Ingredients in Order of Their Earliest Recorded Use

Honey is recorded from about 6000 BCE. The cited evidence is cave paintings at Cuevas de la Araña in Spain that show people foraging for honey at least 8,000 years ago, which makes it one of the oldest foods on this path.

Chicken also carries a date near 6000 BCE. The page says the chicken is the domesticated form of the red junglefowl, native to Southeast Asia, and was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago. Today it is kept mainly for meat and eggs.

The grape is recorded from about 6000 BCE, with a range to 4000 BCE. The cited source calls the Middle East the homeland of grapes and says cultivation began there 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. Fresh fruit, raisins and wine all follow from that start.

The date palm follows at about 5530 BCE, a figure tied to eastern Arabia in the cited source. The page also notes a possible origin in the Fertile Crescent between Egypt and Mesopotamia, and that the palm can live more than 100 years.

The pomegranate is dated to about 3000 BCE. The cited source says ancient Iranians first domesticated it on the Iranian plateau about 5,000 years ago, and the page adds that it reached California with Spanish settlers in 1769.

Oat is recorded from about 2050 BCE. The Oxford plants profile cited here says oats moved from minor weed to domesticated crop by about 4,000 years ago, and the page explains that early growers took them in unintentionally among wheat and barley.

Lychee is dated to about 2000 BCE, resting on unofficial Chinese records that the cited source says refer to it that far back. Wild trees still grow in southern China, and the page notes documented cultivation there since the 11th century.

Saffron is recorded from about 700 BCE. The cited source attests its history as early as a 7th century BCE Assyrian botanical treatise, though its origin is uncertain between Iran, Greece, Mesopotamia and Kashmir. The spice comes from the stigmas of the saffron crocus.

Broccoli is dated to about 600 BCE. The page says it resulted from breeding landrace Brassica crops in the northern Mediterranean from about the sixth century BCE, most likely improved by selection in southern Italy or Sicily during Roman times.

The orange is recorded from 314 BCE, the date of the earliest mention of the sweet orange in Chinese literature according to the cited source. It originated in southern China, northeast India and Myanmar and is a hybrid of pomelo and mandarin.

Vanilla is dated to 1185 CE. The cited source says the Totonac people of Veracruz, Mexico were among the first to domesticate it. The page also tells how Edmond Albius, a twelve-year-old enslaved boy on Reunion, showed in 1841 that the orchid could be hand-pollinated.

The mushroom closes the path at 1707. The cited source says the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort made the earliest scientific description of commercial cultivation of Agaricus bisporus that year, so this date marks cultivation rather than first eating.