Wondering what dish to make a loved one for their birthday? Go back in time with something invented or made popular the year you (or they) were born. There’s pretty much an equal chance of it being delicious or bizarre, as this roster of recipes and fast-food creations proves.

Whether or not you consider it a meal, microwave popcorn deserves a mention because of how it was invented: accidentally, and at the same time as the microwave. Dr Percy Spencer held a bag of kernels close to a magnetron, an essential component of today’s microwaves, and found they were able to pop.

The electric blender gained popularity in post-Second World War kitchens – as this fascinating 1947 pamphlet, “340 Recipes for the new Waring Blendor”, proves. Milk smoothies were one easy dessert home cooks loved to make in them and there’s a whole chapter dedicated to recipes.

This early celebrity chef was actually a fictional character and first gained popularity towards the end of the 1940s. Betty Crocker recipes include this “perfect double-quick cake” with three types of frosting (chocolate, orange and plain), which was published in Good Housekeeping in October 1949.

Upside-down cakes – where the fruit is layered at the bottom and the cake is upturned once baked – have been around a little longer. But this version, made with tinned pineapple rings, became a favorite post-Second World War as sweet treats became more attainable.

Popular US brand Swanson wasn’t the first to produce lap trays with separate compartments for peas, potatoes, meat and so on, but it was the first to use the term TV dinner. It was also the company’s huge advertising campaign that took the convenience meal to sofas in homes all across the country.

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After appearing on a list of Germany’s best cakes in 1949, in the following decade Black Forest gâteau was in recipe books everywhere. As beautiful as it is delicious, we can see why the chocolate, cherry, kirsch and cream layer cake took off so rapidly.

We don’t want to start a food fight, but spag bol as we know it – a ragù made with ground beef, simmered with tomatoes and other veg, served over spaghetti – is quite different to Italy’s tagliatelle al ragù, made with flatter pasta noodles and a slow-cooked sauce. The British “twist” took off as pasta swept through the country’s kitchens in the 1960s.

We reckon this wobbly wonder is worth reviving for the name alone (it’s also known as broken glass cake, which is less appetizing, somehow). It’s made by cutting fruit Jell-O into cubes and folding them into thick, lemon-laced cream – a recipe that featured in the brilliantly niche cookbook, Joys of Jell-O.

The rich, hearty beef stew is believed to be a peasant dish from Burgundy, with the first recipe published in the early 20th century. But it was the fabulously flamboyant Julia Child who introduced the meaty marvel to home kitchens across the US and UK through her seminal cookbooks and TV show, The French Chef, which debuted in 1963.

Breakfast that feels more like dessert? Yes please. Every kid’s favorite morning and afternoon snack, Pop Tarts were sold unfrosted when they were first released. Thankfully the extra layer of sugar was added three years later when it was established it wouldn’t melt off in the toaster. Make ours a blueberry.

Jell-O salads had a surprisingly long tenure in kitchens across the US and UK, with home chefs experimenting with savory creations since the instant gelatin was patented in 1897. However, they reached wobbly new heights in the 1960s, when Jell-O launched a range of flavors such as celery, perfect for this eye-catching dish.

Burger King may have been the first to bring big burgers to the table, but the Big Mac is the most famous McDonald's icon – and perhaps the most well-known fast food item in the world. Yet its inception didn’t come from McDonald’s HQ. It was invented by Jim Delligatti, who ran several branches in Pennsylvania, and rolled out across the US the following year.

Ground beef, chicken, shredded lettuce, grated cheese, tomatoes, sour cream, strips of tortilla... You can pretty much throw anything you might wrap in a tortilla into a taco salad, which is often eaten from an edible bowl. But it certainly isn’t an authentic Mexican dish. The first known recipe was printed in California-based Sunset magazine in 1968.

It’s strange to think there was a time this squishy McDonald’s breakfast staple didn’t exist. This once-controversial sandwich was the beginning of the chain’s morning menu, spawning a whole world of muffin and hash brown-based eats in the early 1970s. 

