Ketchup was medicine. Pizza was peasant food. Ice cream was a luxury reserved for royalty. The incredible origins of everyday foods.

Surprising Origins

1. Ketchup originated as a fermented fish sauce in ancient China called ke-tsiap. British traders brought it back, and Americans added tomatoes in the 1800s. The first commercial tomato ketchup was sold as medicine.

2. Pizza as we know it was invented in Naples in 1889 when Raffaele Esposito created the Margherita pizza —topped with tomatoes (red), mozzarella (white), and basil (green) —in honor of Queen Margheritas visit to the city.

3. Before the Columbian Exchange, European cuisine had no tomatoes, potatoes, corn, chocolate, or chili peppers. Italian food without tomatoes, Irish food without potatoes, and Swiss food without chocolate —unimaginable today.

Strange Food History

4. Ice cream was once so rare and difficult to make that it was reserved for royalty. Alexander the Great enjoyed snow flavored with honey and nectar, and Roman Emperor Nero sent runners to the mountains to collect snow for his fruit ices.

5. The sandwich is named after John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, who supposedly ordered meat between two slices of bread so he could eat without leaving the gambling table in 1762.

6. Breakfast cereal was invented as a cure for masturbation. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg created corn flakes in 1894 as part of a bland diet he believed would reduce sexual urges.

Global Food Journeys

7. Coffee was discovered by an Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi in the 9th century after he noticed his goats became energetic after eating coffee berries. From Ethiopia, it spread to Arabia, then Europe, and is now the worlds most popular psychoactive substance.

8. Potatoes were considered poisonous and fit only for animals when first introduced to Europe from South America. They eventually became the fourth-largest food crop in the world and the staple that fueled the Industrial Revolution.

9. Sushi originally meant sour-tasting —it referred to fermented rice used to preserve fish. The fish was eaten and the rice discarded. Modern sushi with fresh fish and vinegared rice was invented in 1820s Edo (Tokyo).

Bizarre Food Facts

10. In medieval Europe, peacock was served at banquets with its feathers reattached. The bird was cooked, then dressed back in its plumage with a piece of burning camphor in its beak to make it appear to breathe fire.

11. The croissant was invented in Vienna, not France. It was created to celebrate the Austrian defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1683, with the crescent shape mocking the Ottoman flag.

12. Sugar was so rare and expensive in medieval Europe that it was classified as a spice and used as medicine. It was kept under lock and key, and only the wealthiest could afford it.

13. The first chocolate bar was created in 1847 by Joseph Fry. Before that, chocolate was consumed exclusively as a drink for over 3,000 years —from the ancient Olmecs and Maya through to European aristocracy.