6 products, the age of which we did not know
Many products seem to us exclusively the invention of the modern food industry. You will be surprised to know that the usual food has existed for many millennia. Archaeologists and other scientists lift the veil of secrecy over the culinary tastes of our ancestors
Have you ever been interested in the questions “In what century did man start to bake bread?”, “What is the smell of beer, which is 2500 years old?” And “Is it worth trying cheese, which is 3000 years old?” It turns out that there are edible evidence of history in the world that helped archaeologists find out the age and quality of popular food.
1. Popcorn
The time of penetration of popcorn in cinemas – the 1930s. although the dish itself arose much earlier. The theory of researchers in this regard is based on the assumption that in today’s Peru, popcorn gained popularity 6,000 years ago. At the site of the excavations of the ancient settlements of Paredones and Ouka Prieta in the northern part of the country, archaeologists were waiting for a find that is between 3 and 7 thousand years old, these were stalks, husks and maize grains.
2. Bread
Today, bread is an important food product of a person. The history of its occurrence is not fully researched and full of mysteries. Previously, the researchers’ assumptions focused on the theory that people got the skill of baking bread about 10 thousand years ago, but the new discovery puts this judgment into great doubt.
In the Black Jordanian desert, on excavations, archaeologists discovered a stone hearth with burnt pieces of bread, which are about 15 thousand years old.
According to the researchers, the bread was not a daily product, but was a ceremonial meal and was prepared for the special occasion. After all, for its preparation it was required to create a rather difficult recipe for those times. Ancient bread was a thin flat cake and vaguely resembled modern Armenian lavash baked from several types of cereals.
3. Beer
In ancient cultures, a significant role was assigned to beer, the researchers have long known about this, but did not find the surviving “sample” of the drink. Scientists from the University of Glasgow smiled luck, and they found clay tanks, at the bottom of which was a beer sediment. Their age is 2500 years.
Researchers say: beer was used by absolutely everyone, without exception, and the reason for this was not required. The surviving pages of the ancient accounting books tell us that it was the workers who received the beer as a ration – this drink was an integral part of the diet of the locals.
As a result of gas chromatography sediment, scientists managed to find out that the composition of the ancient beer is similar to the modern one, but the recipe was not completely reproduced.
4. Cheese
There are special types of cheeses that require aging from several months to several years. Scientists estimate that the cheese found in the tomb of Ptahmes is more than 3 thousand years old and with its endurance it broke all records.
At the Catan University of Italy, experts who studied the composition of the sample revealed that in addition to the characteristic milk proteins, there is a death-carrying bacterium Brucella Maltese, which causes brucellosis. It provokes the failure of the systems and organs of the human body.
5. Butter
This product has been stored for 3,000 years in a barrel in an Irish moor. In 2009, workers in the Irish county of Kildare, who extracted peat, found a mysterious barrel. It contained not a treasure at all, but 35 kg of a creamy product, which turned into a fat trash over time. This is the oldest copy of the oil. As museum employees tell, in those days peat bogs often served as a substitute for a refrigerator. Special substances (waste products of swamp moss) and oxygen deficiency blocked the decomposition of the product. There is a theory that people kept the oil in the swamp to improve its taste.
6. Noodles
China, Italy or Saudi Arabia? To date, the debate about who was the first in the invention of pasta has not abated. In the northwestern part of China in the town of Lajian, archaeologists have discovered noodles, which is 4000 years old. At the moment it is the oldest sample of the popular dish. Such a find put an end to the discussions of the discoverers of pasta.
Even in the dried noodles, you can see the external similarity with the modern Chinese dish. It is a yellowish-brown strips of dough approximately 50 centimeters long. Noodles found in an overturned pot, inside which was a vacuum. Buried at a depth of 3 meters, the noodles are preserved in almost its original form.
