For everyone and about everything. What did people of the past eat and drink?

Our food changed along with us, and this lasted for thousands of years. Today, multi-ingredient recipes and complex culinary technologies do not surprise us - however, this was not always the case. In the distant past, cooking was not particularly sophisticated and required much more time than it does now.

If you've ever wondered what food tasted like in ancient times, then today you're in luck. We know the answer. We managed to preserve and restore the most ancient recipes - from the Sumerian era to the reign of Richard II. You can still prepare all these dishes today. Well, forward to the past?

"Methods of Cooking", 1390 AD. e.

If you have a piece of whale meat lying around in your freezer, you can easily prepare a dish from this manuscript

Cooking Methods is the oldest surviving English cookbook. Prepare one of the dishes described in it and enjoy the food that was served on the table in the 14th century. Moreover, they were served not to just anyone, but to King Richard II himself.

The book was compiled by the monarch's personal chefs and contains 190 recipes - from the most simple to the most outlandish. Here's an example of a simple dish: throw peeled garlic into a pot with water and vegetable oil, sprinkle saffron on top. For more complex dishes, you will have to get whale or porpoise meat.

You can taste some of these dishes at the Rylands cafe, located in the library of the University of Manchester. The chefs there tested some recipes on regulars and kept on the menu what was most in demand. Don't want to go to Manchester? Then try cooking the food yourself.

"Annals of the Caliph's Cuisine", 1000 AD. e.

Are you suffering from a hangover? Ancient Arabic roast will save your poor head!

The Annals of the Caliph's Cuisine is the oldest existing Arabic cookbook. It was written by a certain Al-Warraq and collected more than 600 recipes in it. Believe me, many of these dishes seem very unusual by modern standards. The book gives us a unique insight into the cooking methods of that time. For example, to prepare one of the sauces, the cook is recommended to leave the milk in the sun for as long as 50 days! Does anyone you know do this?

The Annals, among other things, contain notes on culture, rules of behavior and health. Here's some great advice on how to avoid a hangover. Before the feast, be sure to eat cabbage, and in the morning “after yesterday”, stew yourself a roast called “kishkiya”. It will calm headaches and abdominal discomfort.

"Apician Corpus", approximately 500 AD. e.

If you are the owner of a pig farm, immediately start feeding the pigs dried figs and mead. Over time, you will be able to taste a dish worthy of a Roman emperor.

If you want to find out what delicacies the Roman emperor ate, read The Apician Corpus. The authorship is attributed to the legendary Roman gourmet Marcus Gabius Apicius, although now there is no complete certainty about this. It is not known for certain when exactly the book was compiled, but it is at least one and a half thousand years old.

The dishes described in it were very advanced for their time. The "Corpus" contains some original discoveries in meat processing, some of which are truly mouth-watering. Take, for example, the recommendation for fattening pigs dried figs and honey wine. The book contains more than 500 dishes, and at least 400 of them should be generously soaked in sauce.

"Luxury Life", 300 BC. e.

It turns out that people learned to ridicule idle luxury long before the birth of Christ.

The first three works on our list were created after the death of Christ. They are complete cookbooks and are not much different from the collections of recipes we are used to. But “Luxury Life” appeared in very distant times, so there is little that is familiar in it.

« Luxurious life"composed for fun. She doesn't so much reveal the secrets of cooking as she parodies pompous epic poems. This book is written entirely in verse, and it is funny - at least, so say its researchers. True, after 2300 years, few people are able to appreciate the joke about the “slightly rough ox tongue”, which is “a miracle how good it is in the summer in the vicinity of Chalkis.”

The “luxurious life”, apparently, was put on display during feasts: so that those eating the food could look into the book and laugh. The essay itself, alas, has not survived. It is known only thanks to the ancient Greek writer Athenaeus - he quotes “Luxurious Life” in his work “The Feast of the Wise,” written in 200 AD. e.

Garum, 600-800 BC. e.

Fish plus a sea of ​​salt plus nine months of waiting - this is how the oldest sauce is born

Garum is a salted fish dish. Incredibly salty. A dish that, according to some recipes, requires an amount of salt equal to the amount of fish. That is, you put a pound of fish in a large tub and add a whole pound of salt to it. The result should be, in fact, a sauce.

Detailed records of this recipe have not survived. However, writer Laura Kelly, who specializes in ancient foods, did her best and found out a lot. She managed to find notes dating back to 600-800 BC. e., where garum is called “Carthaginian sauce”. Imagine how long it took to prepare it!

