2024-07-05 11:15:39
Such food secrets are quite difficult to solve. Archeology depends on the remains to find out what happened in the past – especially among people who did not yet use any writing. Unfortunately, most of the things that people used traditionally were made of wood, animal materials or cloth, which breaks down quite quickly – that’s why archaeologists almost never find them.
We have a lot of hard objects – such as pottery and stone tools – but softer objects – such as food scraps – are much harder to find. Sometimes archaeologists get lucky with softer things found in very dry areas, in which they remain. Also, if things burn, they can last a very long time.
Ancestors of corn
Fortunately, corn has some hard parts, like the shell of the kernel. It’s those bits at the bottom of the popcorn bowl that get so unpleasantly between the teeth. And because corn needs to be heated to become edible, it was sometimes burnt – and archaeologists find traces of it. Most interestingly, some plants, including corn, contain tiny, rock-like fragments that called phytolithswhich can last for thousands of years.
Scientists are almost certain they know how old corn is. We know that corn was probably first cultivated by Native Americans in what is now Mexico. There, early farmers domesticated corn from grass, called teosinte.
Before farming, people gathered wild teosintes and ate their seeds, which were high in starch, a carbohydrate found in bread or pasta. They picked the teosinte with the biggest seeds – and eventually started weeding it and planting it. Over time, the wild plant evolved into something similar to what we call corn today. Maize can be distinguished from teosinte by its larger kernels.
Evidence for Maize Cultivation in Mexico dating back 9000 years. From there, corn spread throughout North and South America.
Popcorn as a canned food
It is more difficult to determine when people began to produce corn. There are several types of corn, most of which swell when heated — but one variety, actually called “popcorn,” makes the best popcorn. Scientists discovered this type of corn phytoliths from Peruas well as burnt kernels prepared for food as early as 6700 years ago.
It is conceivable that the first discovery of the popping of corn kernels was by accident. The corn must have fallen into the fire while cooking, and someone nearby realized that this was a new and convenient method of cooking. Corn kernels had a long shelf life and were easy to prepare.
Popcorn of old probably didn’t look much like the snacks we munch on at the movie theater today. There was probably no salt and there was definitely no butter – because There were no cows in America yet, which could be milked. This kind of popcorn was probably not served hot – and was probably harder to chew than the usual version today.
It’s impossible to determine exactly why or how popcorn was invented – but it can be assumed that it was a clever way to preserve edible corn starch by getting rid of the small amount of water inside each kernel that would have made the kernel more prone to spoilage. Popcorn explodes due to the superheated water in the grain, which is released as steam. Then the cooked corn can be stored for a long time.
So what we think of as a tasty snack today probably started out as a useful way of preserving and storing food.
Parengta pagal „The Conversation“.
2024-07-05 11:15:39