5 Foods Invented by Accident

Sometimes amazing new dishes are invented through hard work, experimentation, trial and error, and sometimes, they come about by luck. Thankfully for us, these five foods were invented by pure happenstance!

The Popsicle^®

Frank Epperson was your typical 11-year-old in 1905 San Francisco when he made a classic mistake: he left his soda pop with a wooden stirrer outside in the cold.

When he came out the next morning to grab it, he found he could lift the frozen soda up out of the glass by the stirrer, and an idea was born. He began selling frozen treats like the one he created by chance to neighborhood kids, and patented his invention as the “Epsicle” when he was an adult. Later, his children convinced him to instead name his chilly dessert “Pop’s sicle” or Popsicle. Summer days were never the same after that.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ruth Wakefield, co-owner of the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, ran out of baker’s chocolate (or nuts, depending on the story) while making cookies sometime in the 1930s. So, she broke up a candy bar, mixed the pieces into the dough, and baked it. She figured the chocolate would melt and spread throughout the cookie. What she instead got became the most recognized and beloved cookie in America.

Buffalo Wings

In 1964, The Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York had a problem. Their supplier had mistakenly sent them chicken wings instead of the other chicken parts they wanted, and they didn’t know what to do with them. Desperate not to waste food, owner Teresa Bellissimo fried up the wings, covered them in hot sauce, and served them with what she had on hand, namely celery and blue cheese dressing. To her surprise, the wings became a huge hit, and by the 1980’s the Buffalo wing had spread throughout the country.

Yogurt

We may not know for sure the name of the person who “invented” yogurt, but the series of decisions necessary to create it makes historians positive it was completely by accident. In Central Asia, herders and riders often carried milk in containers made from animal stomachs. Unbeknownst to them, these containers still had bacteria living inside them, which would ferment the milk and make the classic thick and tart substance we all love. It’s even in the name: “yogurt” stems from the Old Turkish word yoğurmak (condense, curdle, or intensify).

The Potato Chip

According to legend, the potato chip came about because of spite.

In 1853 chef George Crum became irritated when a customer kept complaining that his fries were too thick and sending them back. Angered, Crum shaved a potato as thin as he could, fried the shavings, and served those. To his surprise, the customer loved this new side, and it became a favorite that spread like wildfire.

Accidents happen every single day and, in some lucky cases, they result in food we end up loving for generations!

References: 13 of our favourite foods that were invented by accident | 10 Famous Foods That Were Invented by Accident | Popular Foods That Were Invented by Happy Accident | Our Story | Who Invented the Potato Chip? | The History of the Chocolate Chip Cookie | Sweet Morsels: A History of the Chocolate-Chip Cookie | A Brief History of Buffalo Wings | Who Invented Buffalo Wings? | THE HISTORY OF YOGURT | History of yogurt and current patterns of consumption