[HN Gopher] The Food Timeline
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The Food Timeline
Author : wolverine876
Score : 97 points
Date : 2021-10-17 03:09 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (foodtimeline.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (foodtimeline.org)
| wombatmobile wrote:
| Australian aborigines were making bread in 28,000 BC [0].
|
| Some archaeological sites, such as Cuddie Springs contain
| grinding stones dated to about 30,000 years. These stones were
| used to grind wild seeds into flour which in turn was baked as
| bread.
|
| [0] https://australian.museum/blog-archive/science/food-
| culture-...
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Submit that to the Food Timeline?
| mongol wrote:
| Super nice list. I think with a stellar visualisation this could
| go viral.
| darkerside wrote:
| Why does it take so long for fruits like apples to appear? Surely
| people would have tried eating those immediately. Certainly
| easier than mollusks, right?
| mattnewton wrote:
| Speculating- some modern fruits are cultivars of not nearly as
| nice-to-eat fruits. Maybe they took time to discover / graft /
| cultivate popular versions?
|
| Another possible version is that the resolution is very low and
| the exact order could be wrong because it is just based on the
| oldest recorded evidence of the food being eaten.
| gorilla_fight wrote:
| Thanks for this list. This may be useful for those interested in
| Nassim Nicholas Taleb's dietary practice to "only eat that which
| our ancestors ate 1000 years ago", aka the antifragile diet.
|
| Among the oldest, no surprises to paleo/ancestral/traditional:
|
| American bison---8,000BC
|
| pigs, goats & sheep---7,000BC
|
| lard---7,000BC
|
| cattle domestication---6,500BC
|
| milk & yogurt, & sour cream---5000BC
|
| ...but at the other end, these foods were older than I had
| expected, still over a thousand years ago (!):
|
| loquats & flower waters---10th century
|
| cod & nutmeg---9th century
|
| spinach & sago---7th Century
|
| eggplant---6th Century
|
| pretzels---5th Century
|
| lemons ---3rd Century
|
| costmary & blood as food---1st Century
| phonypc wrote:
| Isn't the idea behind supposed paleo/ancestral diets to limit
| your food to ones that resemble what one could forage or hunt
| for? If age in the range of 1000+ years is the criteria, wheat
| and other cultivated grains should be fine, but they're usually
| excluded.
| tuatoru wrote:
| > Nassim Nicholas Taleb's dietary practice to "only eat that
| which our ancestors ate 1000 years ago"
|
| So: wheat, barley, rye, and oats filled with rat droppings,
| small stones, weevils, weed seeds, and funguses like mildew and
| ergot?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Nassim Nicholas Taleb's dietary practice to "only eat that
| which our ancestors ate 1000 years ago", aka the antifragile
| diet.
|
| I'm not sure why anyone (except Taleb and then only as hollow
| brand marketing) would describe that as "antifragile", or even
| merely sensible.
|
| I suppose if you are adopting the diet typical _of a particular
| set of people_ 1,000+ years ago, _along with_ other aspects of
| their lifestyle, because you are _targeting similar outcomes_ ,
| then it makes sense (the _goal_ doesn 't but the action does
| given the goal). Otherwise, its just a silly game with no
| rational foundation.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Let's remember the person who apparently did all this work (or
| almost all of it), the late Lynne Olver:
|
| https://tuttlefh.com/tribute/details/461/Lynne-Olver/obituar...
|
| _Lynne has worked at Morris County Library since 1991 as a
| reference librarian and ultimately became the director of the
| library in 2009. During her tenure at Morris County Library, she
| developed a passion for food history. In addition to her career,
| she became one of the preeminent food historians in the nation
| and built a renowned online research database entitled Food
| Timeline (foodtimeline.org). She has been published in several
| periodicals for her expertise in food history and has done
| numerous newspaper and radio interviews. Other honors and awards
| she has received include Saveur 100 and NY Times Librarian of the
| Year (2002). She was a contributor to Oxford University Press,
| Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America and a consultant
| to America 's Test Kitchen / Harvard Common Press. She was also a
| member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals
| and Culinary Historians of New York._
|
| Pretty good, all done from Morris County Library. To me, it's
| what the Internet is about, and Lynne didn't even try to become
| an 'influencer'.
|
| (And thanks to the people at Virginia Tech who are keeping it
| available to the world!)
| Graffur wrote:
| Very cool! I looked for McDonalds and Burger King. I get it's not
| 'new' food but since things like TV Dinners is on the list I
| think it's culturally impactful.
|
| EDIT: I see chicken nuggets are on the list
| parksy wrote:
| Gotta give respect to the people who collated and maintained this
| list, that can't have been easy.
|
| Is there a reason why some links like "Water" take me off to
| another organisation's website or am I just missing things?
| (edit: I am guessing it's just an older site and no one is around
| to take care of it anymore?)
|
| This is a great resource and I hope I get a chance to spend more
| time reading through it.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > Cronuts ... a compound term combining croissants & doughnuts
|
| Truly the crowning achievement of human food.
|
| Does that really merit going on the timeline? :-(
| iambateman wrote:
| The only reason you would ask this is if you had never had a
| truly good cronut =D
| djrockstar1 wrote:
| Doesn't mention when we started eating cows/beef, seems like a
| significant oversight?
| darth_knoppix wrote:
| It's listed very early on as "cattle domestication - 6,500BC".
| chmod775 wrote:
| There's also "American bison - 8,000BC" - from the same tribe
| as the domesticated cattle.
| fauria wrote:
| It would be nice to see plankton (2009) added to that list.
|
| It was introduced by Spanish chef Angel Leon in Madrid Fusion
| after years of research [1] and is currently served on his
| restaurants, including 3 Michelin stars Aponiente.
|
| Five years later, in 2014, he presented bioluminescent plankton
| [2] on that same event, where the attendants toasted with glowing
| cocktails. [3]
|
| [1] - https://time.com/5926780/chef-angel-leon-sea-rice/
|
| [2] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2016/11/04/an-
| oc...
|
| [3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMhNg6PZCHM
|
| [4] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BQykrYz3Aw
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(page generated 2021-10-17 23:02 UTC)