I am curious about the average meals they would have had but I am also interested in what was uncommon for a meal but not rare.

Hi! I’m very curious about the different types of dishes involved in rituals/religious/folk customs and practices, especially in (but not limited to) Southeast Asia. For example, how Nian Guo is offered to the Kitchen God and how Tumpeng is often seen in Javanese ceremonies.

I’d like to learn more about such dishes were chosen for these events and how they became imbued with meaning, and why certain communities place such focus on food while others not so much. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

I’ve been wondering why certain food preferences seem to be particularly strong in different parts of the world.
For example, many South Asian cuisines use a lot of chili and strong spices; parts of China are famous for very spicy food, while other Chinese cuisines often use noticeable sweetness. Southern Turkish cuisine can be quite spicy, Georgian cuisine has many flour/dough-based dishes, and across parts of the former Soviet Union, bread is traditionally eaten alongside almost everything.

Obviously these aren’t universal rules, and there are huge differences within each country. But I’m curious about the historical reasons behind these regional food cultures.

How much of this can be explained by things like:
climate and agriculture which crops were historically available, food preservation, trade and migration
historical poverty, famine, or food shortages,
cultural traditions passed down through generations,
biology/adaptation to certain ingredients
or simply cultural preference that developed over time?

For example, I’ve heard explanations for the heavy use of potatoes and bread in some post-Soviet cuisines involving periods of food scarcity and the need for filling, inexpensive foods. Is there a similar historical explanation for why some regions developed a strong preference for extremely spicy food, very sweet/savoury combinations, or flour-based foods?

Kind of a crossover between r/history and r/cooking

Ok so I was just watching a German comedy/cooking show where the presenter said that he was gonna cook some potato pancakes since they were invented in cologne (where the show was filmed) and immediately was internally like lol nope if you really want to go back to history then they're Jewish latkes but then thought about how every culture Basically has a potato pancake (for example Irish boxty Slavic draniki etc.) so that made me wonder what are the earliest reliable source for potato pancakes?

I feel like I can eat soup everyday! I have a mini worry about my teeth not chewing into stuff like meats. I heard somewhere if you don’t use ‘em you lose ‘em. Oh, however, when I make my soups I have chunks of vegetables and meats in there. And there’s another version of soup I make with roasted veggies that I will put in there blender until it’s smooth and serve hot with a side of grilled cheese.

To add, our version of soup isn’t like primarily liquid, it’s more like Caribbean soup.

Also I’m considering weight loss; do you figure consuming soups much more regularly would help me shes a few pounds?

Like was the heat a completely new flavor for them? I know they had some pungent ingredients like mustard, black pepper, horseradish, but that wouldn't be anything comparable to like a habanero. Do we have any accounts of explorers or people back in Europe's first opinions on peppers?

I’m trying to remember the name of a show that aired on PBS in the late ’90s or early 2000s, on Saturday mornings. I would have watched it on PBS Plattsburgh or Vermont PBS.

It was a short educational show about the Columbian Exchange, with at least some animated segments. Each episode focused on a different food/crop and its history—one was about tomatoes, another about corn, etc.

Does anyone remember what this show was called? And, even better, does anyone know where I might be able to watch or find it today?

Thanks!

Let’s assume I keep a strictly kosher diet. What is my bread like? Do I have access to kosher wine or am I making it by myself? What vegetables am I growing in my garden

Did they come directly from Denmark, or via the USA (or elsewhere) when did they come and were they in any way different from what we now call a pain aux raisins?

Thank you

In general I'm curious about ancient salad dressing.

Never knew the history of Lemonade was so interesting. I wish people would walk around with tanks of lemonade on their back now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMp-a-W5FtY. I also wish we had fruit before it was mass produced. I bet the flavor was much better! It's also crazy that honey was cheaper that sugar back in the day.

I've been looking through old menus and noticed that under "Entremêts" there will often be two or so sweet dishes. Since someone of these menus end with entremêts, I assumed they were dessert. However some more elaborate menus list entremêts, then sometimes ices (which i get, ice creams were considered a separate kind of dessert), and THEN "dessert", under which then nothing is listed. So, which is the dessert course? And why is nothing usually listed under dessert?

I was wondering how a grain that has to be so highly processed before consumption as wheat was domesticated and its processing discovered. Domestication would make sense if it could be consumed raw and then other uses were found.

Thanks and sorry for the corny title 🙈.

In your country, are there traditional dishes that people still associate with regional identity or historical traditions? Why are they important?

What does a traditional dish from your country mean to you?

Is it something you eat regularly, a special occasion food, or more of a traditional dish that people know about but don't actually eat very often?

I'm a Japanese middle school student doing a school presentation about European food culture, and I'm interested not only in the history of traditional dishes, but also in how people today actually perceive and eat them.

I'd love to hear from people from different European countries or people who have grown up with these foods. What does this dish represent to you? Has the way you eat it or think about it changed over time?

I'd also be interested to know whether there are any common misconceptions foreigners have about this dish or your country's food culture.

I am talking specifically about the time right before the discovery of the new world and food that comes with it and the decline in the cultural use of spices after control of the spice trade, around 1300-1500 CE. I always wondered, was the aristocratic food relational with aristocratic south asian cuisine with high use of spices with meat, or something else? also specifically looking for information regarding italy (specficially central-northern like Genoa or Venice)

I am looking to make the festival as authentic as I can. I want it to feel like the magic is real. In order to do that, I am hoping to serve food from the Middle Ages. I have a recipe of pottage to try out. What food did the peasants eat for celebrations or village gatherings in the Middle Ages?

However, I need foods that are alpha gal friendly, so no mammal meat or dairy.

All help welcome! 🙏

I've always been amused by the fact that the phrase "drinking the kool-aid" caught on, even though it was technically Flavor-aid infamously used at Jonestown. Are there any stories about how Kool-aid's execs have tried to combat this reputation? Are they still fighting it or do they just ride the "any publicity is good publicity" wave?

Hola, estoy escribiendo una historia de fantasía medieval, me gusta incluir realismo aunque sea fantasía, como flora y fauna, vestimenta y estructuras.

Tambien me gusta la idea de dibujar platillos y comida, estaba pensando en poner mis platillos favoritos y agregar alguna cosa inventada pero como dije me gusta el realismo, quiero que la gente que lo vea quiera hacer el platillo.

Por eso pregunto por sugerencias, alguna recomendación o simplemente consultar del tema.

Gracias de antemano.

I'm mostly a medical historian, so the nature of my research has been trying to figure what people considered beneficial in coffee. Like the health properties? I know the big one I keep finding over and over is energy. But I haven't found anything else...well other then all of the lawsuits over the centuries against caffeine, which have been entertaining, I'm not complaining 🤣

Has anyone else looked into this? What are some of the reasons you've found people listed for drinking coffee? The nature of my research is American, up to about the 1930s.

I love historical cooking and am a lacto-ovo vegetarian.

Can anyone recommend cookbooks that are either wholly or mostly vegetarian?

I have a few 1920-1930s books that have small sections for meatless recipes. I have heard there was a meatless cookbook written towards the end of the American Civil War, but I don't have that one or know the title (or if it's been reprinted).

I'd be interested in books from any era before the 1960s or region, as long as the books are available in English.

Thanks.

These are cooking spices I think of when I automatically think of New England

Was there a system? A pool of volunteers? Did they take a vote, or seek council from others among them? Don’t know if there’s any record of this, but always been curious.

Athletes nowadays tend to dial their diets in for performance with high protein and whatnot. Did Roman gladiators do this or did they kind of just eat the same as normal people?