Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Part V Food and Drink around the World
- V.A The Beginnings of Agriculture: The Ancient Near East and North Africa
- V.B The History and Culture of Food and Drink in Asia
- V.C The History and Culture of Food and Drink in Europe
- V.D The History and Culture of Food and Drink in the Americas
- V.E The History and Culture of Food and Drink in Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania
- V.F Culinary History
- Part VI History, Nutrition, and Health
- Part VII Contemporary Food-Related Policy Issues
- Part VIII A Dictionary of the World’s Plant Foods
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- References
V.A - The Beginnings of Agriculture: The Ancient Near East and North Africa
from Part V - Food and Drink around the World
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Part V Food and Drink around the World
- V.A The Beginnings of Agriculture: The Ancient Near East and North Africa
- V.B The History and Culture of Food and Drink in Asia
- V.C The History and Culture of Food and Drink in Europe
- V.D The History and Culture of Food and Drink in the Americas
- V.E The History and Culture of Food and Drink in Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania
- V.F Culinary History
- Part VI History, Nutrition, and Health
- Part VII Contemporary Food-Related Policy Issues
- Part VIII A Dictionary of the World’s Plant Foods
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- References
Summary
The Sumerians may have said it best: “Food: That’s the thing! Drink: That’s the thing!” (Gordon 1959: 142). From bread and beer to wine and cheese, the people of the ancient Near East and North Africa developed a rich cuisine based on a set of crops and livestock domesticated in Southwest Asia, and a sophisticated technology of food preparation and preservation. This chapter traces the history of diet and foods of hunter-gatherers who lived at the end of the Stone Age in the Near East and North Africa, the impact of the development and spread of agriculture, and the social context of food and drink in early Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilization.
Geographical Background
Patterns of subsistence in any society reflect geography and cultural development. The civilizations of the ancient Near East and North Africa developed in a complex environmental mosaic that encompassed coasts and inland plateaus, high mountains and lands below sea level, barren deserts, fertile plains, and dense woodlands. The boundaries of the environmental zones have shifted over the years because the region has known both dry periods and moister phases. People, too, have wrought changes on the land as they assisted the movement of plants and animals from their original homelands. Over the millennia, humans have turned deserts into gardens with irrigation, and have transformed naturally productive lands into deserts by overgrazing and fuel cutting. Specifying the environmental picture at any particular place and time is not an easy task.
People, too, have wrought changes on the land as they assisted the movement of plants and animals from their original homelands. Over the millennia, humans have turned deserts into gardens with irrigation, and have transformed naturally productive lands into deserts by overgrazing and fuel cutting. Specifying the environmental picture at any particular place and time is not an easy task.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge World History of Food , pp. 1122 - 1139Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000
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