One of the most expensive things at almost every restaurant is lobster. That is why many of us consider it a reward or special meal when it comes to celebrations. But at one time, the U.S. had so many lobsters that they would also be used as fertilizer.

At one point in U.S. history, those states that had a coastline sometimes would find piles of lobsters on the beaches. The Native Americans would use these piles as meals, bait, and also fertilizer for their crops.

Corn flakes are pretty bland and often not the most favorite choice of young children when it comes to cereal. Many adults eat corn flakes because they think they’re healthy for them. But that cereal was not intended to be used for health.

The blandness of this cereal was actually intended as the inventor, Mr. Kellogg, thought that enjoying any type of experience was bad for your health.

Potatoes have become a staple in many cuisines across the globe. At one point, to make potatoes seem like they were worth more than they were, a French pharmacist put up guards around his potato field.

He would then remove the guards at night so people could steal the potatoes. This seemed to be one of the elaborate ploys Antoine Augustine Parmentier used to make potatoes so popular.

Sometimes when we think of specific cuisines, there are certain ingredients that we associate with them. For instance, when you think of Italian food, you often think of tomatoes. When you think of Ireland, you think of potatoes, and of course, Asian food wouldn’t be what it was without those chilies.

But none of those come from the culture that they’re associated with. In fact, all of these foods originated in the new world and were brought to the rest of the world via trade.

That thick, crispy crust with that doughy interior of ciabatta has made it one of the most popular types of bread out there. You can do everything from make bruschetta to a nice sandwich with it.

But though most of us think that this bread is a traditional form of Italian bread, it actually only had its origins in the 1980s. An Italian Baker looking to create an alternative to the French baguette crafted this bread and began marketing it. The rest, as they say, is history.

Chicken is pretty much a mainstay in every restaurant and home in the Western Hemisphere. But it wasn’t always the go-to choice. In fact, it didn’t become super popular until after the Second World War.

In the 1940s, a special contest was held called “chicken of tomorrow”, and the winning bird became the blueprint for the chickens of today in the United States. This contest was defined as a chicken that would meet the growing needs of the populace.

Black pepper may seem today like a staple of every kitchen and one of the simpler spices you can have in your cabinet. But back in the day, black pepper was actually worth quite a bit to the people.

In fact, there was even a situation that happened in Rome where peppercorns were actually used to pay a ransom. That seems a little crazy, doesn’t it?

Nowadays you wouldn’t think about eating most meals without a fork. But these utensils weren’t always customary to be used, and in fact, at one point, using them was considered insulting to God.

Many people back in the early centuries all the way up to the 17th century felt that using a fork was a little redundant. After all, you were made with fingers that you could use to pick up food.

There is nothing like a crispy waffle soaked in maple syrup alongside the rest of your breakfast goodies. Making waffles is easy as long as you have a waffle iron, and surprisingly enough, these are not new appliances to the kitchen at all.

The truth is the ancient Greeks actually had a form of waffle maker. These devices were exactly the same as the ones we use today that are plugged into electricity just heated with fire instead.

During WWII, there were a lot of shortages when it came to food. It seems that one of the roughest for the British was the lack of available bananas. But they came up with a pretty clever way of beating that shortage.

In 1940, bananas were banned from import which made them impossible to come by. But it seems they were greatly missed, and so many people began adding banana essence to parsnips so they could enjoy their favorite treat (sort of).

During the war, each side had a lot of crazy ideas of how to get rid of key figures and the other side. The CIA had it with Castro, and the Germans had it with Churchill in WWII. One of the craziest plans was to feed Churchill a very special chocolate bar.

In essence, the Germans planned to code an explosive with chocolate and deliver it to Churchill in his dining room. The bar would have detonated just a few seconds after being unwrapped; luckily, MI5 agents nipped that plan in the bud.

When you’re done shopping or at dinner, you often ask for the receipt. This word once had more meanings than that and actually was used as the word to define what we now call today a recipe.

Both of these words come from the same core word in Latin. Recipere literally translates to receive, and so you can see why these two words are used in the way they are used in the modern language.

