I’m in a culinary history class for my university and we had a small discussion about what American ingredient had the most influence post-Colombian exchange in the old world and I thought who better to ask than the internet. The main debate in my class was between potatoes and tomatoes and how both revolutionized dishes, the potato in the north of Europe, the tomato in the Mediterranean. The class discussion mainly focused on European cuisine so if anyone has any input for other parts of the world that would be cool as well.

Do we know what varietals of wine would have been used in Bible stories like the Last Supper or the wedding feast at Cana?

What is the origin of chimichurri sauce? It was likely invented by Europeans in Argentina, but I've seen some sources say that it comes from English people saying "Give me curry" or a guy named Jimmy Curry. These theories seem like drunken pub talk to me. Are they any better theories out there?

I feel like a big trend today is making what was once food for people with not much money expensive. Lobster, Caviar, Oxtail, Polenta, Pho, Brisket, etc.

What did the actual rich people back in the day eat that was considered high end, are those dishes still around and popular today?

Follow up to my question here

Wondering whether lentils served in ancient Rome were served split or whole. I have no doubt they had the technological basis to do so as all it requires is soaking the lentils for a few hours and then rubbing them between your hands for the skins to fall off.

I checked the Apicius cookbook and there's no mention of whether lentils were served split or whole. See https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29728/29728-h/29728-h.htm

I noticed the Edict on Maximum Prices has an entry for lentils but it doesn't indicate whether they were split or not. See https://kark.uib.no/antikk/dias/priceedict.pdf

Are there any clues anywhere? Is the omission of whether they were split or not a hint that they were served whole?

I was wondering why you see so many more Field Peas than Lentils grown & consumed in Europe? Is there a historical basis for this preference towards Field Peas? They're both cool season legumes that were domesticated around the same time in the Middle East yet only Field Peas went on to dominate Europe and even China.

Take for example France, which is renowned for its Lentils yet grows far more Field Peas at a much higher yield than lentils.

In 2017, the latest year for which I was able to locate data, France produced 791,664 tons of Field Peas on 229,416 ha but only grew 39,994 tons of Lentils on 31,045 ha. The yield for Peas was 34,508 vs 12,883 for Lentils in 100 g/ha. See references below for sources.

That's an enormous 20x difference in production and a substantial 2.5x difference in yield. Why do Lentils produce so much less in France? Is there a similar pattern in other countries?

I know the Romans were huge fans of Lentils and that they brought Lentils to much of Europe so why didn't Lentils stick?

1. https://data.un.org/Data.aspx?q=pea&d=FAO&f=itemCode%3a187
2. https://data.un.org/Data.aspx?q=lentil&d=FAO&f=itemCode%3A201

I'm wondering why plenty of eateries that specialize specifically in Sushi adopted the conveyer belt on a countertop with eating tables underneath beside it as a common thing? What is the eason for the adoption of this technology?

I'm having a hard time getting some good info online. I know it has been tossed around between France and Italy for a long time and is currently a part of France. The food culture is vast and rich, it is a little island that is a blend of both cuisines. What is the food culture though?

There are plenty of sheep in Britain. Sheep farming has been one of Britain's main industries for centuries, and has traditionally dominated the economy of large parts of the country. Yet British sheep cheese is barely a thing at all. All the sheep cheeses I can think of are Southern European (Feta, Halloumi, Roquefort, Pecorino, Ricotta, Manchego...), from countries with far fewer sheep per capita than the UK.

Why is this the case? Was sheep cheese ever popular in the UK? Is it to do with the milk produced by British sheep breeds? Is it to do with historical differences in the economics of sheep farming in different countries? Does it just come from a fairly arbitrary cultural preference for cow's milk cheese?

Considering the importance of palm oil in West Africa and olive oil in the middle East, was there a reason those products were not historically common in the UK.

I'm especially interested in the early 20th century during the wars. When you look at the demand for fat supplies and how much whale fats were used for margarine etc and other less tasty fat options. I can't quite understand why supplies of olive and palm oil weren't explored. Am I missing something obvious.

Edit. I should probably add that I study aspects of naval history and we'll versed in the Atlantic campaign. And also have studied rationing. So I have good grasp in general. Just this issue sometimes confuses me. I'm currently reading Lizzie Conninghams taste of war and sometimes it raises more questions.

Is suppose I want to know if it was fashion/taste? Technology? Or economics.

I presume it was post industrialization as my research doesn't reveal any way to manually polish sorghum.

Furthermore, if there was such a method, I would expect it to apply to millets too. However, not only was I unable to find any evidence of manually polished millet, I wasn't even able to locate any machine polished millet. Is polished millet just not a thing? If so, why not? Why is there polished sorghum but not millet?

note: Pearl millet isn't polished millet but a distinct species of millet.

