history - cooking: evolution of cookery part 1

Earliest Types of Cooking

The origins of cooking are obscure. Primitive humans may first have savoured roast meat by chance, when the flesh of a beast killed in a forest fire was found to be more palatable and easier to chew and digest than the customary raw meat. They probably did not deliberately cook food, though, until long after they had learned to use fire for light and warmth. It has been speculated that Peking man roasted meats, but no clear evidence supports the theory. From whenever it began, however, roasting spitted meats over fires remained virtually the sole culinary technique until the Palaeolithic Period, when the Aurignacian people of southern France apparently began to steam their food over hot embers by wrapping it in wet leaves. Aside from such crude procedures as toasting wild grains on flat rocks and using shells, skulls, or hollowed stones to heat liquids, probably no further culinary advances were made until the introduction of pottery during the Neolithic Period.

The earliest compound dish was a crude paste (the prototype of the pulmentum of the Roman legions and the polenta of later Italians) made by mixing water with the cracked kernels of wild grasses. This paste, toasted to crustiness when dropped on a hot stone, made the first bread.

Advances in Cooking Techniques

Culinary techniques improved with the introduction of earthenware (and, more or less concomitantly, the development of settled communities), the domestication of livestock, and the cultivation of edible plants. A more dependable supply of foodstuffs, including milk and its derivatives, was now assured. The roasting spit was augmented by a variety of fired-clay vessels, and the cooking techniques of boiling, stewing, braising, and perhaps even incipient forms of pickling, frying, and oven baking were added. Early cooks probably had already learned to preserve meats and fish by smoking, salting, air-drying, or chilling. New utensils made it possible to prepare these foods in new ways, and such dishes as bacalao a la vizcaina ("dried cod") and finnan haddie (smoked haddock) are still eaten.

BC

The cultivation of soybeans in China predates recorded history and spread from there to other countries in eastern Asia before the modern period. So essential was the soybean to Chinese civilisation that it was considered one of the five sacred grains (the others being rice, barley, wheat, and millet). The popularity of soybeans in the Orient was due to their wide use as a food

11000 BC

Flint-edged wooden sickles are used to gather wild grains.

Bronze Age

Lentils from this period have been discovered at a settlement site found near Lake Biel in Switzerland. Almonds dating from this period have been found on the Island of Crete

9000 BC

Plant cultivation begins in the Fertile Crescent region of the Middle East.
Sheep are domesticated in the Middle East.

7000 BC

Mesoamerican (what is now Mexico and Central America) peoples begin domesticating plants - gourds, peppers, avocados, and a grain, amaranth.

6500 BC

Evidence suggests that peas were grown in Turkey.

6000 BC

Cattle are domesticated about this time.

5000 BC

The Egyptians begin irrigating crops.
Sumerians using the herbs thyme and laurel as medicine.
Dates cultivated in the Middle East.
Evidence of avocado use in Mexico.

4000 BC

Egyptians using yeast as a leavening agent.

3500 BC

Bread making probably originates in Egypt about this time.
Sumerians using wild mushrooms as a food.
Olives known to have been grown on the island of Crete.

3000 BC

Farmers of Mesapotomia were growing crops of turnips, onions, broad beans, peas, lentils, leeks, radishes and maybe garlic. Probably breeding ducks at this time.
The Chinese Emperor; Sung Loong Sze 'discovers' the medicinal properties of herbs.
Turkey from this era have been found in American Indian refuse sights.

2737 BC

The origins of tea culture and the brewing of dried tea leaves into a beverage are obscure; experts believe, however, that the tea plant originated in a region encompassing Tibet, western China, and northern India. According to ancient Chinese legend, the emperor Shennong (Shen-Nung) learned how to brew the beverage in 2737 BC when a few leaves from the plant accidentally fell into water he was boiling.

2700 BC

The Chinese had a herbal listing 365 plants.

2500 BC

Corn (zea mays) is domesticated in Mesoamerica.

2000 BC

Water-treatment knowledge dates from 2000 BC, when Sanskrit writings indicate that methods for purification of foul water consisted of boiling in copper vessels, exposing to sunlight, filtering through charcoal, and cooling in earthen vessels
Onions mentioned as a food source by Sumerian Scribes.

