Have you ever thought why we eat a sandwich? John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792) was a real fire raising rebel in his youth. He was a committed gambler and disliked having to stray from the gambling table for such small matters as eating. So he would call for a piece of beef between two slices of bread to sustain him and once played for twenty four hours non-stop. That was how the sandwich was born in 1762.

The Sandwich Islands in the Pacific (now part of Hawaii) were named after him, not the food!

On this basis, one would be forgiven for assuming that a Caesar Salad was the preferred dish of the Roman Emperor, Julius Caesar. However, this culinary masterpiece was not to appear for almost 2,000 years after Caesar's death, and was in fact the creation of Caesar Cardini, who ran Caesar's Place Restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico.

Like all competent chefs, in the tradition of great kitchen creativity, Caesar had to improvise a salad when more people turned up to eat than he had prepared food for on the Fourth of July 1924. He had to make do with the ingredients he had, which included lettuce, garlic, olive oil, croutons, cheese and eggs. He added a little bit of showmanship by tossing these ingredients himself at the diners' tables.

The Cardini family trademarked the original recipe in 1948, and more than a dozen varieties of bottled "Cardini's" dressing are available today.

Some foods and dishes have absolutely nothing to do with the connotation of their name. The dish of melted cheese and butter mixed with seasoning and poured over buttered toast is called Welsh Rarebit or Welsh Rabbit - which has nothing to do with rabbit.

But then Bombay Duck is a fish. The origin of the term "Bombay duck" is uncertain. Some suggest that, during the British Raj, the fish was often transported by rail after drying. The story goes that the train compartments of the Bombay Dak which was the name of a train, the Bombay Mail, would smell of the fish, leading the British to refer to the peculiar smell as the "Bombay Dak".

Mock turtle soup is another misnomer that has nothing to do with turtles. It is an English soup that was created in the mid-18th century as a cheaper imitation of green turtle soup. It often uses brains and organ meats such as calf's head, or a calf's foot to duplicate the texture and flavour of the original's turtle meat.

One myth that should be dispelled is that the derivation of "curry" is not from the army officer, Sir George Curry (1826-1890), who single handedly, developed a taste for the highly spiced stews of the natives, and as a consequence, had to dine by himself in the officer's mess.