CULINARY HISTORY
Evolution of Cookery Pt I

The following is a chronological frame of events throughout history that have a direct or indirect influence on food, wine and related topics.

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 apparantly 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.

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

7000 B.C.
Mesoamerican (what is now Mexico and Central America) peoples begin domesticating plants --gourds, peppers, avocados, and a grain, amaranth

6500 B.C.
Evidence suggests that peas were grown in Turkey

6000 B.C.
Cattle are domesticated about this time.

5000 B.C.
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 B.C.
Egyptians using yeast as a leavening agent

3500 B.C.
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 B.C.
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 B.C.
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 B.C.
The Chinese had a herbal listing 365 plants

2500 B.C.
Corn (zea mays) is domesticated in Mesoamerica.

2000 B.C.
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 B.C.
Chinese making soy sauce

1000 B.C.
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 B.C.
Aubergines being cultivated in China

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

500 B.C.
Sugar cane cultivated in India and bananas

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

200 B.C.
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 B.C.
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 B.C.
Archestratus, a Greek, wrote the first cookbook, Hedypathia (Pleasant Living), in the 4th century BC.
As early as the 4th 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 B.C.
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 A.D.
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 A.D. 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 A.D.
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 A.D.
Roman Emperor Traygon (Trajon), created a guild for Bakers

3rd Century A.D.
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 A.D.

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