Today, fast food is seen as a modern invention that people invented to satisfy their needs and cravings. Interestingly, fast food isn’t a recent invention; it has existed for centuries. So the belief that the ancient people didn’t eat the greasy fast food we eat is totally untrue. This article explores five interesting pieces of evidence that fast food has been around for a long time.
The vintage version of hot dogs
The regular American hot dogs we see today didn’t come into existence until the 1800s– but they have an elder brother. Different writers have mentioned sausages in some of the oldest texts.
Courtesy: Omega Profblog
In “The Odyssey,” Homer likened a sleepless Odysseus to a sausage rolling around before a fire. The warrior’s tossing and turning was described as being like a man who has filled a sausage with fat and blood and turns it eagerly for it to get roasted.
Takeout restaurants in Pompeii
When archeologists started to excavate the preserved city, which was covered in ash during the 79 CE Mount Vesuvius eruption, they discovered that the city’s residents didn’t like to cook. Only a few homes had kitchens.
Courtesy: Wikipedia
Most Pompeii residents ate at cook shops that functioned like takeout restaurants. The walls of these shops were painted with frescos bearing images of available food items like ham, porridge, and stew.
Ancient tamales
Tamale carts originated as the first blockbuster street food in Los Angeles in the 1890s. Interestingly, tamales have existed many centuries earlier. Isn’t it amazing to know that these delicacies date back to the 1500s?
Courtesy: Wikipedia
Father Bernardino de Sahagun, a priest who served as an ethnographer during the initial Spanish conquest of Mexico, described visiting Aztec markets that sold hot sauce and tamales. The tamales were filled with mushrooms, fish, rabbits, meat, frogs, and other things.
Roman hamburgers
Of course, the hamburgers we buy at restaurants today didn’t exist in the ancient world. However, an ancient dish, Isicia Omentata, is quite similar to the modern hamburger, considering what it was made of. Well, what are the ingredients for this ancient hamburger?
Courtesy: Wikipedia
The ancient dish featured minced meat mixed with pine nuts, pepper, wine, and a sauce. Although the author is unknown, the recipe was included in the Apicius, a cookbook in the 4th or 5th century CE.
Mesopotamian Burger King
An archeological site in western Iran, Godin Tepe, has evidence of takeout windows. Archeologists found out a few years ago that some of the buildings in the ancient Mesopotamian town had windows. However, this wasn’t usual then (around 3200 BCE).
Courtesy: Live Science
The excavated building contained food remains, several bowls, and a fireplace. These features show that the building might have been a sort of takeout restaurant, just like the Burger King and McDonald’s we have in our neighborhoods today.
