It Starts With A Dream |
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| Written by Holly Hutchings |
| Tuesday, 25 March 2008 19:00 |
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Dreams are extraordinary creations of the mind – tapping into the mind’s great capacity to imagine, to evaluate, to recall and to integrate. Dreams have been a source of inspiration for artists and philosophers, scientists and inventors of all eras. To trigger the taste buds and to excite the mind, here are some noteworthy culinary inventions and discoveries over the years:
Chocolate was discovered and brought to Europe in the early 1500s by the Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez. Early 19th century
McIntosh apples were a Canadian discovery made by John McIntosh.
The hot dog was invented by Charles Feltman.
Coca Cola was invented by Doctor John Pemberton, a pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia. John Pemberton concocted the Coca Cola formula in a three-legged brass kettle in his backyard.
American Pearle B. Wait invented JELL-O (gelatin dessert).
1905
1928 Bubble gum was invented by a man named Walter E. Diemer. Here's what Diemer himself said about it just a year or two before he died: "It was an accident…I was doing something else, and ended up with something with bubbles." And history took one giant pop forward.
Ruth Wakefield invented chocolate chips (and chocolate chip cookies). Wakefield ran the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. Her new cookie invention was called the "Toll House Cookie." Her original cookies used broken-up bars of semi-sweet chocolate. 2001 Carmina O'Connor of Warrenville, Illinois, has patented a mashed-potato machine that cooks, mashes and flavours potatoes in just 20 minutes. 2002 Charles Arntzen, an Arizona State University biologist, has been working for nearly five years to create what is basically freeze-dried tomato juice — but not from any ordinary tomatoes. This fruit carries a gene from a strain of the E. coli bacterium. Some strains of E. coli can cause violent diarrhoea and death. Swigged down in reconstituted juice, however, a protein made by the E. coli gene should act as a vaccine, priming the immune system to recognize and fight off the real thing. An advantage of this tomato vaccine is that conventional vaccines are costly to make and distribute in the impoverished Third World countries that need them most. 2003 Java Log is a log for your fireplace made from used coffee grinds and invented by Rod Sprules. 2006 In the wake of the spinach scare, even the friendliest food can seem like a biological hazard, and scrubbing alone won't necessarily wipe out pesticides or bacteria. Invented by Tersano, the Lotus Sanitizing System (for your fruits and vegetables) turns ordinary tap water into super oxygenated water that kills microbes and removes toxins. The machine uses an electrical charge to infuse the tap water with ozone, which sounds scarier than it is – but it just means the water carries a form of oxygen that acts as a natural sanitizer. It starts with a dream.
© 2008 Holly Hutchings; licensee (Cult)ure Magazine.
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1500s
In Canada, pieces of fried dough are sometimes called Beaver Tails. A writer of books on Canadian word origins suggests that the name referred to quick-baked dough used "especially in early 19th-century places where people might camp for one night and where there was no frying pan." Some sources identify "beaver tails" as an Ottawa local specialty. BeaverTails is the name (and Canadian trademark) of a chain of restaurants specializing in the item, founded in Ottawa in 1978.
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The Popsicle was invented by 11-year-old Frank Epperson of San Francisco, California. Epperson had left a fruit drink out overnight (with a stirrer in it), and it froze, making a new treat. His frozen treat was originally called the Epsicle. Epperson got a patent on his "frozen ice on a stick" many years later, in 1923. The Epsicle was later renamed the Popsicle. Epperson also invented the twin Popsicle (with two sticks so it could be shared by two children), Fudgsicle, Creamsicle and Dreamsicle.
1930
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