History of cooking: by sitting at the table, man became civilized
From Lucy to Paul Bocuse, the whole history of humanity can be read in the evolution of our diet. To go from picking to spooning, it still took us more than 3 million years!
As a result, we invented other cooking methods: pierrade, etouffee, boiled… From the fiery hearth was born the cuisine which nourished a strong social bond around the meal.
Cro-Magnon man, a formidable hunter and fisherman, learned to preserve his trophies by drying and smoking, before taking up cultivation and breeding.
The Romans make the meal a ceremonial pleasure that borders on the culinary art: refined dishes presented in several courses are enjoyed while lying down. They innovate by enriching the flavors of spices and aromatic herbs: pepper, ginger, cumin, coriander, saffron, mint, oregano, cardamom... They select raw olive oils and play with salty-sweet (honey , vinegar, fruit, etc.) to simmer sauces over meatballs that are pecked with your fingers. For hors d'oeuvres, there were eggs, salad and moretum (cheese with herbs and spices), and for dessert, fruit and cakes. A collection of recipes written around the year 400 (De Re coquinaria d'Apicius, or The culinary art of Apicius) testifies to an already very elaborate know-how, the basis of French gastronomy: pâtés, truffles, foie gras , dumplings, ham in a crust, emulsified sauces, quince paste, flans, choux pastry…
The Renaissance tastes with a fork In the Middle Ages, Roman cuisine remained the prerogative of the elites, but under the influence of the Franks and the Barbarians, meat, now often roasted, became dominant to the detriment of vegetables, at least among the wealthiest, and olive oil gives way to lard.
It is also the great time for pies and pies that we will bake at the baker's. Ceremonial meals consist of four to twelve courses of several courses, a bit like a buffet today. This is French service. We eat at the table and we begin to use knives and spoons, in addition to fingers, but the fork and the plate will not appear until the Renaissance.
The great navigators brought back new foods: turkey, chocolate, coffee, tea, tomatoes, beans, squash, zucchini and the famous potato, despised until Antoine Parmentier demonstrated its benefits in the 18th century. And with it, vegetables and fruits are coming back into favor. We invent champagne, mayonnaise, whipped cream…
It was also the time of the creation of restaurants, in the modern sense of pleasure cooking, by chefs left without work by the exodus of their rich masters during the Revolution.
In the 19th century, great French cuisine was at its peak: it was the benchmark for world gastronomy! A mix of sophisticated recipes and local dishes. It reinvented itself in the 1970s with New Cuisine cooked up by chefs who rejected heavy sauces, enhanced the products and innovated in the combinations of flavors and textures. A gastronomy that revisits terroirs and traditions shaped by history, with simplicity, frankness and generosity.
