Ancient history of butter

History of butter
Butter is made churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is essentially a fat of milk. Butter is used as a spread and condiment, as well as in cooking applications.

Butter started in Mesopotamian some where between 9000 and 8000 before century. At that time butter was made from sheep or goat’s milk.

For ancient Greek and Rome butter is considered a food fit for barbarians. In Northern Europe, butter was also used to prevent kidney and bladder stones.

The ancient dwellers of India relating to butter making, dating back to 1500-200BC when Hindus of that time gave young married couple a ‘bridal feast’ consisting of milk, honey and butter.

Until the 19th century, majority of butter was made by hand.

In 1860s, first butter appeared in United States. Now a days margarine is taken over butter consumption due to less expensive and perceived as being healthier.
Ancient history of butter

History of cucumber

History of cucumber

The English word "cucumber" comes from the Latin name cucumis. The Bohemian agyrka, German Gurke, Greek aggouria, and our word "gherkin," meaning a small cucumber pickle, all trace back to an old Aryan word. Sometimes today we facetiously refer to this vegetable as "cowcumber," not realizing that English writers of 300 years ago called it "cowcumber" in all seriousness.

Cucumbers, a member of the gourd family, have been cultivated by man for at least 3,000 years. They originated in the foothills of the Himalayas, probably in or near present day India. The cucumber has been cultivated for at least 3,000 years in Western Asia, and was probably introduced to other parts of Europe by the Romans. Records of cucumber cultivation appear in France in the 9th century, England in the 14th century, and in North America by the mid-16th century.

From India, it spread to Greece (where it was called “vilwos”) and Italy (where the Romans were especially fond of the crop), and later into China.

One old record claims that the cucumber was introduced into China as "recently" as the second century B.C. At the beginning of the Christian era it was grown in North Africa as well as in Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, and the countries to the east.

The Romans used highly artificial methods of growing the cucumber when necessary to have it for the Emperor Tiberius out of season. In classical Rome, Pliny reported greenhouse production of cucumbers by the first century, and the Emperor Tiberius was said to have had them at his table throughout the year.

Charlemagne had cucumbers grown in his gardens in ninth-century France. They were reportedly introduced into England in the early 1300s, lost, and then reintroduced approximately 250 years later.

The Spanish began growing them in Hispaniola by 1494, and less than a century later European explorers were noting that a wide range of Native American peoples from Montreal to New York, Virginia, and Florida were cultivating them, along with a large variety of other crops including maize, beans, squash, pumpkins, and gourds.

Most of the distinct types of cucumber grown today were known at least 400 years ago. Present forms range from thick, stubby little fruits, three to four inches long, up to the great English greenhouse varieties that often reach a length of nearly two feet.

History of cucumber

Fruits and Flavors in Egypt 1300 BC

Fruits and Flavors in Egypt 1300 BC
So rich was the Egyptian soil that farmers could grow many types of crop, and most people enjoyed a variety diet. Wheat and barley gave the Egyptians bread and beer, and in addition, farmers also grew a host of different vegetables and fruits. So the meals could include onions, leeks and garlic, peas and beans, celery, lettuces, radishes and cucumbers.

Grapes and dates were eaten both fresh and dried. Then there were figs and melons, pomegranates, gourds, and the fruit of the dom palm, with its gingery flavor. Other flavorings were the herbs cumin, marjoram, coriander, dill, mint and parsley. Saffron and sesame oils were widely used in cooking but olives were little used.

The Egyptians, only sweetening agent was honey, and the beehives were cylindrical pots. A multitude of Nile fishes and water birds added variety to the dinner menu along with hares, gazelles, and antelopes caught by hunters in the desert.