When you’re a kid, almost every child’s favorite meal at one point or the other is that cheesy goodness called mac and cheese. Though we might think this is a modern invention, it is actually quite old.

It’s simply a pasta and cheese dish, and the very first dish similar to this was actually in a cookbook written in 14th century Italy. Though this recipe was a little bit different, it is the first recipe that resembles this comfort food.

When you sit down to enjoy a film, most people, especially when doing it in a movie theater, have to have a big bucket of buttery popcorn. This makes the experience complete. But popcorn is not something that started with the invention of cinema; it is quite older.

There have been archaeologists that have found popped corn kernels in the ruins of Peruvian archaeological sites. When dated, some of these sites show that up to 6700 years ago, these native South American people were snacking on the delicious and healthy treats.

Unless you’re a vegetarian or vegan (or have religious rules against eating pork), most of us enjoy the salty goodness that is bacon. It’s a staple not only of breakfast but also can be added to sandwiches and other foods to make them even better.

But did you know the first meal eaten on the moon actually was bacon? That’s right, Aldrin and the crew of the Apollo 11 mission enjoyed bacon squares as they looked out the window staring at the surface of the moon.

Chocolate cake may be one of the most popular types of cake there is in the world. But there was a time when chocolate cake wasn’t as popular. In fact, it wasn’t till the 1800s when America had its first chocolate cake.

This cake was a mahogany cake and was iced with ermine frosting. This type of frosting was a whipped buttercream-style frosting. Sounds pretty good to us!

There are just some people in history that have a knack for inventing things that last. Names like Tesla and Edison come to mind when you think of iconic inventors. But have you ever heard of William A. Mitchell?

Most likely not, but if you’ve ever enjoyed a dollop of cool whip on top of your cake or dropped some pop rocks in your mouth, you have him to thank for that. Oh yeah, and he invented Tang too!

Jello is one of those treats that most kids love to eat. But as you get to be an adult, typically, it loses a little bit of its luster. That wasn’t always the case, especially back in the 50s when jello molds were a big thing.

One magazine really wanted to push a particular type of jello mold called the sequence salad. This was a vinegar-soaked cauliflower with red peppers all molded in lime Jell-o. That doesn’t sound too tasty!

Some of the best things in life happen out of pure happenstance. That statement goes from everything from life to food. In fact, one of the best things to enjoy during hot summers is popsicles, and they just so happened to be created by accident.

Sometimes when you’re a kid, you forget things when you’re outside playing, which happened to young Frank Epperson. Busy playing, he forgot to bring in his glass, and the temperatures dropped, freezing the soda in it. It was such a great treat that it soon began spreading and now is a standard summer treat.

If you’ve ever met someone from Saint Louis, then you’ve probably heard about the gooey butter cake. This is a favorite regional dessert, and it is pretty tasty. But like with many other tasty things we enjoy, it was a pure accident the first time.

This cake finds its origins in the 1930s. Apparently, a baker put too much butter in a coffee cake, and when it came out, it came out gooey.

Who doesn’t love a nice warm Toll House chocolate chip cookie? Not only does it melt in your mouth, but the smell that it leaves in the kitchen is one of those iconic smells. Of course, we wouldn’t have that if it wasn’t for a bit of a mistake back in 1930.

The woman who ran the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, Ruth Wakefield, wanted to make chocolate cookies but didn’t have everything she needed. Instead, she used semi-sweet chocolate in her cookie dough, expecting it to melt. It didn’t, and now we all get to enjoy those beautiful chocolate chip cookies.

Fast food restaurants over the decades have tried to debut a lot of unique ideas. These are often associated with trends and regions, but not all of them make the cut. Even McDonald’s has had a few blunders.

For instance, in the 70s, the fast-food chain tried to market onion nuggets. The onion rings are pretty popular; these little deep-fried bite-size onion pieces didn’t hit the spot. Instead, just a few years later, McDonald’s brought us the classic chicken nugget.

When you think of carrots, we are sure the first thing that comes to mind is a batch of orange vegetables topped with bright green shoots. But carrots weren’t always orange. We owe that to a bunch of 17th-century Dutch farmers.

