The background of my favorite foods

Many people don’t realize where the food they eat every day originated. Where was the savory, crispy recipe for cooking a domestic duck first written? And where was the first wild Mallard domesticated? In my family, a roast duck is served to celebrate family, and to be thankful for what we have.

The main ingredient in roast duck is of course, a domestic duck. The first signs of domestication of ducks can date back to ancient hieroglyphics in Egypt. The Egyptians used ducks for their religious sacrifices. Romans also liked having ducks around, especially if they have been properly roasted first, states editors for the article “Where Did It All begin?” on the  website Omlet. They also state that- “The southeast Asians were also raising ducks in captivity prior to 500 B.C...”. The most popular ducks (Peking duck) was first brought to the United states by immigrants coming from China (Britannica). On Another main ingredient is, salt. Salt is an essential part of many recipes for dishes around the globe.

According to Jill Norman’s book Herbs And Spices- The Cook’s Reference, “Some of the earliest salt works recorded date back 6,000 years ago to the Chinese province of Shanxi.” (Page 260) There has also been evidence that Ancient Egyptians used salt in preserving their mummies, she says. But there isn’t only one kind of salt. For example, cities and villages would harvest sea salt be evaporating seawater from shallow pools. For villages more inland, salt was mined from tunnels and caves. There are also many other kinds of salt, that Zak Hansen writes about in “The 12 Different Types of Salt” on the website Wide Open Eats, like table salt, sea salt, Himalayan pink salt, fleur de sel (flower of salt), kala namak (himalayan salt packed in a jar with charcoal, herbs, and bark) , and black and red hawaiian salt.

After we have had the main course of our family lunch, we have dessert. For dessert is a cake that relies on strawberries for a sweet and creamy cake. But the first uses for the strawberries that we see in grocery stores, were first farmed in France. Europeans liked strawberries because of their sweet flavour, and strawberries were considered a food for the wealthy. Author Stephanie Pedersen of the book Berries- The Complete Guide to Cooking With Power-packed Berries, says, “French growers succeeded in 1714… they crossed a european strawberry [a small, wild forest strawberry] with a wild strawberry brought back from South America by early explorers.” Today, you can still see wild strawberries in the forests all across Europe.

Together, these three ingredients are essential for an occasion that is special and unique. Usually, you don’t think about, “who domesticated the first duck?” Or, “I wonder where the strawberry in my cake was first harvested?” This research paper was written to answer the questions about domestic duck, salt, and strawberries that everyone thinks about, but almost no one can answer.