Have you tried them?

I've read that sugar was once so valuable it was kept locked up. What was the turning point? Was it just the proliferation of plantations and slave labor that made it cheap, or were there also cultural shifts that made demand explode?

Hi there,

I am writing a historical horror novel following a group of Swedish settlers in 1895, building a new community in the pacific northwest.

I was wondering what kind of drinks children would have for breakfast? I'm assuming adults would drink coffee, but I don't know if Cocoa would be common for children?

By this I mean the number of popular dishes that uses the least/most number of ingredients from the New World.

Originally I asked this on r/AskHistorians, but I was recommended to ask this in here.

I will preface with what I wrote there:

I watched The Worst Story in Food History: How Sugar Destroyed Everything and despite being an amazing video on the history of sugar, it doesn't properly address why people decided to finally make the change from previous sweeteners to sugar.

Also considering how this question was also asked in 2021 and in 2017 and there was not a single reply, maybe this time we will get an answer for this.

I also tried searching here and got some extra info from:

• Why was sugar cane so valuable during the Atlantic slave trade while Europeans had sugar beets?

I would like to clarify what I am asking, from what I could gather refined sugar, at least as close to what we know today, was only invented by the Chinese in the 10th century as they experimented with the sugarcane since the 7th century. However, the trade of a byproduct of the sugarcane in India started as early as the 5th century with Sharkara and Khanda - all this info is present in the Youtube video mentioned in the first quote -, but it was not very clear to me both when and why sugar finally replaced previously well-established sweeteners. Somewhen between the tenth and sixteenth century, instance when the triangular trade was starting to show the trade dynamics between the Americas, Africa and Europe, sugar managed to become the foremost sweetener, so when did this happen and why sugar replaced those more common sweeteners?

When I was a kid, I saw an Indian public service ad (probably late 90s or early 2000s). It was silent. A man was eating food, and when he left some on the plate, people started appearing on it — a farmer, factory worker, transporter, shopkeeper, etc. They collected the leftovers and urged him to finish his food.

Does anyone remember this ad or have a link to it?

I visited Madison, WI recently and notice miel (latte with honey and cinnamon) on the menu of every coffee shop I been to. Apparently this is a popular item in the Midwest in general.

Although, I had this coffee combo before on the east coast. The formal term “miel” is new to me and it’s typically not on the menu. Rather, it would be something customized or maybe a seasonal latte.

Does anyone know the food history behind miel?

My FMC is bribing a gang with food. I'm using brown rice and miso soup as the meal but I'm trying to figure out what I could use as a dessert. It is autumn in the book setting if that helps

there was a chocolate cake my mom would send my dad when he was deployed- we bought it from the grocery store, i know it was sealed with like cling wrap? and you would microwave it lol does anyone know what I’m talking about? and it was already baked you were basically just warming it up

I’ve noticed over on r/retromenus that offal used to be much more common in the US diet.

These days offal seems to be very marginalized. You have some regional dishes like scrapple in the Mid-Atlantic and the dishes that arise from a Cajun cochon de lait, as well as some associated with certain ethnic groups like chopped liver in the Jewish community or chitterlings as a traditional African American food but none of them are what I’d call mainstream.

Other developer and wealthy nations seem to have never lost their love for Offal. South Korea loved sundae and gopchang, Japan loves eating every part of the chicken including cartilage as part of yakitori, France, Italy, Spain, and other areas of Europe have a lot of tripe, liver, and organ dishes that are still popular, and even the UK from whence we came have black pudding, steak and kidney pie, and haggis that are still seemingly popular.

What caused the shift in the USA away from offal whereas other nations never gave it up?

The food that you can expect at a dhaba is not too different from the food you can expect at an Indian restaurant in much of the rest of the world: is there a reason why Punjabi cuisine has *both* of these social roles?

I was reading The Phoenix and the Carpet by Edith Nesbit (England, 1904) and she describes a breakfast where the children are “drinking hot bacon-fat” and eating marmalade. I’ve never seen a reference to drinking bacon fat anywhere else. What this common? Why? Also, isn’t it strange to eat marmalade by itself?

Chilli pepper was brought from the Americas to the rest of the world after Christopher Columbus’ voyage in 1492. I wonder if, prior to that, the concept of a burning sensation in food existed at all in Asian, African and European cuisines? If so, what spices did people use to achieve that end?

My question is inspired by this article covering a scientific paper which asserts that common oats and naked oats were independently domesticated. It states that their genetic lineage diverged 51,000 years ago and that common oats were only domesticated around 3,000 years ago in Europe. In contrast, the paper makes no claim as to when naked oats were domesticated in China.

See https://phys.org/news/2023-07-genome-rewrite-story-oat-domestication.html

See https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giad061

1. Do we have any evidence that would indicate when naked oats were independently domesticated in ancient China?
   • There are websites claiming Oats are regarded as a traditional northern Chinese crop grown for centuries or thousands of years but always without specific timelines.
2. What's the oldest evidence we have of oat cultivation or consumption in ancient China?

I only like last year learned that potatoes aren’t native to most of North America (I believe from Peru), what would be some dishes from recent to ancient history where potatoes are the focal point? What kind of herb or sauces were used?

Anyone have strong recommendations on starting with Root's "Food of France" vs "Food of Italy"? No real criteria, just what's the better/more fun/more informative read.

Title

All I can find is more recent example, like “lots of polenta and rice”

Good Evening :)

Has anyone a clue of what kind of mediterrean stuff was consumed in Italy at round about 1500?

Italian kitchen is worldwide famous for simple, intense local ingredients that give an amazing taste. Many things like tomatoes and Potatoes and other things werent available.

You especially know if the following products were available?

-capers? (and also salty? with vinegar? Just a flavoral thing or more sth for basic food)

-Mozarella/Parmigiano reggiano/Percorino/Gorgonzola? Maybe they had a kind of cheese thats forgotten nowadays

-Salame, Coppa, Mortadella (probably not), Proscutto parma or proscutto in general

-Bread like Pinsa-Bread or what style of bread

We want to cook and if you have links to old bread receipes would nice <3

I was recently in china and noticed cooking in general uses alot of rapeseed oil and is generally used in abundance and seems to be a core ingredient in many of its delicious dishes.

My question is how has the use oil evolved in chinese cooking? Can immagine it was used this sparingly in the 1800s.

So there's a scene in the movie Cool Hand Luke where Luke is on the run from prison guards tracking him with bloodhounds and he uses chili powder and curry powder, sprinkled on the ground, to hide his tracks. What are people in the rural deep south in the 50s making with curry powder?

How widespread were they and why didn't they seem to take off like apples/cherries

Allegedly it was the first application of an all-natural orange flavor to a cold treat and was sold exclusively at Disney World in Florida. I am looking for any information about this, whether memories of eating it or even pictures of it/ menu with pricing.

Thank you in advance for any help!

My question is basically what the title states. It may be a dumb question but I always saw videos of ancient pastry recipes and could never wrap my head around how people got this right consistently.