History of chamomile plant

Chamomile (Matricaria recutita L.), commonly known as German chamomile, is an important medicinal and aromatic plant. Chamomile is a native of the old World and is a member of the daisy family (Asteraceae or Compositae).

Today chamomile has be used in cookery, cosmetics, teas and skincare products. It’s especially well known for calming the nerves and soothing the skin.

The name Chamomile is derived from two Greek words: Khamai meaning “on the ground” and melon meaning “apple.” Pliny the Elder mentioned that the plant has an apple-like smell, and the name is attributed to the Roman chamomile, the flowers of which have an apple-like aroma.

Chamomile originated in Europe and West Asia and since ancient times, it has been highly valued by the Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks for its medicinal properties. The ancient Egyptians dedicated chamomile to their sun God Ra because they believed it to help cure “the fever”. According to the Eber’s Papyrus, dated to 1550 BC, ancient Egyptians used the herb to honor the gods, embalm the dead and cure the sick.

Both the Egyptians and the ancient Romans used chamomile in tea, salves, creams, incenses and other beverages. In the 10th century, chamomile was recorded as one of the nine sacred herbs of the Lacnunga, an ancient Anglo-Saxon herbal manuscript.

It has been used since the time of Hippocrates, the father of medicine, in 500 BC. The ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans regularly used the chamomile flowers to treat erythema and xerosis caused because of dry weather.

In Europe, medicinal use of chamomile has been recorded since the 1st century AD. The Spanish used chamomile as a flavoring agent in sherry making. The Romans sipped chamomile as a healing beverage and used it as incense. English brewers used chamomile flowers throughout the Middle Ages as a bittering agent in beer making. In fact, the bitter hops flowers we associate with beer making.

It was extensively prescribed by the doctors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for intermittent fevers. In 1488, Saladin von Asculum described the blue oil of chamomile for the first time. In 1500, Heironimus Brunschwig described the distillation of chamomile oil.

There are two chamomile plant varieties: Roman and German. Roman chamomile was not actually cultivated by the Romans; it was discovered by a British botanist and cultivated in the 16th century and was first listed in the pharmacopoeia of Würtenberg as a carminative, painkiller, diuretic and digestive aid.
History of chamomile plant

Ancient wheat process of milling

It is generally believed that wheat had its origins in the regions of the ancient Eastern region of Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Levant, around 7000 B.C, although it had likely been gathered as a wild grain much earlier.

The grain was placed in a large saucer-shaped stone, a smaller rounded stone was used to crush it. Saddle querns seem to be the most common cereal grinding tools through all prehistory and early history of Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean.

The process of milling wheat into flour was revolutionized around 800 BC in Mesopotamia, when animal, water and wind power were harnessed for the first time to run the large stones used for grinding.

These mills were often constructed using good quality stones, the grinding process could have been repeated several times and finally flour was sieved.

In ancient Rome the mill and the bakery were the very same enterprise. The grains were milled and worked up without delay to dough and bread.

In the Middle Ages the milling of four became the monopoly of a few professional millers who were granted this concession by the wealthy landholders who built the large mills.

The first wind-powered mills were built in England in the 11th century, and in Belgium Luxemburg and the Netherlands in the 12th century.
Ancient wheat process of milling

Coriander in the ancient world

The “coriander”, is consequential from Greek word for “bed-bug”, as smell of spanking new foliage is said to resemble that of bug plague-ridden bed line. It is mentioned in Sanskrit prose as far flipside as 5000 BC and in Greek Eber Papyrus as early as 1550 BC.

It is believed to have originated somewhere in the Mediterranean area. Coriander seed was found in the Neolithic level of the Nahal Hemel Cave in Israel. Coriander can be dated back to the history of Queen of Sheba who visited king Solomon mentioned in the Holy Bible.

Coriander is named in an Egyptian papyrus dating from 1550 BC that lists medicinal plants. It was even reports that ancient Egyptian notes on coriander dating back to the time of the 5th dynasty, i.e. to 2500 BC. About one half L of coriander seeds were present in the tomb of Tutankhamun and were common in other graves in ancient Egypt at that time. The Egyptians called this herb as “spice of happiness”, perhaps for the reason that it was well thought-out to be an aphrodisiac. It was used for cooking and for children’s digestive sadden and diarrhea.

The library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal of the 7th century BC also contains documents referring to the cultivation of coriander. It is interesting to note that the ancient Egyptian literature mentions varieties of coriander coming from Asia.

Coriander was used in time-honored Greek medicines by Hippocrates (460-377 BC). Coriander seems to have been cultivated in Greece, since at least the second millennium BC, where the plant was used in perfumes, and both the seeds and leaves were used in cooking.

