Our knowledge about the history of food is greatly dependent on what is written on our history books, oral stories of our ancestors and in the 21st century – the internet. There are various sources we can get about food timeline in the internet, some are  confusing because of the contradictions of several narratives, but nonetheless, what is more important are the interesting facts about how, what we serve and stuff our stomach has evolved over the years.

Let me present to you a very short narrative of food history.

Prehistoric people flourished by hunting and gathering of their food around them, their diet basically evolve around marine life and water. Evidence of eating shellfish was discovered about 1200,000 years ago in Southern Africa. At around 10,000 BC agriculture began and so with the domestication of goats and sheep, followed by cattle, thus the meat and dairy products were then part of the human’s diet.

At around 6-8,000 BC nuts, apples, corn and beans were cultivated, it was said that farming was established in China and Peru, thus brought about the consumption of more fruits, vegetables, grains and nuts were listed.

By 2,000 BC Festive foods on banquets were known in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Later, civilization flourished in Europe and later extended to other parts of the world including the colonization of the Philippines. Cultivation of various crops and fishing methods were more developed although very dependent on natural soil fertility and the amount of rainfall.

By 200 BC Southeast Asia started to use water buffalo for agricultural purposes. Roughly by the third century, food trade accelerated at a faster pace brought about by rapid voyages and conquest of the new world. And on the seventh century, more were included like pretzels, lemons, tofu, spinach eggplant and many other kinds of grains.

Between 10 to 14th century, several foods were already enjoyed around the world, there were records of Peking Duck, cod, corned beef, pancakes, fruit pies, baklava, kebabs and variety of cheeses. This escalated to more discoveries and food inventions, thus cookbooks started to be published.

At the turn of the 18th century colonial America started the so-called ‘frontier foods’, softdrinks were introduced in 1830, gelatin in 1897, cornflakes in 1906 and many more.

Today, as we look back, we can just sigh in amazement how the food on our tables has evolved from a very trouble-free kind of diet to the most complex, labor and less-labor intensive kind of diet. The marriage of technology and food has brought eating to greater heights that is more demanding and greatly dangerous kinds of food.

If you want to know more details about the detailed history of food, visit THE FOOD TIMELINE.

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