Neanderthals are our close cousins. I saw a fascinating article about Neanderthal cooking and looked it up on Google.
Imagine yourself back 70, 000 years ago living with others in a huge cave in Iraq.
There is a Julia Child type older Neanderthal woman preparing the meal over a fire of coals and hot rocks - accidentally dropping the meat in embers at times and retrieving it. (As happens to all Chefs.)
She was one of the first Chefs. She had specialized stones for pounding, cutting and grinding meats and vegetables.
Microscopic analysis of fossilized food remains in the Cave showed the Neanderthals ate meat, nuts, seeds, peas and mustard greens.
The vegetables were ground up, mixed with some water and made into vegetable patties and cooked on hot stones in the fire. This along with cooked meat was the first home cooking. They had no Salt so used peppery seeds like the mustard seed for flavor.
It was Bon Appetit 70, 000 years ago.
