What is Cooking: Historical Overview
Author: Panos Platritis, Clinical Dietitian Nutritionist BSc, MSc, Contracted with GHS Member of BDA, ESPEN, CYSPEN, SEPI
What is Cooking: Cooking is the process of preparing food using heat. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the world, reflecting unique environmental, economic, and cultural traditions. Chefs themselves also differ greatly in their skill and training.
What is cooking: Cooking can also be done through chemical reactions without the presence of heat, as in Ceviche, a traditional Spanish dish where fish is ‘cooked’ by the acids in lemon or lime juice. Sushi also uses a similar chemical reaction between the fish and the acidic content of the rice seasoned with vinegar. Preparing food with heat or fire is an activity unique to humans, and some scientists believe that the advent of cooking played a significant role in human evolution.
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The Origins of Cooking
Most anthropologists believe that cooking over fire first developed about 250,000 years ago. The development of agriculture, trade, and transportation between cultures in different areas provided many new ingredients for cooks. New inventions and technologies, such as pottery for storing and boiling water, expanded cooking techniques. Some modern chefs apply new technologies for food preparation.
The History of Cooking
There is no clear indication as to when the practice of cooking food was discovered. Most anthropologists believe that cooking over fire began only about 250,000 years ago, when cooking hearths began to appear. Anthropologist Richard Wrangham suggested that cooking was invented as early as 1,800,000 to 2,300,000 years ago.
Other researchers believe that cooking was invented only 40,000 or 10,000 years ago. The evidence of fire is unclear, as wildfires ignited by lightning are still common in East Africa and other wild areas, and it is difficult to determine when fire was first used for cooking, as opposed to being used solely for warmth or for driving away beasts.
Cooking in Ancient Societies
In ancient times, gatherings were presented as the process of bringing people together around the fire to warm themselves (hearth = fire, home, hospitality). By nature, humans expressed their enjoyment through dance and food. It is their way of showing gratitude to the gods and sharing their goods with their loved ones. The customs and traditions of the world’s religions are characterized by the presence of food at every event, whether of joy or sorrow. The evolution of cooking methods, although it directly depends on the time and the raw materials available to us, is also related to people’s need for pleasure. Gastronomy differs from cooking in its meaning.
Gastronomy: A Definition by Chef Zisis Kerameas
The head chef Zisis Kerameas defines gastronomy as the set of knowledge one must have about the chemical and physical properties of food, their nutritional value, the way they are combined, as well as the methods of modifying them under the influence of fire or without it, in order to prepare tasty and visually appealing dishes that are beneficial for the human body. Cooking has its roots in the time when man accidentally discovered heat.
This probably happened when he tasted pieces of meat that had been roasted by a fire caused by lightning or the hearth of his primitive dwelling. Therefore, from this time on, when the need became satisfaction, the history of cooking begins. The first utensil used for cooking food may have been the wooden spit, depictions of which are found in reliefs and vase paintings, and later the first clay pots for household use were created, which were perfected over time, while later metal utensils for roasting appeared, such as those preserved in the Louvre Museum and the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. In ancient Greece, the gathering of people for a meal was called a symposium. The symposia were feasts where those gathered tasted delicacies from large serving vessels.
The Evolution of Cooking Methods
The dishes were roasted on a spit or cooked in earthenware pots covered with charcoal. The excavations prove the use of earthenware vessels in all time periods. In the years of Alexander the Great, the first hangouts were created, while during the Roman period, the first taverns appeared that constituted organized dining spaces. The only form of mass dining in antiquity can be considered the communal meal, which was a shared meal that all men of every age were required to participate in, as part of a social or religious ceremony.
The evolution of the communal meals of ancient Greece is the ‘kurbani’, events of people dining in outdoor spaces near chapels. More recent testimonies include boiling materials in cauldrons or in now stainless steel pots, in contrast to the wooden spits and earthenware vessels of previous years. Today, the word ‘communal meal’ is used for the free food provided to the poor, homeless, and victims of fire, earthquake, war, etc.