The emergence of cooked food

Food products can be eaten in three forms: raw, cooked, or fermented (e.g. sauer kraut). While raw food is natural, the cooked food is referred to as cultural (Levi-Strauss). But there are several ways of cooking...

A very important step forward was made when man "was no longer satisfied with roasted or grilled food, cooked in the dry heat of flames, so he invented the cuisine prepared with moist heat. This moist cooking allows more diversity of dishes and flavours as well as a greater possibility of mixing foods in the same meal."

Soups, roasted cereals, porridges, and pancakes (thick cooked porridges) are the first forms of plant-based food. They are still in use today, differing somewhat in content and preparation.

Cuisine is much older than agriculture: men cooked their wild foods before cooking agricultural food products. In Neolithic times the culinary revolution preceded the agricultural revolution

Pots and containers

Pottery, pottages (thick soups) stews, pot-au-feu
(French soup with meat and vegetables simmered with garnishing)

Man as a hunter-gatherer needed containers to collect, transport, preserve, cook and eat... The first containers used to be seashells, tortoise shells, and tree bark...

The earthen pot (made of baked clay), a waterproof container that can be put on a fireplace (hearth) was a major invention. Pottery artefacts are of great scientific value because they can identify and characterize archaeological cultures.

With the development of agriculture, pottery took on a great importance. However, the first farmers still used stone containers.

The agriculture period

The agricultural period is based on the domestication of food plants and animals, which progressively constituted the main source of human food.

This period corresponds to the agricultural food products, transformed and prepared inside of domestic consuming units.

Beginning and development
of agriculture

Agriculture and animal raising required the domestication of both animals and plants, raising of species useful for human beings, and taking care of the factors that kept them alive and productive.

Domestication made the species dependent on humans. Economic necessity (inadequacy of food gathering when faced with an increase of population) is probably the main factor leading to the birth of agriculture.

Agriculture started simultaneously in several parts of the world. Euro-Mediterranean agriculture started in the Middle East and spread, first to the western Mediterranean region, then up to the northern part of Europe. This happened between 6000 and 2000 BP.

Acquisition tools were replaced by production tools, stone tools by metal tools, manual agriculture by animal-powered agriculture… Moreover, agriculture completely changed the socio-cultural conditions by encouraging the settlement of communities: villages, towns, nations, and empires were built on the basis of cultivated lands

Founder species
of the early euro-Mediterranean agriculture

y "Founder species," we mean the main plant and animal species first domesticated in the Middle East, then transferred to other Mediterranean areas, subsequently spreading to Northern Europe.

The following founder species can be mentioned:

Plants

wheat (Triticum dicoccum L.; Triticum aestivum/durum)

oat (Hordeum vulgare L.)

pea (Pisum sativum L.)

lentil (Lens esculenta Moench)

Vetch (Vicia narbonensis L.)

Evergreen pea (Lathyrus sativus L.)

and flax (Linum usitatissimum L.)

Animals

dog (Canis familiaris)

pig (Sus scrofa domesticus)

goat (Capra hircus hircus)

sheep (Ovis aries)

cow (Bos taurus)

These species were used as the starting basis for agricultural development within the whole Euro-Mediterranean area. Cereals and many other domesticated species did not exist as wild plants in Europe. They were transferred from the Middle East through the Danube River and the Mediterranean Sea.

The birth if agriculture in Europe was accompanied by a revolution in human foods. Mediterranean people stopped using food-plants from the "Founder garden" and learned to consume food-species coming from elsewhere.

The agro-industrial period

The agro-industrial period is characterized by a combination of agricultural and industrial activities and by services.

It is a time for agro-industrial food products, transformed and prepared from agricultural products by the agro-food industry.

The industrial revolution changed the working conditions used to obtain agro-food products.

Beginning and development
of the agronomic sciences

Agronomic sciences are the application of biological, physical, and human sciences to agriculture; their development is linked with rigorous experimentation. In the 19th century, scientific progress in chemistry, biology, microbiology, mechanics, influenced the development of agricultural practices.

Little by little, a scientific way of thinking is born and developed, particularly in 3 fields of agronomy:

Genetics (improvement of cultivated plant species by selection and crossing.