Kelly did a great job of trying to restore the recipe. The writer combined the oldest evidence found with her own natural instinct and compiled detailed instructions. Cook for your health. Just be patient: the recipe comes from a completely different era, when cooks used completely different technologies. In short, traditional garum requires nine months of fermentation to mature. That's why your neighbors will be happy with the aromas emanating from your apartment!

Beer "Midas Touch", 700 BC. e.

You've probably heard the legend of Midas: they say that everything he touched turned to gold. But did you know that King Midas was real person? No, no, his hands didn’t turn anything into gold, but he really lived, and then he really died. And 2700 years later we discovered his burial.

There was no gold in the tomb - all the things buried with Midas were, oddly enough, bronze. But there was something very interesting there: the preserved remains of Midas beer.

Chemical analysis of this beer made it possible to restore its composition. It was then that it became clear: in ancient times, people drank something completely different from what we drink now. The drink was made from wine, beer and mead. You would probably only come up with such a cocktail if you were really desperate to get drunk, and you only had a couple of sips of each ingredient in the house.

However, to taste this drink, you don’t have to perform magic in the kitchen in person. American brewing company Dogfish Head recreated the recipe and began selling beer around the world. Critics call it cloudy, tasteless and stale, but it’s still worth a try: in order to feel the taste of your favorite alcoholic drink King Midas. So beloved that Midas took him with him even to the afterlife.

Babylonian tablets, 1700-1600 BC. e.

More than three thousand years ago, people had not yet cooked food in water, so even boiled meat, which is banal for us, was an exotic dish for them

Yale University owns tablets with writing that are at least 3,700 years old. They come from Babylon, and the most authentic recipes are carved on them. We are talking about very ancient dishes. In that era, it never occurred to people to cook food in liquid, so some of the recipes on these tablets are a real culinary breakthrough for their time.

The first person who had the opportunity to carefully study them was the French historian Jean Bottereau. He did not come to the most flattering opinion about Babylonian dishes and called them “a treat for the worst enemy.” The recipes, by all accounts, are simple: for example, a dish with the exotic name “Akkadia”, after translation, turned out to be a banal “meat boiled in water.”

However, many do not want to put up with such a negative assessment of Monsieur Bottero and go out of their way to refute it. For example, Brown University revised the interpretation of Jean Bottero and stated that the dishes from the plates can be prepared deliciously.

Mersu, earlier than 1600 BC. e.

If you believe ancient Sumerian recipes, the composition of the dish is simply divine! No wonder he was sacrificed to the gods

According to Jean Bottero, in modern world There are only two complete recipes that are older than the Babylonian tablets. One of them is Mersu. Bottero calls the mersu tablet a “recipe for a sweet pie,” although the tablet only says that dates and pistachios were supplied to prepare a dish called mersu.

The rest is guesswork. They are based on the name of the dish and similar recipes. In a word, exactly how the mysterious pie was prepared (and was it even a pie?) is not really known. However, there are assumptions, and you can very well use them.

The most ancient recipe, taken as a basis, came from the sacred Sumerian city of Nippur and, apparently, was a sacrifice to the gods. It was made from figs, raisins, chopped apples, garlic, vegetable oil, cheese, wine and syrup. Luxurious, right? Real jam!

You won’t be able to find a detailed and accurate recipe for such an ancient treat, but you can cook something similar!

Shashlik, 1700 BC e.

By having a picnic with barbecue, you become involved in centuries-old history!

Yes, you most likely won’t be surprised by barbecue, let alone the previous dishes.

For those who don’t know, kebab is meat skewered. A very popular dish in different corners globe. However, that is not the point. Do you know how ancient the kebab recipe is? Indisputable evidence has been found that it was eaten in Greece back in the 17th century BC. Can you imagine? Eating Greek kebab, you feel the taste that people felt 4000 years ago!

It is believed that even the Chinese kebab, called chuan, is just a variation on the Greek dish. As if Greek kebab came to the Middle Kingdom about 2000 years ago, with European traders. The Chinese tried an unfamiliar dish, added spices to it according to their own tastes and declared them their own. The contents of Chinese tombs prove the presence of chuan on the menu of the inhabitants of 220 AD.

It turns out that while savoring barbecue anywhere in the world, you are digging into the history of 4 thousand years ago.

Sumerian beer, 1800 BC. e.

Bake beer bread, brew Sumerian beer and invite your friends over for a treat. Hurry up before it goes sour!

