subject: A Little About Cooking History [print this page] A Little About Cooking History A Little About Cooking History
The chronicle of events of cooking began even before humans first assembled fire. Early humans first acquired a desire for roasted eats from animals that had been "cooked" by wild fires. These meats would have not only tasted preferably and taken less energy to chomp, they would also free of the organisms and parasites that live in unprepared meat.
The next big step in cooking came with one of the innovations that launched humanity to its current place at the forefront of the animal kingdom: farming, which dates to about 9000 BCE. A ready supply of cooking material goods that did not have to be gathered from nature left people more time to consider how to prepare food. Originally, wheat was mixed with water to make a kind of potage - but when the kitchen range was invented, it could be made into something like a loaf or cake, which was much more attractive and more portable. And when they ascertained the leavening qualities of yeast around 4000 BCE, the ancient Egyptians became the first to create a food that is still a basic of the Western diet:: bread.
After agriculture, the domestication of animals also had a huge effect on cooking account. Just as agriculture, herding created a ready supply of meat that did not need to be hunted, which was not only faster but less hazardous. In addition, domesticated animals provided a number of other things besides meat to propel the advancement of cooking. For example, they provided milk, which was made into the first cheeses and other diary items. They could also make plowing a field much easier, which meant more and a wider array of vegetation could be planted.
As we move out of prehistory and into documented history, we conclusively begin to see the rise of "cooking" as an unified art, detached from simply "heating" and "mixing". With the rise of cities and states, the initially upper classes emerged: people who had competence and influence enough that they could have others not only get food for them, but prepare it. Female servants took care of the day-to-day business of making bread and other daily foods, but there is evidence from ancient Greek texts such as "The Odyssey" that there were servants whose main job was preparing foods: the originally cooks.
From Greek times to the present moment, there has been little in the way of true "forward movement" in terms of cooking. Our meals are easier to make and we can attain cooking tips much more easily than our antecedents, but even with their vintage methods, an ancient cook could plausibly make a meal as tasty as any we could. Although, now that scientists are able to deduce more about what makes food taste good, in the millennium we may see dishes that both our own selves and our predecessors could only dream of.
