Food-trotting

I was reading about the origins of custard....its come a long way! Romans in the 18th century, who were adept at egg based dishes, first discovered it. It then moved around Europe - to France, then England and finally reached America. Simultaneously, recipes similar to custard started emerging in Asia. Soon, the whole world knew about custard.

Then came along Mr. Alfred Bird, a chemist from England, who discovered the custard powder - nothing but flavoured cornflour which thickens milk, when dissolved in it. The Blue Bird brand of custard powder comes from him. A definite boon for vegetarians and all those who suffer from egg-related allergies.

What really amazes me is how dishes like these went across boundaries in a world of no food blogs, recipe shows or recipe books for that matter. Also, food travelling is directly proportional to people travelling, which was not quite a lot in those days. So how did this food-trotting happen? My two cents:

a) Food was contagious. It took just one person to sow the seed and the whole community rapidly got hooked to the dish. More like the product innovation theory, where a handful of early adopters can cause a chain reaction and influence a huge majority.
b) Every dog used to have his day. Dishes were discovered by a lot of people all too suddenly - which explains why forms of custard started emerging in Asia around the same time as Europe. It then followed the typical product life-cycle and stagnated to where it is today.
c) Food was confidential. No real reason behind this except the fact that most things that are secretive are leaked out the fastest and widest.

I'm sure a food historian would have already shut this window by now and tsked away the superficial reasoning. I'm sure someone else would have profound thought behind it. Or maybe this topic itself is not profound enough for further deliberation.