Archaeologists Uncover 7,000-Year-Old Focaccia Stuffed with Animal and Vegetable Oils
Imagine digging into freshly baked and seasoned focaccia with your friends and family. No, these aren’t just your upcoming Thanksgiving plans—it’s a 7,000-year-old gastronomic tradition.
The researchers, including scholars from the University La Sapienza in Rome and the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, found that agricultural communities living in the Near East between 7000 and 5000 BCE probably baked and ate large loaves and focaccia flavored with animal and plant-based ingredients. available. Their findings, described in a November 5 study published in the journal Scientific Reportsstrongly suggests that Late Neolithic people in the Fertile Crescent region enjoyed a rich—and clearly delicious—culinary culture.
“Our study provides a clear picture of communities that use cultivated grains to prepare breads and ‘focaccias’ combined with various ingredients and eaten in groups,” said Sergio Taranto of the University of La Sapienza and lead author of the study at the Universitat Autonoma de. Barcelona statement. “The use of husking trays we have identified leads us to think that this Late Neolithic culinary culture developed over about six centuries and was practiced in a wide area of the Near East.”
According to the study, previous research has already found that Late Neolithic communities in this region baked breads made of water and flour in rolling trays—large special clay trays with low walls, circular bases, and intentionally rough interior surfaces designed to help release the baked bread. . Researchers tested this through experimental archaeology, using replicas of folding trays to bake with (what’s the point of studying prehistoric bread if you can’t find it yourself?).
As a result of this experiment, the team hypothesizes that the Late Neolithic Base bakers placed the trays assembled in the oven at an initial temperature of 788 degrees Fahrenheit (420 degrees Celsius) for about two hours. Each loaf weighed three kilograms, suggesting that people ate as a group.
- Experimental focaccia flavored with animal fat as it may have been baked in the Late Neolithic Near East. © Sergio Taranto CC BY-ND
The study also tested whether the baking trays could be used to bake a grain-based dough, which could be seasoned with vegetable oil or animal fat. To find this out, an international team analyzed the remains of tray fragments dating between 6400 and 5900 BCE from the archaeological sites of Mezraa Teleilat, Akarçay Tepe, and Tell Sabi Abyad near the Syria-Turkey border.
Their analysis suggests that Late Neolithic people used bending trays to process flour from grains such as wheat or barley, and some trays to prepare food using animal ingredients, such as animal fat. In one case, there is even evidence that the spice is based on plants, according to research.
In addition, “the state of decay of the remains shows that, in at least two cases, the trays reached temperatures corresponding to those experimentally confirmed for baking dough in covered ovens.” In other words, the remains seem to confirm that the trays were placed at the temperatures that previous tests determined was necessary for baking bread in covered ovens. The researchers also identified evidence of use-wear (traces left by using an object) on wrapping trays attached to bread and spiced focaccia remains.
Overall, this study enriches previous findings about Late Neolithic bread baking in the Near East by highlighting specific ingredients processed on the bending trays that may have contributed to a complex cooking culture. In fact, people living in modern-day Turkey and Syria were enjoying delicious focaccia up to 9,000 years before we started buying it at Eataly. That’s just 3,500 years after the end of the last Ice Age, and it confirms what Italians have always known: focaccia transcends history.
