FOOD HISTORY TIMELINE
1700 to 17191700 U.S. farming: seeds are sown by hand; horse & oxen are used for power; plows are made of wood; hay & grain harvested by hand.
1700 There are 7 bakers in Philadelphia, population 4,500.
1701 Anders Celsius was born (died 1744). Swedish astronomer, he developed the temperature scale which bears his name (Celsius). 1703 Louis de Bechamel (Béchameil) died (born 1630). A French ginancier, gourmet and major domo to king Louis XIV. The white sauce known as Bechamel sauce was probablly not created by him, but rather named for him by one of the kings cooks. (It is actually an improvement of an older recipe).
1703 Mount Gay Estate, Barbados, began distilling rum. Mount Gay Rum is the oldest existing brand of rum in the world.
1705 John Ray (Wray) died. A leading 17th century English naturalist and botanist. He contributed to the advancement of taxonomy, and established the species as the basic unit of taxonomy. 1706 Benjamin Franklin was born. American diplomat, publisher, inventor, etc. Among his inventions were the Franklin stove and biofocal eyeglasses. He also published 'Poor Richard's Almanac.'
1706 Canada: The Sovereign Council of New France passes an ordinance forbidding citizens from keeping pigs in their houses.
1707 Carolus Linnaeus was born. He was a Swedish botanist who developed the 2 name or binomial system for defining and naming plants. 1709 Andreas Sigismund Marggraf was born. A German chemist, in 1747 he extracted sugar from the sugar beet and determined it was identical to cane sugar. It wasn't until 1802 that the first beet sugar refinery would be built.
1709 Samuel Johnson, dictionary author, was born. I have read somewhere that he served his cat fresh shucked oysters.
1710 Marie-Anne de Cupis de Camargo was born. Born in Belgium, this ballerina danced with the Paris Opera. Escoffier named many gourmet dishes in her honor. 1710 Charles-Somon Favart was born in Paris, France. A French playwright and pastry cook.
1712 Denis Papin died. The French physicist who invented the pressure cooker (Papin's Digester) in 1679.
1713 More than 200 people rioted on Boston Common over the high price of bread. (Mass. Moments) 1713 John Turberville Needham was born (died 1781). An English naturalist, he believed in the spontaneous generation of life. He boiled some mutton broth, sealed it in glass containers and when he found living organisms present after a few days, he believed they came from nonliving matter. He was wrong - boiling does not destroy all bacterial and fungal spores. 1714 Queen Anne of Britain, the last of the Stuart dynasty died. She had grown so large that her coffin was almost square.
1714 England's King George I has his first Christmas pudding, made with 5 pounds of suet and 1 pound of plums.
1714 Bernardino Ramazzini died. An Italian physician, he was the first to note the relationship between worker's illnesses and their work environment. Considered the founder of occupational medicine. 1715 American Sybilla Masters was the first American to receive an English patent. A method for "Cleansing Curing and Refining of Indian Corn". (The patent was issued in her husband's name, Thomas Masters.
1716 The first lighthouse in America was lighted on Little Brewster Island, marking the entrance to the Boston, Massachusetts harbor. 1716 Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton was born. A French naturalist and pioneer in several fields including plant physiology. He also conducted agricultural experiments and introduced Merino sheep to France. First director of the Museum of Natural History in Paris.
1716 James Lind was born. Lind was a Scottish physician who recommended that fresh citrus fruit and lemon juice be included in the seamen's diet to eliminate scurvy. The Dutch had been doing this for almost two hundred years. 1718 Traditional date celebrating the founding of the city of New Orleans by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville of the French Mississippi Company.
1718 Thomas Chippendale, famous furniture designer and maker was born. 1718 New Orleans was founded by French colonists. The city was named for Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who was Regent of France at the time.
1718 John Montague, 4th Earl of Sandwich was born. Captain Cook named the Sandwich Islands after him (now known as Hawaii). The Earl is supposed to have invented the sandwich as a quick meal so as not to interrupt his gambling sessions. 1719 The first potato planted in the United States was planted in Londonderry Common Field, New Hampshire.
1719 Andrew Meikle was born (died Nov 27, 1811). A Scottish millwright, he invented the first successful drum threshing machine which separated the grain from the cobs, stalks or husks. He patented the machine April 9, 1789.
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