What Ancient
Civilizations Ate

 
The Summerians(4000-2000 BC):

Raw Materials: barely wheat, millet, chickpeas (garbanza beans),
lentils, turnips, onions, garlic, leeks, cucumbers, water cress, hogs,
chickens and some beans.

The Sumerians may have been the first people to brew beer.

A typical meal for a common family: barely paste or bread, beans,
onions, cheese, & beer.

The Egyptians (4000-1100 BC):

Raw Materials: barely wheat, millet, chickpeas (garbanza beans),
lentils, turnips, onions, garlic, leeks, cucumbers, water cress, hogs,
chickens and some beans.

Typical meal: bread beer, barely paste, and occasionally fish and
dates. Meat was rarely eaten.

The Greeks (1500-300 BC):

Raw Materials: barely wheat, grapes, figs, onions, leeks, olives,
greens, beans, sheep, goats, beef, & artichokes.

The Greeks, although they probably did not invent the product,
were the best wine makers of ancient times.

Typical Meal: barely paste or bread, cheese, olives, figs, grapes,
wine or water.

Generally meat was served only on special occasions.

The Romans (500 BC-476 AD):

Raw Materials: barely wheat millet, fish, olives, figs, eggs, goats,
sheep, cattle, grapes, cheese, chickens, cabbage, leeks.

The Romans were fond of eggs and probably invented the omelet.
But it was not recorded until 1100 France.

Typical Meal: Breakfast was most often bread ducked in wine.
Other meals included barely paste bread olives, cheese, olive oil,
grapes, water, wine.

Special Sauce: The Romans were fond of a sauce they called
liquamen. Recipe: take several pounds of fish, cover with thick layer
of salt, seal in earthenware jar, let stand in sun for three months The
result was a clear fermented liquid which rose to the top where it
was skimmed off and strained through cloth. The Romans used it in
cooking and as a sauce for dipping bread in or pouring over cooked
grains, meals, or beans. Imagine the smell.

Miscellaneous:

The most common sweetener used by ancient civilizations was honey.

A basic staple food of all civilizations was something called barely
paste. Roughly, it was barely with the rough inedible husk removed.
The grain was lightly toasted then ground into about the consistency
of corn meal. It was then mixed with water, salt, and perhaps some
other seasonings, into a paste. The toasting it received before
grinding was all the cooking it received. People ate this for
thousands of years.

Because the main ingredient in their diets was grain, and because
that grain was ground using stone, most ancient peoples had their
teeth worn down to the gums by middle age due to eating the
powdered stone that mixed with grain during grinding.

Olive oil was more widely used than butter. Butter spoiled too
quickly, milk was better used to make cheese, which lasted longer.

Note: The meals listed above were for the common person.
Someone of great prominence or wealth (such as a pharaoh, king or wealthy merchant) might dine a little better, with meat being served
more often. But daily consumption of meat, fish, of poultry was
almost unheard of.

BookMarks
For Further Consideration

A Boke of Gode Cookery-Medieval recipes

Middle Ages Cooking and Herbalism

100 Years of Food-History of 20th Century food



History of the Potato

History of the French Fry

Wine History

Native American Foods

History of Foods in Space

Coke cola links

History of Chocolate

Plants,Herbs and Oils throughout History

A Taste of the Ancient World

Bugs as Food

Ice Cream Products

Orgins of Southern Food

Candy History

History of BBQ

Geek Food

Global Toasts

An FYI

Back to the Moat





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