Ca. 1550-1479 BCE: Food case from ancient Egypt. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1919. www.metmuseum.org.
1479-1458 BCE: Bowl of figs offering from ancient Egypt. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1927. www.metmuseum.org.
Ca. 1479-1458 BCE: Bread offering from ancient Egypt. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1927. www.metmuseum.org.
Ca. 1200-1100 BCE: Food serving vessel from the Shang dynasty period. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Count and Countess Bernard d’Escayrac, 1962. www.metmuseum.org.
Ca. 1000- 1BCE: Cuneiform tablet. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchased from Reverend William Hayes Ward, 1886. www.metmuseum.org.
Ca. 450 BCE: Terracotta drinking cup from ancient Greece. The Metropolitan Museum, New York, Gift of Ernest Brummer, 1957. www.metmuseum.org.
Ca. 358-338: Relief sculpture of two servants bearing food and drink. The Metropolitan Museum, New York, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1934. www.metmuseum.org.
332-30 BCE: Offering table of Tjaenhesret. The Metropolitan Museum, New York, Bequest of George D. Pratt, 1935. www.metmuseum.org.
3rd century BCE: The cultivation of wet rice spreads in western Japan from southern Korea, during the Yayoi period. Getty image ID: 506248030 (Photo by Nastasic)
2nd century BCE: With the acquisition of slaves, Roman households develop a specific room for cooking meals, the culina. Getty image ID: 464467475 (Photo by Heritage Images/Contributor)
30 BCE-364 CE: Wheat offering from ancient Egypt. The Metropolitan Museum, New York, Rogers Fund, 1925. www.metmuseum.org.
Ca. 25-220: Ceramic model of a mill. The Metropolitan Museum, New York, Gift of Charlotte C. and John C. Weber, 1994. www.metmuseum.org.
2nd century: The growth of Roman collegia, or the trade and neighborhood guilds, leads to the blossoming of a culture of eating out. Getty image ID: 182126461 (Photo by De Agostini/ Getty Images)
2nd century: Clement of Alexandria (pictured) discredits luxurious food and gastronomic pleasures, favoring frugality and temperance. Getty image ID: 526581628 (Photo by adoc-photos/Corbis via Getty Images)
793–4: The first allegations of cannibalism in the Middle Ages appear during the famine following the rebellion of Charlemagne's son, Pepin the Hunchback. Getty image ID: 542404629 (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
c.900: Maya civilization collapses not from ecological overshoot but rather from inequalities in food distribution. Getty image ID: 122211311 (Photo By DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)
950: The city of Cahokia, in Illinois, flourishes due to adaptation of maize varieties suited for the local climate. Getty image ID: 541323785 (Photo by De Agostini/ Getty Images)
1024: China’s internal commerce for rice, salt, and tea grows so much that the government prints money (pictured) for large, long-distance trades. Getty image ID: 515137196 (Photo by Bettmann/ Getty Images)
1076: Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV refuses to dine with Pope Gregory VII (pictured) as a political challenge following the Investiture Controversy. Getty image ID: 534249604 (Photo by Ipsumpix/Corbis via Getty Images)
1132: Chinese cuisine gains new levels of sophistication and regional distinction when the Song Dynasty moves its capital to Hangzhou. Getty image ID: 148852399 (Photo by Prisma/UIG/Getty Images)
1251: Venice forces all ships transporting food in the Adriatic to unload in the city before re-exporting their goods. Getty image ID: 173314632 (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)
1315–17: Crop yields are on average 40 percent below their norm leading to widespread famine across Northern Europe. Getty image ID: 113451168 (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
1336: Temple foods in south India become an important source of political power and cross-caste alliances. Getty image ID: 542374744 (Photo by Soltan Frédéric/Sygma via Getty Images)
1411: Charles VI of France decrees that only cheese from the caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon could be sold as “Roquefort”. Getty image ID: 84300521 (Photo credit should read JEAN-PIERRE MULLER/AFP/Getty Images)
1417: The Dutch city of Deventer prescribes what could go into Deventerkoek, a kind of gingerbread.
