Food & Cooking · Unit 12
A History of Food
Fire, farming, empires and the foods that travelled
Cooking is older than our species, and control of fire may have shaped human evolution by making more calories available from the same food.
The unit covers cooking with fire, the first farmers, the foods that crossed oceans, industrial food production, and the invention of the restaurant and the professional chef.
This unit breaks down into 18 short steps and 109 questions, starting at difficulty 3 and building to 4. Below you can see exactly what it covers, how the path is structured, and worked examples with explanations.
- Steps
- 18
- Questions
- 109
- Difficulty
- 3-4
What this unit covers
- The First Farmers
- Foods That Crossed Oceans
- Restaurants and Chefs
- Cooking with Fire
- Industrial Food
Where this fits
Connects to History's Prehistory and Early Humans and The Age of Exploration.
Where people slip
The Columbian Exchange transformed diets in both directions and within a few generations. Almost every cuisine now considered traditional is partly a product of it.
How the unit is structured
A History of Food runs as 18 short steps that unlock in order. 13 are practice rounds and 5 are challenge rounds that pull together everything before them. Questions start at difficulty 3 and climb to 4 as you progress.
Challenge rounds
Example questions
30 real questions from this unit, with the answer and the reason behind it, grouped by what they practise. There are 109 in the unit altogether.
Cooking with Fire
- Choose all that applyLevel 3
1. What did cooking make possible? Pick all that apply.
- Killing harmful germs in foodcorrect
- Getting more energy from the same foodcorrect
- Eating foods that are inedible rawcorrect
- Growing crops instantly
Safer food, more usable energy and new foods all became possible.
- Fact or fibLevel 3
2. People have always been able to buy food in shops.
Answer: False
False. For most of human history people gathered, hunted or grew their own.
- Multiple choiceLevel 3
3. Why is cooked food easier for the body to use?
- Heat breaks down tough fibres and proteinscorrect
- It adds vitamins
- It removes all water
- It makes food colder
Heat breaks down tough fibres and proteins before we even chew.
- Picture questionLevel 3
4. 🔥 What was the earliest way of cooking food?
- Over an open firecorrect
- In a microwave
- In an electric oven
- In a fridge
Cooking over an open fire came long before ovens or stoves.
- True or falseLevel 3
5. Humans have been cooking food for hundreds of thousands of years.
Answer: True
True. Evidence of controlled fire goes back a very long way.
- Build the sentenceLevel 4
6. Build a sentence about cooking history.
Answer: Cooking made food safer and easier to digest
Cooking made food safer and easier to digest.
Foods That Crossed Oceans
- Choose all that applyLevel 3
7. Which foods travelled to Europe from far away? Pick all that apply.
- Tomatocorrect
- Potatocorrect
- Chocolatecorrect
- Cabbage
Tomatoes, potatoes and chocolate all came from the Americas.
- Fact or fibLevel 3
8. Global food trade has always existed at its current scale.
Answer: False
False. Volumes and speed grew enormously with steam, refrigeration and containers.
- Match the pairsLevel 3
9. Match each food to where it originally came from.
Answer: Potato = South America; Tea = China; Coffee = Ethiopia; Wheat = The Middle East
Familiar foods often travelled a very long way.
- Multiple choiceLevel 3
10. Which drink came to Europe from Ethiopia and Yemen?
- Coffeecorrect
- Milk
- Beer
- Apple juice
Coffee spread from the Horn of Africa and Arabia into Europe.
- Odd one outLevel 3
11. Which of these did NOT come to Europe from the Americas?
- Wheatcorrect
- Tomato
- Maize
- Chilli
Wheat has been grown in the Middle East and Europe for thousands of years.
- Put in orderLevel 3
12. Put these food history milestones in order.
Answer: Cooking with fire -> The beginnings of farming -> Long-distance food trade -> Industrial food production
Fire, farming, global trade, industry.
Industrial Food
- Choose all that applyLevel 3
13. Which inventions changed how food is kept? Pick all that apply.
- Canningcorrect
- Refrigerationcorrect
- Freezingcorrect
- The telephone
Canning, refrigeration and freezing all extended food life.
- Fill the blankLevel 3
14. Sealing food in metal containers to keep it for years is called ____.
- canningcorrect
- baking
- grilling
- peeling
Canning heats and seals food.
- Multiple choiceLevel 3
15. What did canning allow people to do?
- Store food safely for a long timecorrect
- Cook food faster
- Grow food indoors
- Make food sweeter
Food could be sealed and stored safely for a long time.
