Medieval food: A man ladles porridge from a large pot over a fire Poor people's food was boring! In the Middle Ages in Europe, what people ate depended a lot on how rich they were. Poor people (which was almost everybody) ate mainly barley, or in some places oats. What's barley like? All about the history of [...]
Medieval economy: A carpenter works in his shop. Collapse of trade After the fall of Rome, people in Europe used money less than they had before. Instead they mostly lived on what they could produce themselves. Rich people lived on what they could make other people give them because they were landlords or landladies. Money and silk [...]
These punch-marked silver coins might be from the time of Chandragupta I, in Mauryan India. Chandragupta I Alexander went back to Babylon in 324 BC. Then a man named Chandragupta overthrew the old Vedic kingdom of Nanda. Then he formed a big new empire. He ruled all of northern India and north-east into Afghanistan. Alexander in [...]
Cinnamon history: Cinnamon sticks Where does cinnamon come from? The best kind of cinnamon comes originally from an island south-east of India called Sri Lanka. It's the inner bark of a small tree that grows there. Why do trees have bark? More about Indian food All our India articles Another kind of cinnamon There's a [...]
An Indian man selling mangoes When people first came to India, about 60,000 BC, they found some plants that they already knew about, like figs and onions. There were also a lot of new plants, and people soon began to experiment with these new foods. One new food was sugar cane, which you chewed to get the soft [...]
Ancient India trade: Indian herbal medicines What did most people do for work? Most people in ancient India were farmers. That's the same as in other parts of Asia and Europe at this time. In India, farmers mainly grew wheat and rice. They grew cotton for cloth. They grew opium for medicine too. More about opium History of wheat Where did rice come [...]
Japanese painting of Portuguese bringing Indian cargo to Japan (1500s AD) - the Mughal Indian Economy Trade under the Mughals Under the Mughal Empire, India continued to make a lot of money by trading. Trading ships carried things back and forth. They went west to East Africa and West Asia. And they went east to South-East Asia [...]
Sweet potato pie You can make a sweet potato pie at home, to find out more about sweet potatoes. Start by peeling 3 medium-sized red garnet sweet potatoes (they might call them yams at the store). Use a very sharp knife to cut up the sweet potatoes into smaller chunks (quarters or eighths). [...]
Eating the history of apples Baked apples Apples are delicious, and you can eat them lots of different ways. The easiest way is just to eat a raw apple in your hand (or, if you have braces, slice it up into sections!). Eating the foods people ate long ago is one way of [...]
Mongol herdsman Hunting wild animals The first people moved into Central Asia about 50,000 BC. They were probably following the big animals that they hunted for food and leather skins - the wild aurochs and the wild horse. The great grasslands of Central Asia were a good place for aurochs and horses, because [...]