Texts that have survived mention soups and sauce and the use of oil, milk and butter. Food was cooked using braziers, tripods which supported cooking pots over fires, and ovens fuelled with the wood. The well equipped kitchen had grinding stones, a range of pots, pans, and jars, ladles, spoons and knifes, sieves, strainers and whisks.
Fruits and Flavors in Egypt 1300 BC

History of Yoghurt

History of Yoghurt
Fermentation of yoghurt is one of the oldest methods practiced by human beings in order to transform milk into products. There is evidence of cultured milk products being produced as food for at least 4,500 years. The exact origin of making fermented milk could be date from some 10000 – 15000 years ago. It might dates back to pre-Biblical times, and Moses reputedly partook of it on his way to promised Land. The earliest yoghurts were probably spontaneously fermented by wild bacteria living on the goat skin bags carried by the Bulgars (or Hunno-Bulgars), a nomadic people who began migrating into Europe in the second century AD and eventually settled in the Balkans at the end of the seventh century.

Archaeological evidence shows that some civilians were well advanced in agriculture and husbandry methods, and in the production of fermented milks such as yoghurt (for example the Sumerians and Babylonians, the Pharos and Indians).

The belief in its beneficial influence on human health and nutrition has existed in many civilizations. The use of yoghurt by mediaeval Turks is recorded in the books Diwan Lughat al-Turk by Mahmud Kashgari and Kutadgu Bilig by Yusuf Has Hajib written in the eleventh century. In both texts the word "yoghurt" is mentioned in different sections and its use by nomadic Turks is described. The first account of a European encounter with yoghurt occurs in French clinical history: King Francois I suffering from an intestinal complaint which no French doctor could cure. His ally Suleiman the Magnificent sent a Jewish doctor from Constantinople, who allegedly cured the patient with yoghurt. The doctor arrived on foot with flock of sheep and cured his royal client, but refused to divulge the secret of his concoctions. It is likely, however, that the origin of yoghurt was from Middle East after domestication of milk producing animals began, around 9000 B.C.

The Russian biologist Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov co-winner of 1908 Nobel Prize had an unproven hypothesis that regular consumption of yoghurt was responsible for the unusually long lifespans of Bulgarian peasants. Believing Lactobacillus to be essential for good health, Mechnikov worked to popularise yoghurt as a foodstuff throughout Europe. It fell to a Sephardic Jewish entrepreneur named Isaac Carasso to industrialize the production of yoghurt.
History of Yoghurt

History of Jackfruit

History of Jackfruit
Jackfruit or scientific name Artocarpus heterophyllus is under family of Oraceae. It is a native to southwestern of India, Philippines, Sri Lanka and east of Malaysia. It is believed that jackfruit’s origin to the rainforests of the Western Ghat of India. It was introduced to into northern Brazil in the mid of 19th and became very popular there.

In 1782, plants from one of the French ship were taken to Jamaica, and in 1800s it was a common fruit in Florida.

Jackfruit is commonly used as a cuisine in Southeast Asian and South Asian countries. In South India, the jackfruit is a popular food ranking after mango and banana. They are large trees often reaching 60 feet (20 m) in nature.

The smooth brownish-grey trunks are very straight. Stiff and glossy leaves are elliptical to ovate, up to 8 inches (20 cm) long and about half as wide. The fruit of the tree is the largest fruit. Fruits will reach up to 36 inches (~1 m) and approximately 20 inches (50 cm) in diameter, weighing up to 80 pounds.

History of Jackfruit

Western Europe Year of 1350: Herbs For Dubious Food

Western Europe Year of 1350: Herbs For Dubious Food
Medieval cooking relied on strong flavoring to improve the taste of dubious food, especially meat kept in a larder that was often no one too clean and none too cool. So the burgher’s wife grew a wide selection of herbs at her kitchen door. Besides home grown seasoning such as thyme, garlic, and peony seeds, salt was readily available, mustard and saffron were farmed, and pepper from the East was brought to towns in quantities by merchants.

Sugar, however, was a scarce commodity. The taste for it was brought back by returning Crusaders, along with maize, lemons and melons, but cones of canes sugar were so costly that they were kept locked away.

