ART AND CULTURE.
The taste of history: the origin of these foods will leave you speechless
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The taste of history: the origin of these foods will leave you speechless
Food has undoubtedly played a major role in the development of our modern civilisation. Food in particular made our bodies stronger and contributed to extending the average lifespan of early humans by many decades. The ability to create special foods and dishes, in short, to process food, is still valued today and, interestingly, many of the things that form the basis of our meals date back to ideas far in the past. Bread, wine, beer, oil, cheese, so many things date back thousands of years.In this short article, we will take you with us on a journey to discover the origins of our most common foods.
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Cooking was the revolution
The first and most important revolution in cooking was undoubtedly the cooking of food. after the discovery of fire one and a half million years ago. The first cooking probably took place over an open flame (it is not known how this discovery was made, says Levi-Strauss), without boiling or wrapping the food in, for example, leaves. Cooking allows food to soften, makes it more digestible and eliminates most germs and bacteria. Cooking has given an enormous boost to human evolution. Other forms of cooking, such as boiling, would come much later, with the discovery of utensils such as pots and pans.
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The first discovery of bread
In the period when mankind discovered salting (evidence at the prehistoric site of Al Khiday), thus a method of preserving food for times of scarcity, the birth of bread is also attested. A rudimentary form of bread-making was known as early as 14,000 years ago, according to recent studies at the Shubaya site in Jordan. Previously, bread was thought to have originated with the birth of agriculture, in the Neolithic period. A mixture of various grains and water was baked by women on red-hot stones. These early forms were similar to polentines, harder than today's bread.
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The Egyptians and leavening
Around the fourth millennium B.C., the Egyptians discovered leavening, and this greatly changed the way bread would be consumed over the centuries. This leavening was done by leaving wet flour in the open air. Once puffed up, the bread was baked in a circular stone or clay oven. In the same period, Focus mentions the discovery of the first corn tortillas by pre-Columbian civilizations.
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The birth of cheese
Cheese originated from the need to preserve freshly milked milk for days to come. The "discovery of cheese," Focus always says, occurred around 4,000 years ago by people from the Middle East or South Asia. Cheese is also mentioned by Homer, and so it is thought that since those times this form of milk processing was known. The main impetus for the processing of this food came from the introduction of rennet, which is a series of substances obtained from the inside of the stomachs of nursing animals.
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The discovery of rennet
Rennet was something introduced and discovered almost by accident, legends tell us. One such myth, recounted by Agnese Portincasa, food historian at the Istituto Storico Parri in Bologna, tells of a merchant who had to transport milk across the desert, and therefore decided to store it inside the stomach of a sheep. The undulating movement created the first known cheese. During the same period, today's olive oil also spread in the Middle East.
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Grape fermentation is a very ancient process
Wine is one of the oldest foods in human history. Grapes have been fermented around 7000 years ago in the Yellow River Valley in China, although this drink would also be a mixture of other grains. The closest ancestor can be found in Georgia, when traces dating back 8000 years were found by researchers at the University of Georgia's National Museum in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania. Also intertwined with the discovery of wine are legends about the Greek God Dionysus, who is said to have brought this beverage in flight from India.
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Egyptians among early beer drinkers
The ancient Egyptians were among the first people to use cereal fermentation to create the ancestor of modern beer. Some Mesopotamian tablets mention it as early as 6000 years ago. Especially in the Middle Ages, however, beer was very different from today's and was considered more of a food than a drink, being much thicker and less filtered than today's beer.
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Mead as the first "processed" drink
Mead, a drink made from the fermentation of honey, is supposed to be the oldest processed beverage in history, although scholars are still debating about it. The Greeks called it ambrosia, or nectar of the gods. Even before wine and beer, however, alcoholic beverages were already known in large parts of the Mediterranean, and were also used for antiseptic and medical reasons, but also as an aphrodisiac.
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