You may not have given much thought to how your favourite appliances, gadgets and foodstuffs came to be. But many of the food and cooking inventions we now take for granted had less than illustrious beginnings. Here, we reveal 15 inventions that were initially dismissed for being impractical, improper or downright delusional, yet went on to change the culinary world forever.

Click or scroll through our gallery to discover the genius food inventions that were mocked when they came out, counting down to the most impactful of all.

We've based our ranking on how ridiculed yet impactful each invention was, and on the opinions of our well-travelled (and well-fed) team. The list is unavoidably subjective.