History of food covers the history and the cultural, economic, environmental, and sociological impacts of food and human nutrition. It includes malnutrition and famines. See also culinary history, which focuses on the origin and recreation of specific recipes. The historiography of studying food is covered in Food history.
Prehistory
Early human nutrition was largely determined by the availability and palatability (tastiness) of foods.Ralph M. Trüeb (23. November 2020): Brief History of Human Nutrition. In: Nutrition for Healthy Hair, pp. 3–15. Springer, Cham. doi: Humans evolved as omnivorous hunter-gatherers, though our diet has varied significantly depending on location and climate. Historically, the diet in the tropics tended to depend more heavily on plant foods, while diet at higher latitudes was more dependent on animal products. Analyses of postcranial and cranial remains of humans and animals from the Neolithic, along with detailed bone-modification studies, have shown that cannibalism also occurred among prehistoric humans.
Agriculture developed at different times in different places, starting about 11,500 years ago, providing some cultures with a more abundant supply of grains (such as wheat, rice and maize) and potatoes; this made possible dough for staples such as bread, pasta, and tortillas. The domestication of animals provided some cultures with milk and dairy products.
In 2020, archeological research discovered a frescoed thermopolium (a fast-food counter) in an exceptional state of preservation from 79 CE/AD in Pompeii, including 2,000-year-old foods available in some of the deep terra cotta jars.The Guardian (26 December 2020): Exceptionally well-preserved snack bar unearthed in Pompeii (via Agence France-Presse). Europe
Classical antiquity
During classical antiquity, diets consisted of simple fresh or preserved whole foods that were either locally grown or transported from neighboring areas during times of crisis.Garnsey, P. (1999). Food and society in classical disgusting (Key themes in ancient history; Key themes in ancient history). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.Skiadas, P., & Lascaratos, J. (2001). Dietetics in ancient Greek philosophy: Plato's concepts of healthy diet. Published Online: 14 June 2001; | doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601179, 55(7). Physicians and philosophers studied the effect of food on the human body and they generally agreed that food was important in preventing illness and restoring health.
5th to 15th centuries: Middle Ages in Western Europe
In western Europe, medieval cuisine (5th–15th centuries) did not change rapidly.Christopher M. Woolgar, "Food and the middle ages." Journal of Medieval History 36.1 (2010): 1-19.Melitta Weiss Adamson, ed. Food in the Middle Ages: a book of essays (Taylor & Francis, 1995).Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari, eds. Food: A Culinary History (2013) pp 165-274.
Cereals remained the most important staple during the early Middle Ages. Barley, oats and rye were eaten by the poor. Standard foods included bread, porridge, and gruel. Fava beans and vegetables were important supplements to the cereal-based diet of the lower orders. Meat was expensive and prestigious. Game was common only on the tables of landowners. The most prevalent butcher's meats were pork, chicken, and other domestic fowl; beef, which required greater investment in land, was less common. Cod and herring were mainstays among the northern populations; dried, cooked or salted, they made their way far inland, but a wide variety of other saltwater and freshwater fish was also eaten.
Meals were controlled by the seasons, geography, and religious restrictions. For most people food supply was limited to what the nearby lands and seas could provide. Peasants made do with what they could, primarily cooking over an open fire, in a cauldron or on a spit. Their ovens were typically outside of the home, and made on top of clay or turf. Poor families primarily consumed grains and vegetables in the form of stew, soup, or pottage, and anything grown on their own small plots of land. They could not afford spices, and it was a crime for them to hunt deer, boar, or rabbits. Their staples included rye or barley bread, stews, local dairy products, cheaper meats like beef, pork or lamb, fish if there was access to freshwater, vegetables and herbs grown at home, fruit from local trees and bushes, nuts, and honey. The upper class and nobility had better food and diet than the lower classes, but food was eaten in small portions. Meals were laid out with many different colors and flavors—a very different experience from those in the lower class. Smaller portion sizes developed around this time due to various cultural influences, and these large, table-long meals were essentially picked at by the nobility. Foods were highly spiced, and many of these were expensively imported, often from outside Europe. The Middle Ages diet of the upper class and nobility included manchet bread, a variety of meats like venison, pork, and lamb, fish and shellfish, spices, cheese, fruits, and a limited number of vegetables. Among people of all social classes spices were common, with lower class people enjoying more local and home-grown spices while the wealthier enjoyed imported spices from other continents. As time went by and living standards improved, even lower class people, particularly those in urban centers, could enjoy the taste of foreign spices like pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon.Paul Freedman, Paul, "The medieval spice trade." in Jeffrey H. Pilcher, ed. The Oxford handbook of food history (2012): 324-340.
While food consumption was controlled by geography and availability, it was also governed by the Church. The church calendar included many fasts spread throughout the year; the longest of these was Lent, the late winter weeks preceding Easter. There were designated days when it was not permitted to eat meat or fish, but this did not affect the poor very much because of their already restricted diet. The Church also influenced people to have feasts throughout the year, including on Christmas and lesser holidays. The noble and upper classes participated in these extravagant feasts, as they often followed a fasting period.Corrie E. Norman, "Food and religion." in The Oxford Handbook of Food History (2012) pp. 409-427.
