A historical food site

Some time back I had blogged about the origin of custard and wondered how different varieties of food originated and spread over the world. I came across an interesting site, http://www.foodtimeline.org/, that addresses this by delving into the history of various food items, from salt to sushi. According to the site most food has not been invented but has evolved, or better put what you eat are essentially “contemporary twists to traditional themes”.

Lynne Olver, the editor and researcher of the site, is a reference librarian with a passion for food history. The effort behind the site is an obvious indication of her passion. Culinary research for the site has been done over a wide range of sources – culinary encyclopedias and dictionaries, food biographies, company brochures, botanical and agricultural texts are just some. Primary research includes interviews / investigations / tastings with chefs, professors, book authors, food curators and even government officials.

The site is wanting in design but the content more than makes up for it. To give you an idea, here is a summary on the origin of pickles:

The process of pickling (preserving foods in salt / brine or vinegar) can be traced to the Ancient Egypt. Egyptians pickled fish such as sturgeon, salmon and catfish as well as poultry and geese as salt's dehydrating properties could be applied to almost any food. However, pickled cucumbers (what is called pickles in the western world today) find its roots in India about 3000 years ago.

The site quotes from the book 'Historical Dictionary of Indian Food' by K.T. Achaya (mentioned in one of my previous posts) as follows: "A Kannada work of AD 1594, the Lingapurana of Gurulinga Desika, describes no less than fifty kinds of pickles. By far the most important material for pickling is raw mangoes (whole baby fruit, wild mangoes, cut slices, or the hard fibrous avakkai). Others are limes, lemons, small onions, brinjals, chillies, karaunda berries, pork wild boar, prawns and fish..."

With that, I rest my case on the two protagonists of this blog.