- Sort into groupsLevel 3
16. Sort each innovation by whether it mainly preserved food or mainly raised production.
Answer: Canning = Preservation; Refrigeration = Preservation; Synthetic fertiliser = Raising production; Mechanised harvesting = Raising production
Different innovations solved different bottlenecks.
- True or falseLevel 3
17. Before fridges, people shopped for fresh food far more often.
Answer: True
True. Most food had to be eaten within a day or two.
- Type the answerLevel 3
18. What sealed metal container keeps food for years?
Answer: can
A tin can keeps out air and microbes.
Restaurants and Chefs
- Build the sentenceLevel 3
19. Build a sentence about restaurants.
Answer: Restaurants serve cooked meals to paying customers
Restaurants serve cooked meals to paying customers.
- Choose all that applyLevel 3
20. Which jobs exist in a restaurant? Pick all that apply.
- Chefcorrect
- Waitercorrect
- Kitchen portercorrect
- Pilot
Chefs, waiters and kitchen porters all work there.
- Multiple choiceLevel 3
21. What is a restaurant?
- A place where meals are sold and servedcorrect
- A food factory
- A farm
- A market stall only
A place where meals are cooked and served to paying customers.
- Sort into groupsLevel 3
22. Sort each item by whether it belongs to the past or to modern kitchens.
Answer: Cooking over an open hearth = Mostly historical; Salting meat to store it = Mostly historical; Electric fridge = Modern; Microwave oven = Modern
Kitchen technology changed enormously.
- True or falseLevel 3
23. A chef is someone who cooks professionally.
Answer: True
True, usually leading or working in a kitchen team.
- Type the answerLevel 3
24. What is the person who leads a professional kitchen called?
Answer: chef
A head chef runs the kitchen.
The First Farmers
- Build the sentenceLevel 3
25. Build a sentence about farming.
Answer: Farming let people settle in one place
Farming let people settle in one place.
- Choose all that applyLevel 3
26. What did early farmers need? Pick all that apply.
- Seeds to plantcorrect
- A water supplycorrect
- Simple toolscorrect
- Electricity
Seeds, water, land and tools were all required.
- Multiple choiceLevel 3
27. What changed when people began farming?
- They settled in one place and grew foodcorrect
- They stopped eating
- They travelled further
- Nothing changed
They could stay in one place and grow food rather than following it.
- Put in orderLevel 3
28. Put these stages of human food history in order.
Answer: Gathering wild plants -> Cooking with fire -> Farming crops and animals -> Living in villages and towns
Gathering, hunting with fire, farming, towns.
- Sort into groupsLevel 3
29. Sort each development by whether it belongs to early or industrial food history.
Answer: Domestication of wheat = Early food history; First permanent villages = Early food history; Commercial canning = Industrial food history; Railway food distribution = Industrial food history
Food history divides into several great transitions.
- True or falseLevel 3
30. Farming allowed villages and then towns to grow.
Answer: True
True. A steady food supply supported larger settled populations.
Where these questions come from. Each unit starts as a plan of the concepts it should cover and the difficulty it should span. Questions are written against that plan with AI assistance, then checked by a validator that rejects anything without a single defensible answer, an explanation, or plausible wrong options. How we write questions sets out the whole process, and corrections are fixed in the bank and reach the site and the app the same day.
How you practise
This unit mixes 12 different question formats, so you are recalling and applying rather than recognising the same layout every time.
- Build the sentence
- Choose all that apply
- Fact or fib
- Fill the blank
- Match the pairs
- Multiple choice
- Odd one out
- Picture question
- Put in order
- Sort into groups
- True or false
- Type the answer
Practise A History of Food
109 questions across 18 steps. Start with step one and crawl at your own pace.
Play this unitRead about A History of Food
Explainers from our blog on what this unit covers. Each one ends with real questions from the bank.
- Why Does Food Go Off?The microbes and chemical reactions behind spoilage, why some foods last for years, and what preservation methods actually do.August 28, 2026 · 6 min read
- How the Potato Changed the World: From Andean Tuber to Half of Europe's DinnerThe potato was domesticated in the Andes, feared in Europe for two centuries, then fed the industrial age. Why it was distrusted, and the famine it caused.September 15, 2026 · 5 min read
More units in Food & Cooking
- What We EatFood groups, meals and where our food comes from
- Fruit and VegetablesGrowing, picking and eating plants
- In the KitchenTools, hygiene and staying safe while you cook
- From Farm to PlateThe journey food takes before it reaches you
- Grains and BreadThe crops that feed the world and the loaves they become
- Dairy and EggsMilk, cheese, butter and the remarkable egg
- Meat, Fish and ProteinProtein foods, how they cook and how they are caught or raised
- Herbs and SpicesFlavour, aroma and the trade that moved the world