reputation of the meat served at the time in these Teutonic sandwiches.
3. Fortune cookies…are not
These cupcakes and their hidden messages are served in Chinese restaurants all over the world… except in China! Fortune cookies were indeed invented in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, even if there is a fight to know which of Los Angeles or San Francisco saw the first birth of this successful cookie. Some argue that fortune cookies were created by a Japanese owner of a tea room in San Franciso… while others claim that it was a Cantonese pastry chef based in LA who created them to comfort the homeless… Like the little words hidden in these cakes, the origin of fortune cookies still keeps all their secrets today!
4. On the other hand, the ketchup is very Chinese!
“Can you pass me the stupled Ké-tsiap?” Ké-tsiap would indeed be the Chinese ancestor of today’s ketchup, even if the recipe had little to do with the one we know today. Brought back from the East by English settlers and sailors in the 17th century, this hot sauce looked like nuoc-mâm at the time and it was not until the beginning of the 19th century that someone had the good idea to add the tomato. In 1870, a certain Mr. Heinz brought his touch to the recipe by including sugar in it to soften the taste and promote the preservation of this sauce which has since become world famous.
5. Croissants are not French
It is no coincidence that croissants and other wonders of breakfast are called pastries! The croissants would indeed have seen the light of day in 1683 to celebrate the failure of the siege of the city of Vienna by the Turks. The Viennese would then have imagined a pastry in the shape of a crescent to make fun of the symbol hoisted on the flag of their enemy. We are so far quite far from French gastronomy. It was not until 1837 that two Austrians opened the first Viennese bakery in Paris. But it was French bakers who, a few years later, made the success and worldwide fame of croissants made in France, by replacing the original brioche dough with puff pastry!
6. Spaghetti Bolognese would be an English recipe
She’s hard to swallow that one, huh? By dint of making fun of English food, we were far from thinking that they were capable of imagining one of the most famous recipes of Italian gastronomy. Moreover, the inhabitants of Bologna would tell you if you came across them, they almost never eat spaghetti, considered as discount pasta. It remains to be seen how the recipe for spaghetti Bolognese came to be outside of Italy. The most probable hypothesis dates back to the Second World War during which British soldiers would have returned from their trip to Italy with the recipe for pasta from Bologna, which they would then have put in their sauce…
7. The kebab was invented in Germany
The Kebab as we know it today was invented in the 1970s by a Turkish immigrant living in Berlin. It was this man who had the idea of adding bread and a few vegetables to accompany the famous meat grilled vertically on a spit, as the Ottoman soldiers did in the Middle Ages with their swords to cook their barbaque on top fire. As for why in France, we continue to call kebabs “Greeks”, the reason comes from the restaurant owners of Hellenic origin in the Latin Quarter who were among the first to democratize these sandwiches made from grilled meat in France.
8. Spring rolls are not Chinese
Like spring rolls or shrimp fritters, spring rolls are Vietnamese dishes and not made in China. And it is somewhat our fault that the error is still common. For a long time, the French tended to put all Asian restaurants in the same bag with the label “Chinese restaurant” stuck on them… without worrying too much about their real origins. A laxity that has benefited Chinese restaurateurs, not unhappy to make butter with the culinary specialties of neighboring Asian countries.
9. Fajitas were invented in Texas.
The recipe as we know it today was born in Texas in the 1930s. We are certainly not very far from Mexico, and it is moreover cowboys of Mexican origin who would have imagined the recipe. from the meat given to them as wages by the owners of the cattle they cared for. It was not until 1982 and the initiative of the chef of the restaurant at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Austin who put the recipe on his menu, for the fajitas to finally be exported outside the state of Texas… to arrive a few years later. later on to our plates.
10. Cheesecakes date back to Ancient Greece
Introduced to America by the first European migrants from Eastern Europe, you have to go back to the time of Ancient Greece to find the first cheesecake recipes, then known as Libum or Placenta. They were used in particular as offerings to the gods in the temples. It was only in the Middle Ages that they began to make foodies salivate all over Europe.