Throughout history, many ancient foods have remained popular and are still enjoyed today. These enduring foods, like bread, honey, yogurt, and wine, connect us to our ancestors and show how some eating habits have stayed the same over time. The oldest foods we still eat today remind us of our shared culinary heritage and the timeless appeal of certain flavors and traditions.
Dates
People have been eating dates for thousands of years, particularly in the Middle East. Evidence suggests that they were first deliberately cultivated around 4000 BC in the fertile land between Mesopotamia and Egypt. Dates continue to be an important food in the region and play a significant role in Islam, often being used to break the fast during Ramadan.
Indian curry
Curry, or Kaṟi, refers to a spicy sauce for rice. It first appeared in written records in a 17th-century Portuguese cookbook compiled by members of the British East India Company who were trading with Tamils on the southeast Indian coast. However, the origins of the dish are undoubtedly much older than this.
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Linzer torte
One of the world’s oldest tortes, this Austrian classic features an almond shortcrust pastry filled with fruit preserve and topped with a nutty lattice. Unsurprisingly, Linz, in Upper Austria, claims the Linzer torte as its own, and one Austrian confectioner can trace their version back to a recipe from 1696.
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Butter
Some sources suggest that butter was first discovered by pastoralist herders in ancient Africa around 8000 BC. Meanwhile, pictorial evidence, such as a bas-relief in Sumatra, indicates that nomadic tribes in Asia had discovered it by around 3500 BC. Written records mentioning butter first appear in India in the ninth century BC.
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@atasbutter via Instagram
Pancakes
Forget about French crepes or American pancakes—the first record of pancakes dates back to Ancient Greece around 600 BC, when a poet described eating them in his writings. Many centuries later, around 1100 AD, pancakes made their first appearance in Britain, traditionally enjoyed on Shrove Tuesday.
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Tamales
Made from masa, a corn dough, tamales are a very old Mesoamerican dish. The dough is steamed in either banana leaves or corn husks, which serve as handy disposable plates. While the Aztecs are often credited with inventing tamales, hieroglyphic records suggest a much older origin, dating back to around 8000 BC to 5000 BC.
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@tamales_mex via Instagram
Anfu ham
Named after a town in Jiangxi, China, Anfu ham is known for its characteristic yellow-tinted meat. It is dry-cured with a thin skin but thick meat, and its history dates back to at least the Qin dynasty. Anfu ham gained international recognition when it was featured in the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition.
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WhisperToMe via wikipedia
Flatbread
Pinpointing the exact origin of flatbread is difficult, as many ancient cultures, including the Romans, created their own versions. However, archaeological evidence suggests that flatbread first appeared in ancient Egypt, arguably making it one of the earliest examples of processed food. Around the same time, flatbread was also being made and eaten in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.
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@dearmaudnj via Instagram
Bone broth
Bone broth likely originated in multiple places around the world and in very ancient times. As soon as our ancestors discovered fire and vessels for cooking, bone broth may have been an accidental discovery. Over the centuries, it has remained a significant part of both culinary and medicinal traditions.
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Chutney
Chutney was invented as a method of preserving food in hot climates and has its origins in ancient India, around 500 BC. The practice soon spread to the Romans and then to the British through trading links with the Indian subcontinent.
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Charles Haynes via wikipedia
Burgers
While the US is often credited with creating the modern hamburger (a ground beef patty between two slices of bread), similar foods existed in Europe long before this. For example, an ancient Roman cookbook references a baked patty made from beef mixed with peppercorns, pine nuts, and white wine.
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@shmashd_ via Instagram
Mesopotamian Stew
To see the original recipe for Mesopotamian Stew, visit Yale’s Babylonian Collection. There, you’ll find a 4,000-year-old tablet inscribed with one of the world’s oldest recipes. It doesn’t resemble a modern recipe but is more of a list of ingredients, including meat, water, fine-grained salt, Persian shallot, and more.
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Tasting History with Max via YouTube
Bread
Once again, Mesopotamia—where the Sumerian civilization arose—claims the origin of the first leavened bread. Instead of yeast, the Sumerians used ash as their leavening agent to help the bread rise. It wasn’t until some centuries later that the ancient Egyptians began using yeast in their bread-making process.
