History of cooking

17Sep08

There is, as yet, no clear evidence as to when cooking was invented. Richard Wrangham argues that cooking was invented as far back as 1.8 million to 2.3 million years ago. Other researchers believe that cooking was invented as late as 40,000 or 10,000 years ago. Evidence of fire is inconclusive as wildfires started by lightning-strikes are still common in East Africa and other wild areas, and it is difficult to determine as to when fire was used for cooking, as opposed to just for warmth or keeping predators away. While many anthropologists place the advent of cooking at around 250,000 years ago, anthropologists besides Wrangham suggest that cooking did indeed occur much earlier, evidenced by archeological findings at Zhoukoudian in China, at Chesnowanja, Swartkrans and Koobi Fora in Africa, the latter of which has been dated by the “potassium-argon method to approximately 1.6 million years ago”

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Cooking

11Sep08

Cooking is the process of preparing food by applying heat, selecting, measuring and combining of ingredients in an ordered procedure for producing safe and edible food. The process encompasses a vast range of methods, tools and combinations of ingredients to alter the flavor or digestibility of food. Factors affecting the final outcome include the variability of ingredients, ambient conditions, tools, and the skill of the individual doing the actual cooking.

The diversity of cooking worldwide is a reflection of the myriad nutritional, aesthetic, agricultural, economic, cultural, social and religious considerations that impact upon it.

Applying heat to a food usually, though not always, chemically transforms it, thus changing its flavor, texture, consistency, appearance, and nutritional properties. Other methods of cooking that involve the boiling of liquid in a receptacle have been practiced at least since the 10th millennium BC, with the introduction of pottery.

Science of cooking

The application of scientific knowledge to cooking and gastronomy has become known as molecular gastronomy. This is a subdiscipline of food science. Important contributions have been made by scientists, chefs and authors such as Herve This (chemist), Nicholas Kurti (physicist), Peter Barham (physicist), Harold McGee (author), Shirley Corriher (biochemist, author), Heston Blumenthal (chef), Ferran Adria (chef), Robert Wolke (chemist, author) and Pierre Gagnaire (chef).

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