Disputed Statements

Soybean, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Earliest Documented Use, From (Year)

Currently States -7000

Estimates have moved substantially with new evidence: early work on small, possibly wild-type seeds suggested domestication up to nine thousand years ago, while a later comparative study of charred remains from many sites concluded that clearly domesticated, larger-seeded soybeans appear around fifty five hundred years ago in the Yellow River basin. The range given spans both ends of this unsettled picture rather than asserting either alone.

Source The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson tier 1

Soybean, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Earliest Documented Use, To (Year)

Currently States -3500

Estimates have moved substantially with new evidence: early work on small, possibly wild-type seeds suggested domestication up to nine thousand years ago, while a later comparative study of charred remains from many sites concluded that clearly domesticated, larger-seeded soybeans appear around fifty five hundred years ago in the Yellow River basin. The range given spans both ends of this unsettled picture rather than asserting either alone.

Source The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson tier 1

Spice Trade Traditions, Food Traditions

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States -2000

Long-distance exchange touching spices is attested as early as the 10th millennium BCE around the Indian Ocean and Island Southeast Asia in the broadest sense, but the first well-documented spice-specific trade into the Mediterranean world is Egypt's import of cinnamon and cassia by about 2000 BCE; scholars have not settled on one single starting point, so a representative documented date is given rather than the earliest speculative one.

Source Spice Trade (Wikipedia) tier 2

Sugar, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Earliest Documented Use, From (Year)

Currently States -8000

Estimates for sugarcane's domestication in New Guinea from the wild species Saccharum robustum range from about eight to ten thousand years before the present. The later development of solid, crystallized sugar production in India, roughly twenty five hundred years ago, is a separate, much later innovation and is not reflected in this range, which covers only the plant's earliest cultivation.

Source The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson tier 1

Sugar, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Earliest Documented Use, To (Year)

Currently States -6000

Estimates for sugarcane's domestication in New Guinea from the wild species Saccharum robustum range from about eight to ten thousand years before the present. The later development of solid, crystallized sugar production in India, roughly twenty five hundred years ago, is a separate, much later innovation and is not reflected in this range, which covers only the plant's earliest cultivation.

Source The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson tier 1

Tacos al Pastor, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1900

Marks the approximate arrival of Lebanese immigrants and their lamb shawarma into central Mexico in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the technique tacos al pastor adapts; the exact year the pork spit-roast itself began is not documented.

Source Al Pastor (Wikipedia) tier 3

Tacos al Pastor, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, To (Year)

Currently States 1960

Marks the 1960s, the decade sources agree the modern pineapple-and-pork tacos al pastor became a popular taqueria dish, though no more precise date is documented.

Source Al Pastor (Wikipedia) tier 3

Tapas Culture, Food Traditions

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States Spain

Real Academia de Gastronomia states the practice's origin is lost in legend (Alfonso X of Castile and the Andalusian tapar/covering-drinks story are the two commonly repeated but undocumented accounts). Following this atlas's own precedent on Salt: an unfixable date is refused, not invented, so origin-start-year and origin-end-year are left unset for this entity.

Source Tapa (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

Tapas Culture, Food Traditions

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1250

The earliest date offered is a royal legend, not a documented practice: that King Alfonso X of Castile (1221-1284) began the custom of covering a wine glass with a small dish of food while recovering from illness. The custom as a widespread, named social practice is only well documented from the 18th and 19th centuries, so the two dates bracket a folk origin legend and a much later attested spread rather than one settled beginning.

Source Tapas (Wikipedia) tier 2

Tapas Culture, Food Traditions

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, To (Year)

Currently States 1900

Marks the point by which tapas had become a widely attested, named Spanish social custom rather than the isolated royal anecdotes of its legendary origin; see the origin-start-year note on this entity for the full range.

Source Tapas (Wikipedia) tier 2

Teff, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Earliest Documented Use, From (Year)

Currently States -4000

The source gives a range rather than a single point: cultivation is confirmed by at least 1000 BCE and possibly as far back as 4000 BCE.

Source Teff (Wikipedia) tier 3

Teff, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Earliest Documented Use, To (Year)

Currently States -1000

Closing, better-confirmed bound of the same range; see the start-year note.

Source Teff (Wikipedia) tier 3

Tom Yum, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, To (Year)

Currently States 1980

Marks the 1980s emergence of tom yam nam khon, the creamy variation now common internationally; the plain clear-broth tom yam kung is older and already established by the Rattanakosin era.

Source Tom Yum (Wikipedia) tier 3

Vodka, Drinks

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States Poland and Russia (Eastern Europe)

Poland and Russia both claim to have invented vodka first; the dispute has been active enough to affect European Union geographic labeling rules.

Source Vodka (Wikipedia) tier 2

Whisky, Drinks

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1405

Ireland's earliest documentary mention is 1405 (Annals of Clonmacnoise); Scotland's own earliest documented evidence is 1495 (Exchequer Rolls, malt sent to Friar John Cor to make aquavitae). Which nation began distillation of drinkable spirit first is not established; filed as an open question.

Source Whisky (Wikipedia) tier 2

Wiener Schnitzel, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, To (Year)

Currently States 1857

Marks 1857, the year of the popular tale that Field Marshal Radetzky brought the recipe from Italy to Vienna; linguist Heinz-Dieter Pohl describes this tale as invented, tracing its first appearance in print only to 1869, and says it actually concerns the separate dish veal Milanese.

Source Wiener schnitzel (Wikipedia) tier 3

Wine, Drinks

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States -6000

Competing archaeological claims from sites in present-day Georgia, Armenia and Iran each propose an earliest date for winemaking; the field has not settled on one, so a range spanning the credible claims is given rather than a single year.

Source The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson tier 1

Wine, Drinks

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, To (Year)

Currently States -4000

Competing archaeological claims from sites in present-day Georgia, Armenia and Iran each propose an earliest date for winemaking; the field has not settled on one, so a range spanning the credible claims is given rather than a single year.

Source The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson tier 1

Wine, Drinks

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States South Caucasus (Georgia); the Zagros Mountains of Iran are a rival early site specialists still weigh

Source Early Neolithic Wine of Georgia in the South Caucasus (PNAS) tier 1

Winemaking, Food Traditions

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States The South Caucasus (present-day Georgia), on current chemical evidence; the Zagros Mountains of Iran are a rival early candidate site specialists still weigh, the same tension already recorded on the Wine entity itself.

Source Archaeologists Find Earliest Evidence of Winemaking (ScienceDaily) tier 2