20 Of The Oldest Foods Ever Discovered, Ranked By Grossness

Okay, so we’re starting with a bit of an outlier, because this find actually tasted pretty great – but our brave guinea pigs didn't know that before taking a sip! When divers uncovered the cargo of a sunken wreck in the Baltic Sea in 2010, they assumed it was bottles of ordinary wine. But when they popped the cork, Champagne started to flow. It’s thought it was destined for Russia in the 1780s, making it about 230 years old: the oldest vintage fizz still consumable. So they did. Diver Christian Ekstrom said, “It tasted fantastic. It was a very sweet Champagne, with a tobacco taste and oak.”

Another odd one, this: honey is a substance that apparently doesn’t ever go bad, although it may change color, lose its smell and flavor or crystalize over time. But when ceramic jars were dug up from the tomb of a Georgian noblewoman it was thought to be the oldest ever discovered. Indeed, they estimated it was about 5,500 years old. So if a jar of the sweet stuff was ever going to disappoint, we’re guessing that this was the one. After all, would you want to eat something that's been sitting next to a dead body for thousands of years? Maybe not?

Archaeologists got a real food fright when they dug up a Bronze Age cemetery in the Taklamakan Desert, China, in the early 2000s. The 200 mummies they unearthed were not only wearing their burial clothes, but there was something more attached around their necks: cheese. Both their bodies and the dairy delicacy had been preserved by the desiccated and saline properties of the soil for 4,000 years.

There's no denying Rome's history is a rich and varied one, encompassing wars, revolts and even the rise and fall of empires. Well, there was a sealed bottle of wine that survived it all too. It was uncovered from the tomb of a Roman nobleman some 1,700 years after it was buried. Its hefty wax seal and olive oil content preserved the beverage.

Butter theft must have been a huge problem in Ireland 3,000 years ago. But whoever submerged an oak barrel full of the stuff in water three millennia ago hid it so well it was only dug up again in 2009. In fact considering its age it was remarkably intact when uncovered, with only a whitish discoloration belying its age. All the same, you probably wouldn’t want to spread it on your toast, though.

Today noodles are typically made of rice or wheat. But early versions of the foodstuff more commonly contained millet. This was demonstrated when an upturned bowl was discovered in 10 feet of sediment during an excavation along China’s Yellow River. Experts’ best guess is that someone’s meal was interrupted by an earthquake and the dish was buried during the consequent melee.

In 2006 the contents of a Mediterranean shipwreck were recovered from a vessel dating back to 350 B.C. Among its artifacts were jars containing olive oil infused with oregano. Talking to the website LiveScience, maritime archaeologist Brendan Foley said, “If you go up into the hills of Greece today, the older generation of women know that adding oregano, thyme, or sage not just flavors the oil, but helps preserve it longer.” Evidently.

Believe it or not, popcorn was once quite a delicacy in parts of South America once upon a time. And thanks to science, we understand that people in what is now Peru have been indulging in the snack for several thousand years. Yep, as long as 6,700 years ago its people were enjoying the popped corn kernels and other corn-based staples as part of their diet.

Chocolate typically has a long shelf life because it doesn’t contain the water bacteria needs to thrive. That longevity was demonstrated in an extreme way when a box of the delicious confectionery was found among the possessions of Australian poet Andrew Paterson, the man responsible for “Waltzing Matilda.” Believed to date back 120 years, and showing only slight decay, the candy had been a gift from Queen Victoria handed to British soldiers fighting in the Boer War.

Unless you’re a Kardashian sister you might think that bone soup sounds deeply unappealing at the best of times, but even less so when it’s 2,400 years old. That was the estimated age of a bronze receptacle and its mostly long-evaporated contents dug up during an airport expansion near Xian in China in 2010. The cooking vessel was found in a tomb that experts believe belonged to either a property-owner or a minor military official.

It might be easy to view jerky as a modern snack, but preserved and dried meats were staples of the Incan, Ancient Egyptian and Roman empires. The Chinese, too, experimented with the food, as evidenced when a piece was dug up during an excavation in Wanli in 2009. Over 2,000 years the passage of time had turned it a stomach-churning green, but being pre-dried meant it hadn't shrunk.

When archaeologists were digging up Victorian cellars once attached to an old pub, they unearthed more than 600 beer bottles in the process. The find occurred at the Scarborough Castle Inn, a former brewery in Leeds, England, with many bottles intact and full of a liquid initially believed to be ginger beer. But analysis showed the 140-year-old contents were not only alcoholic, but also contained toxic levels of lead. Cheers!

The whiff of fish is bad enough when it’s two days past its best. Sure, pickling extends its life, but only up to six weeks. So can you imagine the stench when divers found jars of them among other foods like olive oil and grain after 2,000 years? It’s believed that the wrecked ship had been carrying the cargo from Italy to Spain.

When archaeologists in Oxford, England, first dug up an ancient lump that looked like coal they likely didn’t consider that it could have been anything else. But when scientists analyzed it, they spotted flecks of barley and concluded that it was in fact burnt bread. It was probably tossed away as garbage or used in a religious ritual. Either way it proved that British farmers made bread as long as 5,500 years ago.

Dry-curing meat involves draining the blood and salting the meat, which preserves its shelf life and creates a deeper flavor. This process is exactly what Gwaltney Company did with this ham in Smithfield, Virginia, in 1902. But then it forgot about it – for more than 110 years. The foodstuff now looks like leather, but the firm has claimed it’s still good to eat. Uh, we’ll pass, thanks…

“I’ll have the kidney soup please, waiter,” said nobody, ever. Alarm bells rang for the Cardiff Foodbank when the Welsh charity noticed a donation priced in a currency that’s obsolete. After a double-take at the expiry date, it saw that this can of kidney soup was actually 46 years old. Evidently no one wanted to eat it back then either.

A YouTube user known only as Steve1989 will, in his words, “eat just about anything” providing it looks, smells and tastes okay. That included a hardtack, or cracker, dating to 1863 and the American Civil War. He described it as having the taste of “moth balls and old library books.” We don’t want to know how he was able to make that comparison.

An excavation in Cape Adare in the Antarctic uncovered a corroded tin containing fruitcake in “excellent condition” in 2017. It’s believed it was lost by Robert Falcon Scott, an explorer attempting to reach the South Pole in 1912. Having gallingly been beaten by just a few weeks in his quest to be the first to reach the furthest point south on the globe, he and his companions tragically succumbed to exposure and starvation on the journey back. The cake, though, survived for more than 100 years.

When professor R. Dale Guthrie unearthed a bison in the Mammoth Steppe in Alaska, it was estimated to be roughly 36,000 years old. So he and his team did what seemed logical perhaps only to them: they cooked it in a stew and ate it. Apparently aged meat offers subtle enhanced flavors that can’t be found in fresh meat. It’s a good thing it was preserved in ice all that time then.

When archaeologists were digging in the Black Desert in Jordan in 2018 they discovered what’s believed to be the oldest bread ever uncovered. It looked a little like pita, but they later found it was made of cereals not dissimilar to einkorn, barley and oats. It also contained tubers from a water-based plant, which gave a salty taste and gritty texture to the bread.