I Tried 1,000,000 Years Of Food

We’ve come a long way from meat on a stick.

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Cooking was born the day man invented fire uh costume was a little too short by the way pants are on and today cooking is well more accessible than it was before Regional recipes that have never been seen before were globalized and we have access to just about all

Knowledge on Earth at our fingertips so that makes me wonder how did cooking change throughout the centuries millions of years lead to some of our most favorite foods of all time so today we’re going to cook through a million years of History to find our answer so

We’re starting in the year 2 and a half million DC the ice age to be specific no fire yet but meat raw meat and also no salt or spices so maybe it wasn’t that good this is more or less what people back then were working with no tools to

Hunt and they just lift off things they could catch you know with their bare hands or meet from dead animals they found yeah it’s gross but you know that’s what happened so I’m sorry wo a beautifully cut flaming Yan Bona petitte I’m not eating that okay you know what

This tastes like tartar that but not good so we move on to 50,000 BC yeah it took a while to figure this out but we have tools and fire this is when early humans finally crafted primitive weapons which meant clothes for one but what this actually meant is they

Could hunt and cook so here we have our protein might have looked like this but we’re going to cook it over live fire as closely as you might have expected I wish that we had salt and spices so we’re going to make this work so I would

Imagine that they cooked it any way they possibly could have all right so we have this suspended over a fire their setup was probably a little more primitive but we tried to get it close we bound this to the stick it is over a hot fire I’ll

Rotate this period Ally as it cooks and now we wait for it to cook through all right it’s been about an hour and a half this is taking a really long time so we’ve made some uh modifications to speed this up so I found a little Rosemary growing wild so I just plucked

The little Branch put it on here and uh it’ll perfume with rosemary I know they didn’t have spices but I’m sure this happened accidentally this is hot on my balls all right this is our final modification I call this I’m not going to wait any longer for this I’m putting

It directly over the fire I’m sure that they had to do the same thing when they were getting really hungry and they’re like why the is this taking so long smells great honestly it just smells like a smoked steak I wish there were salt on this but maybe it’s still good

We’ll find out pretty good honestly doesn’t need anything on it he basically got a beautiful smoked steak despite this being literally the oldest cooking technique known to mankind it still exists today and for good reason moving on now we’re in year zero and in Egypt domesticated grains now exist so we have

Flour but the big news they learned how to ferment so we have history’s first starter and potentially first sourdough bread made from emmer wheat flour which is still used today ooh this is a little bit more modernized sort of French style bread but I do think it embodies what

Was made way back when fresh ground grains naturally occurring bacteria in the form of a starter and salt that is it well also water it’s toasty it’s tart it’s bready you can really taste the grains in it it’s got this hearty deep nutty flavor think about how much you

Love bread if this is where it started that’s a big thumbs up moving on big fast forward to 6th Century China history is given us soy sauce rice and walks and now we get the earliest record of fried rice made with with leftovers yes even back then made with leftovers

You get a hot walk they added some oil maybe animal fat or whatever they had throw in some chopped vegetables I added carrots and the whites of green onion you’d add your rice stir fry that maybe they seasoned it up with salt then follow with all important soy sauce this

Ingredient being created so long ago as the Bedrock of some of the greatest flavors on planet Earth stirfry that to combine transfer to a finished bowl and let’s taste this is about as basic as a fried rice is going to get this is a perfect combination it was likely made

Out of necessity but they were thinking this is still going to taste good this was more of like peasant food or something that was kind of thrown together with what you had nowadays people are throwing in short rib me pork belly me bacing me but I don’t think

That the modern interpretations are that far off of what was made, 1400 1500 years ago that’s a good recipe with standing over a thousand years good job moving on now we’re in 9th century the medieval period dried noodles arrived in Italy for the first time due to the Arab

Invasion in Sicily yeah I know you’re getting a little history lesson here listen I didn’t know this either supposed L this dish would help their sick get their strength back probably because of the insane amount of carbohydrates this dish was called itria or itria you took Stone miled semolina

Flour hydrated it with water mixed it until it formed a dough kneaded it a little bit didn’t have plastic wrap so lightly grease a bowl cover with a damp linen and let it rest at that point ston M semolina flour to dust and roll it out