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@cozy__bread via Instagram
Beer
The first beer was produced as early as 7000 BC by an ancient Chinese civilization and was known as kui. This early beer predates modern brewing, which began around 3500 BC in Mesopotamia. So, once again, Mesopotamia is credited with the development of what we consider “modern” brewing techniques.
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@riverstjoe via Instagram
French sauce
If you’re looking for something to dip your fries into, you might consider options like ketchup, mayonnaise, or French sauce. However, in France, the term “French sauce” doesn’t refer to a single sauce. Instead, it is a collective term for les sauces mères: hollandaise, mayonnaise, béchamel, tomato, velouté, and espagnole. The earliest printed reference to these sauces dates back to 1833.
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@dorotgardens via Instagram
Chocolate
Chocolate as a food dates back over 5,000 years. The cocoa bean was first domesticated around 5,300 years ago in what is now Ecuador, where it was made into a bitter drink mixed with corn puree or spices, rather than sugar. It was completely unknown in Europe until the early 1500s.
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@aagneycocoa via Instagram
Rice
Rice, still a staple food for many people today, comes from a cultivated swamp grass. Archaeological and linguistic evidence agree that the first domestication of wild rice and its cultivation occurred in China’s Yangtze River basin around 9,000 years ago.
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@alishaan_basmati_rice via Instagram
Hardtack
Hardtack lives up to its name—it’s not known for being particularly tasty, but it does keep you alive. Made from flour, water, and salt and baked into a hard biscuit, hardtack was a staple food for sailors and explorers from the 17th century to the early 20th century. Although it’s less common today, it’s sometimes still eaten.
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Congee
Today, congee is typically thought of as a rice porridge. However, throughout its long history, it has been made with various grains such as cornmeal, barley, and millet. This variability has led to some debate over its origin, but most experts agree that congee originated in China during the Zhou dynasty, around 1000 BC.
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@bonappetitmag via Instagram
Pizza
If you consider pizza as a type of flatbread, its origins can be traced to ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. However, for something closest to modern-day pizza, you should look to ancient Rome, specifically Naples. There, you can still find the earliest and most authentic form of what we now recognize as pizza.
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@bobspizzatour via Instagram
Harissa
Tunisia is the home of harissa, a hot chili paste that’s excellent as a dip, marinade, or stew flavoring. The name comes from a word meaning “to mash,” which aptly describes the process of preparing the ingredients. The recipe for harissa is unlikely to be older than 1535, when the Spanish first occupied Ottoman Tunisia and introduced chilies acquired from Columbian traders.
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@yellowchilis via Instagram
Buttermilk
Buttermilk is the thin, fermented liquid left after churning cream to make butter. While its exact origins are unknown, it was likely discovered independently by various early agricultural societies. Today, buttermilk remains an important part of the diet in many countries, including India, Pakistan, Germany, and Finland.
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@homecookingshow via Instagram
Fig cake
Imagine figs dried, compressed, and made into a solid loaf rather than a cake—this is fig-cake. This older version of fig-cake is different from the fig cake enjoyed in Greece and the southern US. It even gets a mention in the Bible as “dveláh.”
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kjc-01 via Reddit
Focaccia
The origins of focaccia, an unleavened flatbread, are a bit unclear. Similar breads have been made throughout the Middle East for centuries. However, it’s likely that the focaccia as we know it today originated either in Ancient Greece or with the Etruscans before the formation of the Roman Empire.
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@goop via Instagram
Garum
Garum is a fermented fish sauce that was highly favored by the Romans, who may have used it to mask the taste of spoiled food. It likely originated with the Ancient Greeks in the fifth century BC and continues to be popular across much of Southeast Asia today.
Noodles
It might not be surprising to learn that the first documented evidence of noodles comes from China, dating back around 4,000 years. Archaeologists have even discovered an uneaten bowl of noodles from that era. Found at the Lajia archaeological site in northwestern China, the long, slender, yellow noodles were remarkably well-preserved, thanks to their upturned bowl and ten feet of sediment.
