teamThere is one saying that everyone should take to the heart: “We don’t make mistakes; we just have happy accidents”. Can you imagine the number of recipes and foods that were discovered by trial and error? And the recipes that were discovered by pure sheer luck or astounding mistakes that ended in absolute deliciousness?
Mistakes and experimentation are essential to the development of our cuisine; a necessary evil these days, since people are constantly trying to find new flavors that will rock our minds. The outcome can be something unique and insane or something rotten to its core!
Let’s take a look into fabulous foods that were created by mistake.
Fabulous foods created by mistake
- Kellog’s Corn Flakes: ever since I can remember, these cereals were/are a staple in many households. The funny thing is that the founders were trying to make some granola and accidentally flaked wheat berry. They saw the potential and started the trial-and-error process until they created this classic.
- Blue cheese: the story about the creation of blue cheese is more like folklore and tales. According to its tale, one night, a drunk cheesemaker left some half-eaten bread next to the cheese. On the following day, to his surprise, he realized the bread had disappeared and it had been absorbed by the cheese, creating what we know as blue cheese!
- Popsicle: Could you imagine that this classic was created by mistake? Even more amazing, the popsicle’s creator was an 11-year-old child and it was an extremely happy accident. He simply forgot his cup of soda with a stick on the porch overnight. The following morning, boom, a frozen popsicle was there waiting for him.
- Chocolate chip cookies: Oh my god, who does not love chocolate chip cookies? So delicious and were created by sheer luck! A restaurant owner in 1930 was baking some cookies and ran out of a specific ingredient (luckily for all of us!). To fix this, she added some Nestlé chocolate and the result was so delicious that Nestlé offered her a lifetime supply of chocolate in exchange for one small thing: the permission to be able to print the recipe on their packages, which ended up making chocolate chip cookies super popular.
Fabulous drinks created by mistake
- Beer: Yes, beer was also a happy accident, a very old accident. So old that no one knows for sure who invented it exactly or how. However, according to historians, it is believed that beer was created by accident when a man was trying to make some dough. Odd, right? But hear me out. While he was making the dough, a heavy rainstorm hit and he ran for cover, leaving the dough behind. When the storm calmed down, he came back to a fermented liquid – the early stages of beer!
- Brandy: This classy drink was also created by a lucky mistake, this time due to corporate greed. Tradesmen wanted to transport more wine and pay fewer taxes. So, they burned the liquid out of the alcohol and stored it in wooden casks. Funnily enough, at the end of the trip, what came out of the barrels was what we know as brandy today. The original meaning of the word brandy was “burnt wine”!
Final thoughts
There are several other foods and drinks that nearly didn’t happen if not for some lucky accident. The next time you step into the kitchen, remember the number of products you are using that would not be at your disposal if not for some miraculous mistake. If you like to experiment in the kitchen, who knows, you might even create a new staple for all of us!