Fish was widespread food, since the Church had decreed that no one should eat meat on Fridays (or on Saturdays and Wednesdays in the early Middle Ages). Meat, eggs and other dairy foods were banned throughout Lent, so that about half the days of the year were regarded as ‘fish days’. Fish was cooked with parsley and fennel, and herrings were popular fare.
Western Europe Year of 1350: Herbs For Dubious Food

History of Blueberries

According to Native American blueberry is good for health. It helps the woman during childbirth, the tea leaves were good for kidneys and the juice was good for cough. Native American also dried his leave in sun and ground it into powder and us it to make pudding and it was used to season the meat.

Among the first American settlers who saw how American Indian used blueberries was Samuel de Champlain. He saw that the Native American grounded the leave to powder then mixed with corn and honey then water to make a pudding. The settlers also found that the Indians smoked wild blueberries during winter to preserve them.

The Native American tribes revered blueberries and folklore developed around them. The blossom end of each berry, the calyx, forms the shape of a perfect five-pointed star; the elders of the tribe would tell of how the Great Spirit sent "star berries" to relieve the children's hunger during a famine.

History of Parsley

Parsley is the dried leaf of Petroselinum sativum. It is used extensively in the flavoring of soups, meat and fish dishes, sauce3sm, and vegetables. In a fresh, green condition it is used as a garnish. The principal flavor constituent of the volatile oil from parsley leaves is apiol, a phenol ether.

Parsley is native to the Mediterranean region of Southern Europe. While it has been cultivated for more than 2,000 years, parsley was used medicinally prior to being consumed as a food. The ancient Greeks held parsley to be sacred, using it to not only adorn victors of athletic contests, but also for decorating the tombs of the deceased. The practice of using parsley as a garnish actually has a long history that can be traced back to the civilization of the ancient Romans.

While it is uncertain when parsley began to be consumed as a seasoning, it seems to be sometime in the Middle Ages in Europe. Some historians credit Charlemagne with its popularization since he had it grown on his estates.

In some countries, the curly leaf variety is more popular. This may have its roots in the ancient preference for this type since people were oftentimes reticent to consume the flat leaf variety because it resembled fool's parsley, a poisonous weed.

Turnip-rooted (or Hamburg) parsley, a relatively new species, having only been developed within the past two hundred years, has only recently begun gaining popularity.

In parts of Europe, and particularly in West Asia, many foods are served with chopped parsley sprinkled on top. The fresh flavor of parsley goes extremely well with fish. Parsley is a key ingredient in several West Asian salads, e.g., tabbouleh which is the national dish of Lebanon. In Southern and Central Europe, parsley is part of bouquet grain, a bundle of fresh herbs used to flavor stocks, soups, and sauces. Additionally, parsley is often used as a garnish. Persillade is mixture of chopped garlic and chopped parsley. Gremolata is a mixture of parsley, garlic, and lemon zest.

Heat and Homes

Food History
Early humans had been using fire for thousands of years, but it was the Cro-Magnons named after the cave in southern France in which their bones were founds – who discovered that if certain stone, iron pyrites, is stuck with a flint it gives off a spark hot enough to ignite tinder. So a quicker, surer way of starting a fire than striking two sticks together was at hand.

The hearth was a focus of family life, both in summer – when many people live in tents of wood and hide – and in winter, when they sheltered in cave. As well as providing heating and light, the hearth was used for cooking pot, and fire was used to ward off hungry predators which might attack the community. Gathering fuel for the fire and building up a good stock for the winter were essential chores. In most places this meant collecting wood, but on the plains of Eastern Europe and Russian, where trees were scarce, bone were used d instead. Bones do not burn easily, so shallow channel were due to draw more air into the bottom of earth.
Food History

History of Sugar

Food History
Sugarcane is originated from New Guinea. It cultivated spread along human migration routes to Southeast Asia, India and Polynesia. Arabs brought sugarcane to Spain, during Middle Ages. Sugarcane only began at United Sates in the mid of the 18th century .

