Hannibal Lecter (
sharp_man) wrote in
fandomhigh2019-09-13 12:08 pm
Entry tags:
Cooking Through History, Period 2
"Good morning and welcome back," Hannibal told the students once they were seated. The Danger Shop today looked like a grassy plain, forest bordering it on one side, and several good-sized firepits scattered around. He wandered as he spoke. "When we start with the history of cooked food, we should likely begin with why ancient humans would have wanted to cook their food. Cooking is as old as civilization, after all; human ancestors may have been cooking as far back as two million years ago, and there is evidence of it for at least half a million years.
"The earliest people were hunter-gatherers; that is, they did not grow their own vegetables or raise their own animals for food. They sought out what they needed from the area around them. At first, this would naturally have been raw plant materials and meat.
"However, food is easier to digest when cooked, and often more nutritious. There are theories that human brain capacity increased strongly once food began to be cooked. The first method of cooking was roasting, taking meat and placing it onto a stick and holding it over an open fire, or placing it in coals. Early cooked foods would most likely have been meats and root vegetables, along with nuts.
"Today, therefore, we will be making wild boar, scallop, and mushroom kebabs - if you choose to make this on your own later, pork would be an acceptable substitution - and acorn bread."
He pressed buttons on the console by the door and called up several tablets (iPads, not stone) with the recipes on them, which he handed out. "When you get to the step that says to leave the acorns for three days, call me over. I will ensure you have prepared it correctly to that point, and we will simply ask the room to speed things up. If you have questions at any time, please feel free to ask. Meanwhile, I have coffee and tea to share as we cook."
(Recipes from here, copied to Gdocs to avoid you having to scroll through the whole page.)
"The earliest people were hunter-gatherers; that is, they did not grow their own vegetables or raise their own animals for food. They sought out what they needed from the area around them. At first, this would naturally have been raw plant materials and meat.
"However, food is easier to digest when cooked, and often more nutritious. There are theories that human brain capacity increased strongly once food began to be cooked. The first method of cooking was roasting, taking meat and placing it onto a stick and holding it over an open fire, or placing it in coals. Early cooked foods would most likely have been meats and root vegetables, along with nuts.
"Today, therefore, we will be making wild boar, scallop, and mushroom kebabs - if you choose to make this on your own later, pork would be an acceptable substitution - and acorn bread."
He pressed buttons on the console by the door and called up several tablets (iPads, not stone) with the recipes on them, which he handed out. "When you get to the step that says to leave the acorns for three days, call me over. I will ensure you have prepared it correctly to that point, and we will simply ask the room to speed things up. If you have questions at any time, please feel free to ask. Meanwhile, I have coffee and tea to share as we cook."
(Recipes from here, copied to Gdocs to avoid you having to scroll through the whole page.)

Re: Cook your food/eat Hannibal's!
Re: Cook your food/eat Hannibal's!
If he ever ran out of the saffron Jono had bought him.
Re: Cook your food/eat Hannibal's!
Re: Cook your food/eat Hannibal's!
Re: Cook your food/eat Hannibal's!