Takeaway food - When did it all start?
This picture depicts the first ever takeaway, dating back from 10,000 B.C !
The picture entitled 'Delivery Warrior with Bison', is widely accepted to be the first record of Man's attempt at a takeaway service – probably a Burger Takeaway!
Because of cave men’s inability to store and preserve food, the best thing to do was to deliver the products live and fresh – a bit like Urbanbite does in our days.
By the Aegean Period (circa 1220 B.C.), the prehistoric pizza had its appearance in the Mediterranean Area – it was a flat bread flavored with various (free!) toppings like herbs, onion and garlic. In the 1st Century BC, Virgil refers to idea of bread as an edible food :
Their homely fare dispatch’d, the hungry and
Invade their trenchers next, and soon devour,
To mend the scanty meal, their cakes of flour.
Ascanius this observ’d, and smiling said:
“See, we devour the plates on which we fed. ” (Aeneid)
These dishes - to be ‘devoured’ - were often exchanged for a herd of sheep.
Since the world was then a huge place, the delivery time of 45 minutes wasn't possible and so it could take years for the food to arrive. According to ancient texts, an Aegean ruler, Pharum I, waited five years for a delivery, which didn’t arrive in his life time and was passed to his son, Pharum II, giving him the right to sign for it when it arrived.