Sugar as a commodity in its own right can be traced back several thousand years in China and India. In 510 B.C. when soldiers of the Persian Emperor Darius saw sugar cane growing on the banks of the River Indus, they called it the reeds which produce honey without bees. Later it was grown in Persia and the Arabs took it to Egypt. The word sugar is itself derived from an Arabic word.

Alexander the Great (356-232 B.C.) introduced sugar to the Mediterranean countries, from whence it spread down the east coast of Africa. By 600 A.D. the practice of breaking up the sugar cane and boiling it to produce sugar crystals was widespread.

Then, Marco Polo visited China, he saw flourishing sugar mills. By the middle of the fifteenth century there were plantations in Madeira, the Canary Islands and St. Thomas, and they supplied Europe with sugar until the sixteenth century, when manufacture spread over the greater part of tropical America, followed in the next century by the development of sugar exports from the West Indies. Old records show that raw cane sugar was being refined in Dublin and Belfast in the middle of the seventeenth century.
Food History

History of Avena Sativa

Food History
Oats didn’t come important to human being as early s wheat or barley. Perhaps the oldest oats grain was found in Egypt among remains of the 12th Dynasty, which was about 2000BC. The oldest known cultivated oats were found in cave in Switzerland that are believed belong to Bronze Age.

They were the last of the major cereal grains to be domesticated, around 3,000 years ago in Europe, Greeks and Romans considered oats to be nothing more than a diseased version of wheat.

Oats were a lowly horse food for the Romans, who scoffed at the "oat-eating barbarians", or those pesky Germanic tribes who eventually toppled the West Roman Empire.

The history of oats is somewhat clouded because there are so many different species and subspecies, which makes identification of old remains very difficult. The chief modern center of greatest variety of form is in Asia Minor.

Oats were first brought to North America with other grains in 1602 and planted on the Elizabeth Islands off the coast of Massachusetts. As early as 1786, George Washington sowed 580 acres to oats.

By the 1860s and 1870s, the westward shift of oat acreage in the United States had moved into the middle and upper Mississippi Valley, which is its major area of production today.
History of Avena Sativa

History of Burger

Food History
The widest-reported "first" appearance of the hamburger most commonly cited in the lore of foodservice was that the product appeared at the World's Fair in St. Louis in 1904. But the man who gave the hamburger its contemporary look and sought to expand the products appeal through chain operations was J. Walter Anderson, a Wichita, Kan., resident who went on to co-found the White Castle Hamburger system, the oldest continuously running burger chain.

However, there is a history that in late eighteenth century, the largest port in Europe was in Germany. Sailors who visited port brought special food called “Hamburg steak” as a popular usage. It was a hard slab of salted minced beef, often slightly smoked, mixed with onions and breadcrumbs. Immigrants arriving England at that time also bring new food with consist of chopped beef, suet, and spices.

The other famous story is that Charlie Nagreen of Wisconsin, at age 15, sold hamburgers from his ox-drawn food stand at the Outagamie County Fair. He went to the Outagamie County Fair and set up a stand selling meatballs. Business wasn't good and he quickly realized that it was because meatballs were too difficult to eat while strolling around the fair. In a flash of innovation, he flattened the meatballs, placed them between two slices of bread and called his new creation a hamburger. He was known to many as "Hamburger Charlie." He returned to sell hamburgers at the fair every year until his death in 1951.
Food History

History of Noodles

5000 B.C.
Wheat flour, believed to originate in the Middle East, serves as the basis of the first “noodles.” Chinese ate pasta as early as 5,000 BC.

2 BC
Wheat was grown in northern China by end of the second millennium. By fourth and third centuries BC, version of pasta existed in many cultures. Indian called it sevika, or thread; the French, noulles; German, Nudeln and the English, noodles.

4
Guangzhou in China considered to be culinary mecca of China. When the first Arab merchants arrived in the fourth century to serve as intermediaries between the Chinese and Greek, they established a steady commerce between China, India, Africa and Europe.