Most carrots were originally purple, but because of the Dutch’s love for orange (their royal house is the House of Orange), there was a group of Dutch farmers that decided to develop a new carrot with that bright orange color they love so much.

Over the decades and centuries, many religious individuals have touted some pretty interesting ideas when it came to dampening the urge to have one on one connection with a member of the opposite sex.

In fact, in the 1800s, a man named Reverend Sylvester Graham, who resided in Connecticut, preached to his congregation that a bland diet could help get rid of these urges. Out of this, we got the key component in s’mores- the Graham cracker.

A nice pound cake with a little bit of fresh fruit and a dollop of whipped cream is a perfect end to a summer party. The pound cake we eat today is very different from the original recipe penned in 1795.

The name pound cake was chosen for a reason. When looking at the recipe, each ingredient of the said recipe was to be measured out at 1 pound. That means one pound of eggs, butter, sugar, and flour. That’s a pretty dense cake!

There are a lot of people in the world that collect Pez dispensers. But we wonder how many of them know that the candy house within those cute little collectibles was originally intended to be an anti-smoking mint.

The name itself Pez is short for the German word for peppermint. This was the original flavor of the candy, and in the 1920s, it was marketed as a way to quit smoking.

In 1783 the population of the colonies in the United States had something to celebrate. After a lengthy battle, the British had decided to evacuate and leave them to govern themselves. Because of the need to celebrate, there was a need for some pastries.

So at the feast thrown by General George Washington in New York City, the revolutionaries sat down to enjoy a carrot cake as a way to celebrate.

Surprisingly, there are a lot of plants out there that you would never guess all came from the same origin. Among these happen to be some of the least favorite vegetables in the world- kale, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli.

Along with cabbage, cauliflower, and kohlrabi, these detested vegetables all came from the plant Brassica oleracea. But over the centuries, carefully cultivated farmers have had this plant deliver a wide variety of vegetables.

Nowadays, West Coast cuisine is one of the most popular options when it comes to American food. Though most would say that the popularity of this cuisine type didn’t show up until the 70s and 80s.

But the so-called California cuisine that we’re used to nowadays finds its roots in a much different type of cuisine. In fact, one of the very first examples of California cuisine is the Hangtown fry. This was a dish created during the gold rush that is basically an omelet with oysters and bacon.

Rhubarb is an acquired taste, but the harvesting process is quite fascinating. The process actually used to be done by candlelight, and in some places, people still do it this way. Why would they do that?

To get rhubarb to grow quickly, you can deprive it of light, making it grow faster. For this reason, a lot of people grew rhubarb in cellars and didn’t want to pick it in the daylight, so they would use candlelight to harvest their crops.

It seems like every time you turn around, a new diet or lifestyle has come into its own. These diet fads and trends go and come, which means somewhere, there are some pretty interesting examples that we have yet to find.

One of them that we know of is a diet released in the 70s in Vogue. This diet allowed you to eat nothing but eggs, white wine, steak, and black coffee for several days. Apparently, this would allow you to lose five pounds.

Getting from place to place used to be a lot more difficult because you had to sail everywhere. This meant you had to have enough supplies on the ship to last for the entire trip. It didn’t take long for European explorers to figure out that they could leave things along the way to pick up on their way back.

One of these things just happens to be livestock. The sailors would place livestock on islands along their route just in case. This, however, left islands full of livestock, including horses that ended up going wild because they were never picked up.

Every home in the United States has somewhere in its kitchen a loaf of sliced white bread. This is a staple for every meal from breakfast to dinner. But there was actually a time when sliced bread was banned.

In 1943, the United States government banned the sale of sliced bread. This was done to help save bakers and the wax paper industry. But the housewives who had to purchase the bread became very irate. So you can imagine the ban didn’t last long.

Cocoa beans get turned into the world’s favorite sweet treat chocolate. But they weren’t always only used for culinary purposes. The Aztecs actually had a unique use for these beans.

The Aztecs used these beans as a form of currency. It seems that one bean was worth a tamale, and if you wanted to buy a turkey, you’d have to fork over 100 beans. That seems like a pretty good deal!

