By Tim Lambert
Ancient Food
Food in Ancient Egypt
For most people in ancient Egypt, food was plain and dull. The staple food of the Egyptians was bread and beer. The bread was baked outside and because of the desert sand was often blown into the dough. In time eating bread with grains of sand in it wore down people’s teeth.
In ancient Egypt as in all early civilizations, meat was a luxury and only the rich could afford to eat it frequently. Nevertheless, the Egyptians ate sheep, pigs, cows, and goats but meat often came from ducks and geese. However fish were plentiful in Egypt.
Egyptian food included many vegetables, such as marrows, beans, onions, lentils, leeks, radishes, garlic, and lettuce.
They also ate fruit like melons, dates, and figs. Pomegranates were quite expensive and were eaten mainly by the rich. The Egyptians grew herbs and spices and they made cooking oil.
Beer was made from crumbled barley bread and barley with water so it was lumpy. It was strained before it was drunk. Even so, it was still lumpy so it had to be drunk through a wooden straw with a filter. Better off Egyptians drank wine.
Food in Ancient Greece
Like Egyptians, ordinary Greeks ate plain food. They lived on a staple diet of bread (made from barley or, if you could afford it, wheat) and goat’s cheese. Meat was a luxury but fish and vegetables were plentiful. Ordinary Greeks ate pulses, onions, garlic, and olives. They also ate hen eggs. Peasants caught small birds to eat. The Greeks also ate fruit such as raisins, apricots, figs, apples, pears, and pomegranates.
Rich Greeks ate many different types of food such as roasted hare, peacock eggs, or iris bulbs in vinegar. Poor people drank mainly water. If they could afford it they added honey to sweeten it. Wine was also a popular drink. Usually, wine was drunk diluted with water.
Food in Rome
A Roman dining room was called a triclinium. The Romans ate a breakfast of bread and fruit called the ientaculum. At midday, they ate a meal called the prandium of fish, cold meat, bread, and vegetables. The main meal was called the cena and was eaten in the evening.
The Romans were also very fond of fish sauce called liquamen. They also liked oysters, which were exported from Britain. The Romans turned cooking into a fine art.
Food in the Middle Ages
Saxon women brewed beer. Another Saxon drink was mead, made from fermented honey. (Honey was very important to the Saxons as there was no sugar for sweetening food. Bees were kept in every village). Upper-class Saxons sometimes drank wine. The women cooked in iron cauldrons over open fires or in pottery vessels. They also made butter and cheese.
Saxons ate from wooden bowls. There were no forks only knives and wooden spoons. Cups were made from cow horns.
The Anglo-Saxons were fond of meat and fish. However, meat was a luxury. Ordinary people usually ate plain food such as bread, cheese, and eggs. Apart from chickens’ eggs, they ate eggs from ducks, geese, and wild birds.
After 1100 rich people ate a very good diet. They ate beef, mutton, pork, and venison. They also ate a great variety of birds, swans, herons, ducks, blackbirds, and pigeons. However, the church decreed that Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday were fast days when people were not allowed to eat meat. Rich people usually had fish ponds so they could eat pike and carp. They also ate fish caught in rivers or the sea.
On special occasions, the rich had huge feasts. The Lord and his lady sat at a table on a raised wooden platform so they could look down on the rest of the household. Often musicians entertained them while they ate. Rich people ate their food from slices of stale bread called trenchers. Afterward, they were given to the poor.
Poor people ate simple and monotonous food. For them, meat was a luxury. If they were lucky they had a rabbit or pork. They also ate lots of coarse, dark bread and cheese. They only had one cooked meal a day. In the evening they ate pottage. That was a kind of stew. It was made by boiling grain in water to make a kind of porridge. You added vegetables and (if you could afford it) pieces of meat or fish.
In the autumn peasants gathered fruit and nuts. In normal years the peasants had enough food but if there was a famine they might starve.
Chinese Food
In China, the rich ate very well. They ate grains like rice, wheat, and millet. They also ate plenty of meat including pork, chicken, duck, goose, pheasant, and dog. Vegetables included yams, soya beans, broad beans, and turnips as well as spring onions and garlic. They also ate plenty of fish. Soups were made with shark fins, bird’s nest bear paws and sea slugs.