This incredibly ancient recipe is not a recipe at all. It was discovered in a poem dedicated to Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of beer. The poem is written in surprisingly detail. She sings praises to Ninkasi, listing in detail the actions of the goddess. “Oh you, baking bappir in huge ovens, / sorting mountains of hulled grain” and everything in the same spirit. Such meticulousness of the author allowed our contemporaries to very accurately restore the recipe of the ancient Sumerian alcoholic drink.

The resulting beer is drunk through a straw and tastes very much like hard apple cider. However, unlike “The Midas Touch,” it cannot be put on mass sale. Beer must be consumed immediately after preparation, otherwise it will turn sour. So you can try it only by cooking it yourself.

Dishes from the table of Richard II, an ancient Arabic hangover cure, fig-fed pork, rough ox tongue, incredibly salty fish sauce, boiled meat with a poetic name, divine pie with cheese and fruit, kebab, King Midas cocktail or ancient Sumerian beer...

PD 1(17) Secrets of dietetics

Nutrition primitive man

dietitian of the Moscow State Budgetary Healthcare Institution "Psychiatric Hospital No. 13 of the Moscow Health Department"

Dietetics for a jealous person is intuition. It was this feeling that guided our ancestors, helped them choose the right food products (meat, fresh and frozen animal blood, fermented products etc.), learn new ways of cooking.

In turn, the expansion of the diet, the introduction of such products as animal meat, and the receipt of the required amount of animal proteins, fats and carbohydrates, vitamins and microelements from food contributed to the socio-cultural and intellectual development of mankind.

The upper limit of the described period, which marks the beginning of a new time in the history of mankind, is considered to be the beginning of the glacier's retreat, which occurred 12-19 thousand years ago. According to archaeological periodization, this is the time of the Upper Paleolithic (in common parlance - the Stone Age); according to geological periodization, this is the final period of the Würm, or Vistula, glaciation (in the territory of Eastern Europe the term “Valdai glaciation”) of the Quaternary period of the Cenozoic era is also applied to it.

Social function of food

What did Stone Age people eat, what did their food consist of, how did they prepare and store it? Unfortunately, researchers of ancient times paid little attention to such important issues. However, these areas seem extremely important.

The social function of food seems key to understanding the process of formation of ancient societies, in which many traditions and rituals of much later times, right up to modern times, have their roots. It is extremely difficult to understand them without going back to their origins. History on the issue of nutrition shows that food and the traditions associated with it contributed to the establishment public relations no less than their work activity.

Directions that reveal the topic of food consumption by ancient people can be divided into three groups. The first, the simplest, is related to what primitive people ate. The second and third are more complex: how ancient people prepared and preserved food. It is these three areas that will be discussed further.

WHAT DID PRIMITIVE PEOPLE EAT?

Evolution of diet

For quite a long period, ancient man ate fruits, leaves and grains. Confirmation of his vegetarianism is found in the remains of the teeth of ancient people and in some indirect evidence, for example, about the absence of large groups of ancient people necessary for hunting animals.

Then climate changes led to a reduction in plant foods, and people were forced to eat meat, which formed the basis of their diet in the Paleolithic era. And finally, climate changes after the retreat of the last glacier led to the fact that the human diet diversified significantly - meat and plant foods were supplemented with seafood and fish.

We propose to consider the key points in the formation of a diet ancient man from the moment when plant food became insufficient for him.

MAMMOTH HUNTING

Most often, people followed the laws of logic and practice - they got food and ate what was found and located nearby, close to their habitat - “dwelling”. It is known that ancient people tried to settle near places convenient for finding food, for example, near reservoirs where herds of animals gathered. It is believed that mammoths were one of the most important sources of food for ancient man. In terms of nutrition, the mammoth attracted humans with its mass of meat and fat, the latter, most likely, was indispensable for ancient man. Since the beginning of the melting of the glacier, which finally retreated in the 10th millennium BC, partial changes have occurred in the meat diet of ancient man. The climate becomes softer, and where the glacier has retreated, new forests and lush vegetation appear. The animal world is also changing. Large animals of previous eras are disappearing - mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, some species of musk ox, saber-toothed cats, cave bear and other species of animals large sizes. For your information, Russian scientists are currently not giving up hope of cloning an ancient representative of the elephant family. The project “Revival of the Mammoth” was created - this is a joint brainchild of the Yakut Research Institute of Applied Ecology of the North of the North-Eastern Federal University and the Korean Biotechnology Foundation Soom Biotech.

