THE HISTORY OF FOOD

Have you ever wondered if there’s more to history than dates and major events, what some of the stories and daily lives of regular people looked like? Do you need a reminder that history is populated with real people, who had lives just like we do? Come take a sweeping journey back into the past … Continue reading "HOF Episode 27: A Day in the Life (of a Peasant Farmer)"

When Britain industrialized in the late 1700s and the rest of the western world soon followed, humans were transformed to a degree not seen for 10,000 years when we first settled into farming life. But it wasn’t some simple flick of the switch, where some entrepreneurs decided to build some factories and invent the modern … Continue reading "HOF Episode 26: Factory Food (Industrial Revolution)"

Who founded America? George Washington? Thomas Jefferson? America had founding fathers alright, but they aren’t the ones you’re thinking of. Would you believe that African slaves and Indians were the true minds and bodies behind birthing America’s culture? It’s all true. Come listen to the story of how American ingredients , cooked by African Slaves, … Continue reading "HOF Episode 25: The Soul of American Cooking (Colonial USA)"

Is good cooking defined by ingredients, skill in preparation, style of cuisine, or is it something even more fundamental and deeply human? We left out of Africa all the way back in Episode 1, and rarely looked back, but in this episode we finally return to the vast continent, specifically south of the Sahara desert, … Continue reading "HOF Episode 24: The Feeling of Fullness (Sub Saharan Africa)"

Save this episode to go with your morning coffee. Sip that dark and bitter brew, maybe with cream and/or sugar, maybe not, and listen along as you learn of coffee’s origins, how it came to Europe, displaced alcohol and sobered everyone up, and how it would foster revolutions in finance, science, and philosophy. Thanks to … Continue reading "HOF Episode 23: The Great Sobering (Coffee and Colonialism)"

The “American Melting Pot” is far older, larger, and even more diverse than most people imagine. After Columbus reconnected Eurasia and Africa with the Americas, the world began to change in ways it never had before. Europeans, Africans, Asians, and American Indians began migrating out of their landmasses of origin. Some movement was voluntary, much … Continue reading "HOF Episode 22: Melting Pots and Fusion Foods (Globalization)"

What does it mean for one culture to “steal” from another? How often does it happen? Is it a bad thing when it does? Listen to explore those questions and more, as we visit the Far East once again, this time even farther east. . . to Japan and Korea. Also known. . . by … Continue reading "HOF Episode 21: Umami and Kimchi (Japan and Korea)"

For millions of years, the two main hemispheres of planet earth were separated by an impassible ocean. North/South America and Eurasia/Africa, two divergent ecosystems, food chains, and human civilizations. . . Then one day in 1492, a guy named Columbus passed that impassible ocean, and began the momentous and tumultuous process of bringing the Old … Continue reading "HOF Episode 20: The Columbian Exchange"

Did Europeans suddenly wake up one day, tired of Medieval living, and decide to change course, to rebirth themselves in modern ideas and start creating good art? Or, as usual, is the story something much more complicated, gradual, and subject to the influence of other cultures from outside? Hmm, I wonder?… Come listen for an … Continue reading "HOF Episode 19: Europe Wakes Up (The Renaissance)"

How did Europe get out of its dark ages? It’s not a wholesome story, as the secret to their success was mainly the conquest and plunder of other peoples’ luxury goods, namely their foods and spices. Classic Europe. Would it surprise if I told you that the Black Death did a lot to help as … Continue reading "HOF Episode 18: Crusades and Plagues (later Middle Ages)"

What makes humans special? What makes us rise above all the other animals across the planet, to discover and make great things? Before you answer with the obvious, ” our big brains and intelligence”, take a listen to this episode, for the surprising truth behind humanity’s success. In short, it’s not smarts that drive us, … Continue reading "HOF Episode 17: The Power of Tradition (China revisited)"

In Late Antiquity, without the Roman Empire around to control everything, forest and wilderness reclaimed Europe and its people went local. Start with that, then stir to combine with a rising Catholic Church, and you’ve got a recipe for a brand new culture, one that just might be the foundation of the modern western world. … Continue reading "HOF Episode 16: The Dark Bread Ages (Medieval Europe)"

Which ancient civilization made the most flavorful cuisine? Perhaps you could make a case for any of the cuisines and civilizations we’ve covered thus far, and no doubt each one has been best at something. But when it comes to pure, impact of flavor? Nobody beats India. Thanks to its geography, history, and available ingredients, … Continue reading "HOF Episode 15: Princes of Flavor (India)"

