Do You Know Which Ancient Foods are Included in Our Modern Diet?

This is a wonderful list of ancient foods published by LoveFOOD. I totally expected to see bread, honey, and wine on the list. But was a little bit surprised by the inclusion of beer, beef jerky, and popcorn.

The evidence “suggests that bread making has its roots with the Natufian, a hunter-gatherer culture who lived in the Levant around 14,000 years ago.” WOW! OK! Uumm … who are the Natufian again??

• According to Merriam Webster the Natufians are “a Mesolithic cave dweller of Mount Carmel and other localities in ancient Palestine”.

A reference to honey is found in ancient Mesopotamian documents but of course we all know that honey has been around as long as the honey bee!

“Wine traces have been found in vessels from ancient China, but it was in the Mediterranean that the boozy drink truly flourished in antiquity.”

And all this time I thought Albert Einstein invented beer only to find out the ancient Babylonians not only drank wine but they drank beer too!

At least I was right about popcorn! Half-right. I gave credit to the Native Americans; but not the ancient American Indians. I was thinking the food was invented somewhere in the 1800s. Not so! There is proof that this delightful snack was enjoyed by the indigenous American tribes in the states of New Mexico and Utah. There is also proof found in Mexico City and Peru.

Per food historians, growing corn goes way back to the ancient civilizations in Central America AND the Native Americans taught the Europeans how to grow corn. So even if there is no documentary evidence or other archaeological findings, it wouldn't surprise me that anywhere that corn was grown, the people who grew it probably accidentally discovered this fun treat when somebody through a dry corn cob into a fire and it started popping.

Popped kernels were likely flying everywhere and they smelled so good, somebody had to taste them! I can just imagine that's how it happened. LOL. That's how most of our great discoveries happen. After all of our painstaking research looking everywhere, we stumble upon the truth accidentally.

• (Fun Food: Sweet Honey Popcorn Recipe | Cakies by Rachel ~ NOTE: If you want to make this snack food sweet and spicy, just sprinkle in powdered cayenne and cinnamon.)

Archaeologists have found traces of apple cider vinegar in both ancient Egyptian and Chinese vessels; however, there is a mention of this food in Babylonian writings that date back to 5,000 BC.

Did you know beef jerky goes all the way to ancient Egypt? Don't know why I did not make the connection. After all, they did have a lot of cattle. You might think that everything can be traced back to ancient Egypt. A lot of things can. But not everything! Tofu and Tea don't date back to ancient Egypt. Nevertheless. per this LF list, honey, beer and wine, apple cider vinegar, and beef jerky were included in the food and drink of the ancient Egyptians.

• For additional information: Al-Khafif, Ghada Darwish, and Rokia El-Banna. “Reconstructing Ancient Egyptian Diet through Bone Elemental Analysis Using LIBS (Qubbet El Hawa Cemetery).” BioMed Research International, vol. 2015, 2015, p. 281056, doi:10.1155/2015/281056.

The LoveFOOD article is a fun read. Below are all the foods on the list in alphabetical order and a link to the content if you're interested.

1. Beef jerky
2. Beer
3. Bone broth
4. Bread
5. Butter
6. Cheese
7. Chocolate
8. Fish sauce
9. Ghee
10. Honey
11. Kombucha
12. Mead
13. Noodles
14. Oatcakes
15. Olive oil
16. Pasta
17. Popcorn
18. Sauerkraut
19. Soy sauce
20. Soya milk
21. Tea
22. Tofu
23. Vinegar
24. Wine
25. Yogurt

REFERENCE: “Ancient Foods We Still Love Today.” Lovefood.com, Loveeverything.com, Ltd., prelive-www.lovefood.com/galleries/64219/ancient-foods-we-still-love-today. Web. 29 June 2021.

• NOTE: One more super interesting fun fact gleaned from this article: "China’s answer to cotton candy, dragon’s beard candy is one of the country’s most-loved sweet treats – and it’s also likely to be the world’s oldest."

NOTE: Pizza was not included in the list. Naples. Italy is said to be the birthplace of modern pizza. However, historians say that pizza has been around since the 6th century BC and it was a food eaten by the Persian soldiers. Back then, it was called "flatbread".

• Epicurious. “The Secret History of Pizza.” YouTube, 12 Sept. 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRn5iONxSQQ.

Thanks for reading.

NOTE: This content was previously published on Read.Cash.