When you hear the word disaster, you don’t often think of food-related disasters. Though over the decades, there have been a few. But one of the strangest probably was the great molasses flood of 1919.

This disaster happened when a storage tank located in Boston exploded. When it exploded, over 2,000,000 gallons of molasses flooded the streets of Boston. Buildings were crushed, and more than 150 people were injured. 21 people died during the disaster.

There’s nothing like reading a really good book. Ideally, it will have great characters, a well-crafted story, and plenty of twists and turns. But there have been many instances when a director has taken the source material and transformed it into something even better for the big screen. Sometimes, that rich text can be elevated and the visual translation can be even more successful than what inspired it. Let’s take a look at a list of movies that are arguably better than the books they are based on.

You know you’ve done something right when you have turned a four-part novella into a Best Picture-nominated flick. Stephen King’s original tale is known as Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.

But Frank Darabont saw so much potential in this story and was able to give it the epic proportions it deserved. Not to mention the fact that Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins breathed so much life into the two main characters. It didn’t make much money, but Shawshank has aged like a fine wine.

Blade Runner is one of those movies that seems to have become more beloved the longer it’s been around. But casual moviegoers might not realize that the Ridley Scott Sci-Fi flick is adapted from a novel.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick is the original inspiration for the 1982 movie starring Harrison Ford. Amazingly, the changes Scott made for the movie were not warmly welcomed by Dick. Prior to his passing though, the author admitted that the film was superior to his original work.

It’s amazing to think that The Godfather was originally a book. Mario Puzo’s 1969 mafia novel was a New York Times Bestseller for a year, introducing outsiders to the fictional Corleone family. But Francis Ford Coppola took the story to a whole new level.

Not only did actors like Marlon Brando and Al Pacino give the characters from the novel so much gravitas, but Coppola managed to trim the fat from the book, making the theatrical release a much tighter experience altogether.

This one is bound to cause the biggest debate out of all of these books that were turned into movies. Fifty Shades of Grey is a polarizing story at the best of times, due to its raunchy subject matter.

But when the movie was released, people flocked to the cinemas to see how these steamy passages would be brought to life. At least in the film though, viewers didn’t have to listen to the main character’s inner monologue.

Any casual moviegoer over the last 30 years is probably familiar with the iconic character that is Hannibal Lecter. What makes The Silence of the Lambs such a terrifying story is that a lot of the brutal violence and sadistic tendencies of the ominous cannibal is simply hinted at, as opposed to being explicitly spoonfed (no pun intended).

According to fans, the original book felt very drawn out in parts and is a tedious reading experience. Obviously, Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster elevated the story in a big way.

Upon first glance, you might assume that Mean Girls was just a run-of-the-mill, original teen comedy. What many don’t realize though is that it was adapted from the book Queen Bees & Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip and Other Realities of Adolescence, by Rosalind Wiseman.

Tina Fey wasn’t phased by the incredibly long title and wrote her very first screenplay. The movie helped springboard careers for the likes of Rachel McAdams and Lindsey Lohan. The film’s definitely more focused than the book though.

Many have debated until this very day whether or not the movie Fight Club is actually better than the novel it was adapted from. Of course, David Fincher’s film starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt has had a huge impact on pop culture.

But those who have experienced both are torn, with something claiming that the book’s ending is better than the film’s. One telling detail is that Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the 1996 original, absolutely loved the film. Either way, there is a big twist.

Those sharp violin chords and the horrific scream from Marion Crane in the show are nothing short of iconic cinema. Alfred Hitchcock was truly the master of suspense and created an absolute gem of a horror movie in Psycho.

And yet, many people don’t realize that it was a book that inspired the motion picture about Norman Bates. Interestingly, Robert Block only wrote one line to describe the chilling murder in his 1959 novel. The movie definitely did this better and much more gruesome.

There is no denying that Christian Bale’s career entered another dimension when he landed the lead role in 2000’s American Psycho. It seems that viewers of the movie found the outrageous scenes a bit more palatable than how they were described in the original novel from 1991.

