Humans need energy to survive, and this energy comes from food. There is a famous saying that “food is the fuel to the body, and without food, there is no life.” Modern-day humans have created different types of cuisines and dishes that one can enjoy. However, the practice of making different types of dishes and experimenting with naturally available edible ingredients is not very new. In ancient times, humans were pretty much as inquisitive about cooking as modern-day humans.
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With whatever limited resources they had, different types of cooking experiments were conducted pretty often. This led to the creation of a lot of foods in dishes that are still quite prevalent. Even after hundreds of years, a lot of modern-day dishes that have evolved with time also trace their roots back to hundreds of years ago. In this article, one can find several dishes that were invented a few centuries ago but are still very prevalent in the world.
* Bread
Bread is a staple food for most people around the world. The variety of bread may vary as per the changing geographies. But the fact that bread is made from some type of flour is an everyday part of the diet of most people is a stagnant thing. For the longest time, bread has been a cornerstone of the human diet, and its mention can be found in various manuscripts and centuries-old books.
In fact, as per Wikipedia, multiple pieces of evidence suggest that different types of bread were made in Europe and Turkey even 9100 years ago. Many starch residues have been found in these areas that suggest that bread was cooked with primitive tools, even thousands of years ago. Initially, only flat breads were cooked in these areas, and after the invention of the oven, it kept on evolving.
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* Stews
The combination of eating bread with a stew is not a new concept. Even the people who lived hundreds of years ago understood that the combination of solid and liquid food tasted the best. This is why it was important to have a liquid gravy-like food that could be paired with some solid bread. The idea of this combination led to the development of multiple cuisines in dishes. Of course, the early man did not have the luxury to simply go and buy groceries from the supermarket.
So the ancient stews were only limited to the availability of the nearby vegetables and other condiments. Stews were simply prepared by plucking some fresh vegetables, taking any leftovers and combining them. The world's oldest stew was made in Japan and can be dated back to the Jomon Period. This is approximately 2400 years ago.
* Curry
Different types of spicy and flavourful curries are an important identity of the culinary heritage of India and its neighbouring Southeast Asian countries. In modern times, the amalgamation and the influences of different types of flavours have led to the development of different curry recipes. Everybody already knows that the concept of curry is quite old. But in reality, it's even older than one might imagine. Curry is just an umbrella term that is given to several Indian gravy-based dishes. As per the Institute Of Culinary Education, the name curry was given to several Indian dishes in the 18th century.
But in reality, the Indus Valley civilisation that is at least 8000 years old showed prominent marks of different types of gravy-based dishes cooked by the people who lived there. Ginger, garlic, and turmeric were an important part of their cooking. Initially, the curry that was cooked in the Indian subcontinent was a lot simpler. However, after the invasion of the Mughals, there was a massive evolution in Indian cuisine.
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* Pancakes
This might sound surprising to a lot of people, but the ancient people, just like the modern-day humans, had a thing for sweets. As per National Geographic, pancakes are at least 30,000 years old, and numerous analyses of starch grains have been found on grinding tools that suggest that different flours were grinded and sweetened before being baked or heated. The oldest mention of pancakes comes from the Greek poet in 600 BC. In his writings, the poet has described warm pancakes. This means that pancakes are not that new, and although the form might have evolved, the blueprint of this recipe existed thousands of years ago.
* Popcorns
No movie is complete without having some caramel or cheese popcorn. The concept of watching movies in the theatre while munching on popcorn might seem like a very modern concept, but popcorn has been eaten as a snack for 1000 years. Corn has been a popular grain in Peru and Mexico for thousands of years. Multiple fossil evidence suggests that corn was cultivated in Peru during 4700 BCE.
In 2012, archaeologists found well-preserved grains of popcorn that can still be popped. Most of these could be dated back to 1000 years ago. This means that there is a certainty that people used to eat popcorn even 1000 years ago and who knows even before that.