1. c.1,000,000 BC
Man harnesses fire. Mankind’s great early achievement allows heat and light to be controlled. Cooking food, probably in a simple wood-fired oven, was also important in protecting early man from food poisoning. In the mid-1990s, the wood-fired oven makes a comeback as a state-of-the-art cooking method in posh London restaurants, notably the River Cafe.
2. 1762
The sandwich is created as gambler John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, calls for his dinner to be put between two slices of bread so he can continue his card game with one hand and eat with the other. Lunchtimes would never be the same again.
3. 1904
The hamburger, popular in the USA, is served at the St Louis World Fair - crucially, in a bun. It soon becomes the world’s favourite fast food. Some might suggest the burger’s impact has been greater than the sandwich’s; but where would it be without its bread/filling/ bread template?
4. 1519
Spaniard Hernàn Cortes conquers Mexico, launching a cultural exchange: Europe gets chocolate,tomatoes, vanilla, turkey and chillies; the Aztecs get wheat, smallpox and measles. This changes the face of food in Europe - not least in Naples, where the arrival of tomatoes leads to the first pizzas.
5. c. 10,000 BC
The Azilian culture in southern France uses the earliest-known pestle and mortar to grind pigments: once adapted to grind grain, the system produces flour for a sort of porridge and, eventually, for bread and pasta - foods that will become indispensable staples the world over. Some 12,000 years later, Dr Atkins decides carbs are bad for us, but most of the world ignores him.
6. c. 6,500 BC
Rice begins to be cultivated in China’s central Yangtze Valley. These days, 8,000 varieties are grown in more than 110 countries, and rice is the staple foodstuff for more than half the world’s population.
7. 1916.
Piggly Wiggly, the first self-service grocery store, opens in Memphis, USA. For the first time, customers walk through aisles and choose their own goods, and the concept of the supermarket is born.
8. c. 3,000 BC
The Sumerians (occupying the area of present-day Iraq) come up with the concept of the sausage, using nutritious but otherwise unappealing bits of animals and preserving them, probably by drying them in warm winds in casings made from the guts of the animal.
9. 1859
Frenchman Ferdinand Carré develops a efrigeration system using ammonia and water; his ideas form the basis of many modern refrigeration techniques. However, the first domestic fridge with automatic controls is the Kelvinator, in 1918.
10. 1608
Thomas Coryate brings the first forks to England after seeing them on his travels in Italy. Though initially mocked for being effeminate and unnecessary, the newfangled implements are gradually adopted by the upper classes, before becoming popular throughout all strata of society.
11. 1499
Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama sails to India aboard the São Gabriel, with the aim of breaking the Venetian monopoly on the spice market. Da Gama’s seaborne route kick-starts an international trade in spices that bankrolls European expansionism for centuries to follow.
12. 1782
In Paris, Antoine Beauvilliers opens the first luxury restaurant, La Grande Taverne de Londres. Eating well no longer requires the wealth to employ a cook: after the Revolution, when France’s chefs find themselves unemployed, restaurants flourish.
13. 1847
Joseph Fry works out a way to mix extracted cocoa butter, cocoa powder and sugar to create the first modern chocolate bar.
14. 1950
Elizabeth David’s first cookery book is published. A Book of Mediterranean Food brings a ray of sunshine into postwar British kitchens; David’s subsequent books establish her as the foremost UK cookery writer of the 20th century.
15. 1860
Jewish immigrant Joseph Malin establishes Britain’s first recorded fish-and-chip shop, in Bow, east London. By 1927, there are 35,000 in Britain, all recycling newspapers in the best possible fashion.
16. c. 9,500 BC
Primitive forms of wheat, barley, pulses and flax start to be cultivated in southern Iraq and Syria. Over the next few millennia, geographically distant cultures develop similar techniques, as mankind turns to farming.