It was via this route that the noodle is said to have found its way from China, through the Middle East to Europe.

300
The Chinese form whole grain paste into various noodle-like products.

500-600
Amidst numerous cultural exchanges, China shares Buddhism and the art of noodle-making with Japan. Buckwheat noodles become a staple of the Japanese tea ceremony.

1138
Arab geographer, Idrisi, travels to Sicily and writes about “triyah,” a food resembling threads and produced in large quantities.

1200
Explorer Marco Polo introduced pasta to Italy after encountered it at the court of Kublai Khan in China in 1295. However, the history shows that pasta, maccheroni and vermicelli were known foods before Marco Polo return to Italy.

1300
German bakers made a precursor to pasta in the 13th century, when they rolled dough into symbolic shapes such as swords, breads and stars, which they baked and served as bread.

1600
Early in the 1600s., the beginning of Japan’s Edo period, somen noodles and soba (buckwheat) noodles gained popularity in Tokyo and along the east coast. Because of a demand for soba as breakfast and festival food and street fare, farmer began sowing more grain.
1700
The very first spaghetti is produced in Napoli, Italy.

1800
Japanese specialty shops create noodles, similar to those eaten today, but requiring considerable preparation time and effort. It is believed that noodles originated from China as early as 5000 BC, then spread to other Asian countries.

Today, about 40% of the flour consumed in Asia is for Noodle manufacture. In recent years, noodles have also become very popular outside Asia and this popularity is likely to increase.
History of Noodles

Coriander

History of Coriander
The Arabian night tells a tale of a merchant who had been childless for 40 years and was cured by a concoction that included coriander. That story is over 1000 years old so the history of coriander as an aphrodisiac dates back far into history. Coriander has been used as an “appetite” stimulant. Its dried seed produce a euphoric effect, especially in women.

The seed of the well known Coriandrum sativum is known as coriander. The coriander is derived from the Greek word koris. It means bedbug. This due the unripe seeds and leaves when crushed has a smell suggestive of a crushed bedbug.

Coriander is used in condiments, dessert, liqueurs perfumes and candies. Generally it thought to be from Mediterranean and parts of southwestern Europe. It is believed to be used since 5,000 BC. Ancient Egyptians and Greeks believed coriander had aphrodisiacal properties.
History of Coriander

History of Coffee

Food History
The use of coffee as a refreshing beverage dates back at least 700 years although the first coffee house did not appear in London and Paris until about 1650. Its use as a food and as medicinal stimulant is lost in history. The roasting of coffee beans to give the aroma and flavor, which is universally recognized and appreciated, started during the 13th century and the quality of the aromatic profile is still a matter of expertise in carrying out this process.

Coffee is a large evergreen shrub of which Coffee Arabica, L. and C.robusta, L. are the most important commercial species existing in many varieties. Several other species are encountered but these are of less importance; the flavor of these beans is generally considered to be less coarse, bitter and much less acceptable than that of C.arabica.
Food History

History of herbs and spices

Today international trade brings herbs grown in Turley, and Cyprus to supermarket shelves as a matter of course. Frequent deliveries from Japan, Thailand and Singapore bring tropical herbs and fresh spices to specialist shops and some supermarkets.

Herbs and spices have been added to foods throughout history for preserving and flavor. Although they are plentiful and inexpensive today, herbs, spices and other flavorings were considered as value as good or jewels for many century.

It seems probable that many of the flavoring herbs now in use were similarly employed before the erection of the pyramids and also that many then popular no longer appear in modern lists of esculents.

As early as 3500 BC the Egyptian queen Hatshepsut, used cinnamon as an aromatic. And in 3000 BC, history records that the gods of the Mesopotamian peoples drank sesame wine, one of the products for which this popular seed was used.

