HMC501: Basics of Food Production
Cookery is defined as the art and science of preparing food for eating by
the application of heat. The practice or skill of preparing and cooking food.
HISTORY:Phylogenetic analysis suggests that human ancestors may have invented
cooking as far back as 1.8 million to 2.3 million years ago. Re-analysis of burnt bone
fragments and plant ashes from the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa has provided
evidence supporting control of fire by early humans by 1 million years ago There is
evidence that Homo erectus was cooking their food as early as 500,000 years ago.
ev idence for the controlled use of fire by Homo erectus beginning some 400,000
years ago has wide scholarly support. Archaeological evidence from 300,000 years
ago, in the form of ancient hearths, earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and flint, are
found across Europe and the Middle East. Anthropologists think that widespread
cooking fires began about 250,000 years ago when hearths first appeared.re cently,
the earliest hearths have been reported to be at least 790,000 years old
communication between the Old World and the New World in the Columbian
Exchange influenced the history of cooking. The movement of foods across the
Atlantic from the New World, such as potatoes, tomatoes, maize, beans, bell
pepper, chilipepper, vanilla, pumpkin, cassava, avocado, peanut, pecan, cashew, pi
neapple, blueberry, sunflower, chocolate, gourds, and squash, had a profound effect
on Old World cooking. The movement of foods across the Atlantic from the Old
World,suchas cattle, sheep, pigs, wheat, oats, barley, rice, apples, pears, peas, chic
kpeas, green beans, mustard, and carrots, similarly changed New World cooking. In
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, food was a classic marker of identity in
Europe. In the nineteenth-century "Age of Nationalism" cuisine became a defining
symbol of national identity.The Industrial Revolution brought mass-production,
mass-marketing, and standardization of food. Factories processed, preserved,
canned, and packaged a wide variety of foods, and processed cereals quickly
became a defining feature of the American breakfast In the 1920s, freezing
methods, cafeterias, and fast food restaurants emerged.Starting early in the 20th
century, governments issued nutrition guidelines that led to the food
pyramid (introduced in Sweden in 1974). The 1916 "Food For Young Children"
became the first USDA guide to give specific dietary guidelines. Updated in the
1920s, these guides gave shopping suggestions for different-sized families along
with a Depression Era revision which included four cost levels. In 1943, the USDA
created the "Basic Seven" chart to promote nutrition. It included the first-ever
Recommended Daily Allowances from the National Academy of Sciences. In 1956,
the "Essentials of an Adequate Diet" brought recommendations which cut the
number of groups that American school children would learn about down to four. In
1979, a guide called "Food" addressed the link between excessive amounts of
unhealthy foods and chronic diseases. Fats, oils, and sweets were added to the four
basic food groups. Most ingredients in cooking are derived from living organisms.