British Isles
From Prehistoric Britain onward, the British diet has been a story of adaptation. Early populations relied primarily on locally raised animals and crops, with their food choices continually evolving in response to changes in agricultural methods and the changing climate. The variety of British food is marked by a continual flow of external influences from invaders and global trade. Invading groups--Celts, Picts, Romans, Vikings, Saxons, Angles, Normans--each brought new ingredients and techniques, introducing staples like bread, butter, smoked fish, and spices.Christopher Dyer, "A simple food with many meanings: bread in late medieval England," Journal of Medieval History (2023) 49#5 pp.631–650, DOI:10.1080/03044181.2023.2250947 Ben Jervis, et al. "Cuisine and conquest: interdisciplinary perspectives on food, continuity and change in 11th-century England and beyond." in The Archaeology of the 11th Century (Routledge, 2017) pp. 244-262. After 1600 the era of colonialism dramatically expanded the British larder. New products such as tea from China, along with curry, sugar, and chocolate, were introduced; British cuisine became a blend of global influences.Colin Spencer, British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History 2007).Panikos Panayi, Spicing up Britain: The multicultural history of British food (Reaktion books, 2008). Since the 1950s immigrant consumers and chefs from former colonies across the globe have greatly enlarged the food scene, street by street.Ravi Arvind Palat, "Empire, food and the diaspora: Indian restaurants in Britain." South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 38.2 (2015): 171-186.
16th century: Importance of Spain and Portugal
The Portuguese and Spanish Empires opened up sea trade routes that linked food exchange across the world. Under Phillip II, Catholic cuisine elements inadvertently helped transform the cuisine of the Americas, Buddhists, Hindus, and Islamic cuisines of the South Eastern Asian region. In Goa, the Portuguese were encouraged by the Crown to marry local women following their conversion. This integration led to mixed cuisine between Portugal and Western India. The Portuguese brought round raised loaves, using wheat shipped from Northern India, as well as pickled pork. The pork was pickled in wine or vinegar with garlic (carne de vinha d'alhos) tied to Portuguese cuisine that later became vindaloo.Ben Highmore, "Introduction: 'Out of the strong came forth sweetness'-sugar on the move." New Formations 74 (2011): 5-17.
18th century: early modern Europe Grain and livestock have long been the most important agricultural products in France and England. After 1700, innovative farmers experimented with new techniques to increase yield and looked into new products such as hops, rapeseed oil, artificial grasses, vegetables, fruit, dairy foods, commercial poultry, rabbits, and freshwater fish.Joan Thirsk, "L'agriculture en Angleterre et en France de 1600 à 1800: contacts, coïncidences et comparaisons." Histoire, Économie et Société (1999): 5-23. online
Sugar began as an upper-class luxury product, but by 1700 Caribbean sugar plantations worked by African slaves had expanded production, and it was much more widely available. By 1800 sugar was a staple of working-class diets. For them, it symbolized increasing economic freedom and status.
Labourers in Western Europe in the 18th century ate bread and gruel, often in a soup with greens and lentils, a little bacon, and occasionally potato or a bit of cheese. They washed it down with beer (water usually was too contaminated), and a sip of milk. Three quarters of the food was derived from plants. Meat was much more attractive, but very expensive.
19th century Food crisis of 1840s
The European potato failure was a food crisis that struck Northern and Western Europe in the mid-1840s. The time is also known as the Hungry Forties. The widespread failure of potato crops, caused by potato blight, with the correspondent lack of other staple foods was the direct cause of the crisis. Excess mortality occurred across all affected areas, with the highest casualty rates occurring in the Scottish Highlands and Ireland via the Highland Potato Famine and Great Famine respectively. Mass emigration occurred as a result.Cormac Ó Grada, et al., When the Potato Failed: Causes and Effects of the Last European Subsistence Crisis, 1845-1850 (Brepols, 2007) West European diet By 1870, the West European diet was at about 16 kilograms per person per year of meat, rising to 50 kilograms by 1914, and 77 kilograms in 2010.Lizzie Collingham, Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food (2013) pp 18-19, 516. Milk and cheese were seldom in the diet; even in the early 20th century, they were still uncommon in Mediterranean diets.Fernando Collantes, "Nutritional transitions and the food system: expensive milk, selective lactophiles and diet change in Spain, 1950-65." Historia Agraria 73 (2017) pp 119-147 in Spanish.
20th century wars In the first half of the 20th century there were two world wars, which in many places resulted in rationing and hunger; sometimes the starvation of the civilian populations was used as a powerful new weapon.John Martin, "Saving the nation from starvation: the heroic age of food control, June 1917 to July 1918." Rural History 30.2 (2019): 181-196.
World War I and 1920s