Traditional methods of food preparation
Few cultures now prepare food as they ought to.
Since the industrial revolution, the collective knowledge base on the topic has rapidly eroded.
This is critical information, because in order to render our food safer to eat, more digestible, and more nutritious, we need to prepare it properly.
Traditional food preparation methods
There are three basic methods of food preparation:
Soaking
Fermenting
Cooking
While some foods—like fruits and honey—are best eaten raw and unadulterated, many foods are not, and will cause you problems if you try.
Cooking is a well-known quantity—but soaking and fermenting are not.
Some foods—like grains that are destined to become bread—should be prepared using a combination of soaking, fermenting and cooking in order to minimise risk and maximise the reward.
Food corporations skip as many of these time-intensive stages of food preparation as possible, as they significantly increase production times, and reduce profit margins.
Besides, why bother if customers don’t know any better?
The advantages to individuals, however, are numerous.
Advantages of proper food preparation
Proper food preparation enables humans to:
Improve digestibility of foods and reduce damage to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract,
Extract more energy and nutrients from food,
Allow for long-term storage of surplus food, and
Increase our enjoyment of food.
Let’s look at a few notable examples.
Examples of traditionally-prepared foods
Olives—an example of soaking
Eaten straight from the tree, olives, like many plant foods, are toxic to humans.
Olives require the step of soaking, or brining, before turning into edible, nutritious human food.
Olives are fruit. Fruit does not contain as many problematic plant compounds that are found in vegetables, seeds, beans, legumes and grains—many of which require more extensive preparation than olives.
After soaking/brining, olives do not require further preparation, which makes them one of the simplest plant foods to prepare, and once prepared, nutritious and well-tolerated by most humans.
Parmiggiano Reggiano—an example of fermentation
Excess milk—which usually sours within days—can be turned into cheese with the help of fermentation.
Some cheeses can then be stored safely for many years, even without refrigeration.
Cheese-making is an ancient food technology that offers;
A way to preserve food that would otherwise ‘go off’, instead saving it for times of food scarcity (winter).
A method for transforming one food (milk) into another (cheese), which fundamentally changes the flavours, nutritional profiles, and culinary uses.
A way to improve digestibility. Fermented, aged cheeses tend to be better tolerated amongst humans.
Sourdough—an example of soaking, fermenting and cooking
In the modern era, most bread is rapidly-made by combining flour with water, and then adding instant yeast. Let it rise, and voilà—you’ve got something that looks like bread, but is fundamentally different to the stuff your ancestors ate.
The bread that French culture considers standard, is what anglophones call ‘sourdough’.
Sourdough designates that the bread has been made traditionally—a lengthy process, including various stages soaking and fermentation—before finally being cooked.
Soaking and fermenting grains before cooking them improves flavour, digestibility and nutrient availability, and reduces damage to the gut.
Most people are familiar with the issues surrounding the plant protein we call gluten, but gluten is simply one of many plant compounds that cause digestive problems in humans—especially if improperly prepared.
Sourdough may look, and even function, similar to the white supermarket bread you might have grown up eating, but it’s really not the same thing.
Ready-made factory ‘food’ is problematic, as it’s not prepared by traditional means
From the mid-1900s, we have outsourced much of the work of our home cooking and food preparation to corporations.
It was supposed to ‘save us time’ and ‘get women out of the kitchen’ and maybe it did just that.
However, in leaving our nutritional fate in their hands, we have caused ourselves many other problems.
Outsourcing our food preparation to these companies may have saved us time, but it has cost us dearly in other ways. Over-consumption of these poor-quality, addictive foods leads to nutrient deficiencies, gut issues and chronic diseases.
Food corporations, tend to skip any ‘unnecessary’ or ‘impractical’ steps (bye, bye, fermentation).
They use the cheapest ingredients possible (bye bye, food quality).
They hire food scientists and engineers to build flavour and texture combinations that create physiological addiction in their consumers.
They really hope that you don’t read the label, where you might find ‘additives’ and other nasty ingredients that you can’t pronounce and won’t ever find in a home pantry.
All this to say—don’t leave your food preparation (and your health) in the hands of a corporation.
Their objectives are not aligned with yours.
The ultra-processed junk made by food conglomerates serves only as calories, and false mouth pleasure.
We need to regain an understanding of—and respect for—the art of food preparation
If you learn to incorporate some of these methods into your home-cooking repertoire—or at least source foods from small-scale producers who are preparing them using such traditional means—you will increase your nutritional intake and help ensure your long-term health status.
You will also be a part of a group of humans whom are protecting, preserving and passing along ancient food technologies that are gravely needed in the modern world.
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References
Katz, S 2012, The Art of Fermentation.
Wrangham, R 2009, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.
Pollan, M 2008, In Defence of Food.
Wöll, S, Kim, SH, Greten, HJ & Efferth, T 2013, ‘Animal plant warfare and secondary metabolite evolution’, Natural Products and Bioprospecting, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1–7.