Classical Greek authors such as Aristophanes, Theophrastus, Hippocrates and Dioscorides and Latin authors such as Pliny and Columella also wrote about this crop.

The herb was also widely used in the Roman Empire. For instance, Apicius includes some 70 recipes using coriander in his cookbook. The Romans and Greeks also used coriander to flavor wine and also as a medication. Afterward, it was introduced into Great Britain by the Romans. Coriander was in use in Germany in ~ 900 AD.
Coriander in the ancient world

Date palm cultivation during ancient times

Date palm is one of the oldest plants cultivated by human beings and has been used as food for 6000 years.

Date palm has been cultivated in the Middle East and North Africa for millennia; however, the exact origin of date palm has not been verified.

The earliest planting of date palm was coincident with the oldest civilizations and extended from northeast Africa to northwest of the Tigris and Euphrates plateau. Phoenicians promoted the planting of date palm around Mediterranean regions in ancient times. Phoenicia, the name by which part of the Levant, particularly the portion including Tyre and Sidon, was known to the Romans and Greeks, means "land of palms".

Due to the transfer of date from Phoenicia region to Mediterranean regions, Greeks call it Phoenix. Human beings carried the plant with them as a major product during emigration and promoted its use and cultivation.

It was used in Mesopotamian times since 4000 BC and by the Egyptians perhaps during 3000–2000 BC. The African date palm (P. reclinata) or the Indian date palm (P. sylvestris) or both may have been the progenitor of date palm.

In Mesopotamia, it was used for the construction of the temple of the moon god near Ur in Southern Iraq.

In Egypt's Nile Valley, it was used as the symbol for a year in Egyptian hieroglyphics and its frond as a symbol for a month. However, the culture of date palm did not become important in Egypt until somewhat later than that of Iraq.
Date palm cultivation during ancient times

Fennel during ancient times

The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all ate its aromatic fruits and tender shoots. In the midsummer festival Adonia, of ancient times, fennel was among those seeds planted in the rites.

In early Sanskrit writings, fennel was known as madhurika and its cultivation in India is thought to date back at least to 2000 BC.

To the ancient Greeks, fennel represented success and was called ‘marathon’, after which the battle of Marathon (490 BC) was named when it was fought in a field of fennel. The juice of ‘marathon’ stalks and leaves was believed to be effective for improving eyesight. Possibly a connection was made with a story Pliny reports: after serpents shed their skins, they rub against the fennel plant to sharpen their eyesight.

Fennel seeds have been used medicinally since ancient times as one of the ancient Saxon people's nine sacred herbs, fennel was credited with the power to cure and was valued as a magic herb.

Fennel was also a symbol of success to the Romans and fennel leaves were used to crown victors in games. Roman warriors were said to have consumed fennel to make them strong and ready for battle.

The Romans delighted in the flavor of fennel. Cato the Elder gives a recipe for curing green olives and then seasoning them with oil, vinegar, salt, fennel, and mastic.

The English name fennel comes from Old English fenol, or finol, and fennel is one of the nine plants invoked in the pagan Anglo-Saxon Nine Herbs Charm recorded in a tenth century manuscript.

Fennel is also one of the most frequently quoted plants in the chilandar medical codex, the best preserved medieval Serbian manuscript on European medical science from the 12th to 15th centuries. Famous Greek physicians, Hippocrates and Dioscorides mentioned fennel as a diuretic and Emmenagogue and its juice was supposed to sharpen the eyesight.
Fennel during ancient times

History of beetroot

Beet root originated from Beta vulgaris L. ssp. Maritima by hybridization with B. patula.

Beetroot is the name used by the British and some other English-speaking countries including Australia and the New Zealand for the vegetable that Americans in the USA call beets a type of food.

The earliest written mention of the beet comes from 8th century Mesopotamia.

The first known description of beets are of foliage beets (or chards) by Aristotele, who described a red chards. The Greek Peripatetic Theophrastus later describes two different beets, white and black, the colors referring to light and dark green appearance of the leaves.

Hippocrates used leaves of beetroot for binding and dressing wounds while Talmud, written in 4th and 5th century, advises eating beetroot, among other things, for longer life.

The ancient Babylonians were the first to use it for various applications. Early Greeks and Romans used the root for its medicinal properties and the leaves as vegetables.

Ancient Greeks called the beet teutlion and used it for its leaves, both as a culinary herb and medicinally. The Romans were the first to take an interest in the root which they utilized for their medicinal properties. They also were the first to cultivate the plant for its root.

It was not cultivated until the 3rd century and not developed until the 19th century by German and French breeders. It was not until the sixteenth century that beetroot became known as a root vegetable.

