CHEF-EXPLORER

Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt and the domestication of animals for food Continuing from my last blog, we are around about 10-12ooo years ago when man had sttled in the Middle East. Bear in mind of course, that Homo Sapians were roaming all over including Australia over 40,000 years ago, but they had not settled in one place and harvested crops and raised animals. Once the harvest of crops started, the domestication of animals came next. Dogs had always been 'Mans Best Freind' since the Stone Age, but now they bred Goats, Sheep and cattle. Pigs were very common in ancient China (Think 'Sweet and Sour Pork!') In Ancient Mesopotamia the Sumerians flourished buiding the first city at Jericho. This region became known also as the 'Fertile Crescent' and ran from the Nile Delta through Palestine to Lebanon and the hills of modern Turkey and East to the highlands of Iran. Nowasdays, this region is very dry, but 10,000 years ago it had great rainfall and fertile soil. No...

A HISTORY OF FOOD Part 1 OK, Folks ready for some history? Reason I called this blog 'Seeds' will become apparent. Mankind had spent many a thousand of years evolving, and in doing so had survived a couple of very cold Ice ages,brrr! Man had to forage, roam and hunt and keep on moving with the seasons. And of course this is still true with many nomadic peoples around the world.Then about 12,000 years ago a Revolution started and it is rumoured that it was the womenfolk who started it! (The blokes started revolutions too, of course, but they were usually Wars!!). My fertile imagination reckons it went like this: While the guys returned from hunting, (or in much later years, from the Pub!) the ladies were waiting, hands on hips, saying with undisguised impatience 'hey, guys , isn't it about time we stayed in one place to live? I mean we (clever females as always) have worked out that if we plant the seeds of all those berries we have been gathering for years, they will gr...