A curiosity-filled newsletter about the cultural history of snacks around the world.
We have gathered here to…recognize? Discuss? **Celebrate??** ... Marmite and Vegemite and how they became essential parts of national identity.
You might love them. You might hate them. But either way, they MEAN something that's worth discussing.
Nationalism, acquired tastes, and spreadable yeast extract
Pizza rolls. They're tasty but also—hear me out—they're the most American food that exists, as this cultural history explains.
How a snacktime staple embodies a specific cultural moment
As any Midwesterner can tell you, square-cut pizza is the best pizza.
Here’s a deeply researched history of this Midwestern delicacy and **proof** of its supremacy in the pizza universe. Please forward to all your East Coast friends so they know the truth.
Investigating the roots of square-cut pizza
In 1935, two men met for a duel in Dubuque, Iowa. Each had greatly offended the other, and their personal feelings were amplified by the weight they carried as representatives of their hometowns and specific cultures.
The subject of their dispute, and the weapon they would use to resolve it, was … cheese.
A true, wild, and wonderful tale here:
A story of regional identity, the postal service, and a block of Limburger
Dorothy Molter sounds like a tall tale. For more than 40 years, she lived largely alone on an island deep in the woods of northern Minnesota. She was fully off the grid, hauling her own ice and fending off bears.
In 1959, one newspaper profile said:
"She can make the 36-mile round trip to Ely in a day by canoe, bringing back seven 60-pound packs—a trip few others, including Indians and trappers, would attempt except in an emergency. It is not uncommon for campers and guides to take three days to make the trip one-way."
But she may have been most famous for her homebrew root beer ...
The story of Dorothy Molter, a legend of the Boundary Waters
For six weeks in 1939, goldfish-swallowing was the biggest cultural trend in the USA. LIFE magazine covered it and newspapers carried the latest standings and cheating scandals in the competitions *on the front page,* next to updates from the looming war in Europe. College students loved it, adults were scandalized ...
..And this story somehow gets weirder from there.
A history of goldfish-swallowing and its brief but big cultural moment
In the 1970s, Ge**er (the baby food company) tried making meals-in-jars for adults--specifically, adults eating by themselves.
It didn't go well. In fact, it was one of the most infamous product failures in the history of packaged food.
https://www.snackstack.net/p/the-baby-snack-for-single-adults
The curious story of Singles by Ge**er, the 1970s food for "whenever you eat alone"
What do you think of when you hear the word "carob"? For me, it brings back memories of childhood in the 1980s, when well-meaning adults offered it as a substitute for chocolate.
I dug into the history of that substitution and the plant's other uses--and I found some things that took me completely by surprise.
The story of carob
History is fascinating--including the history of gummi worms. Come for the dancing bears, the American tourists in Europe, and the 1980s pop culture ... stay to find out what truly wild shape Haribo dreamed up for the German market a few years back.
The curious history of gummi worms
Ever wondered what genius first thought to put caramel on apples? The usual histories say it first happened in the 1950s—but it turns out this is wrong. Here, for the first time, is the untold and curiously fascinating history of caramel apples.
A brief history of caramel apples
In 1978, Anheuser-Busch created a soda for all ages. Just one problem: it had alcohol. Here is a brief history of an unusual, controversial beverage.
A brief history of Chelsea, the Anheuser-Busch soda
In which your intrepid food historian investigates Irn-Bru, the Scottish soda with an hard-to-place flavor, a bright orange hue, and an enduring link to Scottish cultural identity. https://www.snackstack.net/p/the-drink-thats-distinctly-scottish
A brief history of Irn-Bru, Scotland's "other" national drink
Food history time, with bonus science!
The original version of Warheads was developed in Taiwan in 1975, its potent, face-twisting punch coming from malic acid, “one of the sourest edible substances known to humankind.”
The history and science of Warheads
If you were an English miner 200 years ago, there's a good chance you took a pasty to work with you. Read the history of this hard-working food--it's fascinating!
A brief history of Cornish pasties
Where, how, and when did string cheese originate?
Turns out the usual story is all wrong.
The curious history of string cheese
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