Spite is a powerful motivator in life, even if it’s often employed with little thought or consideration and, in hindsight, comes across as something closer to ignorance. Nothing combines all of those elements better than our penchant, as a species, to childishly rename a thing if we become angry with whoever is most associated with the original name, as though someone it may drive home a political point.
10. Kiwi Used to be Chinese Gooseberry
Kiwi fruits are a sweet and tangy treat with a distinctive bright green flesh that makes them both delicious and eye-catching. They’re so closely tied to New Zealand that we actually call people from New Zealand kiwis as well.
The fruit is native to China and was only introduced to New Zealand in 1904. At that time they were called Chinese gooseberries, a name that remained until 1959 when New Zealand officially changed the name of their exports to kiwi fruit.
New Zealand’s efforts to export kiwi began in the 1950s and, thanks to the Cold War, the name Chinese gooseberry was not going over well in America at all. Even the gooseberry part was bad. They actually tried to call them melonettes for a while, except melons were subject to high tariffs, so that was a bad idea, too. Kiwi fruit was suggested and, judging by the fruit’s present day popularity, it was a good choice.
9. Sauerkraut Became Liberty Cabbage in 1918
Nothing stunts a person’s creative juices quite like war, it seems and we’ll be hammering that point home soon enough. For instance, sauerkraut is inextricably linked to Germany so much so that Germans were sometimes derisively called krauts. The name sauerkraut just means “sour cabbage” but it’s one of the foods most closely associated with that country.
When World War One hit, German culture was no longer considered something to celebrate in America and some effort was made to scour away references to anything German stateside. Sauerkraut fell victim to that movement and, for a time, it was rebranded by some as liberty cabbage.
Sauerkraut makers in America were losing a considerable amount of money on their product and they made open appeals in the press to the government for help. They proposed the change in name as a means to make people happy and get sauerkraut back on dinner tables.
8. French Fries Became Freedom Fries During the Gulf War
One of the most famous cases of renaming a food to spite another nation hails from the Gulf War and the Freedom Fries debacle. In 2003, as America was preparing to invade Iraq, not all of their allies were on board with military action. France, in particular, objected to the American approach.
With many perceiving France’s opposition to war as a betrayal, anti-French sentiments grew in America and came to a bubbling, oily head when a restaurant owner in North Carolina decided to strike French fries from his menu, at least in name. They became Freedom Fries, and the move made national headlines. It even inspired some Congressmen to want to change the name of fries in the cafeteria at the Capitol.
For their part, France responded by suggesting the world was in the midst of something rather important and they didn’t have a lot of time to carry about what people were calling potatoes. The fact that French fries aren’t even French but Belgian may or may not have come up at the time.
7. Iran Turned Danish Pastries into Roses of Muhammad
You know a food is truly bound to the people that produced it when it’s just known by the name of those people. Danish may actually be the only food that this applies to. Everything else tends to employ at least one other word. Turkish coffee. Irish cream. French bread. Not Danish. The name gives away nothing at all about what you’re eating, just where it came from.
In 2006, the Danish was met with resistance in Iran after a Danish paper published pictures of the prophet Muhammad. That, as you may know, is strictly forbidden in the Muslim faith and some people take it pretty seriously. Or as seriously as you think changing the name of a pastry may be.
The name, for a time anyway, was swapped out with Roses of the Prophet Muhammad. Not nearly as succinct as the original, but certainly a counter to what had offended people in the first place. The change was ordered by Iran’s Confectioner’s Union and resulted in some bakeries simply covering the word “Danish” on signs.
6. Chicken Kiev Has Become Chicken Kyiv
Chicken Kiev was a classic restaurant dish that is actually pretty rare to find on menus these days because it’s considered a bit old-fashioned, like steak Diane or chicken cordon bleu. It’s just a chicken breast pounded flat, rolled around something like an herbed butter, then coated in egg and breadcrumbs before being fried. But it’s also rather controversial.
Chicken Kiev is slowly being replaced by Chicken Kyiv. The difference is not in the recipe, just the name. Kiev was the name of the Ukrainian city when the country was under Soviet rule. It’s the Russian spelling as well. Kyiv is how it’s known in Ukraine to Ukrainians, and they want people to call it that instead of the name Russians gave it.
The change has been slow going, but the 2022 war has boosted efforts among people supporting Ukraine enough that there are even frozen entrée versions of the dish now branded with the Ukrainian Kyiv spelling.
5. Americano Coffee in Russia Became Russiano Coffee
An Americano coffee is made of espresso and water. Not very revolutionary stuff, but people seem to like it and you can find it on menus all around the world. Maybe not Russia, though. In 2014, some coffee shops in the country rebranded Americano coffee as Russiano coffee after the Russian Prime Minister made a joke about Americano not being politically correct and an Armenian politician responded by suggesting Russiano.
