Mesturet Anecdotes: A short history of Cooking

 

We are going to attempt, over the next few weeks, to trace the roots of French cuisine -- one of the most reputed in the world. Our cuisine began in Gaul where the peasants were already making galettes (a round, very thin pancake) with the different grains they were growing. There were also the hunters that grilled and roasted their catch. Faced with the abundance of game and wild animals at the time, they developed two main techniques of preservation: smoking and salting. It was also at this time that the first pork butchers appeared. Their reputation was such that they exported their products as far as Rome. In this period, as the great historians Uderzo and Goscinny have told us, they drank mostly cervoise (a beer made from barley) as well as a few wines from the Marseille region where the vines had been planted by the Greeks.

Next week, we will look at the influence of the Romans and Barbarian peoples on the evolution of French cuisine. See you next week!