The history of catering involves the development and evolution of the service industry that provides food, beverage, and other event services. The word catering comes from the Latin word cater, which means to provide. The business of providing food for parties, meetings, and other gatherings has been around for millennia, with traces back to ancient civilizations. Over time, this profession has grown and evolved into the diverse industry it is today.
The concept of catering can be traced back to ancient times such as in civilizations like Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome where large banquets were commonly held by the ruling classes, requiring the services of cooks and servers to prepare and distribute the food. [1] [2]
In Ancient China, the royals and aristocrats would host grand banquets during festivals and on special occasions, employing professional cooks who would later influence the culinary arts and catering practices.
These events were often held to honor the gods, celebrate military victories, or simply demonstrate wealth and power. [3] [4]
The catering industry of this time was largely a part of royal and noble households. Food was a vital part of their culture and religious practices, and many of the foods prepared for these events, such as bread, fish, and various types of meat, were commonly found in the diet of these civilizations. [5] [6]
The role of a caterer in ancient times was typically filled by slaves or servants who were responsible for food preparation and serving. [7]
In the Middle Ages, the catering industry began to develop more structure. [8] The cooks and servers were often part of the household staff in a noble or royal house.
In England, the position of "Master of the Revels" was established, who was responsible for managing royal entertainment, including food preparation and presentation. [9] Banquets and feasts remained a popular way of celebrating occasions and showing hospitality. [10] [11]
The Middle Ages saw a shift in catering services with the establishment of taverns and inns, which played a key role in providing food for travelers. [12] However, large-scale feasts and banquets were still primarily in the domain of the nobility. [13] Medieval cuisine was heavily influenced by religious dietary rules and the seasonal availability of food. The advent of trade routes and the crusades led to an exchange of culinary ideas and ingredients. [14] During this period, the use of spices became prevalent, and new techniques for preparing and presenting food were developed. [15]
The Renaissance period transformed catering practices and gave rise to professional guilds for cooks and servers. [16] [17] Food presentation became an art form, and banquets were often showcases for new culinary creations. [18] Spices were widely used, and there was a focus on using fresh, local ingredients. [19] Catering services were frequently offered by inns and taverns, which had become social hubs. The development of cookbooks during this era reflects the growing sophistication of catering and culinary arts. [20] [21]
Beijing cuisine, also known as Jing cuisine, Mandarin cuisine and Peking cuisine and formerly as Beiping cuisine, is the local cuisine of Beijing, the national capital of China.
The cuisine of ancient Rome changed greatly over the duration of the civilization's existence. Dietary habits were affected by the political changes from kingdom to republic to empire, and Roman trading with foreigners along with the empire's enormous expansion exposed Romans to many new foods, provincial culinary habits and cooking methods.
A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes.
Apicius, also known as De re culinaria or De re coquinaria, is a collection of Roman cookery recipes, which may have been compiled in the fifth century CE, or earlier. Its language is in many ways closer to Vulgar than to Classical Latin, with later recipes using Vulgar Latin added to earlier recipes using Classical Latin.
A banquet is a formal large meal where a number of people consume food together. Banquets are traditionally held to enhance the prestige of a host, or reinforce social bonds among joint contributors. Modern examples of these purposes include a charitable gathering, a ceremony, or a celebration. They often involve speeches in honor of the topic or guest of honour.
Mediterranean cuisine is the food and methods of preparation used by the people of the Mediterranean Basin. The idea of a Mediterranean cuisine originates with the cookery writer Elizabeth David's book, A Book of Mediterranean Food (1950) and was amplified by other writers working in English.
Culinary arts are the cuisine arts of food preparation, cooking, and presentation of food, usually in the form of meals. People working in this field – especially in establishments such as restaurants – are commonly called chefs or cooks, although, at its most general, the terms culinary artist and culinarian are also used. Table manners are sometimes referred to as a culinary art.
The history of Chinese cuisine is marked by both variety and change. The archaeologist and scholar Kwang-chih Chang says "Chinese people are especially preoccupied with food" and "food is at the center of, or at least it accompanies or symbolizes, many social interactions". Over the course of history, he says, "continuity vastly outweighs change." He explains basic organizing principles which go back to earliest times and give a continuity to the food tradition, principally that a normal meal is made up of grains and other starches and vegetable or meat dishes.
Medieval cuisine includes foods, eating habits, and cooking methods of various European cultures during the Middle Ages, which lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. During this period, diets and cooking changed less than they did in the early modern period that followed, when those changes helped lay the foundations for modern European cuisines.
An entremet or entremets in French cuisine historically referred to small dishes served between courses but in modern times more commonly refers to a type of dessert.
Ottoman cuisine is the cuisine of the Ottoman Empire and its continuation in the cuisines of Turkey, the Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East and Northern Africa.
The Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery is an annual weekend conference at which academics, food writers, cooks, and others with an interest in food and culture meet to discuss current issues in food studies and food history.
Martino de Rossi, was an Italian 15th-century culinary expert who was unequalled in his field at the time and could be considered the Western world's first celebrity chef. He made his career in Italy and was the chef at the Roman palazzo of the papal chamberlain ("camerlengo"), the Patriarch of Aquileia. Martino was applauded by his peers, earning him the epitaph of the prince of cooks. His book Libro de Arte Coquinaria is considered a landmark in Italian gastronomic literature and a historical record of the transition from medieval to Renaissance cuisine.
In culinary terminology, squab is an immature domestic pigeon, typically under four weeks old, or its meat. Some authors describe it as tasting like dark chicken.
The Meditations on the Life of Christ is a fourteenth-century devotional work, later translated into Middle English by Nicholas Love as The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ.
Ken Albala is an American food historian, chef, author, and a professor of history at University of the Pacific. He has authored or edited 27 books on food and co-authored "The Lost Art of Real Cooking" and "The Lost Arts of Hearth and Home."
Paulina was a late Roman aristocrat and philanthropist, who was the wife of Pammachius and the daughter of Paula of Rome. Letters of condolence were written at her death by Paulinus of Nola and Jerome.
Nawal Nasrallah is a U.S.-based Iraqi food writer, food historian, English literature scholar, and translator from Arabic into English. She is best known for her cookbook featuring Iraqi cuisine, entitled Delights from the Garden of Eden, and for editions of medieval Arabic cookbooks, including Annals of the Caliphs’ Kitchens, an annotated translation of the tenth-century, Abbasid-era cookbook Kitab al-Tabikh by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq. She has won numerous awards for her writing and her translations.
Phyllis Pray Bober was an American art historian, scholar, author and professor at Bryn Mawr College. She specialized in Renaissance art, classical antiquity, and she was a scholar in culinary history.
The Asclepius, also known as the Perfect Discourse, is a religio-philosophical Hermetic treatise. The original Greek text, which was likely written in Alexandria between 100 CE and 300 CE, is largely lost and only a few fragments remain. However, the full text is extant in an early Latin translation, and fragments from a Coptic translation have also been found among the documents discovered in Nag Hammadi.
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