In what capacity can food serve a spiritual need? The answer is a whole lot! A little over two thousand years ago, the way people thought about themselves and the Universe was beginning to change. Ancient gods, pagan rituals, and beliefs were going out of style, no longer compatible with new, more modern ways of … Continue reading "HOF Episode 14: People of the Book"

Many great moments in civilization happened when cultures of the Far East, interacted with those in the West.  Through all those moments, there was one region which sat between them, one which was always happy to be in the middle, mediating and facilitating exchange of culture, goods, and cusine. That region is Iran! Persia, Parthia, … Continue reading "HOF Episode 13: Empire of Shepherds (Iran)"

Welcome to the second Season of the History of Food! To kick things off, we’ll be walking ground we’ve tread before. The history of pastoral nomadism, that is the animal herders in Europe, Asia, and Africa, has frequently come up in our studies of urban civilizations, but until now, we’ve always looked at them from … Continue reading "HOF Episode 12: Herders of the Old World"

Rome. Probably what most people think of when they think “Ancient World”. In this episode, however, we discover that in terms of the culinary, the Roman Republic and then Empire was most distinguishable as a lens into the diets and cooking of the wider ancient World before it. Come listen to find out more. Music … Continue reading "HOF Episode 11: Bread and Circuses, but Mostly Bread (Rome)"

Of all the food discoveries made across the ancient world, few are more impressive than the domestication and then nixtamlization of maize (corn) in the lands that would one day be called Mexico and Central America. Mesoamerica is one of just three places where urban civilization evolved from scratch. Come listen, and be amazed how … Continue reading "HOF Episode 10: Hombres de Maíz (Mesoamerica)"

What does it mean to be a raw (barbarian) person vs. a cooked (civilized) person? To find out, our culinary and historical journey heads east. Far East, to the lands of the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. Ancient China. Guzheng music for this episode performed by   musician Bei Bei in Los Angeles, California and by Sound of … Continue reading "HOF Episode 9: Raw and Cooked (China)"

No civilization lasts forever.  In fact, it’s kind of a miracle any starts at all.  The conditions must be exactly right for people to come together into urban environments.  So like an overextended, teetering Jenga tower, it’s not if but when the whole system will fall, as it did again and again across history. Come … Continue reading "HOF Episode 8: Hunger and Collapse (Mesopotamia and Bronze Age)"

Here we are at last, on the shores of Greece. It’s a brief retelling of Aegean history, a story you’ve heard before, though perhaps not from a chef’s point of view.  Come for the history, stay for the foods that made them special.  By mastering the sea, the olive, and the grape vine, the Greeks … Continue reading "HOF Episode 7: Age of the Aegean (Greece)"

Egypt needs no introduction.  But here’s one anyway! The ancient people along the Nile built a civilization out of grain like Mesopotamia, but diverged on their own unique path, transforming their food surplus into the greatest monuments the world has ever seen.  An overview of Ancient Egyptian history in its entirety, through the lens of … Continue reading "HOF Episode 6: Lands of the Nile (Egypt)"

Sumer was the oldest urban civilization, but not by much.  Second place followed quickly, and incredibly was across the ocean in South America. People on the coast of modern Peru kickstarted a multi-millennium wave of Andean civilization, passing down a legacy of culture, religion, and cuisine all the way down to the Incas, and do … Continue reading "HOF Episode 5: Un Otro Mundo (Andean Civilization)"

We’ve done it. We’ve finally crossed into the realm of written records and recorded history.  Join me on an odyssey going back 6,000 years ago, when the Sumerians of what is today southern Iraq, took a mega-surplus of grain and transformed it directly into wealth and power.  In the process, they managed to invent cities, … Continue reading "HOF Episode 4: How to Turn Food into Wealth (Sumer)"

Come travel around the world and follow the Neolithic cultures that spread across it, including very early farmers of Egypt, China, and Old Europe. Then come across the oceans to Mesoamerica, one of two places in the world civilization was invented from scratch, a whole society built on what became the number one crop of all time: corn.

The second episode of our History of Food concerns the greatest turning point in human history since the taming of fire. The New Stone Age, when farming was invented and our species forever changed.  What were our lives like, what were we eating, and how those two questions are interconnected.

What makes us human? Humans are just animals who know how to cook. This first episode attempts to explain what humans and our hominid ancestors have been eating for the 6 million years since we first came down from the trees, how taming fire and cooking gave us our big brains and human culture, up through the foraging days of homo sapiens hunting and gathering in the Paleolithic.