17. 1841
Vanilla, a tropical plant previously only pollinated by a single species of Mexican bee, is hand-pollinated on Réunion Island by a slave boy called Edmond Albius. This act leads to vanilla’s widescale cultivation; it now flavours everything from ice cream to candles.
18. 1861
Louis Pasteur develops the ‘germ theory’ of food contamination: the following year, he and a colleague demonstrate their new technique of ‘pasteurisation’.
19. c. 5,000 BC
A herdsman stores milk in a pouch made from the stomach of an animal. Due to the effect of rennet in the stomach, the milk curdles and sets into cheese. The herdsman curses his luck, but soon realises it’s nice with pickled onions.
20. 1812
Bryan Donkin, having ‘borrowed’ the technique from Frenchman Nicolas Appert, starts manufacturing tinned food to sell to the Royal Navy. Two tins made in 1824 for an Arctic expedition are opened 114 years later and found to be still in good condition.
21. 1924
In Tijuana, Mexico, restaurateur Caesar Cardini is short of food after a big party. Scouring the kitchen, he digs out lettuce, bread, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, Parmesan, eggs and lemon, and knocks up the first Caesar salad, a dish that does at least look healthy despite being full of fat. It is, needless to say, hugely popular.
22. 330 BC
Alexander the Great sends back a sample of cane sugar from India and Europeans get a taste of a crop that grows in importance over the next two millennia: it is at the heart of the slave trade and is still an important crop in many Caribbean countries.
23. 1809
Dean Mahomet, a high-born Muslim from Patna, opens the Hindostanee Coffee House in Portman Square, London: it is Britain’s first Asian restaurant. (Three years later, he is bankrupt.)
24. 1861
Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management first appears, offering advice and recipes to housewives. Contary to popular notions of her as a middle-aged Victorian matron, Isabella Beeton, above, is just 25 when it appears, and dies aged 28.
25. 1846
The French chef Auguste Escoffier is born: with César Ritz, he takes hotel grande cuisine to new heights.
26. 1586
Francis Drake is credited with bringing potatoes to Britain. The new tuber is regarded with deep suspicion by southerners, although the north takes to it readily.
27. c.100 BC
Apicius, the legendary Roman gourmet, is born. The cookery book that bears his name is compiled over the next few centuries. It features around 470 recipes, 200 of them for sauces.
28. 1967
The Roux brothers open Le Gavroche, bringing classic French food to London and training generations of young British chefs.
29. 1924
After a previous, failed attempt to sell frozen fish, Clarence Birdseye develops a ‘double belt freezer’, which blast-freezes fish and other foods. This time, it is a huge success: he later sells the patent for US$22 million.
30. 1954
The end of food rationing in the UK arrives, after 14 years, as meat and bacon go on general sale.
31. 1984
Keith Floyd’s first TV series, Floyd on Fish, is aired on BBC2, launching the career of perhaps the most natural TV performer ever to wield a spatula. Punctuating his demonstrations with copious slurps of wine, his programmes are often credited as an influence by today’s chefs.
32. 1984
Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking is published and soon becomes the inspiration for the new wave of scientifically inclined chefs.
33. 1908
The great American food writer MFK Fisher is born: her essays elegantly evoke her love of food and inspire millions. A cultured woman in many ways, she also had an art gallery in her bathroom.
34. 1948
Kashmiri restaurant Moti Mahal, in New Delhi, is the first to use a tandoor oven to cook its dishes, starting a fashion that soon spreads around the world – it reaches Britain in the 1960s – and shows no sign of abating.
35. 1999
Activist José Bové and colleagues from the Confédération Paysanne dismantle a McDonald’s store in Millau, France. Bové is imprisoned for 44 days; he later travels to the US with 30kg of Roquefort in his luggage and is let in, despite a US ban on the cheese.
36. c.1550
Portuguese missionaries, dab hands at frying fish during Lent, introduce tempura to Japan.