People drank wine made from rice or millet. They also drank tea. Poor people in China ate plain food. In the South, they ate rice. In the North, they ate wheat in the form of noodles, dumplings, or pancakes.
Aztec Food
Meanwhile in Central America maize was the staple food of the Aztecs. Aztec women ground the maize into flour on a stone slab with a stone roller. It was then made into flour and baked into a kind of pancake called a tortilla. Aztec women cooked on a clay disc called a comal, which stood on stones above a fire. Also, maize was made into a kind of porridge called atole. The Aztecs ate ‘envelopes’ of steamed maize called tamales stuffed with vegetables, meat, or eggs.
The Aztecs also ate tomatoes, avocados, beans, and peppers, as well as pumpkins, squashes, peanuts, and amaranth seeds. They also ate fruits such as limes and cactus fruits.
Aztec food also included rabbits, turkeys, and armadillos. They also ate dogs. However, meat was a luxury for the Aztecs and ordinary people only ate it infrequently.
The Aztec nobles drank an alcoholic drink called octli, from fermented maguey juice. Upper-class Aztecs drank chocolate made from cocoa beans. It was flavored with vanilla and honey. Poor people drank water or sometimes an alcoholic drink called pulque.
Inca Food
The Incas lived in the highlands and lowlands of what is now Peru. In the lowlands the staple food was maize. In the highlands the main food was potatoes. Incas also ate peppers, tomatoes, and avocados. They also ate peanuts and a grain called quinoa.
Llamas and alpacas were kept for wool and for carrying loads but they sometimes provided meat. Incas also ate guinea pigs. They also fished and ate birds. However, for most Incas meat was a luxury. Incas drank a fermented drink called chicha. Ordinary Incas drank from bowls carved from gourds. Rich Incas drank from pottery vessels or even ones made from gold or silver. Poor people ate food off dishes placed on the ground. Inca nobles ate off a cloth on the ground. There were no tables.
Mayan Food
Maize was the staple food of the Mayans but they also grew beans, chilies, sweet potatoes, and squashes. The Mayans also ate fruit like papaya, watermelon, and avocados. The Mayans ate animals like deer, turkeys, dogs, peccaries (wild pigs), and a kind of rodent called an agouti. They also fished. The Mayans also kept bees for honey.
In the morning people ate a ‘porridge’ made of maize and chilies called saka. During the day they ate ‘dumplings’ made of maize dough with vegetables or meat inside them. The ‘dumplings’ were called tamales and they were wrapped in leaves from maize plants. The main meal was in the evening. People ate maize ‘pancakes’ called tortillas. They were eaten with ‘stew’ made with vegetables and (sometimes) meat. The Mayans drank an alcoholic drink called blache. Maya nobles drank chocolate.
16th Century Food
In the 16th century, rich people still ate a variety of food with a great deal of meat. However poor people usually ate dreary food. In the morning they had bread and cheese and onions. They only had one cooked meal a day. They mixed grain with water and added vegetables and (if they could afford it) strips of meat.
All classes ate bread but it varied in quality. Rich people’s bread was made from fine white flour. Poor people ate coarse bread of barley or rye.
The Tudors were also fond of sweet food (if they could afford it). However, in the 16th century sugar was very expensive so most people used honey to sweeten their food.
In the 16th century, new types of food were introduced from the Americas. Turkeys were introduced into England in about 1525. Potatoes were brought to England in the 1580s but at first, few English people ate them. Apricots were introduced from southern Europe. Meanwhile, a new vegetable reached England in the 16th century. It was called cauliflower.
In Tudor Times people often drank ale or, if they were rich, wine. From the mid-16th century, beer became common. The Tudors also drank cider and perry. Rich people liked to show off their gold and silver plates. The middle classes would have dishes and bowls made of pewter. The poor made do with wooden plates and bowls. There were no forks in Tudor times. People ate food with knives and their fingers or with spoons. Rich people had silver or pewter spoons. The poor used wooden ones.
In the 16th century, people made much of their own food. A farmer’s wife cured bacon and salted meat to preserve it. She baked bread and brewed beer. She also made pickles and conserves and preserved vegetables. Many prosperous farms kept bees for honey.
In the early 17th century people in England began eating food with forks. Meanwhile, during the 17th century, new kinds of food were introduced into England (for the rich) such as bananas and pineapples.
