Stone Age cooks were surprisingly sophisticated, combining an array of ingredients and using different techniques to prepare and flavor their meals, analysis of some of the earliest charred food remains has suggested.

Plant material found at the Shanidar Cave in Northern Iraq — which is famous for its burial of a Neanderthal surrounded by flowers — and Franchthi Cave in Greece suggested that prehistoric cooking by Neanderthals and early modern humans was complex, involving several steps, and that the foods used were diverse, according to a new study published in the journal Antiquity.

Wild nuts, peas, vetch, a legume which had edible seed pods, and grasses were often combined with pulses like beans or lentils, the most commonly identified ingredient, and at times, wild mustard. To make the plants more palatable, pulses, which have a naturally bitter taste, were soaked, coarsely ground or pounded with stones to remove their peel.

Source (Adapted): https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/22/world/prehistoric-diets-plants-neanderthalsscn/index.html