If you asked for ketchup thousands of years ago in Asia, you might have been handed something that looks more like today’s soy sauce. Texts as old as 300 BCE show that southern Chinese cooks were mixing together salty, fermented pastes made from fish entrails, meat byproducts, and soybeans. These easily shipped and stored concoctions — known in different dialects as “ge-thcup,” “koe-cheup,” “kêtsiap,” or “kicap” — were shared along Southeast Asian trade routes. By the early 18th century, they had become popular with British traders. Yet the recipe was tricky to recreate back in England because the country lacked soybeans. Instead, countless ketchup varieties were made by boiling down other ingredients, sometimes including anchovies or oysters, or marinating them in large quantities of salt. (Jane Austen was said to be partial to mushroom ketchup.) One crop that the English avoided in their ketchup experiments was tomatoes, which for centuries were thought to be poisonous. 

Heinz manufactures exactly 57 products.

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Although the company’s slogan was “57 varieties,” it makes way more than 57 products (and did even when the slogan was first created). Henry Heinz is said to have chosen the number because it combined his and his wife’s lucky numbers (5 and 7, respectively).

Across the Atlantic, Philadelphia scientist James Mease created the first tomato-based ketchup recipe in 1812. More than half a century later, Henry J. Heinz founded his food company in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania. The first commercial tomato ketchups — including Heinz’s 1876 product — relied on chemicals to preserve their freshness and color, including formalin and coal tar. But around 1904, chief Heinz food scientist G.F. Mason devised an all-natural blend that included tomatoes, distilled vinegar, brown sugar, salt, and spices. With the signature formula now established, the brand was able to meet the growing U.S. demand for hot dogs, french fries, and hamburgers. 

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Pepsi has been nearly synonymous with cola for more than a century, but it wasn’t always called that. We have pharmacist Caleb Bradham to thank for the bubbly beverage, as well as its original name: Brad's Drink. Believing that his concoction had digestive benefits, Bradham sold it at his pharmacy in New Bern, North Carolina. Brad’s Drink didn’t last long, however — it was renamed Pepsi-Cola in 1898.

Pepsi is the bestselling soft drink in the U.S.

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That honor belongs to its fierce rival, Coca-Cola, which consistently outsells Pepsi. In fact, in 2025, Pepsi came in fourth, behind Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Sprite.

The new name was partly derived from the word “dyspepsia,” a technical term for indigestion, and was meant to convey the tasty beverage’s supposed medicinal properties. Bradham trademarked the name in 1903, and the company grew exponentially over the next few years, with 240 franchises opening across 24 states by 1910. Pepsi isn’t the only major company to undergo a name change, of course — 7-Eleven used to be known as Tote’m Stores, Nike was founded as Blue Ribbon Sports, and Canon was originally called Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory, among others.

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Tomatoes: so easy a potato can grow them. Well, not quite, but the two do occasionally join forces and result in the aptly named “pomato” plant. That two-for-the-price-of-one hybrid occurs when a tomato plant is grafted onto a potato plant, which is relatively easy to do since both belong to the Solanum genus of the nightshade family. 

The pomato isn’t its own fruit, however — it’s a plant that grows both foods at the same time: tomatoes on the vine and potatoes under the soil. Peppers, eggplants, and tobacco are also members of the Solanum genus, and tomato plants can be grafted onto them as well.

Potatoes are grown in all 50 states.

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They really are easy to grow, hence why residents of all 50 states — not to mention more than 125 countries — do so.

Nicknamed the “ketchup ’n’ fries” plant and sometimes called “tomtatoes,” these plants have been grown since at least 1833. In addition to the novelty of growing two things at once, pomatoes can benefit from both plants’ natural advantages: potatoes’ cold resistance and tomatoes’ heat resistance. The potatoes and tomatoes grown from these hybrid plants don’t taste any different than their normal counterparts, but they are more convenient to grow.

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The City of Brotherly Love has clear-cut claims on many food origins — cheesesteaks, stromboli, and even root beer. But ironically, Philadelphia Cream Cheese is not from Philly. The iconic dairy brand secured its misleading name (and gold-standard status) thanks to a marketing ploy that’s been working for more than 150 years … and it’s all because of Pennsylvania’s reputation for impeccable dairy. Small Pennsylvania dairies of the 18th and early 19th centuries were known for using full-fat milk and cream to make rich cheeses — in contrast to New York dairies, which mostly used skim milk — and because the perishables couldn’t be easily transported, they gained a reputation as expensive luxury foods. So when upstate New York entrepreneur William Lawrence began making his skim milk and (for richness) lard-based cream cheese in the 1870s, he needed a name that would entice customers and convey quality despite it being made in Chester, New York, and not Philadelphia. Together with cheese broker and marketing mastermind Alvah Reynolds, Lawrence’s cheese was branded under the Philadelphia name in 1880, which boosted sales and promoted its popularity with home cooks well into the early 1900s. 

Cream cheese and Neufchâtel cheese are the same spread.

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Both kinds of cheese are white, soft, and come in foil-wrapped blocks, but they’re not the same. Neufchâtel (named for a town in France) has less fat, giving it a slightly tangier flavor.

Lawrence is often credited with inventing cream cheese, and culinary lore frequently cites its creation as an accident. But some food historians say he wasn’t the first person to concoct the cheesy spread — recipes for it had been circulating for some time in newspapers and magazines. Lawrence did, however, create the first commercial cream cheese factory, which made the product accessible to home cooks. Lawrence eventually left the dairy industry for politics, becoming the mayor of Chester, but his legacy remains in every foil-wrapped block found in an American fridge.

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