Until it’s very very thin I mean this is like 116th of an inch maybe even thinner think flat pasta now fold the dough up and cut into qu or e/ in wide strips open them up dust with more semolina from this point it was very basic they

Cooked it in a beef stock transferred to a bowl maybe they would add some cooked meats whatever they had I had cooked chicken but who knows maybe they were using Ox if they had cheese they would add cheese but I don’t know maybe that was a luxury back then now let’s taste

And see what pasta was like in the 800s it looks very reminiscent of some of the modern pastas we see today I like these noodles they’re a little chewier they got some toothsomes to it but they also have a little texture from the semolina it’s fragrant with the olive oil which I

Love cheese is really the only level of saltiness you get because the sauce doesn’t really cling that well to the noodles it doesn’t carry salt very well this was the beginnings of maybe a cat Pepe that’s not a fact that’s a guess moving on as we fast forward to the next

Nine centuries 11th and 12th century we first see sugar grown in Europe so shout out to Europe for that 14th century the first recorded recipe for lasagna in the king of Naples cookbook also in the 14th century the first recorded recipe of a sweet fruit filled pie in the 15th

Century first recorded Brewing hot coffee in Yemen if you’re the one responsible for coffee God bless you and then in the 16th century for the first time strawberries go from Wild to finally domesticated one of the greatest fruits of all time at least that’s my opinion but then we arrive to the 18th

Century 1774 to be exact the first known recorded curry recipe that we could find in the English language and we found the actual recipe with their exact measurements it calls for two small chickens so I’m breaking down one whole chicken into 68 pieces and I’m only using the legs and the thighs my

Assumption is chickens back then probably were not gargantuan like they are today shout out to farming practices that are questionable bring about 1 quart of water to a boil over high heat in a 34 sauce pot I put the chicken pieces into that boiled for

5 minutes then I mortar and pestled 1 oz of turmeric and a spoonful of Ginger followed by one jalapeno rough chopped and three tied chilies also rough chopped the recipe only says pepper so I added what I felt like would probably taste good smash that until you get a

Nice paste season a taste with salt now remove the chicken from the boiling water heat a six4 dutch oven over medium high heat once hot add 2 o or 56 G of butter which I would literally never do add one medium onion chopped soften that

Add the chicken to the pot and then let them both Brown together surprisingly enough the chicken did Brown now at this point you put the curry paste in the pot stir everything together let it get nice and aromatic you’re going to top that chicken off with the liquid that the

Chicken was poached in now let that stew for 30 minutes then add one pint or 480 mL of heavy cream and the juice of two lemons bring that back to a boil of course I seasoned everything vigorously with salt and let’s see how an old recipe from the 1700’s tastes it’s

Pretty dang good I can see how this sort of shaped and influenced a lot of the curries that are out there today this is a very soupy Curry it’s more of like a chicken noodle soup mixed with a curry maybe even more reminiscent of a Thai curry I wonder if there was maybe

Influence there not bad considering they didn’t have that much back then moving on only a few years later in 1790 you see Italy’s first recorded recipe for pasta with tomato sauce the Spanish brought tomatoes to Europe from Mexico in the 15th century but Europeans were like oh my God that’s poisonous then of

Course the wealthy got a hold of them and as we all know once the wealthy likes something everyone else wants to like it too the rest is history I mean it was really basic it was just simmered with onions garlic celery basil and you just added your pasta to that plated it

Maybe they added some cheese and we’ll taste this looks like it needs a spicy meatball pasta with tomato sauce we take it for granted these days I have immediately a new found appreciation for pasta with tomato sauce I’ve always just been like oh it’s there but there’s a

Lot to this with the naturally curring glutamate that’s in the Tomato it’s rich but it’s also acidic and sweet so it cuts the richness it’s so perfectly balanced The Chew from the noodles it’s a beautiful thing I’m glad this exists moving on now things get a little

Interesting in the 19th century in Ido Japan which is present day Tokyo the creation of modern day Sushi otherwise known as niri Zushi or today niri it’s the first Sushi to feature raw fish why does that matter because originally they were using Nar Zushi which was a long

Fermented fish with sometimes took years and guess what this is the early inkland of everybody going hey I don’t like waiting a long time for and so they just started using raw fish when this niri was made they sliced nice high quality raw fish but the balls of rice that