This ad in Canadian Living was one of three “quick and economical” recipes from pasta company Catelli aimed at families looking to save money during the recession. Serrated lasagna strips layered with cooked chicken, ready-made tomato sauce and cottage cheese. Simple.

American-born Gregory Sams, who owned London restaurant SEED, was the first to market a meat-free patty. His “VegeBurger” was made with seitan (wheat dough washed with water to make a sticky, elastic mass), spices, aduki beans and oat flakes. It took off, of course, and other restaurants and chains quickly adopted their own versions.

Blackened fish is a staple of many trendy restaurants and it’s generally delicious. But it isn’t as modern as it might seem. Blackening involves frying thickly seasoned fillets of fish or meat at a sizzlingly high heat. It’s long been a staple of Louisiana Cajun cooking and 1984 cookbook Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen introduced it to the masses.

This Italian restaurant staple probably predates the 1980s, though it was the New York Times’ 1985 recipe that launched dinner party hosts everywhere into a frenzy of cold coffee and soggy sponge fingers. It’s still a hugely popular dessert. Hardly surprising since it contains coffee, chocolate and cream.

Fans of 2014 film Chef might know it as the “molten” chocolate lava cake that helped ruin the career of Jon Favreau’s title character, while MasterChef viewers have likely witnessed many contestants fall with a failed fondant. And it was, appropriately, a mistake that created it. Jean-Georges Vongerichten undercooked a sponge at his New York restaurant JoJo and his error proved so popular he typically serves more than 1,000 every day.

Fans of the supersize, sewer-dwelling turtles might remember this one – whether they actually ever got to taste it or just constantly nagged their parents to buy it. The full-size pizzas had your standard pepperoni and extra cheese toppings. But the mini slices had green crusts and were topped with apple. 

Few fast food items have caused as much controversy as the McDonald’s foray into cheese-topped dough. After several years in the planning, it was first offered in a handful of US restaurants before rolling out nationwide – much to the chagrin of Pizza Hut. It didn’t last long, mainly because the prep time was at odds with the idea of fast food. But many still remember it wistfully.

Everyone’s favorite triangular snack (unless you’re a Dairylea fan) has been around since 1972, but this cheesy, crunchy number took them to the dinner table. Usually made with canned cream of chicken soup, cooked chicken, salsa, Nacho Cheese Doritos and more cheese on top, it’s the 1990s version of the tuna noodle casserole.

Pioneering British TV chef Keith Floyd helped millions of home cooks add a new recipe to their roster when he included a Thai green curry, made with a shop-bought paste, in his cookbook Guide to Southeast-Asia Cooking.

It’s surprising enough that setting foods in Jell-O and aspic was such a dominant trend of the 1960s and 1970s. That it returned to add a wobble to 1990s dinner tables is surely something no one could have predicted. Shredded chicken set in aspic with vegetables and cilantro (the herb du jour) was a frequent guest at summer weddings.

This was the year the revered El Bulli, based just outside of Barcelona, Spain, won its third Michelin star. It sadly closed in 2011 but chef Ferran Adrià’s creations remain hugely influential. His use of foams – such as in the espuma de humo, a glass with smoked water foam served with croutons – was an especially controversial and memorable creation on the 1997 menu.

Or maybe you know them as bagel pizzas. Either way, these snacks – whose history may stretch back to 1959, when it’s claimed an Ohio-based baker invented them – are a chewy, cheesy combination made in comfort-food heaven. And they were the post-school munch of choice for many kids in the mid-1990s.

As the world prepared for millennium celebrations – and everyone wondered whether the world would stop as the clocks struck midnight – there was only one thing to serve. Recipes featuring the orange-fleshed melon were everywhere this year. Want to party like it’s 1999? Try this chilled, sweet soup.

The last 12 months of the millennia was also the year a certain mop-topped English chef rose to fame. Jamie Oliver’s TV show, The Naked Chef, debuted in 1999 and a cookbook quickly followed in 2000. It introduced us to the delights of homemade focaccia, pancetta, sun-dried tomatoes and whole fish baked in sea salt, which seals in the steam and results in tender, flaky flesh.

Now take a look at food trends we're glad no longer exist

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