Some believe that the passages from the novel were way too graphic, forcing them to stop reading. And yet, the humor and wit from the novel were never missing from the movie.

It seems like the line uttered by Inigo Montoya is even more iconic than the actual movie The Princess Bride. What’s awesome about this example is that the person who wrote the original novel, William Goldman, also wrote the screenplay for the 1987 flick.

Probably the thing that makes the movie better than the novel is the romance between Wesley and Buttercup. One thing that remains in place though is the witty wordplay that was born out of the novel.

One key difference between the book Jaws and the movie of the same name, directed by Steven Spielberg, is about the tension surrounding the main characters. In the book, the crew gets to go home every evening and then deal with the shark the next day.

While in the movie, they spend the entire time on the boat. Despite this being made before the advent of CGI, Spielberg achieved the impossible, bringing the text to life through practical effects.

Anyone who is familiar with Roald Dahl’s work has probably read his classic book, Matilda. This story about a young girl with psychokinetic abilities captured the imaginations of millions of readers around the world. And yet, even more people are probably familiar with the film adaptation, which was directed by Danny Devito, of all people.

Just the colorful quality of the movie was enough for it to trump the book it was inspired by. Many will agree that the film’s Matilda, the character, was more likable than the book’s Matilda.

When you are talking about a writer as good as Cormac McCarthy, it’s difficult to believe that any movie adaptation could be possibly better than his original work. And yet, the Coen brothers saw the dark tones lurking between the lines and breathed new life into this murky Western tale.

Of course, Javier Bardem’s chilling performance as Anton Chigurh is a once-in-a-lifetime one. Not to mention that the movie absolutely cleaned up at the Oscars.

It might not be his best movie – but Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown is still a beautifully crafted homage to Blaxploitation movies from the ’70s. Heck, even Pam Grier wanted to honor the genre in which she made her name in the first place.

But still, it took a book to put this story into motion. Elmore Lenard wrote the story Rum Punch. In the book though, the main character is white, while Tarantino made her black and flipped the genre.

Characters like Randall McMurphy and Nurse Ratchett are etched into the minds of millions, for numerous reasons. But for most, it would have to be because of the iconic 1975 movie starring Jack Nicholson. The book, which was written by Ken Kesey 13 years prior to the film’s release, was a powerful story.

And yet, the performances in the movie really captured the essence of being institutionalized inside a psychiatric facility. Also, it was only the second movie ever to win the big five Academy Awards.

Many who have watched the Sci-Fi movie Arrival and the short story that inspired it, “The Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, will agree that they are both great in their own rights.

With that said, there is a big fan base that would claim that Denis Villeneuve’s retelling just edges it in terms of quality and simply for visual reasons. After all, this film, starring Amy Adams, did very well at the Academy Awards.

If you grew up during the ’90s and didn’t see Jurassic Park, then what were you doing with your life? This classic adventure flick directed by Steven Spielberg showed the hypothetical reality of a theme park where dinosaurs are essentially brought back to life, with devastating consequences.

While the film doesn’t really deviate from the book much, many believe that certain scenes in the film built up much more tension than the passages in the book.

It seems like a truly epic girl power movie only comes around every once in a while, unfortunately. But when Pitch Perfect did arrive on the scene, it didn’t disappoint, by any stretch of the imagination.

This movie is based on the non-fiction book Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory. While the book is interesting, for sure, the movie adds the musical element which really takes the story to a whole new level. Also, Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson are awesome in it.

Let’s face it – if it wasn’t for The Lord of the Rings, you wouldn’t have had other incredible fantasy sagas such as Star Wars and Harry Potter. It’s just a fact. And you need to owe a lot of thanks to J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic books for that.

Then Peter Jackson came along and decided, “you know what, I can make this story even better through the power of cinema.” Characters such as Frodo, Gollum, Legolas, and Aragorn became iconic in the world of Hollywood.

Imagine being nominated for supporting actor for playing a character that wasn’t even in the book that inspired the movie! That’s exactly what Jack Nicholson did when he starred alongside Shirley MacLaine in 1983’s Terms of Endearment. A big book, Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry is charming, to say the very least.

