Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- INTRODUCTION: FROM FORAGING TO FARMING
- Ch. 1 LAST HUNTERS, FIRST FARMERS
- Ch. 2 BUILDING THE BARNYARD
- Ch. 3 PROMISCUOUS PLANTS OF THE NORTHERN FERTILE CRESCENT
- Ch. 4 PERIPATETIC PLANTS OF EASTERN ASIA
- Ch. 5 FECUND FRINGES OF THE NORTHERN FERTILE CRESCENT
- Ch. 6 CONSEQUENCES OF THE NEOLITHIC
- Ch. 7 ENTERPRISE AND EMPIRES
- Ch. 8 FAITH AND FOODSTUFFS
- Ch. 9 EMPIRES IN THE RUBBLE OF ROME
- Ch. 10 MEDIEVAL PROGRESS AND POVERTY
- Ch. 11 SPAIN'S NEW WORLD, THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
- Ch. 12 NEW WORLD, NEW FOODS
- Ch. 13 NEW FOODS IN THE SOUTHERN NEW WORLD
- Ch. 14 THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE AND THE OLD WORLDS
- Ch. 15 THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE AND NEW WORLDS
- Ch. 16 SUGAR AND NEW BEVERAGES
- Ch. 17 KITCHEN HISPANIZATION
- Ch. 18 PRODUCING PLENTY IN PARADISE
- Ch. 19 THE FRONTIERS OF FOREIGN FOODS
- Ch. 20 CAPITALISM, COLONIALISM, AND CUISINE
- Ch. 21 HOMEMADE FOOD HOMOGENEITY
- Ch. 22 NOTIONS OF NUTRIENTS AND NUTRIMENTS
- Ch. 23 THE PERILS OF PLENTY
- Ch. 24 THE GLOBALIZATION OF PLENTY
- Ch. 25 FAST FOOD, A HYMN TO CELLULITE
- Ch. 26 PARLOUS PLENTY INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
- Ch. 27 PEOPLE AND PLENTY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
- Notes
- Index
Ch. 5 - FECUND FRINGES OF THE NORTHERN FERTILE CRESCENT
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- INTRODUCTION: FROM FORAGING TO FARMING
- Ch. 1 LAST HUNTERS, FIRST FARMERS
- Ch. 2 BUILDING THE BARNYARD
- Ch. 3 PROMISCUOUS PLANTS OF THE NORTHERN FERTILE CRESCENT
- Ch. 4 PERIPATETIC PLANTS OF EASTERN ASIA
- Ch. 5 FECUND FRINGES OF THE NORTHERN FERTILE CRESCENT
- Ch. 6 CONSEQUENCES OF THE NEOLITHIC
- Ch. 7 ENTERPRISE AND EMPIRES
- Ch. 8 FAITH AND FOODSTUFFS
- Ch. 9 EMPIRES IN THE RUBBLE OF ROME
- Ch. 10 MEDIEVAL PROGRESS AND POVERTY
- Ch. 11 SPAIN'S NEW WORLD, THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
- Ch. 12 NEW WORLD, NEW FOODS
- Ch. 13 NEW FOODS IN THE SOUTHERN NEW WORLD
- Ch. 14 THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE AND THE OLD WORLDS
- Ch. 15 THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE AND NEW WORLDS
- Ch. 16 SUGAR AND NEW BEVERAGES
- Ch. 17 KITCHEN HISPANIZATION
- Ch. 18 PRODUCING PLENTY IN PARADISE
- Ch. 19 THE FRONTIERS OF FOREIGN FOODS
- Ch. 20 CAPITALISM, COLONIALISM, AND CUISINE
- Ch. 21 HOMEMADE FOOD HOMOGENEITY
- Ch. 22 NOTIONS OF NUTRIENTS AND NUTRIMENTS
- Ch. 23 THE PERILS OF PLENTY
- Ch. 24 THE GLOBALIZATION OF PLENTY
- Ch. 25 FAST FOOD, A HYMN TO CELLULITE
- Ch. 26 PARLOUS PLENTY INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
- Ch. 27 PEOPLE AND PLENTY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Bread is a very simple manufactured article whose rise in the oven is closely related to the rise of the sun in the sky.
Piero Camporesi (1989)AFRICAN VIANDS
Egypt and North Africa
For thousands of years after the beginnings of Mesopotamian agriculture, an abundance of game animals, lake and river fish, and wild cereals in North Africa did little to discourage a foraging way of life. Hunter-gatherer groups adopted livestock herding, yet continued to gather wild plants – especially the root parts of sedges, rushes, and cattails in riparian environments. But around 5000 bce the Sahara began expanding, an expansion that accelerated sharply around 2000 bce. Desertification ushered people into fertile oases, and especially into the Nile Valley, where periodic migrations from the northwest brought knowledge of the Middle Eastern plant complex. It was in that valley that first barley and later wheat began to flourish, although until farming took firm hold, Nile fish (particularly catfish) and root foods continued to sustain many. By around 4000 bce, however, small states and kingdoms had arisen, supported by “taxes” levied on peasant farmers on food that went directly into the storehouses of the rulers. The small principalities gradually evolved into the two large states of Upper and Lower Egypt that were fused around 3100 bce under the first of the pharaohs. Exploitation quickened of a peasantry that now had nowhere to go. Desertification had trapped them in the Nile Valley, where the Pharaoh owned all of the land.
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- A Movable FeastTen Millennia of Food Globalization, pp. 51 - 60Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007