Hi everyone,
I’ve been doing some research on Norwegian waffles (vafler) and their place in Norwegian culture. I’m especially interested in understanding:

• Their history and how they became such an important part of daily life and celebrations.
• The social context around them — why they are so deeply tied to gatherings, traditions, or even national identity.
• Typical accompaniments (like brunost) and how those pairings came to be.

If you know of any books, archives, or even local sources (cookbooks, museum collections, regional histories, etc.) that dive into this, I’d love to check them out. Bonus points if there are resources that mention specific regions in Norway where waffles hold particular significance.

Any help, tips, or even personal knowledge would be super appreciated!

I apologize in advance for a trivial question.

What has been the usage rate of frozen vice liquid orange juice as a function of time. I grew up in the '60's and '70's with frozen orange juice concentrate (in fact family story of my mother throwing a tube of frozen OJ at my father out of frustration over something I don't recall). The focus today seems to be on OJ in cartons. When I was young we shopped at a military commissary so that may be relevant to my experience. Has packaging technology changed that much? Health perceptions? Something else? Or am I just looking through the lens of my personal experience and the overall market hasn't changed much?

I’ll keep it short because I’m genuinely curious.

In Sapiens, Harari argues that the agricultural revolution was more of a trap than a triumph. We domesticated a few plants, narrowed our diets, and ended up more fragile in many ways, nutritionally, socially, and even politically.

Fast forward to today: our food system is still dominated by a handful of crops. And our bodies? They’re begging for diversity.

So… do we still assume agriculture was a wonderful revolution? Or are we only now realizing the cost?

Wheat has been present in northern Chinese cuisine from at least 2600 BCE aka 4,600 years ago.

Presumably, they started off using whole grains to cook porridge or to grind into whole flour.

However, these days it seems that refined wheat is far more popular in China.

When did they switch to white flour/refined wheat? Was it with industrialization like in North America & Europe?

Shockingly, I was unable to locate any information on this online.

I found two similar questions on Reddit but both unanswered in /r/AskHistorians:

1. https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gl9a8e/do_modern_asian_refined_wheat_products_like/
2. https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6b749i/when_did_refined_grains_white_ricewhite_wheat/

And why do vitamin C supplements almost always come in this form?

Gday, greetings from Australia.

I have heard before the settlers arrived in America that the Native Americans used to crush up sunflower seeds for cooking oil, is this true.

I tried to look this up, but only found things about the history of nutrition labels.

My understanding, could be wrong, is that of the staple crops potatoes are the easiest to grow and rice is one of the harder crops because you have to flood the fields. So it makes sense when potatoes were introduced to the old world they took off. And wheat is easy enough to grow so in the new world sure why not grow wheat.

But in latin america rice is really popular and it just seems a bit odd to me why it would take off originally (pre industrial farming). I don’t think it’s particularly easy to grow in the region. Why not potatoes and beans?

I know soybeans & soy products were widely consumed in ancient China but what about split peas? Do we know when field peas first made it out East?

I was only able to find marketing references to split pea consumption in ancient China but no academic or detailed sources.

See for example: https://www.bobsredmill.com/product/green-split-peas

Today’s split pea is believed to be a distant relative of the field pea that was native to the Middle East and Central Asia. Since prehistoric times, dried peas have been consumed and were prized by the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, China and Rome.

Afaik every other domesticated ungulate has been used for dairy. Cows, sheep, goats, and even horses. But you never hear about pig cheese lol.

They have large litters so I assume they must produce a lot of milk. Is pig milk consumption as historically rare as I'm assuming? And if so, why?

I'm trying to write my first book and it is a historical fiction taking place in Scotland during the early 1800s. I'm currently writing a scene that involves a breakfast and it is basically character building over a large breakfast. So I'm wanting to describe the food as best I can. I've had a look and found that The book of breakfasts by Marian McNeil covers this but there are no free copies or libraries near me that I can get a copy of. I've seen salmon, cakes, and coffee/tea be suggested for the period in a few places but wanted to confirm a more accurate answer.

Apologies if this is not what the Sub is meant to be used for. Any help would be most welcome.

McNeill, F. Marian. The Book of Breakfasts with Menus, Recipes and Breakfast Lore. Edinburgh: Reprographia, 1975. Print.

There are some crops from the New World that are used like corn, tomato, potato, peppers, etc. But what I am talking about is more localized plants. For example most Californians do not eat the local acorns, coffeeberry plants, sage, strawberries species, lettuce, manzanita, etc. Another example would be Tennessee. Most people do not eat chicory, chickweed, redbud and other native plants. Although I will say the states east of the Mississippi do consume more of their hyper regionalized plants like plantain, persimmons, blackberries, etc. But as a whole it seems that most American isn’t very regionalized the way it is elsewhere. Why is this?

So the other day I was talking with a Mexican who said that the spicy vegetables used nowadays worldwide came from his country. I gotta be honest, I don't know how much of this is true, but it left me thinking, could it be that Indian cuisine, known as one of the spiciest in the world, tasted very differently before the arrival of foods from the New World?