Look Back in History: 5 Oldest Foods and Drinks Ever Discovered

Look Back History: Oldest Foods and Drinks Ever Discovered
(Photo : Mario Tama)
An old shipwreck sits in the lagoon on November 28, 2019 in Funafuti, Tuvalu. The low-lying South Pacific island nation of about 11,000 people has been classified as ‘extremely vulnerable’ to climate change by the United Nations Development Programme.


Egyptian tomb, fossils, and artifacts are keys that decipher how our environment was once ferocious and how other civilizations live during their time. They are sought by explorers and archaeologists and connects the present and previous time.

In some of these explorations, oldest foods and drinks discovered by explorers, an indication that people who lived before also fancy things that fill their bellies.

Since nowadays availing and getting food is not that hard once you get inside the supermarket, people before allotting more time and energy to forage food and provide for their family.

Now, imagining that how do people eat before, these foods hold the answer. Now2 here are the oldest foods and drink ever discovered.

Egyptian Tomb Cheese

You might love the idea of choosing a different kind of cheese, but did you know that Egyptians also love cheese? Mental floss reports that during a 2013-2014 excavation, a cheese was found in one of the tombs of Ptahmes.

Still, they recommend not choosing it from your grocery list because it may cause brucellosis or an infectious disease caused by eating unpasteurized dairy products, and strains of the bacteria found in the cheese's residue.

They note that the cheese age 3200 years and is an example of cheese in ancient Egypt

Read also: 5 Oldest Food Brands Around the World That Are Still Popular Today

Salad Dressing on a Shipwreck

Discovered in a jar, Mories notes that it was recovered from the ancient shipwrecked in the Aegean Sea, making the explorers think that dressing is not out of place in the modern Mediterranean recipe.

Memories add that the shipwrecked dates back when the Roman and Athenian empire ruled the region during 350 BCE, noting that the ship's contents were analyzed a year after the ship was recovered in 2006. They point out that the content of a jar is olive oil and oregano.

Bog Butter

Dating back 3,000 years ago, Ranker shares that one Irish butter farmer buried the butted in a bog. Mental floss notes that peat workers from Ireland could recover 77 pounds of butter from an oak barrel.

Ranker notes that the butter was valuable during that time, echoing the historian's view from mental floss that the community submerged the butter in water to preserve it or hide it from burglars.

A 100-year old Chocolate

Handed in St. Andrews Preservation Trust in 2008 for conservation, Memories emphasizes that the 116-year-old tin chocolate was a collectible for King Edward VII's coronation on June 26, 1902.

The lucky girl who received the chocolates treated is as an heirloom, passing it down from generation to generation.

Oldest Wine

Mental floss shares that roughly 6000 years ago, present-day Georgia is concocting their fermented grape juice.

They add that the theory of the wine being invented in now what we call Iran around 5000 BCE became invalid when prehistoric pottery shards discovered near Georgia's capital, which contains citric acid, grape pollen, and even prehistoric fruit flies.

The oldest foods and drinks will testify that people who once walked the Earth before us, can concoct and make their food. These discoveries also reveal a piece of the history that connects and gives origins to some things in our present-day and age.

Related article: Excavated Pompeii Food Cart Exposes the Ancient Romans' Snacks

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