Transition to meat food

Thanks to the “improvement instinct inherent in human nature,” man began to produce tools and switched to a meat diet, notes the French philosopher, lawyer, and political figure Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in 1825 in his treatise “The Physiology of Taste.” The transition to meat food was a natural process, since “a person has too small a stomach for plant foods to provide a sufficient amount of nutrients,” proteins, fats, in fact, energy for life.

A special role in the formation social behavior in human culture was given to meat, since meat has preserved since ancient times special place in nutrition.

A lot of meat

Of course, ancient man consumed meat, and apparently a lot. Evidence of this is the significant accumulation of animal bones throughout the habitat of ancient man. Moreover, this is not a random collection of bones, since researchers find traces of stone tools on the bones; these bones were carefully processed, removing the meat, and often crushed - intramarrow, apparently, was very popular among our ancestors.

Hunting was at times supplemented by collecting berries, plant roots, and bird eggs, but this did not play a significant role. These data suggest that the assumption that ancient people exclusively meat-based food has a very real basis and that such food could be quite sufficient. If numerous nations The North could and can survive today only on meat food, which means that ancient man could survive only on meat food.

For people of the Late Paleolithic era, the meat of wild animals was the basis of their food system and existence. All these animals - wild bulls, bears, moose, deer, wild boars, goats and others - are the basis of everyday nutrition for many peoples today.

Animal blood played an important role in the diet of ancient people, which they consumed both fresh and as part of more complex dishes. Modern scientists have confirmed that with an exclusively meat diet, it is an invaluable supplier of vitamins and minerals.

Animal fat, subcutaneous and internal, was especially valued, playing a significant role in the diet of ancient people. For example, in the Far North, fat was irreplaceable and was often the only source of various substances necessary for the body.

Plant foods in the diet

Researchers primitive society At present, there is no doubt that food of plant origin and the method of obtaining it - gathering, as well as meat food and the method of obtaining it - hunting, occupied a special place in the life of ancient man.

There is indirect evidence of this: the presence of plant food residues on the teeth of fossil skulls, and the medically proven human need for a number of substances contained primarily in plant foods. Moreover, in order to switch to agriculture in the future, a person had to have an established taste for food products of plant origin.

Plant food was indispensable for primitive man. Ancient physicians and philosophers wrote many works about certain types plant food. Based on written evidence from a later era and the surviving practice of consuming certain types of wild plants, we can say that plant foods were varied.

For example, ancient authors testify to the benefits and widespread use of acorns during that period. Thus, Plutarch extols the virtues of the oak, arguing that “of all wild trees, the oak bears the best fruit.” Not only were its acorns used to make bread, but it also provided honey for drinking.

The medieval Persian physician Avicenna in his treatise also writes about the healing properties of acorns, which help with various diseases, in particular stomach diseases, bleeding, as a remedy for various poisons. He notes that there are “people who are accustomed to eating acorns, and even make bread from them, which does not harm them, and benefit from it.”

Ancient ancient authors also mention arbuta, or strawberry, as the main advantages. This is a plant whose fruits are somewhat reminiscent of strawberries. Another heat-loving wild plant, known since ancient times, is the lotus. The root of this plant, round and the size of an apple, is also edible.

Diet variety

As we see, the food of ancient man was represented by both meat products and plant products. Perhaps he quite consciously diversified his diet, supplementing the basic meat diet with plant foods. This leads to the idea that the diet of ancient man was not so monotonous. He probably had taste preferences. His food was not aimed solely at satisfying hunger.

By the end of the Paleolithic, the first “food” differentiation and the associated features of the socio-cultural development of ancient people took shape. This moment is especially important for the subsequent history of human nutrition.

Firstly, it clearly shows the relationship between food consumption and lifestyle, culture and in some respects public organization ancient human collective. Secondly, differentiation indicates the presence of preferences, a choice, and not just a simple dependence on circumstances.

Understanding the benefits and harms

More and more new types of food products appeared in the human diet. How did ancient people determine the benefits or harms of food?

This happened in stages. With the advent of fire, a variety of diets arose, especially meat and fish. Then a person developed the concept of taste, what is tasty and what is not tasty. Then data appeared from practical life, purely intuitively, and then consciously, what is useful and what is harmful. For example, people consumed fresh blood without any understanding, but it saved their lives. We can say that intuitive concepts about “vitaminology” have appeared.

Blood instead of salt

An important issue that needs to be addressed when talking about the nutrition of prehistoric humans concerns salt consumption. Primitive people had no need for salt and, most likely, did not use it.

Before the transition to agriculture with a predominance of plant foods in his diet, man was content with the salt that he received from the fresh blood of animals. The blood of consumed animals contains a sufficient amount of essential natural microelements and minerals.

