History
of Cooking
I though it would be interesting to find out where the history of food started.
So here it goes;
Cooking...
Is the process of preparing food by using a variety ofskills, often with the
use of fire or heat. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the
world, reflecting unique environmental, economic, and cultural traditions. "For
hundreds of thousands of years the evolving human race had eaten its food raw,
but at some time between the first deliberate use of fire--in Africa in
1,400,000BC or Asia in 500,000BC. Food in History, Reay Tannahill [Three Rivers:New York] 1988. The origins of cooking are
obscure. Primitive humans may first have savored roast meat probably by
chance.
When the flesh of animals found in forest fires were easier to chew and
digest. Some scientists believe the advent of cooking played an important role
in human evolution. Most anthropologists believe that cooking fires first developed around 250,000 years ago."Food has long been baked in coals or under
heated rocks,steamed inside animal stomachs and leaves, boiled in rock pots by
heated stones, and so forth. An oven could be as simple as a hole in the ground, or a covering of heated stones.However, improved textures and flavors may not have been the reason fire was first controlled.
People could have employed fire to keep wild beasts at bay, to trap
them, to scare them out or to create open grassland, where tender shoots and
leaves would be more accessible. People have long used fire to harden wooden weapons, and to keep warm at night. But even these uses, while not cooking in the narrow sense, improve the cooks' supplies, expanding the human niche."
-A History of Cooks and Cooking Michael Symons.
Cooking can also occur through chemical
reactions without the presence of heat, most notably as in Ceviche, a
traditional South American dish where fish is cooked with the acids in Lemon or lime juice. Sushi also utilizes a similar chemical reaction between fish and the
acidic content of rice glazed with vinegar. Chicken, pork and wrapped corn cooked
in a barbeque smokerpreparing food with heat or fire is
an activity unique to humans. The development of agriculture, commerce and
transportation between civilizations in different regions offered cooks many new ingredients. New inventions and technologies, such as potter for holding
and boiling water, expanded cooking techniques. Some modern cooks apply
advanced scientific techniques to food preparation.
There is a lot more history out there, but I think this is a mouth full already. Lets start learning and cooking together form here...
