Have you ever been really hungry, but there wasn’t much to eat in your kitchen? Did you throw together a bunch of stuff you had on hand and were pleasantly surprised when it tasted good? You aren’t alone. Some of our favorite foods were created by accident. Here’s a sample menu of some familiar foods that never would have happened if someone hadn’t created them by mistake.

One of the world’s favorite snacks is the result of a complaint. In 1853, a man was eating dinner at Moon’s Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York. He ordered fried potatoes, a popular side dish. But when they came out of the kitchen, he didn’t think they were crispy enough. He sent them back to the kitchen, where Chef George Crum was so angry at having his cooking criticized that he sliced the potatoes really thin, put lots of salt on them, and fried them. Not only did the diner love them, but everyone else did, too. They soon became a specialty of the restaurant.

Tofu, or bean curd, is made by curdling (使凝结) fresh soya milk, pressing it into a solid block, and then cooling it. Tofu was accidentally invented in China 2,000 years ago, when a cook added seaweed to soya milk, which made it curdle. This is the same process that is used for making cheese. Like cheese, tofu is a great example of how really messing up a recipe can create something unexpectedly good.

Did you ever wonder who thought up cheese puffs? The company that invented them wasn’t even trying to make food for people. It was trying to make animal feed. In the 1930s, the Flakall Company of Wisconsin made animal food from small, flaked pieces of grain. One day, an employee, Edward Wilson, watched workers pouring cornmeal (谷粉) into the flaking machine, wetting it to keep it from clogging (堵塞). Because the machine was very hot, the wet cornmeal came out of it in puffy ribbons that hardened when they hit the air. Wilson took some of the ribbons home, added oil and flavoring to them, and voila! Cheese puffs!

Jianbing guozi（煎饼果子）has long been one of the most popular street snacks in China – many people enjoy eating it for breakfast with a cup of warm soy milk. But according to a new set of standards, we may not have been eating “real” jianbing guozi at all.

On May 26, the Tianjin Catering Industry Association introduced a set of standards that say how jianbing guozi should be made. Tianjin is believed to be the birthplace of the snack.

The new standards say that the snack should be made with mung bean flour, eggs and scallions (葱). And it should be between 38 and 45 centimeters in diameter. They also state that its packaging should show the snack’s expiry date (有效期) and the name, address and phone number of its maker.

Jianbing guozi is a traditional food that’s sold all over China, and it’s even started to become popular in other countries. However, the way the snack is prepared in different regions varies. While traditional jianbing guozi often consists of a pancake and eggs, sea cucumber, hotdog sausage or even squid (鱿鱼) are sometimes added in some places.

“Different street sellers all have various ways to cook jianbing guozi, but they don’t care about how to develop it better for the future. They just focus on making money,” Song Guanming, chairman of the Tianjin Catering Industry Association’s jianbing guozi branch, told The Telegraph. Song believes that the new standards will preserve the traditional flavor of the snack.

However, the introduction of the standards has raised heated debate among Chinese internet users. Some believe that part of the fun of eating jianbing guozi is that its flavor varies by seller, but the rules will destroy its variety, according to The New York Times.

In response, Song explained that the standards would not be strictly carried out. “It’s not our aim to make it standard like KFC fast food,” Song told China Daily. “We just aim to better regulate the cooking process, techniques and safety of this time-honored Tianjin snack in its hometown.”

More than 10 years ago, it was difficult to buy a tasty pineapple. The fruits that made it to the UK were green on the outside and, more often than not, hard with an unpleasant taste within. Then in 1966, the Del Monte Gold pineapple produced in Hawaii first hit our shelves.

The new type of pineapple looked more yellowy-gold than green. It was slightly softer on the outside and had a lot of juice inside. But the most important thing about this new type of pineapple was that it was twice as sweet as the hit-and-miss pineapples we had known. In no time, the Del Monte Gold took the market by storm, rapidly becoming the world's best-selling pineapple variety, and delivering natural levels of sweetness in the mouth, up until then only found in tinned pineapple.

In nutrition it was all good news too. This nice tasting pineapple contained four times more vitamin C than the old green variety. Nutritionists said that it was not only full of vitamins, but also good against some diseases. People were understandably eager to be able to buy this wonderful fruit. The new type of pineapple was selling fast, and the Del Monte Gold pineapple rapidly became a fixture in the shopping basket of the healthy eater.

Seeing the growing market for its winning pineapple, Del Monte Gold tried to keep market to itself. But other fruit companies developed similar pineapples. Del Monte Gold turned to law for help, but failed. Those companies argued successfully that Del Monte Gold's attempts to keep the golden pineapple for itself were just a way to knock them out the market.