But James L. Brooks came running out the gate with his directorial debut. A story revolving around cancer can get cheesy very quickly, but this movie managed to stay grounded.

When you think of Stephen King, you’ll probably think of his horror classics like The Shining and It. But the legendary author is also famous for his poignant tales about coming of age and friendship. Take his novella “The Body,” for example.

This story ended up being adapted by Rob Reiner into the classic ’80s movie Stand By Me. While “The Body” is fine, for what it’s worth, Stand By Me is a must-see, with great performances from Corey Feldman, Will Wheaton, and the late River Phoenix.

Who could ever forget Meryl Streep’s incredible performance in the classic The Devil’s Wear Prada? This in itself is enough of a reason as to why the 2006 film is better than the book that preceded it three years prior.

Sure, all the classic components are in place in the novel. However, Aline Brosh McKenna made the movie’s plot so much tighter. Not to mention a great early Emily Blunt performance. There’s no point in arguing about this one.

It’s difficult to compete with a movie about 1950s LA crime starring the likes of Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger, Russell Crowe, and Guy Pearce. LA Confidential had it all, but it’s amazing to think that this 1997 thriller was adapted from a novel.

Amazingly, the book’s author, James Ellroy, proved to be one of the biggest fans of the movie. According to him, Curtis Hanson (the director) did an amazing job of “maintaining the overall dramatic thrust.”

Don’t be confused – Bridget Jones’s Diary wasn’t an actual diary. It was a fictional novel by Helen Fielding back, written back in 1999 in the form of diary entries. What is genius about the movie though is that you don’t really feel the diary entry format as much, and the drama and comedy are given room to breathe.

Due to Renee Zellweger’s great performance as Bridget, sequels to the originals also followed. Also, Colin Firth’s Mark was much more interesting than the book version.

Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain certainly won a lot of awards upon its release. Her short story about two cowboys who became romantically involved was well received by many. However, there is no denying that Ang Lee’s 2005 retelling of the story gave the story a fantastic visualization.

He even won Best Director for it at the Academy Awards. But it was Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger’s performances that ended the argument that this movie is superior to the book.

There will never be another fictional character quite like Forrest Gump. In 1986, Winston Groom painted Gump as a big guy with a small mind who embarked on a truly epic life through 20th century America. In the film, Tom Hanks plays a smaller, more timid Gump, but undoubtedly a much more memorable version.

Robert Zemeckis’s Best Picture-winning film had it all – a great soundtrack, wonderful performances, and authenticity that harked back to some of the best and worst years of American history.

When you are dealing with subject matter as tragic as the Holocaust, it’s virtually impossible to make light of it. And yet, Taika Waititi managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat with his adaptation of the story Caging Skies – Jojo Rabbit, specifically!

While the original book is very bleak and doesn’t really give the reader much to chew on in terms of levity, the film Jojo Rabbit is funny and charming in large parts, and somehow works. It was even Academy-Award nominated.

Many don’t know that Hollywood classic All About Eve was actually based on Mary Orr’s short story “The Wisdom of Eve,” which first showed up in Cosmopolitan back in 1946.

While this little piece of fiction was OK at the time, the film adaptation catapulted the story into the public consciousness, and also won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Joseph L. Mankiewicz created an unforgettable film, starring the likes of Bettie Davis and Anne Baxter.

The premise of PD James’s The Children of Men is enough to leave one thinking all night long. Imagine a world where all women have become infertile and no baby has been born in decades.

What made the 2006 movie amazing though is that it amplified the dystopian qualities of the novel, creating a true sense of dread and jeopardy. Alfonso Cuaron gave the film stunning visuals and brought out a great lead performance in Clive Owen. James even claimed to be “so proud to be associated” with the film.

There is no denying that Nicholas Sparks has a knack for tragic love stories. His millions of sold copies of The Notebook are enough proof of that. But many would agree that the 2004 film adaptation starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams is even better than the novel.

All the topics of family drama, war, and love are brought to the forefront in Nick Cassavetes’ classic. Many thought that Rachel McAdams made the film version of the character much better.

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