This is the season for boiling drinking hot soups and drink. What else would you do on a cold winter evening?… Maybe you can also read this text, made especially for your freezing days. 10,000 of years ago, humans used ceramic pots to cook wild plants, researchers reported on Dec 19 in the journal Nature Plants. The research’s findings are the earliest direct proof that our species processed plants for food.

According to the research, the first heat-resistant ceramic vessels date from about 15,000 years ago. They were discovered in Libya, and contained traces of wild grasses such as cattail or cockspur, as well as the leaves and fruit from fig trees, and the family of plants that includes cinnamon, nutmeg and star anise. There were even aquatic plants, some of which are still consumed today.

A researcher at the University of Bristol in England said: “Until now, the importance of plants in prehistoric diets has been under-recognized,” adding “What we have found is the first direct evidence of the cooking of plants, which seems to have happened at the same time pottery was invented in North Africa,” she said.

Scientists analyzed 110 pot fragments discovered at two sites in the Libyan Sahara – which would have been lush and oasis-like at the time – called Takarkori and Uan Afuda.

The Takarkori rock shelter is one of the few sites which records the transition from hunter-gatherers, who thrived from about 8200 BC to 6400 BC, to plant domestication and agriculture.

The technique used to detect the plants, called organic residue analysis, looks for signature molecules that worked their way into unglazed pots.

The Neolithic humans who cooked fruit-and-veggie stews were not necessarily vegetarians.

“Some pots seemed to be used to process plants only, some to process meats,” Dunne said. “And some were used to process a mixture of both.”

Most experts agree that pottery was independently invented twice in human history, first in East Asia about 16,000 years ago, and then again in North Africa some 4,000 years later.

“Ceramics are a major technological invention which allows the processing of foodstuffs in different ways,” said Dunne.

 

We chose some soup recipes you could try in the cold weather:

Split Pea Soup with Rosemary

 

Ingredients

• 6 slices bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
  small onion, chopped

  1 leek, thinly sliced
  1 large carrot, chopped
  2 cloves garlic, minced
  4 (10.5 ounce) cans chicken broth
  1 1/2 cups green split peas
  2 bay leaves
  1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary

• Directions

• Place bacon in a large pot, and cook over medium heat until crisp. Stir in onion, leek, carrot, and garlic; cook until the vegetables are soft, about 8 minutes. Pour in chicken broth. Stir in split peas, bay leaves, and rosemary. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low; cover, and simmer until peas are cooked, about 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

 

 

Cabbage Fat-Burning Soup

 

 

 

Enjoy