In 2014 Russia was in the midst of a different conflict with Ukraine and they were not happy with America’s stance, hence the idea that Americano would be politically incorrect. Despite the Russiano comment being an offhand remark between politicians, people took it seriously enough to put it on menus.
4. Greek Coffee is Mostly Just Turkish Coffee With a Different Name
Russia was by no means the only country in the world to get hot under the collar about their international coffee. Greece beat them to the punch decades again when they had a political beef with Turkey.
Unlike some of these name tweaks, Greek coffee has endured and if you go to Greece today, you can still find it all over. That said, if you go to many other countries and order a Turkish coffee you might notice it tastes a lot like Greek coffee. The reason for that, of course, is that it’s pretty much the same thing.
Turkish coffee is traditionally brewed in copper pots with very fine coffee grounds and ends up being a lot thicker than the coffee you’re getting from Starbucks. It’s very popular among coffee fans, though, and that includes the people of Greece.
Turkey invaded Cyprus back in 1974 and Greece, being quite close to Cyprus, didn’t take kindly to it. So to thumb their nose at the Turks, as the kids say, Greece dropped Turkey from their coffee and rebranded it.
If you travel extensively through Europe, you may find the same beverage in any number of countries where they changed the name arguably for the same reason – Turkey has a lot of bad blood in its past with other nations. Armenian coffee, Bosnian coffee, Cypriot coffee, all of it seems to have started as Turkish coffee.
3. Berliner Donuts Became Kitchener Buns
There’s a popular urban legend that President John F. Kennedy once gave a speech in which he accidentally called himself a jelly donut. Often called the “ich bin ein Berliner” speech, it’s been suggested that the translation is “I am a jelly donut” because a Berliner is, in fact, a kind of donut despite Kennedy trying to say he was a Berliner, or citizen of Berlin.
That story is not true and everyone in Germany would have perfectly understood Kennedy’s words as he intended them to be. What is true, however, is that there is a kind of donut called a Berliner. And then, for a while, there wasn’t.
Berliners were never a big thing in North America, maybe because they were already called jelly donuts there. But in Australia in particular they were well known until World War One. Just as the war put Americans off sauerkraut, it put the Aussie’s off Berliner donuts. Parts of Australia had strong German roots at the time, so the Berliner had become commonplace. But with anti-German sentiment over the war it was given a new name – the Kitchener Bun.
Lord Kitchener was a famous British Field Marshal and also the Secretary of State for War as World War One began, making him basically the exact opposite of anything German. It was the most un-German name the pastry could receive.
Canada did a very similar thing during the war as well. There was a city in Ontario, settled mostly by Germans, known as Berlin. In 1916, in order to distance themselves from the war, the city was renamed Kitchener, and still retains the name today.
2. Hamburgers Became Liberty Sandwiches During WWI
Historically and gastronomically, the Germans cannot catch a break. After losing sauerkraut and Berliners, one of the few things Germans had left, though it’s arguably barely German, was the hamburger.
It was, once again, during World War One, when America was vehemently opposed to all things German that the staple of the fast food industry was knocked down a peg. You see, hamburgers get their name from Hamburg, Germany. The concept of mincing meat with some seasonings was made famous there. The result was a meat patty called a Hamburg steak that was popular but expensive. But it wasn’t a hamburger, it was just the meat.
The concept of the Hamburg steak came to America with German immigrants long before the war, and some unknown innovator came up with the idea to make it easier to eat by putting it on bread. So it was likely invented in America using a German concept.
Regardless of the hamburger’s true origin, the name was too German for some during the war and, keeping with the uncreative concept of renaming at the time, someone came up with liberty sandwiches. We can all be thankful the name didn’t stick.
1. Poutine Was Renamed Because of the Russia-Ukraine War
Sometimes you really have to reach to make these name changes make sense and that was the case in 2022 when a Quebec restaurant decided to rename the quintessential Canadian junk food poutine. Poutine, in case you are uninitiated, is French fries covered in cheese curds and hot gravy. It’s a staple in restaurants across Canada and can also be made in countless varieties that can include everything from fried onions to pulled pork and brisket.
As a result of Russia’s 2022 war against Ukraine, a Montreal restaurant owner named Laurent Proulx, whose restaurant claims to have made the first ever poutine in 1964, renamed the dish to the intensely uncreative “fry cheese gravy.”
What does any of this have to do with a war in Ukraine? While most of the English world pronounces poutine like “poo teen,” that’s not how you pronounce it in French. It’s pronounced closer to “puh tin” and that is also how you pronounce Vladimir Putin’s name in French.