Some Marvelous Circumstances on Cooking Lore

The history of cooking is quite affecting and unmistakably begins much before humans started flipping burgers after inventing fire. Ancient humans fortuitously realized meat tasted better after it had ben "cooked" by wildfires. Not only was it easier for them to eat, but it was more delicious and had less risk of organisms and diseases. Perhaps it was this appetizing food which eventually drove man to invent fire.

The next extreme step in cooking came with one of the innovations that propelled humanity to its current place at the forefront of the animal kingdom: farming, which dates to about 9000 BCE. A ready supply of cooking resources that did not have to be gathered from nature left folks more time to consider how to prepare food. Originally, wheat was mixed with water to make a kind of gruel - but when the kitchen stove was invented, it could be made into something

like a cake or disk, which was much more delightful and more portable. And when they discovered the leavening properties of yeast around 4000 BCE, the ancient Egyptians became the initially to create a food that is still a staple of the Western diet:: bread.

 After agriculture, the domestication of animals also had a colossal effect on cooking recital. Just as agriculture, herding created a ready supply of meat that did not need to be hunted, which was not only easier but less dangersome. As well, domesticated animals supplied a number of other things besides meat to launch the advancement of cooking. For example, they provided milk, which was made into the originally cheeses and other diary products. They could also make plowing a field much easier, which meant more and a wider array of vegetation could be planted.

As we move out of prehistory and into written history, we certainly begin to see the rise of "cooking" as an unified art, unconnected from simply "heating" and "mixing". With the rise of cities and states, the first upper classes emerged: people who had competence and influence enough that they could have others not only attain food for them, but prepare it. Female servants took care of the day-to-day profession of making bread and other daily foods, but there is evidence from ancient Greek texts such as "The Odyssey" that there were servants whose main billet was preparing foods: the initially cooks.

 

From Greek times to the present, there has been not much in the way of true "progression" in terms of cooking. Our meals are easier to make and we can attain cooking resources much more easily than our antecedents, but even with their antique methods, an ancient cook could plausibly make a meal as tasteful as any we could. Although, now that scientists are able to discern more about what makes food taste pleasant, in the life to come we may see dishes that both ourselves and our predecessors could only imagine of.