Mankind looks back on a long history of cooking. Nutrients and dietary intake were usually at the forefront of the more ancient cooking traditions, but taste and looks have always been an important consideration.

The earliest traces

Evidence has emerged in Kenya indicating that humans may have begun using fire to prepare food almost as soon as they discovered it – as long as 1.5 million years ago. The earliest traces of a cooking range with charcoaled bones, uncovered in Beijing and Nice, date back over 500,000 years. Shortly after, the technique of cooking with fire spread across Europe.

Having previously survived primarily on meat and fruit, people then discovered completely new foodstuffs: grasses and roots that had previously been hard to digest or inedible now became a further integral part of their diets. In this way, our ancestors influenced our bodies today: teeth, for example, became significantly smaller over time. So you see, a lot more than you might think depends on cooking.

Filipino Cuisine

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Traditional British cooking

The staples of traditional British cooking haven't changed much over the years, but over the last half a century there has been a revolution in terms of influence from abroad. Today there are over 5,000 Italian restaurants in Britain, and meals from all over the world are cooked in Britain's kitchens these days. Britain is still known as the home of fish and chips, but what was the winner in a recent poll of Britain's favourite meal? Chicken tikka masala.