Monday, January 21

 
The Food Timeline

What came first, salt or rice as a human comestible? You'll have to click on this site to view the Food Timeline, which traces the evolution of the human diet from salt to rice to Flutie Flakes. Each food stop on the timeline is also linked to a Web site: you'd expect Snapple and Chips Ahoy to have their own sites, but popcorn.org is worth a trip, as are sites devoted to muskmelons, emmer grain and salt (which even has its own discussion group!). It's a real treasure trove for food historians, because it also includes related information such as recipes culled from their original sources. The site is developed by the Morris County Library of New Jersey who apparently were perpetually peppered, so to speak, with food-history questions by students and adults alike. (Although "pepper" as a category doesn't even show up on the timeline.)
posted by Unknown 3:58 PM