What The Original Versions Of 12 Popular Dishes Actually Tasted Like

In the last decade, we've seen some pretty wild variations of food emerge as people feel more comfortable sharing their experiments with friends and the world on social media.

But have you ever thought about what the original versions of popular dishes tasted like? Was chocolate always so sweet? Did ancient people enjoy a crisp pot pie as much as we do? Did sushi use to be way saltier? (Spoiler: yes.) So which of these dishes would you have indulged in their original form? Which would you prefer to eat today's version of?

1/ Pizza

Pizza has been around, in some form or fashion, since the days of ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. Back then, their pizza looked more like flatbread or focaccia. But the pizza we recognize today was created in Naples, Italy around the turn of the 19th century. Naples was known as a lower-income city, and the residents were looking for cheap, quick meals. So, someone decided to put toppings on flatbreads; and soon vendors were selling these handheld bites all over the city. At the time, other “more cultured” Italian citizens looked down on this barbaric way of eating - but the Neapolitans didn't seem to mind. In fact, when the Italian King Umberto I and Queen Margherita visited Naples in 1889, they wanted to have some of the authentic Neapolitan cuisines they'd heard of. Queen Margherita reportedly liked one pie so much - a variety that had mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil - that the pizza was named after her. (If you'd ever wondered where pizza Margherita came from.) Yet even after this royal approval, pizza stayed popular only within Naples' borders until another country popularized the dish. That country? The U.S.A. Neapolitan immigrants brought with them their tasty pizza, and they started opening up actual pizza shops around the U.S., notably in New York City. Americans quickly deemed the dish as delicious rather than barbaric, and the pizza frenzy that we know today was born.

2/ Mac And Cheese

Today, mac and cheese has about a thousand different varieties. You could get a $50 mac and cheese with lobster, and a five-cheese blend or make the childhood staple of Kraft mac and cheese at home for about a dollar. However, its origins take us back to the land of pasta: Italy. The first recipe for a macaroni and cheese-like dish called de lasanis, was found in the 13th century, where the dish required pasta to be cut into 2-inch squares, cooked in water, and tossed with grated cheese (which was more than likely parmesan.) But did you know who popularized mac and cheese in America? If not, here's your most quotable fact from this article: Thomas Jefferson popularized macaroni and cheese in America. While Jefferson did help make mac and cheese popular, it was in fact his enslaved black chef, James Hemmings (Sally's brother), who created the dish that we love today. While mac and cheese have been a part of African-American weekend meals and celebrations for centuries, Hemmings perfected his casserole-like recipe while living in Europe with Jefferson.

3/ Tea

Did you know that every variety of tea - black, green, oolong, white - all comes from the same plant? The plant is called Camellia sinensis, and where the tea plant grows, and when it is harvested, affects the difference in taste. So when tea was originally discovered in China, it was from the very same plant that we use today for tea. The legend goes that tea was discovered way back in 2,700 BCE when Chinese emperor Shen Nung was relaxing under a tree. His servant was boiling some water for him to drink, and some leaves from the Camellia sinensis plant accidentally blew into the water. The emperor tried the drink and was hooked. So, other than the added flavorings we've come up with in recent years, tea has remained relatively unchanged since its creation thousands of years ago.

4/ Chocolate

We can enjoy chocolate in many different ways today - as candy, brownies, and cake. But the first form of chocolate was enjoyed as a drink by the Aztec emperor, Montezuma. When Spanish royalty got their hands on the drink from their conquests of the Americas in the 1500s, they also enjoyed chocolate in liquid form. It wasn't until 1847 that Joseph Fry figured out how to turn cocoa powder and sugar into a paste, which could be formed into a bar. With this, the chocolate bar was born. However, this original chocolate bar was made of bittersweet chocolate. Our modern tastebuds would likely not find this chocolate nearly as delicious as the 19th-century folks did. This period of bitter chocolate lasted only a few years before Henry Nestle and Daniel Peter created milk chocolate, with the addition of evaporated milk.

5/ Sandwich

While the British Earl of Sandwich often gets recognition for creating the sandwich in the 1700s, its history seems to predate this popularization of the term. In 110 BCE, Hillel the Elder was a Jewish rabbi who was said to encourage the eating of bitter herbs between unleavened matzo bread during Jewish Passover. He had a very specific reason for this combination as well - the herbs represented the bitterness of slavery, while the matzo bread symbolized the flatbreads Israelites baked quickly before fleeing Egypt. Over the years, the sandwich did seem to grow closer to the staple we know today, as a recipe from the 1700s refers to a sandwich as having “a bit of cold meat.”

