It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate, report, explore, from WBEZ.

Hey, I'm Curious City multimedia producer, Catherine Nagasawa.

If you've ever sipped cold beer at a party or made Sunday morning

pancakes, you might have taken part in a culinary experience with roots in a century-old

Chicago event. I'm talking about the 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian

Exposition. It was a spectacle that sprawled across Jackson Park on the south side.

Over the course of six months, 27 million people from around the world flocked to the fair.

They came to see the latest innovations, learn about other cultures, and ride the world's

first ferris wheel.

Curious citizen Michael Dotson wanted to know about some of the relics of the world's fair.

And while we could look at some old buildings or museum pieces,

instead I'm going to focus on three iconic foods at the fair

and how they launched groundbreaking marketing ideas that we still use today.

Those products are Heinz Condiments, Ant-Omima pancake mix,

and Papp's Blue Ribbon Beer.

First up, Heinz Condiments and the birth of the coupon.

This story all started with a man who was in a bit of a pickle.

You see, Heinz Condiments founder, Henry J. Heinz, was assigned a second-floor booth in the World's Fair Exhibit Hall. Here's historian Andy Macek.

Heinz had pyramids of horseradish sauce and pickles and ketchup, and nobody was taking the

hundred or so stairs steps to get to the second floor of the exhibit hall.

He was dying up there.

So Heinz found some local boys and hired them to walk around the first floor

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