Honey is a healthy sugar alternative with a special aroma, which is also accepted in the paleo diet, which is connected to the roots of humanity.
Get to know the exciting history of honey!
Honey is a food that has accompanied humanity from prehistoric times to the present. As far as we know, bees appeared on Earth 50 - 25 million years ago, but the first evidence of the meeting between man and bees goes back 10,000 years!
Honey and Ancient Egypt
From the simple collection of honey from wild bee swarms, they gradually moved on to the breeding of bees, creating the first Egyptian apiaries. There are more than 3,000 years of reliable records of Egyptian agriculture. In Egyptian times, horizontally arranged cylindrical terracotta hives were used, and then the honey was extracted from the beehives filled with honey. During the same period, the first form of nomadic beekeeping developed: the Egyptians sailed their hives across the Nile to follow the natural blooming sequence of flowers, releasing the bees when the flowers were most abundant. In ancient Egypt, honey was only the food of the highest castes, but it also had ritual value and played a major role in natural folk medicine. During the archeological excavations, boxes of honey were found in the tombs of the pharaohs, and it was also revealed that honey was also used for mummification. The Egyptians also successfully treated digestive problems, burns and wounds with honey.
The Sumerian Empire, Babylonia and Assyria
The Sumerians used honey for cosmetic purposes, until the Babylonians and Assyrians discovered that it cured skin, eye, genital and digestive problems. Of course, it was also an important ingredient in various tasty dishes. Honey was so important that even Hammurabi's law contained several articles protecting beekeepers who suffered theft. Not too surprisingly, honey was highly prized in Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian cultures.
Honey in Greek and Roman culture
There are many records of honey in both Greek and Roman culture.
Honey and bees often played a role in mythology, for example the story of the birth of Zeus, who was fed goat's milk and honey by nymphs. A true food of the Greek deities, honey was used not only for cooking but also for religious and funeral rituals. Greek athletes consumed a lot of honey, according to Pythagoras, honey is an elixir that is the secret to a long and healthy life. The Romans imported large quantities of honey from Cyprus, the Iberian Peninsula, Crete and the island of Malta, which, due to its significant beekeeping history, derives its name from the Greek word melite, honey-sweet. A great deal of valuable information about bees and beekeeping was generated during this era.
Roman writers such as Varro, Columella, Pliny the Elder and Virgil speak extensively about honey and bees, drawing mainly on the earlier work of Aristotle. Aristotle was the first to attempt to describe the anatomy of bees and the production of honey. At that time it was believed that honey simply fell from the sky and was merely collected by the bees. Seneca theorized that bees were somehow involved in the process of honey production, but it was not until the 17th century that it was clarified exactly how bees make honey.
Beekeeping was widespread during the Roman era, and honey had many uses, in folk medicine, cooking, and cosmetics.
It was mostly used as a sweetener, spice and natural preservative - for example in the case of fish and legumes - and mead was made from fermented honey.
India and the Koran
Honey was also known in India, where it was used as an aphrodisiac. In India, honey was a symbol of beauty, goodness and virtue, and it plays a big role in folk Ayurvedic medicine to this day. It was highly prized for its cleansing, anthelmintic, tonic, healing, cooling and cosmetic properties.
In the Koran, honey is a spiritual symbol, and it is also associated with material healing. Not surprisingly, honey also played a major role in Muslim folk medicine and cosmetics.
Honey in the Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages, honey continued its journey as a prominent element of gastronomy, in this era it was also an important preservative. During the reign of Charles I, beekeeping began to spread greatly, thanks to the proper regulation of beekeeping and the encouragement of honey production and mead production. During this period, nuns and monks played a major role in beekeeping.
The appearance of sugar and the reduction of honey consumption
Even in the Renaissance era, honey had a great culinary role, it was used not only as a sweetener, but also for meats, stews and casseroles.
It also played a role in Galenic folk medicine, which wanted to maintain the balance of human juices. In the 1600s, sugarcane and beetroot began to be cultivated in large quantities, but sugar did not become widespread until the 18th century, when production reached such a scale that sugar became much cheaper than honey, so sugar gradually began to be harvested. like honey.
The 20th century and single flower honeys
It was only at the beginning of the 20th century that honey and the different types of honey began to be noticed again, before that distinctions were based on observations and tastings.
In the 1920s, the concept of monofloral honey and the need to differentiate honeys according to different flowers originated in Italy. Honey began to gain so much interest in the 20th century that honey tasting courses and honey quality competitions were organized around the world to find the best quality honeys.
Nowadays, most people have already realized that natural sweeteners, such as exceptionally healthy honey, are much better alternatives to sugar, and for this reason, and because of its special aroma, we chose honey as one of the main ingredients of our desserts.
