A History of Aerated Foods

Aerated foods have accompanied human development since the invention of raised bread in Egypt 6,000 years ago. Aerated foods now feature within confectionery, dairy products, egg foams, baked products, breakfast cereals, and beverages having arisen through historical combinations of ingredient availability, technological advances, and culinary experimentation. The interdependence between food and science/technology is greater, it is argued, for aerated foods than for their unaerated counterparts. The technology of food aeration has also provided the foundation for modern foam science and its diverse application. The purpose of the chapter in Bubbles in Food 2 from which this article is adapted is to begin the process of laying out the historical appearance and evolution of aerated foods, alongside some of the other relevant developments in human history. In so doing, it aims to begin to organize the evidence for the premise, by collating the historical data, to allow some preliminary connections to be made and insights perceived.