Mike Devlin on Accidental Eats and Edible Oopsies

You, dear reader, are a creator — a purveyor of randomness, if you will.

No, I don’t mean when you go out on a Friday night with friends for an evening of drinks that inevitably turns into one of those nights, but every time you walk into your kitchen, take a look in the cupboards and fridge, and think, "I was going to make such-and-such, but I haven’t got everything I need… so let’s see what happens."

Admittedly, you might just order a takeaway instead — if you genuinely don’t have anything in, or are feeling exceptionally lazy — but sometimes you're forced to come up with something on the fly. The results can vary wildly, from total kitchen disaster to utter brilliance and everything in between.

It’s the brilliance we’re concerned with here. Because sometimes — just sometimes — that brilliance becomes the stuff of legend.

And it happens. All the time. To list everything would take up far too much space in this issue, but we can reel off a fair few, some of which may well be a favourite of yours — or you might even be munching on one right now.

Raisins. Was this an accident? Or simply something bound to happen eventually? Either way, we’re going back about 4,000 years — grapes on the vine weren’t picked, shrivelled up in the sun, and boom: raisins, with their flavour intensity in overdrive.

Still, I’m not buying that this was the first time. Surely it happened before — it's just that whoever discovered them earlier wasn’t influential enough to be remembered.

(That said, making wine from grapes is way better.)

Eton Mess
Meringue, thick whipped cream, and strawberries. Decadence for English garden parties in the late 1800s. The thing is, it’s exactly what it says it is: a mess.

There are a few origin stories, but they all boil down to those three ingredients (nowadays often joined by summer fruits, sauces, chocolate, nuts, etc.) being dropped or knocked over — then scraped up and shoved in a tall glass.

So next time something falls over in your kitchen, just smile and say:
"I call this… Cheryl’s Chicken Calamity."

Buffalo Wings
This one’s fairly well known. Buffalo, NY, 1964. The Anchor Bar. Chicken wings were accidentally delivered instead of the usual order, so owner Teresa Bellissimo had to whip something up fast. She deep-fried them, slathered on hot sauce, served with a blue cheese dip. Delicious.

(Still think Bellissimo Wings would’ve been a far better name. Even Anchor Wings. Just saying.)

Popsicle
In 1905, an 11-year-old boy named Frank Epperson left his soda outside with a stirrer in it. It froze overnight.

He originally called it an Epsicle (clever lad), but later on, his children referred to it as Pop’s Sicle. That name was patented in 1923.

(And yes, Slurpees were also the result of an accident — broken freezer, sodas chucked in, you can fill in the rest.)

Coffee
Multiple countries claim this one, but most tales involve a goat herder hundreds of years ago. His goats kept chewing some beans and stayed unusually energetic. Curious, he tried them too — same result.

He told some monks, who at first declared the beans demonic… until they roasted them, poured water through, and drank it.

Apparently, the devil made them do it.

Worcestershire Sauce
This one took two years to become an accident. In 1835, Lord Sandy returned to England from India with tales of a marvellous sauce. He asked John Lea and William Perrins — yes, those ones — to recreate it. They couldn’t.

Two years later, they discovered the old bottles in storage, tasted them, and realised the flavour had matured into something rather special.

Thus, Worcestershire Sauce was born… supposedly.
There’s no record of any Lord Sandy in India, and the courts later ruled that “Worcestershire Sauce” couldn’t be trademarked (though Lea & Perrins could), as the sauce had existed in some form since the 1600s.

Like the sauce itself — it’s all a bit weird.

There are loads more: chocolate chip cookies, cornflakes, yoghurt, Champagne, pink lemonade, mozzarella…

But we’d be here all day.

So next time you whip something up on a whim, remember: you might just stumble upon the next great thing.