Consumption of fresh blood and raw meat by primitive people it was necessary even after man mastered fire and learned to cook with it, since cooked meat does not have a sufficient amount of natural salt substitutes.

Numerous testimonies of Russians and foreign travelers of the past, they say that the indigenous inhabitants of the North of Russia, engaged in hunting, did not know salt until the twentieth century. Thus, the “paired” blood of animals northern peoples revered as a delicacy. But they did not use salt and even felt disgust for it.

But the further south you go, the greater the need for salt. Firstly, this is due to the significant amount of plant foods consumed in the south. A Secondly, living in a hot climate itself forces the body to consume more salt.

E501 - heritage of ancestors

In ancient times, salt was obtained from the ash of burning plants and evaporating salt from spring salt water. The substance obtained by burning plants became widespread in later eras. It is called potash or potassium carbonate, currently registered as a food additive E501 (approved for use by TR CU 029/2012). Potash is a good natural preservative, and it was often used to replace salt in cases where it was not possible to obtain it.

With the transition of man to agriculture, the most ancient sources and substitutes for salt were not enough. The so-called Neolithic Revolution, among other things, also meant the end of the “salt-free” existence of man, who was forced to begin searching for ways to find and obtain salt for his needs.

Domesticated herbivores could not exist without salt, so obtaining salt in large quantities became a vital necessity for humans.

COOKING OF THE PALEOLITHIC ERA

Piping hot

It was also necessary for humans to discover new methods of cooking - “cooking”, if this word can be applied to a person of the Paleolithic era. As a result, food became more satisfying and plentiful. It became possible to eat all parts of the animal that were previously thrown away, that is, people began to use the results of extraction more rationally. Human influence on food to transform it began to be of a conscious nature, and was not an use of the situation.

Regarding the methods of preparing food, archaeological and later ethnographic data are sufficient to restore an objective picture:

• simple roasting of meat over an open fire;
• roasting meat in ash;
• roasting meat on coals, in skins, in leaves, clay, in its own shell;
• cooking over hot coals;
• cooking meat by pressing it between hot stones;
• cooking in dishes made from animal skins, parts of their bodies (for example, stomach, gall and bladder), hollowed out wood, woven from different parts plants - bark, stems, branches of vessels, natural vessels - shells, skulls, horns.

Archaeological data indicate the presence various types ovens for cooking food in the Late Paleolithic era:

• cooking in dug holes in the ground with a fire lit on top;
• cooking in holes dug in the ground, where a fire was first lit and after the fire burned out, the ashes were raked to the walls, and food was laid out on the cleared bottom for cooking;
• pits are ovens lined with stones.

The bones of the animals themselves often served as fuel for fires, especially in winter, when it was more difficult to obtain wood in cold regions, as well as in those regions where there was a shortage of wood.

Conscious transformation of food, in addition to the physiological benefits of better absorption of nutrients, also affected physical development person, and this could not but lead to the development of a taste for food, the desire to diversify it for pleasure.

STORAGE OF PRODUCTS

Delicacies of the Ancients

The oldest and the simplest way processing food without the use of any additional devices is associated with its fermentation and fermentation. Moreover, initially this happened without the addition of salt or other reagents that provoked and intensified the process. This method of cooking led to softening and improving its taste, increasing the shelf life of products, even turning inedible into edible. This method of cooking was very common among primitive tribes; meat, fish, and plants were prepared this way.

Everything is suitable for fermentation: herbs, meat, individual parts of animals, fish, even animal blood. Of course, archaeological traces of fermentation of products in primitive era you won't find it. But the fact that this method of food procurement has been preserved among many peoples of the world is hardly accidental.

In Russia, where there was a shortage of fresh vegetables and fruits in most regions for quite a long period, the method of fermenting food products was mastered. The famous sauerkraut is an indispensable source of vitamins in the Russian village throughout almost the entire year, as well as pickled cucumbers, beets, apples, berries, green herbs and other plants remain on our table to this day.

To be fair, let’s say that fermenting fish, for example, is common among many peoples - not only in the Far North and Scandinavia. In Russia, this method of cooking was widespread among the Pomors, who fermented fish in barrels until completely softened. Thus, the fish was not only preserved for a long time, but also received additional beneficial properties.

Shark meat is prepared in the same way in Iceland. However, the health benefits of this dish are questionable - the product contains ammonia and smells strongly of it.

In a word, fermentation is a simple technology, the absence of any special devices or additional complex ingredients, even salt, the maximum affordable way cooking for ancient man.