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slasherturtle via reddit
Forcemeat
This picture shows forcemeat prepared as a terrine, a popular way to enjoy this mixture of lean meat (or fish) with fat and seasoning. Other common preparations include pâtés, quenelles, and sausages. This practice dates back to at least the 1600s.
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HuntersFeast via reddit
Lamb stew
Once again, Mesopotamia provides the earliest evidence of lamb stew. However, many people associate lamb stew with Irish cuisine. In Ireland, lamb stew was developed after cauldron cooking became popular, around the 1600s.
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BenjobiSan via reddit
Olive oil
Environmental science suggests that the olive tree traces its origins to Mesopotamia and ancient Persia. Its slow westward spread eventually brought it to the Mediterranean, where intensive cultivation began. However, archaeological records show that Neolithic people in Asia Minor collected wild olives as early as the 8th century BC, and it’s possible they also learned to extract the oil.
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pixabay via pexels
Nettle soup
If you want to go foraging for food, try searching for young nettle plants in spring or early summer. They are nutritious, and when made into a soup, cooking deactivates their sting. Still eaten in parts of Europe, the earliest records of nettle consumption date back to Bronze Age Britain and Ireland.
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its-chaos-be-kind via reddit
Placenta cake
Don’t worry: placenta cake isn’t what you might fear. Instead, it’s a multi-layered dough cake with leaves interspersed with honey and cheese, all flavored with bay leaves. Often regarded as the precursor to baklava, placenta cake’s origins date back to at least ancient Greece and Rome.
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Dramatic_Reality_531 via reddit
Sauerkraut
If you think of sauerkraut as quintessentially German, you’d be mistaken. While it’s very popular in Germany, its true origins lie far to the east in China, dating back to the time when the Great Wall of China was under construction.
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ChickenGuy76 via reddit
French onion soup
Here’s one dish where the name isn’t misleading. French onion soup, now enjoyed across much of Europe, is believed to have originated in France, or ancient Gaul. Onion soups have been eaten in what is now modern-day France since at least Roman times.
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OnlyOneLastCookie via reddit
Tofu
Tofu is made from soybeans, one of the world’s oldest crops, giving tofu a claim to ancient origins. While soybeans were first domesticated over 5,000 years ago in China, the first documented appearance of tofu is found in Japan in material from 1182.
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Wonton
Wontons are a type of dumpling that originate in China and vary in form across the country depending on the region. They date back to at least the Qing dynasty in the 1600s, when they were popular among nobles and wealthy merchants.
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Scrapple
Very popular in parts of Pennsylvania among people of Dutch and German heritage, scrapple’s origins trace back to the Netherlands and Germany. Scrapple is a type of meat pudding made from lean meat, offal, spices, and, in the US, cornmeal. Its precise origins are unclear, but the German panhaas likely comes closest.
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r/scrapple via Reddit
Aquacotta
Another dish with ancient origins, aquacotta is bread cooked in broth. Though it might sound unappetizing, it remains a staple food in parts of Tuscany, often enhanced with vegetables, olive oil, and any suitable leftovers. Originally, it was peasant food, designed to make stale bread edible and palatable.
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LordSovereignDude via Reddit
Sausage
The sausage gives Mesopotamia yet another mention on our list. Thought to have originated there around 5,000 years ago, sausages have since diversified like almost no other food. However, the basic formula—meat trimmings and spices stuffed into a casing (traditionally animal intestine)—remains the same.
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Darkling414 via Reddit
Sop
If the Italians have their acquacotta, the English had their sop. While you might think “sop” is a corruption of “soup,” it actually refers to a hard piece of bread used almost like a spoon. Traditionally, it was dipped into a shared dish, though today it mostly survives as a type of crouton, with each diner getting their own bowl.
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@Chaotic_Fave via Twitter
Papadzules
Literally translated, “Papadzules” means “food of gentlemen.” Believed to originate from the Mayan civilization on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, they are a type of enchilada made by dipping filled tortillas in a pumpkin seed sauce and diced hard-boiled eggs. The dish is then topped with a tomato and chili sauce and finished with a drizzle of oil.
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ReggieMX via Reddit
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