Disputed Statements

Rakia, Drinks

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, To (Year)

Currently States 1399

Both Bulgarian and Serbian sources place the earliest confirmed evidence of rakia-making in the 14th century, a Bulgarian pottery inscription and a separate Serbian documentary source, the two countries dispute which came first and Bulgarian archaeologists separately claim an unconfirmed 11th century distillation vessel.

Source Rakia - Wikipedia

Ratatouille, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1800

Marks the early 19th century, when the word ratatouille is first attested (describing a coarse stew generally, not yet the specific vegetable dish); the standardized recipe is later.

Source Ratatouille (Wikipedia) tier 3

Ratatouille, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, To (Year)

Currently States 1930

Marks 1930, the year Wikipedia states the modern, standardized ratatouille recipe (aubergine, tomato, courgette and pepper together) first appears in print.

Source Ratatouille (Wikipedia) tier 3

Ravioli, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1350

The cited source dates the earliest known ravioli recipe only to the mid-14th century (Venice Libro per cuoco manuscript); 1350 is used here as a representative year for that broad dating, not an exact attested year the source itself states.

Source Ravioli (Wikipedia) tier 3

Red Onion, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States Uncertain among Iran, western Pakistan and Central Asia; the onion species (Allium cepa), of which red onion is a color cultivar, is known only from cultivation with no confirmed wild ancestor, so its geographic origin cannot be pinned to one place.

The source states plainly that the geographic origin of the onion is uncertain and that ancient records span both eastern and western Asia; this entry describes the species generally, since the red-skinned variety has no separately documented origin of its own.

Source Onion (Wikipedia) tier 3

Rendang, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1400

Marks the Malacca Sultanate era (1400-1528); food historian Fadly Rahman places the earliest reference to rendang in the manuscript Hikayat Amir Hamzah, associated with that sultanate.

Source Rendang (Wikipedia) tier 2

Rendang, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, To (Year)

Currently States 1528

Marks the death of Mahmud Shah, the last sultan of Malacca, closing the 1400-1528 Malacca Sultanate era bracket the live origin-start-year fact already frames (food historian Fadly Rahman's placement of the earliest rendang reference, in the manuscript Hikayat Amir Hamzah, within that sultanate's era). Malacca itself fell to the Portuguese in 1511; Mahmud Shah continued to claim the sultanate in exile until his death, which this source's own framing of the era's end date reflects.

Source Mahmud Shah of Malacca (Wikipedia) tier 3

Reuben Sandwich, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1914

One of two disputed origin claims: Arnold Reuben, owner of Reuben Delicatessen in New York City, is credited with creating the Reuben Special around 1914, per an interview with food writer Craig Claiborne.

Source Reuben Sandwich (Wikipedia) tier 3

Reuben Sandwich, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1920

The rival disputed origin claim: Reuben Kulakofsky, an Omaha, Nebraska grocer, is said to have requested the sandwich at his weekly poker game from around 1920 through 1935, later popularized by the Blackstone Hotel.

Source Reuben Sandwich (Wikipedia) tier 3

Rice, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Earliest Documented Use, From (Year)

Currently States -9000

Archaeobotanical evidence places rice domestication in the middle to lower Yangtze River valley; the exact millennium is debated among specialists working from different sites and dating methods, so a range is given rather than a single year.

Source The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson tier 1

Rice, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Earliest Documented Use, To (Year)

Currently States -6000

Archaeobotanical evidence places rice domestication in the middle to lower Yangtze River valley; the exact millennium is debated among specialists working from different sites and dating methods, so a range is given rather than a single year.

Source The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson tier 1

Rye, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Earliest Documented Use, From (Year)

Currently States -1800

An earlier, more dramatic claim, that rye was cultivated at Tell Abu Hureyra in northern Syria around 13,000 years ago, remains controversial; critics point to inconsistencies in the radiocarbon dates, so this fact uses the well-established Bronze Age central European record instead of the disputed earlier date.

Source Rye (Wikipedia) tier 3

Rye, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Earliest Documented Use, To (Year)

Currently States -1500

Closing bound of the same Bronze Age central European archaeological record; see the start-year note for the disputed, much earlier Tell Abu Hureyra claim.

Source Rye (Wikipedia) tier 3

Saffron, Ingredients

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States Iran, Greece, Mesopotamia or Kashmir (uncertain)

Source lists Iran, Greece, Mesopotamia and Kashmir as candidates.

Source Saffron, Wikipedia

Sajji, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Region

Currently States South Punjab, Pakistan (Baloch, Lehri tribe)

Wikipedia attributes origin to the Lehri Baloch of South Punjab, while the atlas description says Balochistan province.

Source Sajji, Wikipedia

Sauerbraten, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 800 CE

Wikipedia "Sauerbraten" History: several sources believe it was invented by Charlemagne in the 9th century AD (the alternate Julius Caesar legend is noted as largely unsubstantiated).

Source Sauerbraten (Wikipedia) tier 2

Shawarma, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1800

Marks the 19th century, when the vertical-spit grilling technique shawarma derives from first appeared as doner kebab in the Ottoman Empire; the source gives only the century, credited by Encyclopedia Britannica to a Turkish butcher in Bursa named Iskender.

Source Shawarma (Wikipedia) tier 3

Shepherd's Pie, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1791

1791 is the first recorded use of the closely related term cottage pie; the source states shepherd's pie itself is recorded later, in the nineteenth century, with no exact year given, so 1791 marks the older sibling term's own first record, not a settled date for shepherd's pie specifically.

Source Shepherd's Pie (Wikipedia) tier 2

Soto, Dishes

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period, From (Year)

Currently States 1600

Two competing theories on origin: one scholar (Denys Lombard) proposed a Hokkien Chinese origin from the soup caudo, popular in Semarang during the colonial VOC era, circa the 17th century; another scholar argues soto developed as a native mixture of Chinese, Indian and Indonesian cooking traditions with no fixed date, and the dish is said to have developed within the Indonesian archipelago itself. 1600 represents the circa 17th century dating from the Chinese-origin theory, not a settled date.

Source Soto (Wikipedia) tier 3

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