1500 BC

Coriander being used as a culinary herb in Egypt.

1450 BC

Egyptians using cinnamon as a spice.

1100 BC

Chinese making soy sauce.

1000 BC

The Incas were freezing potatoes in the snow for preservation.
Geese known to have been popular in Germany.
Chinese thought to be producing a type of alcohol spirit from rice.

800 BC

Cultivated tomatoes used in Mexico.

776 BC

According to the earliest records, only one athletic event was held in the ancient Olympics--a foot race of about 183 m (200 yd), or the length of the stadium. A cook, Coroibus of Elis, was the first recorded winner.

700 BC

Aubergines being cultivated in China.

600 BC

Assyrian king; Sardanapalus, said to have introduced the first cooking competition with the prize of thousands of gold pieces.

500 BC

Sugar cane cultivated in India and bananas.

206 BC

Flour milling introduced into China during the Han era, thus allowing the onset of Chinese noodle making.

200 BC

The vending machine was probably invented about 200 BC when Hero of Alexandria described a coin-operated device designed to vend holy water in an Egyptian temple.

5 BC

Palm sugar being used by the Chinese.
Woks being used in China.
Tofu being used in China.
Broccoli being cultivated in Europe.
Pepper (corns) introduced to Java by Hindu settlers and into Europe by Arab Traders.

4 BC

Archestratus, a Greek, wrote the first cookbook, Hedypathia (Pleasant Living), in the 4th century BC.

As early as the Fourth century BC, the Chinese had codified the five basic taste sensations: sweet, sour, briny, spicy, and bitter. Around these elementary sensations, they built a cuisine of subtlety, variety, and sophistication.

3 BC

Athenaeus described the well-equipped Greek kitchen, which included such sophisticated utensils as a specially constructed dish in which the eggs of peacocks, geese, and chickens could be boiled together in graduated concavities.

Although the diets of peoples of the ancient world are well documented, little is known about their cooking techniques. In the Sumerian capital of Ur, street vendors hawked fried fish and grilled meats to passers by. In Egypt, small, raw birds were pickled in brine and eaten cold in the 3rd millennium BC, but excavations from the same period indicate that more sophisticated cooking methods were in use and that the rich particularly liked elaborate stews. Leavened Bread seems to have first appeared in Egypt, although the time and place are uncertain.

1 - 1000 AD

Maybe the most famous of all meals is served and partaken of: the last supper of Christ.
Oranges appear in India in the First century AD from China.

25 to 200 AD

One of the first applications of metals was to build a stove. Cast iron was used for this purpose in China, through a process in which melted iron was poured into sand moulds.

97 AD

The most notable ancient water-supply and waste-disposal systems were those of Rome. In AD 97, Sextus Julius Frontinus, then water commissioner of Rome, reported the existence of 9 aqueducts of lengths varying from 16 to more than 80 km (10 to 50 ml), with cross sections of 0.5 to 4.5 sq m (7 to 50 sq ft). Such a system had an estimated aggregate capacity of 84 million gallons per day. In addition to this system, Rome had a great sewer known as the Cloaca Maxima, which drained the Roman Forum, and which is still in service.

1st Century AD

Roman Emperor Traygon (Trajon), created a guild for Bakers.

3rd Century AD

Mary or Marianne an alchemist of Alexandria lived. She is credited with the discovery of the properties of the bain marie, from whom the name is derived: Mary's bath.

6th Century AD

529

St. Benedict founds the Benedictine order and builds an abbey at Monte Cassino, Italy.

575

The coffee aribica first thought to be cultivated about this time.

7th Century AD

The Patron Saints of cooks lived in this century: Fortunat; a famous poet and Bishop of Poitiers is the Patron saint of Male cooks and Radegonde; the patron saint of female cooks, founded a monastery that Fortunat became chaplain of.

600

Windmills are in use in Persia for irrigation.

The information contained on all my historical web pages is supplied for your interest only and further research may be required. I have gathered it from many sources over many years. While I attempt to insure they are crossed referenced for accuracy, I take no responsibility for mistakes - additions or corrections are welcomed.

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