When hamburger was first eaten in the 1800s in its namesake town of Hamburg, Germany, it was actually served as raw, shredded beef — a dish we’re more familiar with today as beef tartare. Sailors brought the meat to the northern German city from the Baltics. An unknown German chef decided to cook the beef, leading to the hamburgers we now know and love.

The birth of Texas Toast is a little murky, but the two most popular competing stories say that it was invented in the 1940s at a Pig Stand drive-in restaurant in either Beaumont or Denton, Texas. In both stories, the chef wanted to wow his customers with something special, so he cut toast at twice the thickness, buttered each side, and grilled it — resulting in the beloved carb-filled creation.

In southwestern England, a village named Cheddar is the ancestral home to the cheese of the same name. Cheddar cheese was first made here in the 1100s; during this time, it was common for cheese to be named after the place it was produced. The village (which has about 5,700 residents today) still has caves nearby to age the cheese to perfection.

Tangerines are a sweeter type of mandarin orange that were first shipped to the United States in the 1800s. They arrived from (and are named after) the Moroccan port city of Tangiers, situated on the Strait of Gibraltar. However, the fruit had been cultivated for thousands of years before that in Japan and China — hence the name of its parent fruit, “mandarin.”

The Philadelphia roll, made with salmon and cream cheese, was commissioned by the mayor of Philadelphia in the 1980s. Famous sushi chef Madame Saito, who created the roll for the mayor, wanted it to resemble a lox sandwich, reflecting the Jewish heritage of many of the customers at her restaurant in Reading Terminal.

Though jalapeños are now grown worldwide, the pepper was first cultivated in the Mexican state of Veracruz, on the country’s southeastern coast. Jalapeños get their name from Xalapa, Veracruz’s capital city. The peppers have a mild to moderate heat and are typically found in dishes like salsa and chili.

Champagne can only be called Champagne if it’s made in the Champagne region of northwest France — everything else is just sparkling wine. Wine has been produced in this region for over a thousand years. The vineyards there grow exclusively pinot noir, chardonnay, and pinot meunier grapes, all used to make the bubbly beverage.

In the 1700s, spa towns became popular among wealthy Europeans, who would soak in mineral water and supposedly wash away their ailments. Some of the mineral water was bottled and sold around the world, and the Selters brand, which started in 1787, took inspiration from the name of one of these spa towns, Niederselters. Eventually, “seltzer” came to be a generic name for carbonated mineral water.

Legend has it that Fig Newtons were named after Sir Isaac Newton (of the falling apple and theory of gravity), but the real explanation lies in the location of the Kennedy Biscuit company, which purchased the cookie recipe from Philadelphia baker Charles Roser in 1891. The Boston-based company named its products after nearby towns, and they chose Newton for the new cookie.

Sherry, a fortified wine made from white grapes, has been around for at least 3,000 years. It is thought that ancient Phoenicians first brought the vines for sherry grapes to the southwest coast of Spain, in the modern-day province of Jerez de la Frontera, and cultivated them beginning around 1100 BCE. “Sherry” is an anglicized version of “Jerez,” and true sherries are only made in this region.