Timeline: Just The Facts

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Macaroni

A string of sausage facts

Whenever a character in a comic gets a slap-up meal as a reward, there's only ever one choice on the menu: bangers and mash.

The cherry on top

How did Ken Wood and Mrs Beeton turn Britain on to the delights of cakes and baking?

Chocolate unwrapped

Next time you nip out for a bar of something to perk you up, you can legitimately claim you're just investigating the attractions of one of the UK's favourite treats: Chocolate.

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Explore how food we eat has been influenced by
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A timeline of the science, culture and technology of food

Technology
200 AD Roman Kitchens	A typical kitchen in Roman Britain at this time would have had a raised hearth where most of the cooking was done. This was a masonry construction 1about the height of a table where the charcoal was placed. The vessels where the food was cooked were supported by iron tripods or grid irons. Some recipes from this time refer to the smoking of food, so wood would also have been used. Tables of stone or wood for the preparation of food are also mentioned, as is water for cooking and washing up.
C8th Horses	Horses are used more for pulling farm implements due to the development and availability of horseshoes which help the horses on tough ground thereby increasing productivity.
C17th Roasting Jack	Meat was roasted on a jack, a mechanical device which was either clockwork or weight driven. Later on a fan was put into the chimney, and this was rotated by the rising hot air and gases.
1748 First Fridge	William Cullen at the University of Glasgow demonstrated the first known artificial refrigeration, but he didn’t put his discovery to any practical use. It was an American inventor, Oliver Evans, who in 1805 designed the first refrigeration machine.
1780 Open Cooking Range	Thomas Robinson designed the first open cooking range - ‘open’ as the fire wasn’t enclosed. There was an oven on one side of the grate and a hot water tank on the other side. It did have one disadvantage - the food on the side nearest the fire burnt easily. Cast-iron open ranges were commonplace in upper- and middle-class homes by the 1830s.
1802 Closed Top Range	A closed-top range was patented by George Bodley, a Devon iron-founder. It was called a ‘Kitchener’ range. It had a cast-iron hotplate over the fire with removable boiling rings.
1850s Railways	The introduction of the railway system throughout Britain meant that food could now be carried right across the country quickly and efficiently.
1860s Ice	An ice well was built underneath central London. This was before the days of artificial refrigeration when London had a large need for ice during the summer. It was 34 feet across and 42 feet deep and held about 700 tonnes of ice. With that sort of volume there was enough ice to keep itself cold for a few months.
1865 Meat Canning	The first large-scale meat canning factory was set up by the Admiralty. Experiments to try to can meat in bulk to feed sailors and soldiers had been in progress in England since 1813 when Peter Durand invented canned food for the British Navy.
1891 Electric Kettle	Crompton and Company developed the electric kettle in England. The earliest examples of electric kettles all had the element in a separate chamber underneath similar to traditional vessels which boiled water and had the fire underneath the pot.
1924 Brit-Fridge	The first British Frigidaire was sold. Refrigerators had been introduced to Britain in the 1890s. Frigidaire, an American company, invented the first self-contained refrigerator.
1939 Sliced Bread	The process of slicing and wrapping bread was prohibited during WWII and up until 1950 as an economy measure.
1950 Food Mixer	The Kenwood Chef food mixer was made and launched in Britain. It was the brainchild of RAF Engineer Kenneth Wood, who got his idea for the Chef and other kitchen gadgets from his world travels. Home baking became a much easier task.
1952 Espresso Coffee	The first espresso coffee machine was imported into Britain. Coffee bars were very popular at this time.
1953 Electricity Board	In a display in a Warrington showroom, the Electricity Board featured the Three Wise Men bearing gifts of a washing machine, an electric cooker and a refrigerator!
1953 What Women Want	The Electrical Association for Women (set up in 1924) carried out a survey to inform manufacturers what women wanted in the way of electrical appliances for the home. The survey found that generally what was important was durability. However, this was ignored and planned obsolescence was introduced into household appliances.
1965 Chorleywood Process	The Chorleywood Bread Process came into general use. This substantially reduced the time taken in producing bread. Three quarters of our bread is produced in this way today.
1958 Microwave	The first commercial microwave oven was sold in the UK. The microwave oven was a direct offshoot of the development in 1946 of the magnetron - a device that produces electromagnetic radiation and was first used in radar. The first domestic microwave cooker was sold in 1974, and nowadays 30 million microwave ovens are sold every year throughout the world.
1986 Irradiation	The Advisory Committee on Novel and Irradiated Foods in the UK approved irradiation as a safe and satisfactory method of food processing. Food irradiation is the process of exposing food to a carefully controlled amount of ionising energy to improve food safety and reduce spoilage. The foods it can help preserve are poultry, red meat, seafood, dried herbs and spices, certain fruit and vegetables, bulbs and tubers, cereals and grains. In the UK irradiated foods and ingredients must now be identified with the words "irradiated" or "treated with ionising radiation".