The Food Timeline

From: BillK (bill@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Mon Jun 23 2003 - 10:02:59 MDT

  • Next message: JAY DUGGER: "Re: Jane's on Naval `electric weapons'"

    The Food Timeline has been created by the Morris County Library.
    'Information is checked against standard reference tools for
    accuracy--The Oxford Companion to Food (Davidson), The Cambridge World
    History of Food (Kiple & Ornelas), Larousse Gastronomique (New American
    Edition, Lang [1988] and Revised/Updated English edition [2001]), The
    Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, (Mariani), Food in History
    (Tannahill), History of Food (Toussaint-Samat), and other sources as
    needed. As with most historical topics, there are some conflicting
    stories in the field of food history. We do our best to select and
    present the information with the most documented support.'

    http://www.gti.net/mocolib1/kid/food.html

    The food timeline page agrees that agriculture started around 10,000 BC
    when bread and beer appeared. (By the way, don't you think that giving
    up hunter gathering for the beer was a good exchange?)

    sheep and goats - 9,000 BC
    lentils - 8,000 BC
    pork and beans - 7,000 BC

    But wild rice is a much older plant with the genus going back to the
    early Cretaceous period of more than 130 million years ago. If you
    follow the links, an interesting history is described.

    'Cultivation of the wild prototypes preceded domestication. Rice grains
    were initially gathered and consumed by prehistoric people of the humid
    regions where the perennial plants grew on poorly drained sites. These
    people also hunted, fished, and gathered other edible plant parts as
    food. Eventually, however, they developed a liking for the easily cooked
    and tasty rice and searched for plants that bore larger panicles and
    heavier grains.'

    This seems to be claiming that stone age man could have been eating wild
    rice as part of his diet. The Paleo diet enthusiasts would surely
    disagree with that?

    BillK
    looking forward to his Chinese chicken and char sui pork tonight ;)

    __________________________________________________________________________
    Join Freeserve http://www.freeserve.com/time/

    Winner of the 2003 Internet Service Providers' Association awards for Best Unmetered ISP and Best Consumer Application.



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Jun 23 2003 - 10:14:05 MDT