Technologies for centuries

Another very common way of preserving food, inherited from our ancestors, is freezing.

In ancient times, they were also involved in food canning: there were pits around ancient dwellings, which could also be used as a kind of hermetic containers - “canned food”.

Other methods of food processing known to us were widely used - drying and drying meat, fish and plants.

All of the above-mentioned methods of cooking food: on fire, in something like ovens, in holes dug in the ground, etc., are quite simple and do not require special vessels.

The “gastronomic” fate of man

Of course, modern knowledge about the nutrition of ancient man is very limited. More extensive interdisciplinary work remains to be done to study this issue, especially since man has changed a lot over 10 thousand years. In addition, it has been scientifically proven that in the modern world, the needs for proteins, fats and carbohydrates vary from culture to culture. Now it is impossible to restore those food products that constituted the food of antiquity: domesticated animals bear little resemblance to their distant ancestors, including in chemical composition meat and fat. The same can be said about cultivated plants.

It is impossible not to take into account the changes that have occurred in water, air and other important elements of the human environment. Studying initial stage history of mankind seems extremely important for understanding what happened in the future. It was in ancient times that many of the foundations were laid that determined the further “gastronomic” destiny of man. The most important point here lies in the formation by the end of the Stone Age of a very developed food system, with certain principles of food preparation, devices for this and taste preferences. During this period, the foundations of social behavior were laid, usually related to the extraction, preparation and eating of food. After all, the relationship between members of the community, a representative of their collective with representatives of other collectives, was based to a large extent on a “food basis.”

Intuition - dietology of the ancients

If we talk about the nutritional side, then, of course, there was no need to talk about any dietetics at that time. Ancient people purely intuitively and then consciously used fresh and frozen blood and fermented foods in their diet ( sauerkraut, pickled fish products, honey drinks, fresh berries and fruits). There was no data and concepts about the composition of products (proteins, fats, carbohydrates), about its energy value (calorie content), about vitamins and minerals, due to the fact that there were no such sciences as chemistry, biochemistry, and physics. But ancient people already understood well which foods were beneficial to human health and which were harmful.

LIST OF REFERENCES USED

Kozlovskaya M.V. The phenomenon of nutrition in human evolution and history, M., 2002. - 30 p.

Kozlov A.I. Food of people, Fryazino, 2005.

Dobrovolskaya M. V. Man and his food, M., 2005.

Kolpakov E. M. Nutrition ancient population European Arctic // In: Scientific and practical conference. Nutrition and intelligence. Collection of works. - St. Petersburg. — 2015. — p. 29-33.

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At least in the sense that they had practically no choice in nutrition. This is possible now, but then any food was already happiness. And the site will now tell you about some facts regarding what and how our distant ancestors ate.

Balanced diet

Contrary to popular belief that ancient human ancestors were active meat eaters, archaeological analysis shows that they ate meat and plants in approximately equal amounts. Moreover, both Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals.

Pots

Humanity learned to create clay pots almost 18 thousand years ago. But they were used exclusively for storing food, since they were fragile and thin-walled. And the first pot, which turned out to be so strong that something could be stewed in it, was found in Libya and dates back to the year six thousand BC.

Spices

It’s one thing to prepare food somehow so as not to die of hunger. It’s quite another thing to do it in such a way that it’s delicious. And according to archaeological evidence from the year six thousand BC, it became clear that people already began to use spices. Wild mustard and garlic.

Toothpicks

Archaeologists discovered teeth dating back to the 14th millennium BC, on which traces of primitive dental intervention were clearly visible. That is, a neatly ground hole in the tooth, from which the remaining food had to be removed with a simple toothpick. By the way, contrary to popular belief, our ancestors’ teeth hurt only a little less often than ours.

Cereals

Long before the advent of settled agriculture, people actively consumed wild cereals. The oldest evidence of this is a 32,000-year-old grinding stone on which particles of primitive oatmeal were found.

Cheese

Making cheese is a complex process because it involves separating the curds and whey. And according to research, ancient people of the 5.5 millennium BC already knew how to do this. And they were extremely active in this, since cheese was much easier to digest than milk.

Turtles

In the Qesem Cave, the remains of a prehistoric turtle approximately four hundred thousand years old were discovered, which was successfully boiled in its own shell. This, of course, is not turtle soup, but it is an excellent indication that people in those days preferred a varied diet. By the way, these weren’t even Neanderthals yet.

We also believe that you would be interested to know that it began to develop long before the appearance of homo sapiens. The Neanderthals already understood something about treatment and diagnosis.