By the end of the 15th century cultivated forms of beets were found throughout Europe and used not only for their leaves, but also for the roots.

Although the leaves have been eaten since before written history, the beetroot was generally used medicinally and did not become a popular food until French recognized their potential in the 1800's.

In England, beetroot juice or broth was recommended as an easily digested food for the aged, weak, or infirm. Even in mythology, Aphrodite is said to have eaten beets to retain her beauty. In Victorian times, beetroot was used to bring color to an otherwise colorless diet and as a sweet ingredient in desserts.

In folk magic, if a woman and man eat from the same beet, they will fall in love. In Africa, beets are used as an antidote to cyanide poisoning.

The sugar beet was developed in the 1700s by the Prussians for its sugar content. The potential source of sugar in beets was discovered in 1747 by German chemist

Andreus Maggraf. By the 1880s sugar beets had been developed with 16-17% sugar content and small factories were found in France, Belgian, Germany and Austria.
History of beetroot

The invention of sausage

Sausage is one of the oldest known forms of processed meat and has been a very desirable, “quick-and-easy” meal for generations. The word ‘sausage’ has been described as originating from the Latin word salsus, which means salted. This would imply that sausage processing, in the form of adding salt to meat, existed at least several hundred years BC.

Sausage has been an age long method of preservation as recorded by the primitive man, the ancient Egyptians and American Indians. Texts discovered from the times of the Ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia mentions stuffing meat into intestinal casings.

The first recognizable mention of this meat food is found in a Greek play called ‘The Orya’ or ‘The Sausage’ written about 500 B.C. Thereafter, the word Sausage occurs with frequency in Greek writings such as in the ‘Odyssey’ written by Homer in 830 B.C. Homer referenced sausage in the Odyssey as one of the favorite foods of the Greeks.

Homer mentions often in the Odyssey details of the slaughter of beef, goats and sheep. The prize of a sausage was awarded Odysseus when he defeated the sturdy beggar Iros in a boxing match. The sausage was described as a type of black pudding, stuffed with blood and fat and sizzled on the hearth.

Roman festive occasions were considered incomplete without sausage. Apicuis in his Roman Cookery describes puddings, loaves, and molded sausage like products.

Sausages were mentioned in AD 228 by Athenaeus in the Deipnosophists, the oldest known cookbook.

Sausage making evolved as an effort to economize and preserve meat which could not be consumed immediately after slaughter. This practice could be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans who made sausages which were usually plain and unspiced.

In the middle age, people started developing sausages with spices which led to modern sausage. At that time many European cities became known for their local sausages which were aptly named for their place of origins such as the bologna, named for Bologna, Italy and romano, named after Rome.

Many of the sausage products common in the USA can be traced to their origins in Europe and other parts of the world. In most cases, the type of product is related to environmental conditions within the geographical region in which they originated.
The invention of sausage

The use of salt during ancient civilizations

Historically, salt is one of the oldest materials used in man's food. Egyptian pickled fish was highly prized, both locally and by Greeks. Numerous tomb illustrations further suggest that salted mullet roe, a Near Eastern favorite, was already popular in the days of the Pharaohs.

The papyrus Ebers (1600 BC) mentions many salt prescriptions especially for making laxatives and antiinfectives. They were dispensed in either liquid, suppository or ointment form. The ancient Egyptian papyrus Smith, which is thought to refer to the famous master-builder and doctor Imhotep of the third pre-Christian millennium, recommends salt for the treatment of an infected chest wound.

A Sumerian proverb also linked salt with bread as basic foods. Salt was also part of the daily ration (along with barley and dried fish) given by an Akkadian temple to workers.

In the ancient Greece, slaves were bought with salt. For Greeks, it was a sacred commodity and was used as a part of offerings to Gods. Greek medicine, primarily the healing methods of Hippocrates (460 BC), made common use of salt. Salt-based remedies were thought to have expectorant powers. A mixture of water, salt, and vinegar was used as an emetic.

In the early days of the Roman Republic roads were built with the purpose to make salt to get to Rome faster. Via Salaria linked Rome to the Adriatic Sea which being shallower than the Tyrrhenian Sea was more productive although farther away.

In ancient Rome, soldiers and officials were reimbursed in the form of a 'salarium' i.e. salt money—from which our word salary is derived.

Pliny mentioned that dry and bitter salt not only stimulated humans’ appetite, but that of grazing animals as well, so that they yielded more milk and better cheese. In a scientific study, both indirect and direct salt supplements were shown to be beneficial for milk yield and fat content.
The use of salt during ancient civilizations

Ancient history of turnip

Brassica is the Latin word for cabbage, rapa means turnip, and campestris refers to “of fields” in Latin.

