Cooking - a History of Stoves

Jennifer Wilson

English 102

Professor Farrell

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Cooking Through The Ages

The invention of the oven revolutionized cooking as we know it today. Without the oven, we would have to revert to methods of cooking from past civiizations. How would our fast paced, always on the go lifestyle be altered if we had to cook as people once did? The oven brought about a convenience that has shaped our lives today.

The history dates as far back as the discovery of fire. In Prehistoric times, cooking was commonly done over an open fire. (Bellis, n. pag) The Prehistoric man was known to be a hunter-gatherer, consuming plants, nuts, and animals that been killed by other predators. When the animals that had been killed by predators were not available, hunting was done as necessary. In Nutritional Reviews, Dr. Garn and Dr. Leonard collaborate on a journal article regarding what people in prehistoric times ate. They write:

Homo erectus was a hunter who used stone tools and had the ability to make fires and presumably to cook or roast in the flames or coals. We therefore grant the erectus fossils a considerable year-round supply of animal flesh, but we have no knowledge of how much vegetation was also dug, pulled, picked, or stripped. Wear on erectus dentitions, which is considerable, appears to have been heightened by grit in the diet; these observations suggest plant sources for much of the food and no great fastidiousness in dining.

Climatic data and faunal associations indicate that these earlier people of our genus were not browsers. They correspond to the notion of “early man” as hunters, at least in part, and their generous intakes of nonnutrient materials certainly included dirt and small gravel. It is only a guess as to whether they cooked or processed in any way whatever vegetation they collected. (338-339)

The food that was gathered was cooked over an open flame on the ground. Cooking this was was dangerous as there was no...