Sunday 25 November 2012


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...

Wednesday 14 November 2012

First post

I'm a Namibian amateur home cook with a passion for preparing, eating and sharing mouthwatering tasteful food. The use of fresh herbs and "healthy as can be" ingredients is essential to all my recipes.


I want to take you on my personal journey of discovering the joy of food. The aim of my blog will be to share my personal and discovered basic cooking methods,  recipes, tips and skills via information, videos and photos.

Since I have a day job;  I will be posting on my blog once every second week. I can be reached via my personal email:  physio@iway.na.  It will be great if other passionate cooks can share their ideas, tips, knowledge and recipes.

P.S.  I'm working on the possibility of a cook book somewhere in the process...

Happy cooking
Anna-Mart Kruger