Disputed Statements

Liège Waffle, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1921

Popular legend credits the chef to the prince-bishop of Liege in the 18th century, but no cookbook of that period contains a matching recipe; the first full documented recipe under this name appears in 1921

Source Waffle - Wikipedia

Limoncello, Drinks

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States Italy

competing claims place its creation in Sicily, Amalfi coast villages, or Capri, with disputed dates

Source Limoncello - Wikipedia

Lomo Saltado, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, To (Year)

Currently States 1929

Marks the 1920s, when the first dedicated Chinese (chifa) restaurants opened in Lima following the earlier import-company presence, closing the bracket the live origin-start-year fact opens at 1903 (the dish's earliest documented cookbook mention, in Nuevo Manual de Cocina a la Criolla). No source gives an exact date for when the modern criolla version (with french fries, tomato and aji amarillo) took its now-standard form; that narrower question remains genuinely undocumented and is not asserted here.

Source Origins: Lomo Saltado (New Worlder) tier 2

Maize, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Earliest Documented Use, From (Year)

Currently States -7000

Genetic and archaeobotanical studies converge on the Balsas River valley of southern Mexico as the domestication site, but estimates of the exact date range across roughly two millennia depending on method, so a range is given rather than a single year.

Source The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson tier 1

Maize, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Earliest Documented Use, To (Year)

Currently States -5000

Genetic and archaeobotanical studies converge on the Balsas River valley of southern Mexico as the domestication site, but estimates of the exact date range across roughly two millennia depending on method, so a range is given rather than a single year.

Source The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson tier 1

Mango, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States Northwestern Myanmar, Bangladesh and northeastern India

Source Mango (Wikipedia)

Manhattan, Drinks

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States New York City, United States

Traditional history places invention at the Manhattan Club in New York City in the mid-1870s, though the specific Jennie Jerome banquet anecdote is widely doubted since she was reportedly in France and pregnant at the time, New York City itself is broadly accepted as the cocktail's home despite the disputed detail.

Source Manhattan (cocktail) - Wikipedia

Manti, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States Central Asia (Uyghur and Turkic peoples)

Some researchers hold manti may instead have originated in the Middle East and spread eastward to China and Korea through the Silk Road.

Source Manti (Wikipedia) tier 3

Manti, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1330

Marks the earliest securely dated written mention of a manti-like dish (manta), in a Yuan-dynasty era manuscript; the precise origin and route of the word and dish (Chinese mantou versus an independent Middle Eastern development) remain debated among sources.

Source Manti (Wikipedia) tier 3

Mapo Tofu, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1862 CE

Sources differ on the exact year: Wikipedia cites 1862 or 1874 for when the Chen Mapo restaurant opened near the Wanfu bridge in Chengdu; 1862 is the more commonly cited figure.

Source Mapo Tofu (Wikipedia) tier 3

Maraq, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States Greater Somalia, Arabian Peninsula

Entity's existing description states origin in Yemen specifically; the cited source's infobox for this dish lists Greater Somalia and the Arabian Peninsula, not Yemen, as place of origin, a conflict this lane could not resolve from research alone.

Source Maraq (dish) - Wikipedia

Margarita, Drinks

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States Mexico

multiple competing creation stories place the drink in different Mexican locations and years between 1936 and 1942

Source Margarita - Wikipedia

Margarita, Drinks

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1938

multiple competing creation stories place the drink in different Mexican locations and years between 1936 and 1942

Source Margarita - Wikipedia

Margarita, Drinks

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, To (Year)

Currently States 1938

multiple competing creation stories place the drink in different Mexican locations and years between 1936 and 1942

Source Margarita - Wikipedia

Martini, Drinks

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States United States (exact origin disputed; a Martinez, California connection is the most-cited theory)

Competing theories trace the martini to the Martinez cocktail served near San Francisco in the early 1860s, to the town of Martinez, California itself, or to the Italian Martini vermouth brand name; no theory is conclusively documented, and this is filed as an open question.

Source Martini (Wikipedia) tier 2

Mezze, Food Traditions

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States Ancient Persia, with mezze's spread into the Levant and the wider Ottoman-controlled eastern Mediterranean undated in the sources consulted

No specific start or end year for mezze's origin or diffusion was found in any reputable source consulted; presented as ancient Persian in origin per the Oxford Companion to Food, spreading through Ottoman channels at an unspecified later date. Following this atlas's own precedent on Salt: an unfixable date is refused, not invented, so origin-start-year and origin-end-year are left unset for this entity.

Source The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson tier 1

Mole Poblano, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States Puebla, Mexico (Oaxaca also claims origin)

Two Mexican states both claim to be the true origin of mole, per the cited source; the claim is contested, not settled.

Source Mole Poblano (Wikipedia) tier 3

Momo, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States Tibet or Nepal, debated

Source Momo (food), Wikipedia

Nasi Goreng, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1800

Century-level approximation only: the earliest identified literary reference to a fried-rice precursor in the Indonesian archipelago is the early-19th-century Javanese text Serat Centhini, and the cited article notes the dish it describes differs from today's nasi goreng; a competing scholarly view (Fadly Rahman, Padjajaran University, per the article) holds there is no direct historical evidence the dish is native to Indonesia at all, so no exact founding year is established.

Source Nasi Goreng (Wikipedia) tier 2

Negroni, Drinks

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States France (documented origin); a popular but undocumented legend credits Florence, Italy

The widely repeated legend crediting Count Camillo Negroni in Florence around 1919 has no contemporary documentation; the earliest secured print attestations of the drink's 1:1:1 recipe are French cocktail books of the late 1920s. Filed as an open question.

Source Negroni (Wikipedia) tier 2