37. 1931
In an effort to support herself and her family, St Louis widow Irma S Rombauer compiles a recipe book, The Joy of Cooking, and publishes it herself. Illustrated by her daughter Marion, the book has an informal tone and includes recipes for opossum, racoon and squirrel; it goes on to become perhaps the most popular cookbook ever written. It has been in print continuously since 1936 and at the last count, had sold 18 million copies.
38. 1868
Edmund McIlhenny grows a crop of peppers in Louisiana and makes Tabasco, now the world’s most popular hot sauce.
39. 1937
Marcel Boulestin presents programmes on the new BBC and becomes TV’s first chef.
40. 1978
The first volume of Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course is published, launching a book and TV career that would lead to nationwide panic-buying of cranberries, omelette pans and glucose syrup.
41. 1845
Eliza Acton publishes Modern Cookery for Private Families. Her lucid recipe s and elegant style – she was a frustrated poet – keep it in print for more than 50 years.
42. 1900
André Michelin publishes a guide for touring motorists, offering advice on garages, hotels and restaurants: in 1926, a star system is introduced for restaurants. Inclusion in its pages has since become the accolade to which some (but not all) chefs aspire.
43. 1868
Political changes in Japan designed to reduce the power of Buddhists and encourage Western dietary habits lead to the lifting of the 1,000-year-old ban on eating meat. As a result, Kobe beef is reared legally.
44. 1902
The Marmite Food Extract Company is founded in Burton-upon-Trent. It produces what is for many people the growing-up spread they never grew into.
45. 1999
The first issue of Waitrose Food Illustrated hits the newsstands. Its blend of mouthwatering recipes, sumptuous food photography and witty and provocative writing revolutionises the world of publishing. And, talking of self-aggrandisement…
46. 1904
Wallace Waite, Arthur Rose and David Taylor open a grocery in Acton, west London. Within a couple of years, Mr Taylor hangs up his apron and the other two press on, choosing Waitrose – rather than, say, Wall-Art – as the new name.
47. 1843
A Christmas Carol is published. Dickens’ novella has a huge influence on how Christmas becomes celebrated; Scrooge’s gift to the Cratchits of a turkey helps to fix the bird’s central role in the festive meal.
48. 879
King Alfred burns the cakes: given shelter by a Somerset peasant woman, the ruler of Wessex leaves her cakes unattended and is scolded on her return. Much later, TV chefs use the word ‘caramelised’ to cover such exigencies.
49. 1906
Cornflakes are first sold, in the US, by Will Keith Kellogg. Rice Krispies follow 20 years later.
50. 1861
Birth of Dame Nellie Melba: she bears the distinction of having both peach Melba (created by Escoffier) and Melba toast named after her.
51. 1180
A Pepperers’ Guild is established in London, with the purpose of preventing the adulteration of spices arriving from the Far East.
52. 1838
John Lea and William Perrins start to sell Worcestershire sauce. Today, it is especially popular in Japan.
53. 1973
Restaurant critic Henri Gault writes an article outlining ten principles for improving French food, which are taken as a manifesto for a new sort of gastronomy, dubbed la Nouvelle Cuisine.
54. 1865
A type of cooking apple, first grown in the garden of Matthew Bramley, goes on sale.
55. 1870
The invention of the mincing machine is rapidly followed by the appearance of the classic leftovers dish: shepherd’s pie.
56. 1853
A chef in Saratoga Springs, George Crum, infuriated by a difficult diner’s demands for crisper chips, slices potatoes very thinly, fries them, and invents the crisp.
57. 1710
Stilton cheese is first made,at Quenby Hall, Leicestershire, by the housekeeper Elizabeth Scarbrow: she supplies it to The Bell Inn in Stilton, then in Huntingdonshire.
58. 1879
Richard and George Cadbury move their factory to a site in Birmingham – which they develop and rename Bournville – to produce chocolate.
59. 1799
Rules, now London’s oldest surviving restaurant, opens its doors for the first time. The young Charles Dickens presses his nose against its windows on his way back from the blacking factory. He later becomes a regular diner there.
