7 Foods That Are Way Older Than You Think
In our fast-paced modern world, where trendy superfoods and innovative culinary fusions are constantly emerging, it’s easy to overlook the rich history behind many of our everyday meals. But the foods we consume daily often carry with them stories that span centuries, if not millennia. These humble dishes may have witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations or the births of revolutionary technological advancements, without ever really changing their basic nature.
Here are seven foods that are much older than we might think — foods that are not only part of culinary history, but also part of the story of human civilization itself.
Noodles
Noodles, a staple in cuisines worldwide, have a history spanning thousands of years. While many people associate pasta with Italy, the oldest known noodles were actually discovered in China. In 2005, scientists uncovered this ancient food, dating back 4,000 years, at the Lajia archaeological site along the upper reaches of the Yellow River in northwest China. The thin, delicate, yellow noodles resembled the traditional lamian noodles (pulled noodles) still common in northern China today. The discovery proved that people have been enjoying noodles for millennia. Since then, of course, the food has spread across the globe, be it in the form of Italian spaghetti or Japanese ramen.
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Tofu
Today, tofu — also known as bean curd — tends to divide opinion. To some, it’s a nutritious, low-fat protein source that serves as a key ingredient in many vegetarian and vegan diets. To others, it’s a tasteless, rubbery mass of crushed, boiled soybeans. Love it or loathe it, tofu has been around for a long time, and various theories exist as to its invention. Some say it was developed by Liu An, a Chinese scholar and ruler of the Huainan Kingdom who lived from 179 to 122 BCE. Another theory argues that it was invented accidentally some time before 600 CE, when a careless cook, probably in northern China, seasoned a pureed soybean soup with unrefined sea salt, causing the whole thing to curdle and produce a tofu-like gel. Neither theory is based on hard evidence, however. Historians tend to agree that the use of tofu dates back to the Han dynasty, from 206 BCE to 220 CE.
Pancakes
This beloved breakfast food has been sizzling on griddles for longer than you might think. Evidence suggests that pancakes — flat cakes made from batter and then fried — were prepared and consumed by our prehistoric ancestors. Analysis of starch grains on 30,000-year-old grinding tools indicates that Stone Age cooks made flour to create a primitive form of flatbread — a kind of proto-pancake. The first written records of pancakes come from the ancient Greeks and Romans, who sweetened pancakes with honey. We also know the British ate pancakes during the Elizabethan era; their version was often very rich and may have included rose water, sherry, eggs, ale, or butter (or any combination thereof). Shakespeare himself mentions pancakes in his play As You Like It, but these were traditional pancakes eaten on Shrove Tuesday (the day before Ash Wednesday in the Christian faith), which were made with beef and dipped in mustard.
Cheesecake
Today, cheesecake is a common option on modern dessert menus, yet its origins can be traced back to classical antiquity. The earliest known cheesecake recipe — or something akin to cheesecake — comes from the Greek physician Aegimus, who wrote about making cheesecakes in the fifth century BCE. (Some historians have suggested that cheesecake was even served to athletes at the first-ever Olympic Games in Greece, as far back as 776 BCE.) The ancient Romans later adopted and adapted the recipe. Cato the Elder’s farming manual, De Agri Cultura, written in 160 BCE, features several recipes for cheesecakes, including a sweet version called savillum and a savory cheesecake called libum.
Popcorn
Americans consume around 14 billion quarts of popcorn annually. But popcorn predates movie theaters and microwaves by thousands of years. Archaeological digs in Peru have revealed that people were eating popcorn as far back as 6,700 years ago. In North America, meanwhile, an ear of popcorn found in a cave in New Mexico was dated to be some 5,600 years old. Popcorn was an important part of the Aztec and Inca diets, and many European explorers first came upon this now-ubiquitous treat through contact with Indigenous peoples in the U.S. Around the year 1612, for example, early French explorers through the Great Lakes region noted that the Iroquois often popped their corn.
Yogurt
The precise origins of yogurt are unknown, but we do know that this fermented dairy product has been part of the human diet for millennia. According to some historical accounts, yogurt was discovered accidentally thousands of years ago by nomadic herdsmen. These nomads carried milk in pouches made of animal skins, which contained naturally occurring enzymes that caused the milk to ferment, inadvertently producing an edible food — yogurt — that had the benefit of lasting longer than milk. Some of the first recorded accounts of yogurt — as well as its health benefits — are found in Indian Ayurvedic scripts from around 6000 BCE. The word itself is believed to have come from the Turkish word yoğurmak, which means to thicken, coagulate, or curdle.
Bread
Everyone knows bread has been around for a long time, but it may be surprising to learn that bread is so old, it even predates the advent of agriculture. Researchers have found evidence that prehistoric hunter-gatherers engaged in bread production using wild cereals as far back as 14,400 years ago — predating the development of farming by at least 4,000 years. Archaeologists discovered the charred remains of flatbreads at an archaeological site in northeastern Jordan. When analyzed, these remains revealed that ancient humans had collected the wild ancestors of now-domesticated cereals such as barley, einkorn, and oat, which they then ground, sieved, and kneaded prior to cooking.
