Stacy Conradt
The Quick 10: 10 Foods Named After People
by Stacy Conradt - June 23, 2008 - 2:59 PM

I must be hungry, because this seemed like a great idea for a Quick 10 today. Have you ever been eating or drinking something and wondered where the name came from? Some items are pretty well known – a Shirley Temple was named after the actress, obviously, and an Arnold Palmer was named after the golfer. But how about that T.V. dinner staple, the Salisbury steak? We’ll fill you in.

10 Foods Named After People

1. The Oh Henry! candy bar has at least three stories behind the name. I’ll let you pick your favorite. The first is that it was named after a boy who frequented the Williamson Candy Company quite often to flirt with the girls who worked there. Therefore, “Oh Henry!” would be kind of an exasperated, coy exclamation. Story #2 is that Henry was a young man who was often called to do odd jobs around the Williamson Company, which would make “Oh Henry!” a call for help. Finally, consider that the bar was invented by one Tom Henry. Makes more sense to me that the bar was probably named after him, although I like the flirting story the best.

2. Salisbury steak was invented by Dr. James H. Salisbury. He thought that fruits and veggies were bad for humans and caused heart disease, tumors, mental illness, tuberculosis and all kinds of horrible ailments. He invented the Salisbury steak (which is really just hamburger steak) to convince people to change their diet to mostly meat.

3. Crepes Suzette has quite the tale behind it. In 1896, Edward VII, Prince of Wales, was eating at the Café de Paris in Monte Carlo. He ordered a special dessert and was pleased when the waiter brought out a flaming dish. When the dessert was dedicated to him, the Prince declined and asked if the dish could be named after his dining companion, Suzette. Some sources dispute this story, though, so take it with an ounce of Grand Marnier.

4. Beef Wellington was named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. Wellington boots (“Wellies”) were also named after him. The story is either that it was his favorite dish, or that chefs could dump whatever crap they wanted to in a bowl and cover it with pastry and he would eat it. I’m more inclined to believe the latter – other accounts of the Duke say that he had no interest in creature comforts whatsoever and would repeatedly eat “cold meat” and bread for breakfast.

5. Eggs Benedict is another one with multiple stories (I guess maybe they all are). Story #1 – In 1894, a stockbroker by the last name of Benedict visited the Waldorf hotel in New York with a hangover one morning. He asked for toast, bacon and poached eggs with Hollandaise sauce on the side, believing it to be the perfect remedy to his drink-induced illness. The Waldorf decided to keep it on the menu, but changed a few ingredients a bit. Story #2 – The head chef at Delmonico’s created the dish for socialite Mrs. LeGrand Benedict in 1893. I like the hangover story best.

6. Clementines Рthose delicious, juicy little orange-like fruits Рwere named after a French monk who was living in North Africa. P̬re Cl̩ment Rodier either found or created the hybrid of the Mandarin and Seville oranges to create Clementines.

7. Bananas Foster calls its (their?) hometown New Orleans. Famed restaurant Brennan’s created the delicious dish for Richard Foster, a friend of owner Owen Brennan and also the chairman of the New Orleans Crime Commission.

8. Kaiser rolls have been around for a long time – they were created sometime around 1487, when a Viennese baker stamped the image of either Frederick III or Franz Josef on it.

9. Reuben sandwiches are soooo good. Definitely one of my favorites, so I have to thank Reuben Kulakofsky for (maybe) making it happen. Rumor has it he created it for his poker buddies at an Omaha hotel in the early 1920s. The dispute on this origin comes from Arnold Reuben, a New York restauranteer who said he created the sandwich in 1914 for an actress. The earliest known Reuben reference is from a 1937 men from the Cornhusker Hotel in Lincoln, Neb., so I’d say Kulakofsky has a stronger claim.

10. The Cobb salad was invented by Hollywood Brown Derby owner Robert Cobb when he was asked to make a late-night snack for Sid Grauman of Grauman’s Chinese Theater. He found some leftovers, chopped up the ingredients very finely and served it up. It became a hit across the town and the Cobb salad legend grew.

* * * * *

Shhh…super secret special for blog readers.