The turnip was first developed by prehistoric man around two thousand years ago for its enlarged root. It is difficult to trace its origins to an exact location, but it is believed to have first been cultivated in Northeastern Europe or Western Siberia. By 300 B.C., turnips were domesticated and grown in Greek civilizations.

The word laptu in ancient Assyrian dates back to 1800 B.C. The turnip is a very well-known vegetable in the entire Middle East. In Ancient Greece and Rome, the turnip was an important domesticated crop plant and they thought highly of the turnip and developed several new varieties.

The Greek Theophrast (371 - 285 B.C.) called it gongylis and the Roman Columella (35 - 65 A.D.) distinguished between the cultivation and conservation by lactic acid fermentation of napus and rapa, saying that napus only forms a tender root, whereas rapa has a thick stomach.

Pliny (23 - 79 A.D.), an ancient Roman author, used the names rapa and napus to describe turnips that were long, flat, or round. He described the varieties in ancient Rome, showing that the turnip was a favorite crop in mountainous regions of the Apennine and the Northern parts of Italy.

In addition to being appreciated for their food value, they have been used as a wrinkle remover by the Romans, and as a treatment for frostbite, gout, measles, and arthritis.

English of the Middle Ages turned napus into naep in Anglo-Saxon. In the Middle Ages the turnip was a staple food plant. In the Capitulare de Villis, Charlemagne (around 800 A.D.) gives instructions on which crops had to be planted and had to be given to his court; among those listed is napi. Hildegard von Bingen (1098 - 1179 A.D.) uses the term ruba and Albertus Magnus (1193 - 1280 A.D.) distinguishes napo and rapa.

Turnips were introduced into North America by early European settlers and colonists. They grew well in the South and became a popular food of this region. Turnip greens, which became an integral part of Southern African-American cuisine, are thought to have been adopted into this food culture because of the role they played during the days of slavery.
Ancient history of turnip

History of black pepper

Black pepper is one of the oldest spices used by man. It has been traded since 1500 BC.

When Alexander conquered Egypt in 332 BC, he created the major trading center for spices coming from the Orient and bound for Europe: Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt - and it was here that western spice traders met with African and Asian spice merchants. Exotic spices such as cinnamon, cassia, black pepper, ginger and many others traded hands from Arabs to Greeks over the centuries at this Mediterranean port city - spices coming by caravan from India, China and Southeast Asia.

The earliest travelers from Europe who visited India described pepper cultivation on the Malabar coast. Theophrastus, the Greek philosopher (372-287 BC) mentions two kinds of pepper in the fourth century B.C., (most likely these were black pepper and long pepper), both of which were used by the Greeks and the Romans. It was one of the first commercial trade products between the East and Europe.

Pliny, in some early written reports, mentioned even about the price of pepper at that time. According to him, the price of long pepper was 15 Dinaries, white pepper 7 Dinaries, and black pepper 4 Dinaries per pound. During his time, Rome developed an active spice trade with Saudi Arabia and India.

During Pliny’s time Rome developed an active spice trade with South Arabia and Somaliland and, by direct route, with India. In the Roman Empire the consumption of spices as food condiments soared.

Discorides in the first century A.D. mentions black pepper and long pepper as well as white pepper, which is simply black pepper seed with its peel or pericarp removed. Black pepper and long pepper were among the spices from India on which the Romans levied import duty at Alexandria, around A.D. 176.

Pepper is mentioned by Roman writers in the fifth century A.D. It is said that Attila the Hun demanded, among other items, 3,000 lbs. of pepper as ransom for the city of Rome.

Centuries later, the high cost of pepper led the Portuguese to seek their own sea passage to India. The Portuguese were successful in this mission and monopolized the spice trade until the 18th century. Round or black pepper began to compete with long pepper in Europe beginning in the 12th century and had replaced it by the 14th century.

The British founded their East India Company in A. D, 1600. Two years later the United East India Company of the Dutch was formed. Their entry in this field increased rivalry in spice trade. Between A.D. 1605 and 1621, the Dutch managed to drive the Portuguese out of the Spices Island achieving a monopoly in spices trading.

In January 1793, an agreement was made between the Rajah of Travancore and the Crown of England. The Rajah was to supply large quantities of pepper to the Bombay Government in return for arms, ammunition and European goods. This is known historically as the “Pepper Contract”.

From the 16th to the 18th centuries, the struggle for control of the Far Eastern spice producing regions became so intense that wars were fought between Portugal, Holland, and England. By the end of the 18th century, the United States entered the world trade for spices, bartering its salmon, flour, and soap for tea, coffee and spices.
History of black pepper