Food History

American highways are dotted with fast-food signs, promising consistent and familiar food for travelers. On those highways, strange travelers appear. They’re looking for fast-food but they bypass those fast-food exists, continuing on their strange, solitary quest. These retro-fast-food pilgrims are armed with childhood memories of brown-and-orange fiberglass booths or distinctive paper-wrapped burgers. They will drive … Read more

Few desserts carry as much cultural affection across the American South as butter pecan ice cream. It has long been a signature ice cream flavor of the Southern states. In recent years, however, a viral narrative has taken hold across the internet, asserting that butter pecan ice cream was born out of direct racial defiance. … Read more

Most people know Willy Wonka as a fictional candy mogul from Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its iconic 1971 film adaptation starring Gene Wilder. But for generations of kids, the “Willy Wonka Candy Company” was a real company, responsible for childhood favorites like Nerds, Gobstoppers, Runts, and Laffy Taffy. What … Read more

There is something we collectively get wrong about Krispy Kreme. We remember the many locations and the hot, delicious donuts that were like nothing a competitor could match. Then, helped along by typical internet narratives, we remember Krispy Kreme as an unstoppable cultural juggernaut powered by glowing neon “Hot Now” signs and hypnotic glaze waterfalls. … Read more

If you search for the invention of toast today, popular trivia sites and AI search snippets will confidently tell you that ancient Egyptians invented toast to preserve bread in the desert heat, or that the Romans “popularized” it because the word comes from Latin. It’s clear that this is not a satisfactory answer. It ignores … Read more

In June 2018, the marketing team behind IHOP made an announcement that sent the internet into a collective tailspin. After sixty years as the International House of Pancakes, the chain was legally abandoning the letter P and rebranding to IHOb. For days, the company played coy about what the mysterious lowercase b stood for. Guesses … Read more