Since ancient times, bread in Rus' was called not only baked bread, but also grain. Rye, wheat, barley, oats are already mentioned in the most early monuments. Bread was baked “unleavened” and “leavened”. The first included unleavened bread and pancakes. The preacher said about leavened bread: “Know that the bread is perfect: there is flour like the body, and kvass is like the soul, and salt is like the mind, and water is like the spirit.” Meat was common on the tables of our ancestors. They ate beef, pork, lamb, bear meat, and hare. This is how Svyatoslav prepared food on the campaign: “... having thinly cut horse meat, or animal meat, or baked beef on coals, yadyakhu...”.

Afanasy Nikitin (15th century), who visited “beyond the three seas”, was very surprised that “... the Indians do not eat any meat, neither cowhide, nor lamb, nor chicken, nor fish, nor pork...”.

A description of the feast in one of the collections of the late 12th and early 13th centuries speaks of an abundance of meat and game dishes: “... grouse, geese, zebrafish, ripples, pigeons, chickens, hares, elen, boar, game...”.

Porridge was mentioned for the first time only in a 15th-century monument. The word “cabbage soup” is found in the second monument half XVI century: “I bought some sour steak for 8 money.” In descriptions of the 11th - 14th centuries, the expression “brew” is often found, in various combinations - with oil, without oil, with a potion, etc. The potion included aromatic herbs - dill, thyme, mint.

One of the ways to punish monks for disobedience or for violating the monastic rules was “dry eating,” which meant eating bread without brew, without seasoning. The same penalties were applied to artisans. For example, if “a bread-baker (baker) scorches the bread,” then the guilty person must make 100 bows or “dry and eat” as punishment.

Ukha was also considered a brew. In those days, this word meant “fat”, “stew”. It was good luck for the poor man to “dip his bread in his ear and spill the cook’s water.” Milk was very popular in ancient times. They drank "cow's milk", mare's milk ("Did you drink black milk... mare's milk"), sheep's milk. They ate jelly with milk: “... no matter how much you overeat, just put jelly with milk...”.

As for the drinks used in everyday life at that time, especially kvass and honey, we talk about this in the corresponding chapters.

In addition, about the food of our ancestors before Mongol invasion Archaeologists and chroniclers tell a lot of interesting things. In Rus' they baked loaves, kovrigs, gingerbreads, and “bread made with honey and poppy seeds.” As we have already said, kutya, porridge, and jelly were very common. The gastronomic canons of that time can be judged from literary and historical monuments. “The Illustration of Svyatoslav” (11th century) recommends: “In March, eat and drink sweets, but in April do not eat turnips, in May do not eat piglets...”. The menu of that time was reflected in later documents. In “Domostroy”, in the “Order from the Sovereign to the Housekeeper”, how to “cook lean and meat meals”, it is said that on the fast days one is supposed to eat sieve bread, shti, and porridge with ham, liquid or lean. On Sundays and holidays - sour pies, pancakes, milk. Holiday dishes: “smoking corrugated” - chicken sauce with “Sorochinsky millet” (rice), “smoking boneless” - sauce from boneless chicken.

At festive royal and boyar dinners, cranes, herons stuffed with porridge, hares, and swans were served. The name of Lebyazhy Lane in Moscow near the Kremlin comes from the pond where the swans of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich swam. The swans were served in sauce with slices of kalach. Delicious dishes also included pike and sterlet fish soup, fresh herring and fried with poppy seed broth, barreled whitefish, beluga fish, and pike on a platter. Fish roe was boiled in vinegar or milk of poppy seeds.

The appetizer was Zobanets peas (peeled), oatmeal, teloe (fish or meat pulp), fresh salmon with lemon, fresh cabbage with pepper, pea noodles, and steamed turnip slices.

We most of all owe the preservation of recipes for ancient Russian dishes to the Russian scientist of the late 18th century V. A. Levshin (1746-1826), whose name was immortalized by Pushkin in “Eugene Onegin.” great poet defined Levshin as a “writer on the economic side” (note to Chapter VII). In the book “Russian Cookery,” published in Moscow in 1816, Levshin published recipes for ancient Russian foods that have been preserved among the people since pre-Petrine times.

In ancient times, people were rarely obese. They had their own healthy eating, which has nothing to do with modern diets and other problems. They simply ate natural food, grown with their own hands, mainly porridge and plant products, meat, milk. Because they didn’t have hypermarkets filled with sausages and cheeses. As they say, what is grown is what is eaten. That's why they were healthy.

