Street food
Toys of the 80s and 90s
Only potatoes...
¡Viva la Herencia!
Shiver me timbers
100
New York carts sell these boiled-or-grilled sausages in a soft bun, famously ordered “with everything.”
Hot Dogs
100
Kids clipped this egg-shaped Japanese virtual pet to their backpacks in 1996 and fed it obsessively.
Tamagotchi
100
Boil, drain, then beat with butter and milk for this ultimate comfort-food side.
Mashed potato
100
Mexico’s Independence Day lands on this date, one day after Hispanic Heritage Month begins.
September 16
100
The signature sound of Talk Like a Pirate Day is this growled syllable, best delivered with a heavily rolled R.
Arrr!
200
This deep-fried ball of ground chickpeas gets stuffed into pita with tahini and salad across the Middle East.
Falafel
200
Understuffed plush animals with heart-shaped tags fuelled a 1990s collecting mania — and a speculative bubble.
Beanie Babies
200
Cut into batons and deep-fried — possibly Belgian in origin — these are the world’s most-eaten potato preparation.
French fries
200
Famous for unflinching self-portraits and a signature brow, this Mexican painter appears on the 500-peso note.
Frida Kahlo
200
The classic black pirate banner with a white skull and crossbones goes by this cheery nickname.
Jolly Roger
300
In Belgium and the Netherlands, fries come in a paper cone with this egg-and-oil sauce — never ketchup.
Mayonnaise
300
“Robots in disguise” — Hasbro launched this line of vehicles that convert into robots in 1984.
Transformers
300
Switzerland grates and pan-fries potatoes into this crisp golden cake, practically a national dish.
Rösti
300
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua all declared independence from this country on September 15, 1821.
Spain
300
In pirate legend, doomed prisoners were forced to walk this narrow board off the side of the ship.
The plank
400
Thailand’s best-known export dish stir-fries rice noodles with tamarind, egg, bean sprouts and crushed peanuts.
Pad Thai
400
This owl-ish talking toy was the 1998 must-have Christmas gift and appeared to learn English as you played.
Furby
400
Grated, bound and shallow-fried, these Jewish potato pancakes are eaten at Hanukkah with applesauce and sour cream.
Latkes
400
Born in the Bronx to Puerto Rican parents, she became the first Hispanic justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009.
Sonia Sotomayor
400
Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island gave us this one-legged, parrot-toting ship’s cook — fiction’s most famous pirate.
Long John Silver
500
Split open and stuffed — the “reina pepiada” being a classic — this griddled corn cake is a Venezuelan and Colombian staple.
Arepa
500
This red Sesame Street plush giggled when squeezed and triggered genuine brawls in stores in 1996.
Tickle me Elmo
500
The International Potato Center, guardian of the world’s largest potato genebank, sits in this South American capital.
Lima, Peru
500
This Colombian novelist took the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature for works including One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Gabriel García Márquez
500
Edward Teach was the name of this terrifying bewhiskered English pirate, killed in battle off the North Carolina coast in 1718.
Blackbeard