Cooking is gradually formed through the accumulation of attempts from generation to generation by people participating in labor practice. After our ancestors invented the method of drilling wood to make fire, they "cooked" and "burned" meat that was difficult to swallow in the past. Boiling and burning are barbecues. Therefore, the earliest meat foods of people in ancient times were barbecued meat and grilled fish. People also gradually learned to simmer plant seeds and roots rich in starch in hot ashes or burnt holes before eating them. These simmered foods can be called the earliest cooked vegetarian foods in ancient times.

Cooking came about in this way, but it was not cooking in the modern sense because people at that time did not know how to season. Later, the Shashi tribe in the eastern seaboard invented "boiling the sea into salt", that is, boiling seawater into pottery containers to make salt. The invention of salt production is a major contribution to human civilization. People eating an appropriate amount of salt every day can promote the secretion of gastric juice and improve digestive function. After people eat salt, their physical fitness and intelligence are enhanced. Salt has become people's most basic condiment. Only with salt did the complete concept of cooking and cooking come into being.