Relying upon Biblical records alone, several herbs were highly esteemed prior to current era; in the gospels of Matthew and Luke reference is made to tithes of mint, anise, rue, cumin and other "herbs"; and, more than 700 years previously, Isaiah speaks of the sowing and threshing of cumin which, since the same passage also speaks of "fitches" (vetches), wheat, barley and "rie" (rye), seems then to have been a valued crop.

Both the Bible and historical records reveal that spices and aromatics were held in high esteem and a gift of spices was greatly prized.
History of herbs and spices
Updated: Mar 3 2017

History of Margarine

Food History
The first margarine went to the market, the sales is very low. Somehow it looked and tasted like lard. Its original name was discovered by the person name Michel Eugene Chevreul in 1813.

It was in 1869 Louis Napoleon 111 offered special prize for anybody that can make a substitute for butter, which would suitably for use of army and lower class caste.

Margarine naturally appears white due to forbidding of artificial coloring agents. Ban on coloration became common at that time around the world for nearly 100years.

Post war and after great depression, margarine coloring restrictions were lifted. Modern margarine producer has made a lot of changes. Modern margarine can be made from variety of animals or vegetable fats .
Food History

History of Kiwi Fruit

Food History
Scientific name: Actinidia chinensis
Historically, the kiwi is the duck-billed platypus of the fruit world, difficult to categorize. It is named after the flightless Kiwi bird of New Zealand, although its origins are in Yangtze Valley of China. The original designation of Chinese gooseberry is also misleading, since it is not a true member of the gooseberry family. Kiwi fruits actually grow on woody vines, much like grapes.

During the early 1900s, Isabel Fraser, a director of a New Zealand school visited China and became fascinated with the fruit known at the time as a Chinese gooseberry. She brought back several fruit-bearing vines for her gardener to cultivate. Eventually the fruit became so popular that commercial growers became interested.

In order to establish an association with New Zealand, marketers changed the name to "Kiwifruit". Kiwi fruit actually get name from marketing strategy, kiwi, and the national bird of New Zealand. In 1996, New Zealand Kiwi fruit industry re branded the kiwi fruit as Zespri. In United States, commercial planting began late 1960s in California. From 50 acres in 1970, the industry in California had grown to more than 8,000 acres by1988.
Food History

Ancient People Near the Sea

Food History
Cro-Magnons who lived near the sea or who visited the coats had a rich source of food – fish, seals, sea birds, shellfish and seaweed. Those who dwelt inland could enjoy fresh water fish such as salmon, trout, eel and pike.

One of their ingenious inventions was the gorge – a baited sliver of bone attached to a line of leather or sinew. When a fish took the bait the gorge stuck in its throat and it was hauled in nets made from plant fibers or leather, have not survived, but the existence of small, grooved stones that could have been net weights suggest that nets were in use. Fishers also invented the leister, a three pronged spear. A fish was impaled on the central straight prong and curved prongs on either side stopped it wriggling off.

In the spring the salmon raced upstream to spawn. This was a gastronomic bonanza for Cro-Magnons, as huge deposits of scales and bones found in some places confirm. Salmon could be speared as they struggle through the shallows, and the crafty Cro-Magnons may well have piled up stones to form a trap. The fish would swim through the funnel-like entrance into pool from which there was no exit, except on the prongs a leister. Much of the catch was then dried or smoked and stored.
Food History

History of Watermelon

Food History
Scientific name: Citrullus Lanatus
Some people might think that watermelon historically come from China. However certain people believe that watermelon to have originated from desert of Kalahari.

The famous traveler name David Livingstone reported that saying, at that time there were a lot of watermelon field at that area. According to him, there was a lot of watermelon plant grow without anybody notice of it taste. Once many people know their healths benefit and have a very good taste, it became popular and the watermelon fields slowly expand to other countries of Africa.

However, the first written history of watermelon, it comes from Egypt 5,000 years ago. Watermelons were often place in the burial tombs in order to nourish them afterlife. From Egypt watermelon spread to other countries along Sea of Mediterranean by way of trading ships. Watermelon spread to Europe through Moors people at 13th century.
Food History