Did you know that experts believe humans first started cooking somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million years ago?
There is some debate over when exactly humans mastered the art of using fire to cook food. But generally speaking, there is nothing new about cooking. It’s been around for a long time now, even though it looks much different today than it did way back when.
This is just one of the many cooking facts that you should know if you consider yourself a cook. Here are ten more cooking facts that you should keep in the back of your mind the next time you fire up your stove.
1. Cooking Has Been Around for a Long Time Now, But Ovens Haven’t
As we just mentioned, cooking is something that’s been around for millions of years now. But for a long time, people only used raging fires to prepare meals.
That all changed sometime around 29,000 B.C. when the first ovens started popping up in Europe. The ovens didn’t look anything like the ovens that people know and love today. But they made it easier than ever before for people to cook things like mammoths.
2. Cooking Is Designed to Do More Than Just Provide People With Tasty Food
By cooking things, people learned that they could make them taste better than they would otherwise. Over time, they also learned that cooking things made it easier for their bodies to process them and helped their brains to develop.
In fact, many experts say that cooking is one of the things that helped humans as a whole to develop over the years. Without cooking, there is no telling how humans would have ended up.
3. Chefs Wear White When They’re Cooking for a Reason
In theory, it seems as though white would be one of the worst colors for chefs to wear. It doesn’t take long at all for them to mess up their clothes while cooking since they’re often dressed in white from head to toe.
But there is a reason why so many chefs wear white today. It reportedly dates back to 1815 when Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, France’s first prime minister, asked his personal chef to wear white because he said he thought it was the most hygienic color.
4. Chefs Also Wear Hats With Lots of Pleats in Them for a Reason
Modern-day chefs wear more than just white uniforms. They also wear large white hats in most cases that have lots of pleats in them. Just like with the white uniforms, there is a story behind these hats.
The hats are actually called “toques,” and they usually have 100 pleats in them. The pleats are there to represent all of the different ways that a chef can prepare an egg. The hats also vary in size with more accomplished chefs wearing taller ones.
5. The World’s First Restaurant Didn’t Open Up That Long Ago
Of all the cooking facts listed here, this one might be the most surprising. People go to restaurants to eat so often these days that it almost seems unfathomable to think that they haven’t been around that long.
But the world’s first restaurant only opened up about 250 years ago in France. The restaurant specialized in serving just one dish, sheep’s feet in white sauce.
6. There Are Almost Too Many Restaurants in the World Today to Count
Although restaurants have only been around for a relatively short period of time, there are tens of millions of them scattered throughout the world now. In the U.S. alone, there are more than 1 million of them.
American restaurants bring in almost $900 billion every year. They also employ more than 15 million people.
7. The Oldest Cookbooks in the World Date Back Almost 4,000 Years
While it’s become a lot easier for people to go out to grab a bite to eat as opposed to eating at home, there is still nothing quite like a home cooked meal. Many people have their own cookbooks at home that they use to do healthy cooking for their families.
People have been using cookbooks for centuries now. The first cookbooks date as far back as 1,700 B.C. They appeared on Mesopotamian tablets and included a lot of recipes for stews.
8. Cooking Recipes Cannot Be Protected by Copyrights
If you have secret recipes that you use to cook for your family, you should keep them close to the vest. The reason being, you cannot copyright a recipe and keep it all to yourself.
You can prevent someone else from using a recipe that you came up within a published cookbook. But if they’re able to find out how to use your recipe, they can cook with it if they want since you aren’t allowed to copyright a recipe.
9. People Spend a Ridiculous Amount of Money on Cookware Every Year
You can come up with the best recipes in the world and use the best healthy cooking tips to prepare them. But if you don’t have the right cookware in your kitchen, all of this won’t matter much.
It’s why Americans spend upwards of $20 billion each year on cookware. It helps them learn how to cook healthy meals for their families.
If you’re going to invest in new cookware, just make sure you buy some made using the right materials. This blog post explains which materials you should steer clear of using. Like using an Airfyer as AirfryerCooky to be more healthy.
10. Microwaving Certain Foods Might Be Healthier Than You Think
You might not think that throwing something into the microwave and pushing “Start” can be considered “cooking.” But there are healthy cooking tips and techniques that can be applied to the microwave, specifically when it comes to cooking vegetables.
Cooking vegetables in the microwave is the best way to retain all the nutrients found in them. Don’t be afraid to use that to your advantage the next time you need to chef up some veggies.
Let These Cooking Facts Simmer the Next Time You’re Throwing Down in the Kitchen
No matter how much you might love to cook, you probably weren’t aware of a lot of the cooking facts found on this list. They should give you a newfound appreciation for cooking and all it has to offer.
Think about them the next time you’re cooking something in your kitchen at home. It’ll make you realize just how far cooking has come over the years.
Read our blog for more useful cooking tips.