18th Century Food
Food changed little in the 18th century. Despite the improvements in farming food for ordinary people remained plain and monotonous. For them, meat was a luxury. A poor person’s food was mainly bread and potatoes. In the 18th century drinking tea became common even among ordinary people.
19th Century Food
In the early 19th century the working class lived on plain food such as bread, butter, potatoes, and bacon. Butcher’s meat was a luxury. However, the diet of ordinary people greatly improved in the late 19th century. Railways and steamships made it possible to import cheap grain from North America so bread became cheaper. Refrigeration made it possible to import cheap meat from Argentina and Australia. The consumption of sugar also increased. By the end of the 19th century, most people (not all) were eating a much better diet.
Meanwhile, the sugar cube was invented in Czechia in 1843. Sugar lumps became available in Britain in 1875.
The first fish and chip shops in Britain opened in the 1860s. By the late 19th century they were common in British towns and cities.
In the late 19th century canned food first became widely available. The rotary can opener was invented in 1870 by William Lyman. Furthermore, in 1869 margarine, a cheap substitute for butter was invented by a Frenchman named Hippolyte Mege-Mouries. Meanwhile, several new biscuits were invented in the 19th century including the Garibaldi (1861) and the cream cracker (1885). The Digestive biscuit was invented in 1892 by Alexander Grant.
Meanwhile, the first chocolate bar was made in 1847. Milk chocolate was invented in 1875. The first recipe for potato crisps (aka potato chips) appeared in a book by Dr. William Kitchiner published in 1817.
A man named Gail Borden patented condensed milk in 1856. John Meyenberg patented evaporated milk in 1884.
The first refrigeration machine was invented in 1805 by Oliver Evans. During the 19th century methods of refrigeration improved and in 1882 refrigerated meat was brought from New Zealand to Britain for the first time. Fred W Wolfe invented the refrigerator for use in the home in 1913.
The first electric oven went on sale in the USA in 1891. They went on sale in Britain in 1893. By 1939 there were about 1 1/2 million electric ovens in Britain and about 9 million gas ones. The first electric toaster was invented in Britain in 1893 by Crompton and Co. The pop-up toaster was invented by Charles Strite in 1919.
Food in the 20th Century
Ordinary people ate better food in the 20th century. In 1900 some families sat down to a meal of a plate of potatoes and malnutrition was common among poor children. Food was also expensive. In 1914 a working-class family in Britain spent about 60% of their income on food. By 1937 food was cheaper and they only spent about 35% of their income on food.
Moreover, sweets were a luxury in 1914. They became much more common in the 1920s and 1930s. Meanwhile, new biscuits were introduced in the 20th century including custard creams in 1908 and bourbons in 1910.
Food was rationed in Britain during World War II. In January 1940 butter, sugar, bacon, and ham were rationed. Tea was also rationed from 1940. Rationing became much more severe in 1942. From July 1942 sweets were rationed. Instead of real eggs, many people had to make do with ‘dried eggs’ imported from the USA.
Food rationing lasted in Britain for several years after the Second World War. Tea rationing lasted until 1952. The rationing of sweets and eggs ended in 1953. However, meat and cheese were rationed until 1954.
Ordinary people began to eat a wider variety of food in the late 20th century. That was partly because fridges, freezers, and later microwave ovens became common. (In Britain microwave ovens first became common in the 1980s). Chinese and Indian takeaways and restaurants became common. So, in the 1980s, did hamburgers and pizza chains.
Meanwhile, several new types of food were invented in the 20th century. People had been eating ice cream for centuries but the ice cream cone was patented in 1903. Choc-ices went on sale in the USA in 1921. The ice lolly was patented in 1923. Sliced bread was first sold in the USA in 1928. Spam was invented in 1936. Instant coffee was invented in 1901. Fish fingers went on sale in 1955. Meanwhile, in 1954 Marc Gregoire developed the non-stick frying pan.
Rice Krispies were introduced in 1928. Shreddies went on sale in Canada in 1939. They went on sale in Britain in 1953. Frosties went on sale in the USA in 1952 (1954 in Britain). Sugar Puffs went on sale in Britain in 1954.
In 1994 the first genetically modified food was introduced in the USA (a type of tomato).
Food in the 21st Century
In 2020 Singapore became the first country to approve the sale of cultured meat.
Last revised 2024