Regardless of nationality and climate conditions, a person will be healthy if he refuses artificially created products: chips, pizzas, cakes, food filled with sugar in abundance.

It turns out that organizing something healthy is very simple. You can borrow some recipes and concepts from the ancients and transfer them to modern life. The basis of the diet should be easy to prepare dishes from vegetables, livestock meat, fish, add fruits, grains and root vegetables.

The traditional cuisine of the Russian people has partially preserved ancient recipes. The Slavs were engaged in growing grain crops: barley, rye, oats, millet and wheat. They prepared ritual porridge from grains with honey - kutya, the rest of the porridges were cooked from flour and crushed grains. Garden crops were grown: cabbage, cucumbers, rutabaga, radishes, turnips.

They consumed different types of meat: beef, pork, and there are even some records of horse meat, but this most likely happened during the famine years. Meat was often cooked over coals; this method of baking was also found among other nations and was widespread everywhere. All these mentions date back to the 10th century.

Russian chefs honored and preserved traditions; this can be learned from old books, such as “Painting for the Royal Dishes”, monastic writings, and the dining book of Patriarch Philaret. These writings mention traditional dishes: cabbage soup, fish soup, pancakes, pies, various pies, kvass, jelly and porridge.

Basically, healthy eating in ancient Rus' was due to cooking in a large oven, which was in every home.

The Russian stove was located with its mouth towards the door so that the smoke would be ventilated from the room during cooking. When cooking, the smell of smoke remained on the food, which imparted a special taste to the dishes. Most often, soups were cooked in pots in a Russian oven, vegetables were stewed in cast iron, something was baked, meat and fish were fried in large pieces, all this was dictated by the cooking conditions. And as you know, healthy eating is based on boiled and stewed dishes.

Around the 16th century, the division of nutrition into 3 main branches began:

• Monastyrskaya (base – vegetables, herbs, fruits);
• Rural;
• Tsarskaya.

The most important meal was lunch - 4 dishes were served:

• Cold appetizer;
• Second;
• Pies.

The appetizers were varied, but mostly presented vegetable salads. Instead of soup in winter, they often ate jelly or pickle soup, and cabbage soup was served with pies and fish. They most often drank fruit and berry juices, herbal infusions; the oldest drink is considered to be bread kvass, which could be made with the addition of mint, berries, and the like.

At holidays there was often a large number of dishes; among villagers it reached 15, among boyars up to 50, and at royal feasts up to 200 types of food were served. Often holiday feasts lasted more than 4 hours, reaching up to 8. It was customary to drink honey before and after meals, and during the feast they often drank kvass and beer.

The character of the kitchen has been preserved traditional features in all 3 directions and in our time. The principles of traditional nutrition are quite consistent with the currently known rules of healthy eating.

The basis of the diet was vegetables, grains and meat; there was no large quantity sweets, there was no pure sugar at all; honey was used instead. Until a certain time, there was no tea and coffee; they drank various juices and brewed herbs.

Salt in the diet of our ancestors was also in very limited quantities due to its cost.

It is also worth noting that both the Slavs and peasants were engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding, and this is difficult physical work, so they could afford to eat fatty meat and fish. Despite the widespread belief that boiled potatoes with herbs are an original Russian dish, this is not at all true. Potatoes appeared and took root in our diet only in the 18th century.

How did the paleo diet come about?

You can dig deeper and remember that truly healthy eating existed even in the Stone Age. Did ancient people live without sandwiches and donuts? And they were strong and healthy. Nowadays the paleontological diet is gaining popularity. Its essence is to give up dairy products and cereal foods (bread, pasta).

The main argument in favor of this diet is this: the human body adapted to life in the Stone Age and, since our genetic makeup has remained virtually unchanged, food cavemen the most suitable for us.

Basic principles:

• Meat, fish, vegetables, fruits can be eaten in any quantity;
• Salt is excluded from the diet;
• You will also have to give up beans, cereals, industrial products (cookies, sweets, cakes, chocolate bars) and dairy products.

Menu for the day:

• Steamed pike perch, melon, together up to 500 grams;
• Salad of vegetables and walnuts (unlimited), lean beef or pork, baked in the oven, up to 100 grams;
• Lean beef, steamed, up to 250 grams, salad with avocado, up to 250 grams;
• Some fruit or a handful of berries;
• Carrot and apple salad, half an orange.

However, it is worth considering that such a diet is more reminiscent of than healthy, because modern people draw about 70% of their energy from cereals and dairy products.

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