Name Change
What fruit was called the Chinese Gooseberry until 1959, when exporters renamed it after a flightless bird?
Kiwi
In 1986 a California farmer did not want to waste this ‘ugly’ vegetable, so he ran them through a green bean cutter into 2-inch pieces, peeled them smooth causing this product to increase in sales by 30%
Baby Carrots
Before it was considered a superfood, this leafy green was bought mostly by Pizza Hut as a salad bar decoration
Kale
What crop was bred over 9,000 years from a wild grass with a dozen rock-hard kernels?
Corn
What sailors’ disease was cured by citrus in James Lind’s famous 1747 shipboard experiment
Scurvy
What fermented food was temporarily renamed ‘liberty cabbage’ in America during WWI because its German name sounded unpatriotic?
Sauerkraut
What carnival treat was created by a dentist in 1897 originally known as ‘Fairy Floss’
Cotton Candy
During WWII, British propaganda spread that this vegetable resulted in night-vision superpowers all to hide the fact the British had radar
Carrots
What fruit is considered to be humanity’s first domesticated crop grown over 11,400 years ago, before wheat?
Figs
What mineral was added to table salt in 1924 and wiped out goiter across America’s “goiter belt”
Iodine
What “fancy” mushroom is just an overgrown cremini rebranded in 1980s?
Portobello
What citrus is an 18th century accident – a pomelo and a sweet orange that crossed on Barbados, first nicknamed ‘the forbidden fruit’?
Grapefruit
This vegetable was rebred in the 1990s to be less bitter and in the early 2000s gained popularity when roasted?
Brussel Sprouts
What fruit’s wild ancestors were bitter, white-fleshed desert melons?
Watermelon
What kitchen staple has been fortified since the 1940s – when folic acid was added in 1998, neural tube birth defects dropped by about a third
Enriched Cereal Grains (flour, bread, pasta, rice, cornmeal, and breakfast cereals)
What fruit was called an Alligator Pear until a name change in 1915?
Avocado
What sauce was born when its makers abandoned a failed attempt to make an Asian-flavored sauce, forgot the barrel in a cellar, and found it delicious years later?
Worcestershire sauce
What fruit was such a 1700s status symbol that people rented them as party centerpieces?
Pineapple
What vegetable was farmed in Mexico 10,000 years ago – thousands of years before corn and beans joined it in the ‘Three Sisters’?
Squash
What every day drink has been fortified with Vitamin D since the 1930s, nearly erasing rickets?
What vegetable was called the ‘mad apple’ because 1700s Europeans believed it caused insanity?
Eggplant
By happy accident, a farmer created this type of onion when he planted Texas onion seeds in low-sulfur soil causing this onion to be candy-sweet
Vidalia Onion
What game-day food’s link to football was manufactured by a 1990s industry marketing campaign due to there being an oversupply of byproduct?
Chicken Wings
What fruit sustained desert caravans for 6,000 years and earned the nickname ‘the bread of the desert’
Dates
What sweetener doubled as a battlefield wound dressing from ancient Egypt to WWI – because bacteria cant grow in it?
Honey