Ancient history of fish consumption

Fish were a major source of food in the ancient world, although its availability and palatability depended in how far a market was from the river or sea.

The first evidence of humans using tools to catch for food comes from archeological finds; these were barbed tools probably used as spears and are approximately 90,000 years old.

The evidence showed that men were already catching fish in the Lower Paleolithic Age. The first recoded recipe is from ancient China dated 1300 BC which was a fish salad based on marinated and spiced carp.

It is thought that about 0ne-third of the pre-historic human population of hunter and gatherer societies subsisted on fish. Fish was appreciated by ancient Egyptian and Chinese civilization.

The Egyptian caught fish in shallow pools at the time of the Nile’s inundation. Diodorus commented that the Nile contains every variety of fish for it supplies the natives not only with abundant subsistence from the fresh fish caught, but also yields an unfailing multitude for salting.

Fish such as the red mullet were more common in Greek than in Italian waters, and so commanded higher prices in Roman markets.

In ancient times, the most significant achievement in the use of fish as a source of protein was the processing of hydrolyzed protein from fresh fish.

In Roman times, this product was known as liquamen. Ancient Romans also use ice mixed with seaweed to keep fresh fish. Ices were taken from the mountains near Rome.
Ancient history of fish consumption

History of Coffee: Spreading of Coffee Consumption to England and France

History of Coffee: Spreading of Coffee Consumption to England and France
Around 1580 a physician and renowned botanist Prosper Alpin, who was director of a botanical garden of European plants in Padua (Italy) spent four years in Egypt where he accompanied the Consul of the Republic of Venice.

He studied Egyptian flora and described the coffee tree in his work Plants of Egypt published in Venice in 1592.

He noted that the coffee tree produces a fruit called bon or ban and “that Arabs and Egyptians use it to make a kind of infusion that is popular and that they drink in place of wine. This beverage is called caoua.”

In 1615, Venetian merchants who had come to appreciate the qualities of coffee in Istanbul imported from Mocha into Europe.

In 1660, the first shipment of coffee coming from Alexandria arrived in Marseille and the first coffeehouse there was opened in 1670.

For a short time, Marseille supplied the coffee for all of Europe.

The first coffeehouses were opened in Oxford, England in 1650, in London on 1652, and in Hamburg, Germany in 1677.

However, in 1643 there was already a tavern where coffee was consumed in North America, in the city of New Amsterdam at the site of the present Broadway of New York City.

This café was probably the most famous one in New York, the City Tavern which is presently the Fraunces Tavern.

Many coffeehouses were set up in North America during the 18th century.

In France, the ambassador of the Ottoman Empire, Soliman Aga, who arrived in Paris in 1669, offered coffee to all his guest and thus introduced it to the court and to the French High Society.

In Paris at the Saint-Germain Fair of 1672, an Armenian named Pascal opened the first public café which was called House of Caova that he later transferred to the quai du Lourve.

In 1689, an Italian named Procopio opened a deluxe café which is presently the Procope restaurant in the VIth district of Paris, 13 rue de l’Ancienne-Comedie.

Coffee consumption became widespread at Court during the reign of Louis the XVth. In order to please Madame Du Barry the King was said to have spent fifteen thousand pounds per year “for the good pleasure if these ladies”.

It is at this this time that coffee became popular throughout France.
History of Coffee: Spreading of Coffee Consumption to England and France