Food For Thought

I was wondering how much food has changed throughout human history. It seems to me that the answer is: not much. The arts, the sciences, the languages and of course the various technologies have all changed immeasurably over the millennia. Indeed, some of these, such as music, and sartorial fashions change from generation to generation, if not sooner. But though food displays great diversity across cultures, within a country or a culture, it has been remarkably constant over centuries. Yes, there has been a shift towards junk food and preprocessed food, but most of these foodstuffs are, in themselves, not really modern or new. Moreover, and more importantly, no matter how often they are consumed, they are not staples. When people get down to 'proper food', it is almost always something that has been around for many, many generations (I mean the kind of food, not the actual, physical specimen on the plate - that would be rather unappetising). If ancient Greeks or Romans suddenly materialised at a modern Greek or Roman banquet, the food would probably give them little clue that they had left their own day and age. This may have a lot to do with the fact that fiddling with food usually has more grim consequences than artistic or scientific curiosity. However, danger has held its own fascination for various people throughout history and it seems strange that food should have had no such 'adventurers'.

I freely admit that I am not very knowledgeable about this topic. My relationship to food has mostly been of the "find on plate, put in mouth" variety with little introspection regarding its history, or often even its content. So the above ramble has to be read with the skepticism due to any piece that has been pulled out of an arse.