Prehistoric cooks maintained great culinary traditions.

Archaeologists used DNA analysis and ceramic research to explore the spread of broomcorn millet throughout Eurasia, revealing light on how regional culinary habits survived despite the introduction of new crops.

Broomcorn millet originated in China and was traditionally cooked by boiling and steaming, resulting in a moist and sticky product. In Central Asia, however, grains were frequently crushed and baked into bread. When millet was introduced, locals used their current cooking ways with the new grain.

"It was already known that staple crops had moved long distances across the Old World in prehistory, while regional cuisines had persisted in a conservative fashion," says author Dr. Hongen Jiang of The University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.We didn't know how those two opposing trends interconnected."

To solve this mystery, experts from multiple Chinese, UK, and US institutions examined DNA from conserved millet remnants in Xinjiang, China, dated from 1700 BC to AD 700. They compared this to cooking pots to reconstruct prehistoric cooking practices, and the findings are published in the journal Antiquity.

Image Credit : Antiquity Journal

"Just as remarkable as the vast journeys staple crops made across prehistoric Eurasia is the enduring persistence of the regional culinary cultures that received those crops" , according to Dr. Jiang. "Conventional studies of ancient pottery can be combined with novel DNA science to reveal how they interconnect."

The stickiness of broom sorghum is influenced by certain genetic variations. By analyzing the DNA of grain samples, Dr Kew Gardens and Harriet Hunt and Diane Lister from the University of Cambridge discovered that millet grains from Xinjiang lack the gene that makes them sticky. . This means that although sticky millet was predominant in eastern China, millet retained its non-sticky consistency as it spread westward. Cultivation therefore spread further west than related culinary traditions. Ceramic evidence supports this. Cooking vessels from eastern China have tripod bottoms, while those from central Asia have rounded bottoms, a design that originated in the Altai Mountains. Although the introduction of millet to Xinjiang was from the east, the vessels used for cooking came from the north, and the culinary tradition has survived despite the introduction of new ingredients. That became clear. 

The westward expansion of staple foods undoubtedly changed the eating habits of the people it reached, but culturally deeply rooted culinary traditions likely remained. Dr. DNA evidence suggests that crops adapted to humans, not the other way around.