Centuries of Good Taste: Your Catered Meal is Steeped in Rich History

One of the more fascinating revelations brought to light by research into the famous Giza pyramids, at least from our perspective, didn’t involve mysterious pharaohs, treasures, or hieroglyphics, but the catering services provided for pyramid builders.

Scientists in 2013 described a workers’ town that housed as many as 10,000 seasonal laborers who helped build the pyramid for the pharaoh, Menkaure. There, in "the Lost City of the Pyramid Builders,” scientists unearthed the bones of thousands of lambs, goats, cattle, and pigs: entrees for a massive catering operation that spanned decades.

Dr. Richard Redding of the Ancient Egypt Research Associates told LiveScience that people were taken care of, and they were well fed when they were down there working. “They probably got a much better diet than they got in their village.”

It sounds like ancient Egyptians understood the value of delivering an excellent meal.

And they weren’t the only ones. Catering history is woven throughout human history. Here are a few more intriguing examples.

Greek Hospitality

If you were a weary traveler in ancient Greece, you might have found yourself stopping for rest and sustenance in one of the world’s first inns or hostels, according to Dr. Tanja Grünewald of the Bavarian State Office for Health & Food Safety, who writes frequently about food and researched the history of catering for a 2004 paper.

While you were there, Grünewald wrote, you had the option of joining other travelers for a meal — for a price. You could say this hospitality was a forerunner to the modern catering and restaurant industries.

Not only that, some of the meals may have been surprisingly similar to dishes our guests enjoy now, according to Greek Reporter. While we don’t get a lot of requests for the thrushes, quail, and deer that ancient Greeks enjoyed, we definitely serve other choices that were popular in that time and place, from pork and beef to seafood and shellfish (eaten mostly by the wealthy).

Ancient Greeks even liked dishes we now think of as vegan and vegetarian, including

beans, chickpeas, and lentils.

The Beer Mug Rules

Fast-forward a few centuries to Europe of the Middle Ages, and you find catering entering a new phase: one of rules and regulations.

In 14th- and 15th-century Germany, Grünewald noted in her paper, the catering trade was gaining steam, so much so that it started to gain the attention of lawmakers.

“The first licenses for ‘beer inspection’ were granted for money by the Elector of Augsburg in 1530,” she wrote. “…A lot of rules for inns and hostels were issued, which for the first time regulated the serving of drinks, the size of beer mugs, and the purity and quality of beer; even the kind and quantity of different dishes were laid down in a regulation called ‘Zehrordnung.’”

In case you’re wondering what inns and hostels might have been serving in addition to beer, popular dishes in 16th-century Germany included roast beef and pork, sausages, seasoned hard-boiled eggs, cherries stewed in wine, pea soup, and fruit tarts.

Wm. Birch and Son, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Star Quality

When catering appeared in early American history — Philadelphia was the site of America’s first major catered event in 1788 — it foreshadowed today’s events, right down to the celebrity chefs who ran the kitchen.  

Many of those food stars were Black.

A Philadelphia Inquirer article about that era describes the response when caterer Robert Bogle was spotted at an elegant 1830 dinner gathering at the home of Nicholas Biddle. The reaction was on par with a group of 21st-century dinner party guests learning Gordon Ramsay or Wolfgang Puck was preparing the meal.

“A bit of fuss over a mere caterer? Not for 19th-century Philadelphia, where men such as Robert Bogle — men equally at home dismantling a 10-pound bull terrapin, securing credit from a bank officer and serving a seven-course formal dinner for 500—were among the most sought-after elements of the busy social scene,” Inquirer Staff Writer Sue Chastain explained.

Bogle even received the early 19th-century version of a five-star customer review, though it came in the form of a tribute after his death in 1837.

Dinner-party host Biddle, who had become a regular client, wrote a seven-page poem titled “Ode to Bogle.”

“Biddle suggested that no human ritual, be it marriage, christening or even death, was complete if not attended to by the “stern, multifarious Bogle,” Chastain wrote.

If history shows us anything, it is that good catering matters, whether it plays a role in recruiting ancient Egyptian pyramid-builders or enhancing family and business life in a new country.

Stay tuned for more blogs about catering history, including a look at the industry’s evolution in the United States.