Getty image ID: 142450178 (Photo by De Agostini Picture Library/ Getty Images)
1510s: Portuguese sailors establish Indian Ocean bases in an attempt to control the spice trade. Getty image ID: 148187468 (Photo by Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)
1718: New Orleans is founded as a colony based on sugarcane and rice, which feature in cuisine like gumbo (pictured) and jambalaya. Getty image ID: 106915404 (Photo by Tom Kelley/Getty Images)
1739: Mary Robson, a woman living in St. Sepulchre's parish in London, dies in possession of baking equipment, denoting her trade. Getty image ID: 463925623 (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)
1773: The Boston Tea Party is the first act of rebellion against duties imposed by the British Parliament on American colonies. Getty image ID: 51086250 (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)
1802: Count of Lippe consumes roast veal, pastries, cherry compote, beans with bacon, and salad at the Roman Emperor Inn. Getty image ID: 464421323 (Photo by: Leemage/UIG via Getty Images)
1807: Neapolitan census records sixty-eight pizzerias, which transform generic Mediterranean flatbreads into a popular new dish. Getty image ID: 167071563 (Photo by: Leemage/UIG via Getty Images)
1812: Francisco Goya sketches the effects of war, which include starvation. Getty image ID: 640267949 (Photo by Barney Burstein/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
1812: Grimod de la Reynière (pictured) publishes the final edition of his pioneering Almanac of Gourmands. Getty image ID: 599990155 (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
1820: German chemist Friedrich Accum (pictured) publishes A Treatise on the Adulteration of Food. Getty image ID: 588282150 (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)
1830: Cincinnati businessmen develop an efficient meat “disassembly line” in the USA. Getty image ID: 113446919 (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
1834: The German Customs Union (Zollverein) is established, uniting seventeen German states in a common free-trade area. Getty image ID: 56462768 (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)
1846: The Irish potato famine, resulting from blight and English colonial policy, kills a million people and displaces another million. Getty image ID: 3319228 (Photo by Hulton Archive/ Getty Images)
1848: France abolishes slavery in its colonies. Beet sugar industrialists campaign to renounce plantation sugar (pictured). Getty image ID: 138599689 (Photo by Florilegius/SSPL/Getty Images)
1850: The spread of cast iron stoves across the United States transforms cooking practices and genders labor. Getty image ID: 561150613 (Photo by Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images)
1855: The Crimean War ends. Oddly enough it significantly increases the outlets for French sardine manufacturers. Getty image ID: 542905851 (Photo by Frederika Hoffmann/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
1863: The abolition of regulations for Parisian bakeries immediately brings an outcry over a supposed increase in fraud. Getty image ID: 95002689 (Photo by Oxford Science Archive/Print Collector/Getty Images)
1873: As global food trade expands, the Food Journal remarks that the world is "ransacked for delicacies", from India to the Pole. Getty image ID: 463910177 (Photo by Oxford Science Archive/Print Collector/Getty Images)
1873: Catharine Beecher (pictured) publishes Housekeeper and Healthkeeper explaining the duties of domestic servants in middle class American homes. Getty image ID: 96814745 (Photo by Fotosearch/Getty Images)
1880s: American Lee Merriweather bikes from Gibraltar (pictured) to the Bosphorus to document everyday life of peasants, workers, and retailers. Getty image ID: 167362765 (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)
1890: Chef Auguste Escoffier (pictured) establishes a new standard for dining at London's Savoy Hotel using a “brigade system” of kitchen labor. Getty image ID: 536238637 (Photo by Mark Kauffman/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
1909: German scientists Fritz Haber (pictured) and Carl Bosch synthesize nitrogen fertilizer, an essential component of modern industrial agriculture. Getty image ID: 629462103 (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)
1910: Pre-war agricultural production in the United States is generally prosperous, and unregulated. Getty image ID: 629445535 (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)
1919: Panama disease breaks out in Guatemalan banana plantations, leading to widespread ecological damage. Getty image ID: 496844512 (Photo by Florilegius/SSPL/Getty Images)
1920: Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters (pictured), a Los Angeles physician, publishes Diet and Health, with a Key to Counting Calories. Getty image ID: 515284532 (Photo by Bettmann/Getty Images)
1920s: The Dupont Corporation develops transparent cellophane wrap for packaging of meat and vegetables in self-service grocery stores. Getty image ID: 516533036 (Photo by Bettmann/Getty Images)
1930: Joseph Stalin orders the collectivization of peasant agriculture in the Soviet Union, leading to the Ukrainian famine. Getty image ID: 669660690 (Photo by TASS/Getty Images)
1939: John Steinbeck lifts the lid on hunger in America with The Grapes of Wrath following the 1930s Dust Bowl (pictured). Getty image ID: 108803347 (Photo by Sloan/PhotoQuest/Getty Images)
1943: Famine kills millions of people in India as a result of local crop failures, wartime inflation, and British colonialism. Getty image ID: 50489399 (Photo by William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
1957: The Treaty of Rome contains the first declaration of a European-wide agricultural program in Article 39. Getty image ID: 2665750 (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
1958: The Great Leap Forward begins in mainland Communist China, ending private land, and leads to millions of deaths due to famine. Getty image ID: 90010141 (Photo by Buyenlarge/Getty Images)
1963: Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique criticizes the waste of women’s talent and energy on preparing food. Getty image ID: 50714145 (Photo by Jim Seymour/Pix Inc./The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)
1963: Less than ten years after its expansion, McDonald's serves its billionth hamburger. Getty image ID: 72403934 (Photo by Henry Groskinsky/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)
1973: The film Soylent Green is built around the modern fascination with futuristic imaginings of food. Getty image ID: 138696664 (Photo by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images)
1976: The outside world quickly learns of the widespread hunger within China after Mao Zedong's death. Getty image ID: 463952793 (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)
1970s: Industrial aquaculture began in Norway with the construction of giant salmon pens. Canada and others follow quickly. Getty image ID: 56541379 (Photo by ROAR GREIPSLAND/AFP/Getty Images)
1984–5: Sudan's failure to acknowledge a drought-related famine leads to the death of nearly a quarter of a million people. Getty image ID: 515301506 (Photo by Bettmann/Getty Images)
1985: Tampopo, a Japanese film about a woman’s struggle to become a master ramen chef, launches a wave of food films. Getty image ID: 682076894 (Photo by Shiho Fukada/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
1993: "Mad Cow Disease" (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) is found in more than 100,000 British cattle. Getty image ID: 530629948 (Photo by GARO/PHANIE/Getty Images)
1997: The film Titanic captures First Class dining with new foods like caviar and formal dress. Getty image ID: 162722503 (Photo by 20th Century-Fox/Getty Images)
2005: Jamie Oliver's School Dinners program chronicles his attempts to change food preparation and consumption at a school in Greenwich, London. Getty image ID: 162722503 (Photo by Tim Whitby/WireImage)
2000: The production of artisanal and heritage foods conveying an aura of authenticity increasingly challenges industrial commodities. Getty image ID: 90231205 (Photo by Paul Poplis/Photolibrary/Getty Images)
2011: The discovery of E. coli bacteria in Northern European food supplies causes the destruction of entire nations’ cucumber crops. Getty image ID: 168835127 (Photo by PASIEKA/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)