Handbook of Food Science and Technology 1

The first concern of primitive people was to find food in their immediate
environment to meet their physiological needs to survive; with no
knowledge of either their requirements or the properties of food products,
whether they were of plant or animal origin, these food choices were based
on very empirical observations. The development of agriculture and
livestock farming gradually gave people greater control in procuring food
compared to the randomness of gathering, hunting and fishing. However, the
supply of agricultural and livestock products has long been highly irregular
for reasons of climate, diseases or simply the seasonal nature of certain
products. Due to this irregularity, and in order to meet the needs of people
located far from production areas, man has always been in search of ways to
preserve food, thereby creating the possibility of varying the time and place
of consumption of agricultural products