60. 1792
Birth of Gioachino Rossini, the greatest of musical gourmets. He creates both The Barber of Seville and tournedos Rossini, a light snack of fillet steak, foie gras and truffle.
61. 1533
Catherine de Medici moves to France to wed the future King Henri II. With her, she takes her own band of cooks from Renaissance Florence, whose artistry revolutionises northern European courtly cuisine.
62. 1950
Carpaccio is created at Harry’s Bar, Venice, in tribute to the artist, who is known for the raw-beef tones used in his paintings.
63. 1995
The Fat Duck in Bray is opened by Heston Blumenthal; it goes on to win three Michelin stars. His outré creations are the most-discussed dishes in Britain.
64. 1963
President John F Kennedy declares “Ich bin ein Berliner” to prove his solidarity with his German audience; it also means ‘I am a jam doughnut’.
65. 1986
Arcigola,an organisation dedicated to promoting regional diversity and non-intensive agriculture, is formed in Piemonte, Italy. It later changes its name to The Slow Food Movement.
66. 1837
Jonas Yerkes produces tomato ketchup and distributes it all over the USA; F&J Heinz introduces its version in 1876.
67. 1783
Birth of Antonin Carême: sometimes described as the first celebrity chef, Carême cooks for Napoleon, Tsar Alexander and the Prince Regent.
68. 1633
The first banana arrives in Britain from Bermuda: it is sold in herbalist Thomas Johnson’s shop.
69. 2007
The third year in which Ferran Adria’s visionary cooking earns Spain’s El Bulli the title ‘Best Restaurant in the World’.
70. 1825
Publication of Physiologie du Goût. Its author, Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, is still considered France’s greatest gourmet philosopher.
71. 1958
In Osaka, Yoshiaki Shiraishi opens the first sushi conveyor belt restaurant, having been inspired by the beer-bottling line at the Asahi factory.
72. 1938
The first edition of the culinary encyclopaedia Larousse Gastronomique appears, edited by Prosper Montagné and with an introduction by Escoffier. The inches-thick tome makes an immediate impact in kitchens, and top shelves everywhere become accessible to the curiosity of small children.
73. 1894
The term ‘French fries’ is coined by the great American writer O Henry. To avoid giving succour to the ‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys’, they are now called ‘freedom fries’ by right-thinking Americans (or ‘rubbish-cheese-eating invasion monkeys’).
74. 1904
The hamburger, popular in the USA, is served at the St Louis World Fair – crucially, in a bun. It soon becomes the world’s favourite fast food. Some might suggest the burger’s impact has been greater than the sandwich’s; but where would it be without its bread/filling/bread template?
75. 1731
Henry Fielding’s The Grub Street Opera includes the line ‘Oh! The roast beef of England’. Our national culinary identity is duly cemented.
76. 1747
The plagiarism in Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy starts the still-popular practice of recipe-pinching.
77. 1753
Count Rumford is born in Massachusetts and is later credited with inventing baked Alaska.
78. 1934
A recipe for Black Forest gateau appears in a German book about cakes: it becomes popular in Berlin, then all over the world.
79. 1991
The Eagle, the first and most influential gastropub, opens in Farringdon, London.
80. 1970
Asterix in Switzerland introduces British party hosts to fondue.
81. 60 AD
Petronius writes Satyricon, a work famous for its lavish feast scene, which features dormice rolled in honey.
82. 1931
Marinetti’s Futurist Cookbook is published: it proposes, inter alia, that the Italians should be banned from eating spaghetti and that some dishes should not be eaten but simply waved under the noses of diners.
83. 1967
Jane Grigson’s first book, Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery, is published. Homelier in style than Elizabeth David’s, but no less scholarly, many of her books achieve lasting popularity.
84. 1814
Sachertorte, perhaps the world’s richest chocolate cake, is created in Vienna by Franz Sacher, the Metternich family’s pastry cook.