Nutrition (production and increasing use of fertilizers)

Hygiene (protection of crops from diseases and insects)

Simultaneously, agricultural activities are systematically mechanized.

From agronomic sciences
to agricultural practices

The application of agronomic sciences to agricultural practices requires education and information for the farmers. In Europe peasants began to learn how to read and write at the end of the 19th century. In France, Jules Ferry instituted free primary education, secular and obligatory. Educators play a major role in the evolution of the rural world. Agricultural education helps organize adult education programs (public conferences, "winter" courses, demonstration fields, etc).

Simultaneously, companies that produce chemical fertilizers, plant protection products, and mechanized agricultural tools, developed publicity promoting the use of their products.

Agricultural societies and country fair organizations encouraged larger yields and higher quality, particularly by organizing "agricultural competitions".

Education and information for farmers contributed to a gradual change in ways of thinking, and to the triumph of a New Agriculture. Science and practices would join and give birth later to a Production-oriented Agriculture, which aims to increase yields in agriculture.

The development of sciences and their practical application, education and information, the obvious superiority of new techniques, the strong motivation to increase production, linked with the family operation of farms, all contributed to an increase, initially slow, then accelerated in the second half of the 20th century, of agricultural production.

The most important aspect of the development of productive forces at the end of the 19th century laid in the changes from traditional animal-powered agriculture to mechanized agriculture means the mechanization of all agricultural processes as far as possible. Agricultural motorization does not come into widespread use until the second half of the 20th century.

Mechanization and the increase of yields would be accompanied by a large decrease in the population of farmers, and consequently by a remarkable increase in productivity (number of inhabitants per active worker).

Revolution in transportation

A major change in transportation occurred in the 19th Century with the development of railways, the steamship, and later in the 20th century, the automobile. The revolution in transportation was followed by the invention of refrigerated transport. This allowed the long distance transport of heavy and perishable agricultural produce, as well as a reduction in the cost of transportation.

The revolution in transportation laid the foundation for large national markets (such as « les Halles », the central food market in Paris) and of regional specialization in food production. Later, huge international markets were created, and international compartmentation of agricultural activities developed.

Toward a worldwide economy

The revolution in transportation, the growth of purchasing power for European consumers, colonization’s by, European migrations, and establishment of free trade, jointly led to an international worldwide economy for foods. The consequence was a spectacular increase in production for young countries (USA, Canada, Australia), the growth of plantation agriculture, and then to competition between «young countries» and European countries, as well as competition between the products of tropical and European climates.

Food consumption became more diversified, especially as a result of the increasing use of tropical products (coffee, cocoa, tea, tropical oils, and fruits). After the food revolution in Neolithic times and again following the discovery of America, Europe underwent a third great food revolution.

Inedible tropical agricultural products (textiles, rubber) also saw major development.

But European agriculture had to face two major economic crises, in 1880 and 193

Beginning and development
of the agro-food industry

The double revolution in agriculture and industry, which occurred in England in the 18th century, laid the foundation for the development of the agro-food industry, and completely changed the conditions for agriculture and food-production.

The agro-food industry replaced agriculture first in the transformation of agricultural foods (for example: substitution of industrial butter for farmer-produced butter; more recently, it allowed the replacement of homemade foods with ready made food products (food ready to cook, food, pre-cooked, ready to eat or to heat in microwave ovens). The wide development of restaurants and fast-food outlets led to further industrialization in the food production line, and to changes in the cooking equipment used in homes.

At the agro-industrial food system stage, agriculture remains the irreplaceable basis for food production. An industrial and commercial superstructure is built on this base. This superstructure ultimately commands a much larger share than agriculture in the food expenses of the consumer.

Food consumption and societies

The societies of Western Europe have reached the stage of mass consumption. Nevertheless, hunger has not been totally eradicated within any of these societies. Indeed, it has worsened as a result of long-term unemployment. 5 to 10 per cent of the population of these « rich » societies live in a quasi-permanent state of insufficient food consumption.

Most of the developing countries are societies at a stage of mass poverty. Under-consumption, food shortages, and sometimes-even famines characterize the poorest societies.