6/ Hamburger

Lettuce, tomato, pickles, onion, ketchup - these are the toppings we're accustomed to for a traditional hamburger (or in the case of cheese, cheeseburger). But the variations of the iconic sandwich over the centuries have varied drastically. The first, somewhat-related version of the hamburger appeared in the first century AD in Rome. Their minced meat sandwich had pine nuts, and pepper, and was flavored with wine. A wine-flavored hamburger sounds pretty interesting though, doesn't it? Then in the 13th century, the Mongols would store their cuts of beef under their horses' saddles - tenderizing the meat for them to eat later. However, it's not clear if this hamburger was indeed eaten between bread. In the 1700s in London, a recipe has been found that made a concoction of minced beef, nutmeg, garlic, pepper, vinegar, red wine, and rum - and was served on toast. Now, there's much debate as to who owns the title for the first modern hamburger in the United States. It was likely made in 1885 in either New York or Wisconsin. It's been claimed that the Menches Brothers ran out of pork sausage at a county fair in New York state, so they put beef in a sandwich. And it's also been claimed that Charlie Nagreen squashed a beef meatball between slices of bread at a Wisconsin fair, to make the meat more portable. Regardless, the hamburger is here to stay.

7/ Hot Dog

If you're looking for a hot, controversial debate, get residents of Frankfurt and Vienna together, and ask them who invented the hot dog. Each has a formidable claim, seeing as their city names are both featured in very popular varieties of sausage - wienerwurst and frankfurter. (As Vienna's German name is Wien.) However, Frankfurt holds the more accepted claim as the creator of the hot dog in the 1600s, which used to be known as the dachshund sausage. These hot dogs weren't all that different from ours today it seems, other than having sauerkraut as its main topping. A milk roll as a bun seemed to be added in the 1800s, likely in the United States by a German immigrant hot dog push cart owner.

8/ Taco

The taco that we cherish today is actually a fairly new creation. But in Mexico, they've been eating a taco-like dish for centuries. These foods consisted of flat corn tortillas that had fillings like fish and cooked animal organs. Though with the variety of taco shops there are nowadays, it wouldn't surprise us to see ‘chicken gizzard tacos’ on the menu. The modern taco's origin isn't incredibly clear, but it seems to have been created by some miners in Mexico in the 18th century. Back then, the word ‘taco’ referred to the small pieces of paper the miners would fill with gunpowder, and then stick in a hole to access the ore.

9/ Pot Pie

Would you ever have guessed that the pot pie is a 3,700-year-old recipe? That's right. The Mesopotamians dined on the dish way back in 1700 BCE. However, their pot pie was a little different than ours. The Mesopotamians' pot pie meat was from small birds (we're not sure what kind). The meat from these birds was cooked in a spicy sauce, along with their gizzards, liver, and hearts. This gravy-like meat concoction was baked in a crust (flavored with various spices), and a pre-baked crust was placed atop the dish before serving. It appears that this wasn't even that decadent for the people of Mesopotamia. Historians have found evidence of over 800 unique food items, including 300 different types of bread alone.

10/ Curry

Curry is an interesting term - because while it's a popular term in the United States and even more so in the UK, it's relatively unused in India. The reason for this is that curry did not originate from one specific Indian dish. Instead, it's believed to have come from the Indian term to blacken spices - and it came about around the time the Portuguese explorers came to India. At the time, a popular dish was called vindaloo, which had 20 types of pepper, pork, vinegar, and pepper. So since there is no one source for our modern-day curry, its meaning can be widely interpreted. Broadly, it refers to any dish that has a sauce or gravy, with or without spices.

11/ Lasagna

When we think of the Italian staple dish of lasagna today, there are a few main ingredients: pasta, ricotta cheese, and tomato sauce. But this is not the dish the ancient Romans dined on. In fact, tomatoes weren't even introduced to Italy until sometime between the 16th and 19th centuries. Instead, the original lasagna was called patina cotidiana and was a flatbread that had meat (including fish) and cheese layered throughout it. Even the “traditional” lasagna of Naples looks very different than the one we're used to. This dish is made with sausage, fried meatballs, hard-boiled eggs, cheese (typically ricotta or mozzarella), and Neapolitan ragu (a meat and tomato sauce).

12/ Sushi

Today, sushi is a dish known for its elegant and meticulous preparation. However, when it was created, that wasn't the case. The first evidence of sushi comes to us over 2,000 years ago - in China. Although most people assume sushi is a Japanese dish, like many Japanese cultural staples, sushi originated sometime between 500-200 BCE in China. Sushi wasn't bred out of an intricate place - it was created out of practicality. Back then, sushi consisted of fermented rice and salted fish. The fermentation process kept the rice good longer, as did the heavy salting of the fish. Without any refrigeration, this kind of longevity of food was essential. Perhaps most surprising was the fact that the Chinese didn't even eat the rice - it was only used to store the fish. When they were ready to eat the fish, the rice was simply tossed out.