These fish were put on were significantly larger than what we use today they were huge actually this looks a little funky I probably could have done better here but we’ll get it to taste I a Big M I like the whole thing give me a second so much food that is

Really good though there’s something beautiful about this because the process of making sushi I don’t think has changed a ton since it was invented and yet it is probably one of the most sought after Foods in human existence moving on in 19th century England the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon in

Battle how do you celebrate that beef on crew is renamed in the Duke’s honor and beef wellington is is Bored Gordon Ramsey didn’t invent Beef Wellington I know I wanted it to be him that invented it trust me traditionally it’s wrapped with Crepes hence the French influence B

You put duel on the pido you got your seared beef you brush it with mustard roll it up nice and tight and then you wrap it in puff pastry brush it with eggwash obviously I’m a fancy boy so I added a little extra sheet of lattice puff pastry on top brushed again baked

Until a beautiful luxurious golden brown rested for 5 minutes sliced and you have a perfectly stunning medium rare luxurious Chateau Breon interior and a crispy buttery flaky crust if the Duke of Wellington saw this right now he would drop trow I wish more places serve this it’s starting to get to a point

Where it almost feels archaic but it shouldn’t this is a Timeless dish it is so good beef Fila is more of a texture thing than a beef thing but all the different flavors the mushroom The Toasted butter flavor from the crust and then of course just light beef wrapped

In cured meat I mean come on dude fatty Rich delicious deeply flavored there’s a reason why everyone loves Gordon Ramsey so much for this there’s a reason why I love Beef Wellington it’s cuz good brother moving on now staying in the 19th century for one more major advancement the 1889 invention of the

Margarita Pizza this came later than I thought it would it was to honor Queen Margarita and the Italiano flag maybe the most important this is supposedly the first time mozzarella cheese was ever put on a pizza which jeez really took you that long huh I’m kidding

Italians please don’t be mad at me it was probably a naturally 11 dough if I had to guess that dough was shaped into large balls and allowed to preferment for a long period of time to give it extra FL flavor and develop maturity which was of course then punched down

Shaped into a pizza Sauced with a light tomato sauce fresh mozzarella fresh basil into a extremely hot pizza oven cooked promptly within about 60 to 90 seconds and then enjoyed if you’ve ever been to Naples or had a good neapolitan pizza it’s the fragrance of the basil little bit of

Olive oil somewhere in there but more importantly that nice fresh mozzarella probably one of the most harmonious creations of flavor I know moving on we finally made it to the 20th century 1907 August escoffier if you don’t know this name you need to know this name he did many things including what we’re

Covering today solidifying the recipes in the lineup of French mother sauces there’s only five Volute espanol SAS tamat bashal and holles fun fact if you’re a line cook and you’re watching this please remember those five for the next time that your line cook mate decides to randomly ask you in front of

The chef and then you turn around and tell them the right thing and then they look like an idiot flute French for velvety basically a r cooked down and you add a white chicken stock you whisk until thick and seasoned with salt obviously this can go on a lot of things

It’s really the base of a lot of other sauces in my opinion but it can kind of go on any Savory dish next espanol a r Bas sauce darkened with brown stock tomato puree becomes a base for mushroom sauces demig glosses and Beyond this is a deep flavored sauce think about beef

Game meat maybe pasta speaking a pasta sauce tomat it’s basically a red tomato sauce Pastor rinoa seasoned with salt cook down you know where this would go now the only two that we really use commonly today is first bashal a RH bé sauce that’s thinned out with milk it’s

Thick creamy this is a very common start to many cheese sauces and of course the second one being hollay probably one of the most known mother sauces it’s literally just an Emulsion of butter and egg yolk essentially and where do you see Holliday eggs benedict on top of

Asparagus on top of crab cakes I mean it is the all-in-one buttery creamy sauce that can go on just about anything and make it taste delicious we have a hollay here this is the only one that we still use today and love it’s a perfect thing immediately it’s a ribbony luxurious

Rich buttery but also acidic and Balan sauce all the other sauces like bashal use commonly to make mouret sauces or emulsify other things things like Volute and espanol they have their own specific applications just like this Meats fish potatoes although we don’t use all the French mother sauces all that often in

