Did you know the birthplace of these foods?

Last Part
  • 11 Aug - 17 Aug, 2018
  • Mag The Weekly
  • Cookery


Corn dogs: Amarillo, Texas & Springfield, Illinois

A college student in Illinois in 1941, Ed Waldmire Jr. recounted the time he ate a "very good wiener baked in cornbread" that "took too long to prepare" in Muskogee, Oklahoma, to fellow student Don Strand whose father was in the bakery business. Five years later, Strand reportedly sent Waldmire, now stationed at the Amarillo Airfield in Texas, a mix he developed that would stick to a link while it was deep-fried. Using cocktail forks as sticks, he started making the delectables in the USO kitchen and selling them around the base and in town until he was discharged in 1946. He returned home to Springfield and started selling them that summer as Cozy Dogs at the Lake Springfield Beach House and at the Illinois State Fair. By 1949, corn dogs as we know them today were being sold at two restaurants and a drive-in. Now the business is run by Waldmire's descendants next door to the original location.


Popsicle & Rocky Road: California

Like many of the great discoveries, the frozen summertime staple on a stick was stumbled upon by accident. In 1905, 11-year-old Oakland resident Frank Epperson carelessly left his glass of lemonade outside overnight with a mixing stick still in it. It froze and the rest is dessert history. The name ‘popsicle’ wasn’t used until 1923. Today, three million are sold every year. Also invented in the Bay Area burg was Rocky Road ice cream – Dreyer’s chocolate, almond, and marshmallow flavour was given the nonsensical handle in 1929 in hopes of making people smile during the Great Depression.


Key lime pie: Key West, Florida

Found on the menu of almost every restaurant in the Florida Keys archipelago, key lime pie's roots can be traced back to a particular kitchen – the one at the Curry Mansion. Now an inn, the house was originally built for William Curry, believed to be the state's first self-made millionaire. A penniless Curry came to town in 1837 and went from lowly clerk to head of a merchandising, wrecking, and ship-building empire. One of the things he imported and sold was condensed milk, according to local historian David L. Sloan, which was hugely popular given the region had no ice or refrigeration until 1930 when the highway finally connected it to the mainland, and fresh dairy was hard to come by or keep. Curry's Aunt Sally used it – plus lime juice, egg yolks, and graham cracker crust – to create the tart (and pale yellow) dessert in the late 1800s.

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