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Ice Cream Cone In 1904, Arnold Fornachou, a teenage vendor at World’s Fair in Saint Louis, USA, run out of paper dishes to serve his ice cream, and customers were lining up. He turned to his fellow vendors for help. Ernest Hamwi came to his aid by rolling up his waffle-like pastries and gave them to Fornachou to fill with ice cream. Later, Hamwi received a patent for a cone-making machine and started his own company. There were many vendors who ran ice cream booth at the same fair that claimed similar story. However, many historians believe that the first edible cones were found in Europe before the 19th century.

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Tofu It’s noted that a Chinese cook, attempting to flavour soy milk, dropped unrefined sea salt containing nigari, a natural coagulant, into a pot of it, resulting in a curdled soy milk. The cook then shared the discovery with everyone, and this original product expanded into a plethora of varieties that we see today- from silken curd to blackened firm tofu.

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Sourdough Sourdough is a type of bread made by long fermentation of dough using natural yeast. The oldest record of sourdough harks back to the ancient Egyptians. What likely happened is that Egyptian bakers’ accidentally dampened ground up grain and left it to sit at room temperature. Wild yeast spores from the nearby beer brewing (ancient Egyptian brewery and bakery were often at the same place) settled on the mix, ate the natural sugars and converted them into lactic acid which gave it a sour flavour.

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Accidental inventions are common in history- like popcorn. There are other way more lip smacking accidents over the course of history. Here are 5 food “accidents” that we have been enjoying.

Cheese Its origin links back to the old practice of transporting milk in a vessel made of animal’s stomach. Legend has it that an Arabian nomad discovered the liquid hardened along the way in reaction to the rennet (enzyme) that remained in the stomach, making for the world’s first fromage.

Ancient whale sucked mud for food

An ancient "dwarf" whale appears to have fed by sucking small animals out of the seafloor mud with its short snout and tongue, experts say.

Researchers say the 25 million-year-old fossil is related to today's blue whales - the largest animals on Earth.

The ancient animal's mud slurping may have been a precursor to the filter feeding seen in modern baleen whales.

These whales strain huge quantities of tiny marine animals through specialised "combs" which take the place of teeth.

The research is published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

The fossilised remains of the primitive baleen whale Mammalodon colliveri were discovered near Torquay, in Victoria, Australia.

This animal still had teeth; it had not yet evolved the baleen plates - used for filter-feeding - which characterise present-day baleen whales.

Although Mammalodon was discovered in 1932 and named in 1939, it has not been widely studied, according to Museum Victoria, which holds specimens of this group.

The study's author, Dr Erich Fitzgerald from Museum Victoria, said that his study of the fossil led him to the conclusion that Mammalodon was a bottom-feeding mud-sucker.

Splinter group

The idea would support Charles Darwin's observation about whale evolution in his seminal book On the Origin of Species.

In it, Darwin speculated that some of the earliest baleen whales may have been suction feeders - and that this served as a precursor to the filter feeding of today's giants of the deep.

Mammalodon had a total body length of about 3m. But it appears to have been a bizarre evolutionary "splinter group" from the evolutionary lineage which later led to the 30m-long blue whale.

It was effectively a dwarf whale; the research suggests that Mammalodon may have evolved into a relatively tiny form from larger ancestors.

Mammalodon belongs to the same family as Janjucetus hunderi, fossils of which were also found in 25 million-year-old Oligocene rocks near Torquay in Victoria. This family appears to be unique to south-east Australia.

"Clearly the seas off southern Australia were a cradle for the evolution of a variety of tiny, weird whales that seem to have lived nowhere else," said Dr Fitzgerald.

The baleen plates which allow today's baleen whales to filter their food from water, distinguish this group from the toothed whales - a group which includes beaked whales and dolphins.

Baleen whales are a taxonomical group which includes not only the majestic blue whale, but also the right whales, fin whales and humpbacks, to name but a few.