The modern day they were the bounce board to the ideology behind great sauce making and how important they are to make everything taste good moving on to the 1920s the Caesar salad oh yeah the Caesar salad which was invented in Italy wrong it was invented by an Italian chef

Named Caesar in Tijuana Mexico and it’s delicious literally Dijon egg yolks anchovy lemon juice water salt garlic these are the major ingredients and then all of that was emulsified with oil tossed with crunchy croutons which you dressed Roma lettuce and that is it sometimes you can add a little extra

Parmesan on top little fresh cracked black Peppe that’s it okay I don’t want to see any grape tomatoes in your Caesar salad stop that I love Caesar salad I think it is quite literally the greatest salad ever invented in human history not only that but the dressing I could quite

Literally drench myself in a pool and stay in it for up to 3 to 4 days maybe five butti it’s everything I could want in a salad first off cheese second off croutons third off Rich yet acidic yet balanced garlicky Umami dressing this might be one of the best things on the

List today moving on now moving on to 1937 there’s only one canned meat that I’ll ever think is okay and that is Spam okay chest love it Islanders love it it’s a beautiful thing honestly this was invented out of necessity during World War II shipped overseas and guess what

Everyone found out hey this is actually kind of fire a common way to cook it would be to sear it in a pan tell feel nice and brown and served over rice brushed with a little bit of sweet soy if you think spam is gross I need you to

Reanalyze okay I’m telling you this is one of the very few times I’ll go hey this weird thing in a can is actually kind of good spam is a special product this is loved by many many many many many people from many backgrounds a lot

Of people turn their nose up at it for a long time and for no good reason if you like bacon and ham you’re going to like spam wait do that rhyme spam you can’t have that you cannot have that slogan 15 million this was something that was

Created pretty much out of necessity it was created to be cheap it was created to last a long time and it was created during war time but it’s still around and that’s because it’s good it’s salty it’s fatty it’s Rich it doesn’t taste like it looks when it comes out of the

Can and when you sear it you put a little glaze on it served with rice or in between buns if you are hurting for cash and this is in front of you this is like a savior moving forward to 1954 we’re getting close to the modern day the

Unlikely introduction of the TV dinner this is all about convenience we want it now we want it easy just follow the conveniently provided instructions and heat it up just in time for my favorite TV show TV dinner so convenient I could just sit here for hours days why ever

Move my legs my legs anyway this looks the funny thing is this is already made for your convenience but even in the production they made it convenient they didn’t even use real potatoes in the mashed potatoes they used instant why are you pre- makak the pre-made holy

That tells me a lot about how this chicken might be so let’s start there [ __ ] is this a whole thigh with the bone in it I mean that’s kind of cool let’s try the breading first Jesus I mean this is like depressed KFC all right moving

On the mashed potatoes not as bad as I thought they would be corn h i mean it’s frozen corn it’s all right super chewy time for dessert M there’s a little piece of corn in there hate that this browny tastes like a Weight Watchers brownie they like sweetened it with like

Splenda so it’s super bitter and not like from the chocolate from like artificial sweetener this is the era where doctors were like depression doesn’t exist it’s abysmal this I guess was like the attempt at convenience right everybody wants convenience but there was no convenient infrastructure so they thought well we’ll freeze it and

You microwave it right that’s the answer to all things nobody wanted to spend time on stuff all a sudden because we became so busy we’re even busier today but somehow we care more about food today but we’ll get to that later one year later 1955 maybe one of the biggest

Moments in American food history Ray Croc opens the first McDonald’s but they now have over 40,000 McDonald’s worldwide which essentially monopolized and kicked off the fast food restaurant crat this is a big deal hi welcome to McDonald’s will you be using your mobile today no can I just

Get a Double Quarter Pounder with cheese here it is hold on what is this real where the are we look at the my yard that still smells like though it really does it doesn’t smell good at all it’s actually not bad who’s running this place hello is this real look at look at

The my yard wo okay so like the salt levels weren’t there at all and there wasn’t like a ton of flavor but it did kind of have the texture I was looking for the meat was a little chewy but in comparison to the other McDonald’s burgers where was this burger the whole

Time I mean it’s still nowhere near an ideal Smash Burger but that might have been the greatest McDonald’s hamburger I’ve ever had notice how I said McDonald’s now we’re getting closer to the modern day we’re fast forwarding to the 1980s the greatest thing to ever happen to an underbaked cake molten