« Previous Post   -   Next Post »
Click here to get a Risk-Free issue of mental_floss magazine
Comments (22)

  1. Reuben sandwiches and Kool-Aid. Truly, Nebraskans dream up wonderful things. Ha. :)

    posted by kate on 6-23-2008 at 3:31 pm

  2. Baby Ruth was named NOT for the baseball great, but for the first child born in the White House. Ruth Cleveland.

    posted by Witty Nickname on 6-23-2008 at 3:34 pm

  3. Kate, yep. If it wasn’t for the Huskers, I might like Nebraskans ;)

    posted by Stacy Conradt on 6-23-2008 at 3:54 pm

  4. Hey now, Huskers are very nice people. We love the folks in Nebraska East. We just wish you’d stop wearing your red with yellow. ;)

    posted by kate on 6-23-2008 at 4:41 pm

  5. Not sure if it is urban legend or not but who could forget that the Sandwhich is named after the Earl of Sandwhich who put meat and cheese between bread so he could eat while playing cards.. (Special thanks to Nickelodeon for that, it was in some bumper the network ran when i was a kid)..

    posted by Chris on 6-23-2008 at 5:10 pm

  6. I wish I hadn’t read this. As much as I love the information…….I am now so hungry, it’s almost painful. Reading about food while pregnant is a dangerous thing. I really want a Reuben right now.

    posted by Lunarbabee on 6-23-2008 at 5:29 pm

  7. Also?

    Pavlova
    Peach Melba (poss. also Melba toast?)
    Chicken Tetrazzini
    Sandwiches
    The Fat Darrell (Rutgers!)

    Mmmm… food.

    posted by Rachel on 6-23-2008 at 5:36 pm

  8. You also missed fettuccine Alfredo. Named after the chef who originally created it in Napoli. But this was the Quick 10, not the Quick 17. :)

    posted by Amy on 6-23-2008 at 7:29 pm

  9. wow…that Salisbury guy was entirely wrong about fruits,vegetables, and meat. funny what modern science has told us.

    posted by Claire on 6-23-2008 at 8:46 pm

  10. and all this time I thought that Randall “Tex” Cobb was the one who came up with the Cobb Salad. . .or was it Ty Cobb

    Nachos is another dish thrown together late on night and named for the cook.

    And let’s not forget General Tso’s Chicken (he outranks Colonel Sanders)

    posted by PartiallyDeflected on 6-24-2008 at 12:25 am

  11. The Caesar salad was invented in Tijuana, Mexico by restaurateur Caesar Cardini in 1924.

    posted by Edddd on 6-24-2008 at 11:59 am

  12. Claire: It’s amazing how ignorant the medical profession was about the human body, even then. My younger sister (a nursing student) found an old medical text (c. 1870) where the author claimed, among other howlers, that respiration wasn’t important and that oxygen didn’t really do anything. What stuff he did get right (eat your vegetables, etc.) he got right for the wrong reasons. Overall, it was a work with very little real testing (kind of like Aristotle’s writing on physics).

    posted by Joanna on 6-24-2008 at 12:45 pm

  13. So.. should we wonder who was the inspiration for Ho-Ho’s ?????

    posted by bucsfan on 6-24-2008 at 1:34 pm

  14. Santa.Duh

    posted by me on 7-23-2008 at 12:53 pm

  15. “Peach Melba” was created by famed chef, Auguste Escoffier, to honour the world-renowned Australian Mezzo Soprano Nellie Melba, (a cousin of my Grandmother), at the opening of the Carlton Hotel, London in 1899. Melba Toast was also named in her honour.
    Dame Nellie Melba became the first person in history whose voice was recognized globally, through the transmission of her songs by Radio.

    posted by George Davidson IV on 6-12-2009 at 9:01 am

  16. And the Caesar Salad from Tijuana, Mexico. Named after Caesar Cardini.

    posted by Bryan on 6-12-2009 at 9:42 am

  17. Add to the list Clark’s “Reggie!” candy bar, named after Reggie Jackson (aka Mr. October!)

    posted by Steve C. on 6-12-2009 at 9:49 am

  18. BROCCOLI!

    posted by Alice on 6-12-2009 at 11:40 am

  19. Sloppy Joes!

    posted by Lola on 6-12-2009 at 11:53 am

  20. Well, apparently “cold meat” (item 4) was not a sign of bad culinary taste, but the fashion at the time, since I am reading a Jane Austen story right now (Persuasion) and she writes of how one of the characters was feeling well enough to get up and have some “cold meat.” I thought yuck, but now here is a second reference to it. So cold meat was commonplace? Mmm mmm.

    posted by Amy on 6-12-2009 at 5:48 pm

  21. There’s also a dessert called the charlotte

    posted by Alison on 6-12-2009 at 10:35 pm

  22. The actual baby Ruth Cleveland was born thirty years before the candy bar in question was brought out in 1921. The candy company’s sentiment was touching, especially since she’d already been dead for fifteen years. Coincidentally, this was the year the Bambino socked 59 home runs: he was then the most famous sports star in the country. Some say this naming dodge was a way to cash in on the big fella’s name without paying for the right to do so — hard as it is to believe that a reputable American firm might stoop to such a tactic.

    posted by Maz on 6-13-2009 at 8:57 pm

Comment

commenting policy