85. 1814
Jeremiah Colman starts milling and selling mustard powder from a small factory outside Norwich.
86. 1935
Ballerina Anna Pavlova has a fruit, meringue and cream concoction named in her honour, although there is a fierce dispute between Australia and New Zealand as to which country is responsible for inventing the pudding.
87. 1927 Otto
Frederick Rohwedder of Iowa produces the first bread-slicing machine, providing the standard against which all ‘best things’ are measured.
88. 1896
Frederick Gibson Garton, a Nottingham grocer, hears that his brown sauce is being served in a restaurant in the Houses of Parliament. He registers the name ‘HP Sauce’.
89. 1910
A variation on a toasted sandwich, the croque-monsieur, makes it onto the menus of Paris brasseries. It features ham and Gruyère on toasted bread: variations, such as croque-madame, with an egg; and croque-norvégien, with smoked salmon, follow. Less enticing is the croque-hawaïen, with added pineapple.
90. 1524
The first mention of marmalade in the OED. Early versions of the preserve are made with quinces, with citrus fruits beginning to be used from the 17th century.
91. 1954
Alice B Toklas’s cookbook contains a recipe for ‘hashisch [sic] fudge’, and thus lends her name to student favourite, the Alice B Toklas brownie.
92. 1793
Captain William Bligh takes breadfruit trees to Jamaica, having been thwarted earlier by the little matter of a mutiny.
93. 1847
American Hanson Gregory, dissatisfied with greasy, undercooked doughnuts, punches a hole in the middle of the dough and invents the ring doughnut.
94. 1679
Denis Papin, a French physicist and mathematician, invents a ‘steam digester’, an early version of the pressure cooker.
95. 1915 Food writer Marguerite Patten, above, is born; she is later instrumental in helping the British through rationing.
96. 1785
Thomas Jefferson becomes American ambassador in Paris. He dines enthusiastically and later employs a French chef at the White House to make macaroni pie and pêches flambées.
97. 1312
Taillevent, the most famous medieval cook, is born: he is responsible for the oldest French cookery book, and cooks for both Philippe VI and Charles VI.
98. 1750
The Hambledon Cricket Club is formed, thus popularising the only sport sensible and civilised enough to include two meal breaks a day.
99. 1837
Alfred Bird, whose wife is allergic to eggs, invents a cornflour-based custard powder.
100.1803
Grimod de la Reynière publishes the first volume of L’Almanach des Gourmands, so becoming the world’s first published restaurant critic.
HALL OF INFAMY
The ten least glorious moments in food history
1. 1869
Napoleon III offers a prize for creating a butter substitute. Chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriés wins with oleomargarine, later shortened to ‘margarine’.
2. 1933
In Philadelphia, Pat Olivieri invents the Cheesesteak – sliced steak fried with onions and cheese spread. Philadelphia is later named the most obese city in America.
3. 1952
Colonel Sanders opens the first Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, in Utah. In 1964, he sells the whole busines for US$2 million.
4. 1982
Dairy Crest launches Lymeswold cheese, thinking its invented name will evoke rusticity and bring success. It is withdrawn in the early 1990s.
5. 1937
Hormel’s Spiced Ham holds a competition for a new name. ‘Spam’ is the winner: it goes on to sell more than 6 billion tins.
6. 1949
Quiche arrives in Britain. Elizabeth David later describes it as a ‘culinary dustbin’.
7. 1960
The term ‘ploughman’s lunch’ is coined by the English County Cheese Council. Pubs start garnishing bread and cheese with limp lettuce and coleslaw.
8. 1971
Instant noodles in cups are launched in Japan. Golden Wonder brings the Pot Noodle to Britain in 1979.
9. 1908
A Japanese scientist identifies monosodium glutamate, paving the way for nasty food companies to make their junk foods addictively delicious.
10. 1995 A chip shop in Stonehaven, Scotland, puts deep-fried Mars bars on sale.
In: 'Waitrose Food Illustrated', issue August 2007
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