Chocolate cake also known as chocolate lava cake was sort of created but there’s a conflicting story no one knows exactly who invented it but our old friend ja George claims he did and I’ll be honest with you after almost losing to him in a cook off I’m going to take

His word also he’s really sweet and I love him you’re telling me you don’t want to give that man a kiss on the forehead and then let him kiss you back on the forehead I certainly would why are you laughing biger I’m serious right now so look it’s a very simple thing I

Feel like most people like a chocolate molten lava cake it’s two things in one you get a nice moist cake but you also get that fudgy sauce some say put a coin of ganache in there and let it it melt some say undercook the cake who gives a

I just want the inside to be molten and delicious and this is the outside of the cake is tender it melts in your mouth and it all kind of becomes one silky harmonious texture at the end of the day it’s not too sweet it’s balanced got a little bit of saltiness it’s chocolatey

I like it this is a good invention it’s a step forward on the humble cake now moving on moving into the 2000s finally a technological innovation the first soused circulator for the home kitchen you see at this point in time what do people really care about necessity no

Not at all Precision everything is exact ly how we want maximum control every time all the time God forbid we get something that isn’t cooked perfectly ideally you want a real thick steak seasoned aggressively with salt and pepper vacuum sealed dropped into a soused bath this one is 54 cius cook for

About an hour to an hour 30 removed rested seared basted rested again sliced maybe add a little flaky salt now that we don’t have to eat meat directly over a fire like earlier let’s try and see if this is a little better a steak really benefits from aie methodology when it’s

A big boy so you can really see how it gets that perfect cook as close to edge to edge as possible obviously when you sear it you get a little bit of a gray ring but the point is it’s tender and it is perfectly cooked the Precision of a

Device now the flavor though I didn’t put a lot on this I didn’t put garlic or Rosemary or thyme I didn’t marinate it I just put it in a bag in a hot water bath and I have a tender juicy not dry at all perfectly cooked ribeye and it’s got

That beautiful little crust because the par cook that it received beforehand could you do this with a reverse searing an oven sure but it won’t be as accurate and that is the modern day level of precision you only get from a suvie the story doesn’t end here we have one last

Stop the modern day finally the 2010s and 2020s we’re talking Bea Ramen butter chicken calzon and one of the first Fusion Cuisines Korean Mexican food like this kimchi quesadilla look it’s very basic you put a whole tortilla in a pan heat it over medium heat immediately sprinkle a nice melting cheese that

Could be mozzarella wwan cheese on one/ half of the tortilla try to keep it a/4 inch layer no thicker than that add on some chopped kimchi then sprinkle on just a little bit more cheese once half the cheese that’s closest to the pan is melted fold your tortilla over flip and

Continue to heat on the other side until the cheese is melted throughout take it out cut it into quarters optionally you can serve this with the side of a kimchi Mayo in a small bowl you’re going to add 1 cup or 240 G of koopy mayonnaise 1/4

Cup or 60 G of kimchi paste that’s kimchi that’s been Blended 1/4 cup or 60 G of Shira 1 taspo or 4 G of shio Koji you can also just maybe do a little pinch of MSG if you don’t have it finally two tpoon or 8 G of soy sauce

Two cloves of grated garlic whisk all that together and that is your Mayo if you want to add more salt taste and adjust as necessary now let’s taste kimchi C sadilla with a kimchi Mayo I don’t care what anyone has to say this is something special somehow this is the

Most perfect combination the ingredients that came together to make this happen came from different periods in time from different parts of the world and I have an important point to make here we now have access to the entire world’s complete database of food food culture cooking all of us at our fingertips

Assuming you’re watching this we can ship ingredients from any part of the world to our front doorstep and most things are available year round nowadays and this has given us the privilege to combine things that would have never even come in contact together even 100 years ago and that is what makes the

Modern day in the future special it means we can make things that never existed before by looking at the past some people will say that they hate it and to respect only tradition but I say respect tradition but learn how to break the rules because there’s always

Progress to be made if you’re willing to utilize the full power of knowledge that we have today that is what today’s video is about so I hope you enjoyed it don’t forget to subscribe Goodbye