It is believed that the populations and the commercial transactions that reached Mesopotamia from N. Arabia and the Horn of Africa, brought with them the carob, at first as fodder but was extended to its use as human food. Its inclusion in the long list of food- offerings for an official of the 5^th Dynasty (2494-2345 BCE) and an alcoholic drink made of carob (Papyri Anastasi 1205 BCE) describes these uses of the crop in ancient Egypt.

According to written texts, in the Hellenic and Roman world carob was mainly a fodder or had medicinal use. Two Roman writers, Columella and Pliny the Elder, described it as fodder for pigs, although the second author described it as a fruit too. However, up to now we ignore the use of the charred pods which were found at Herculaneum and Pompeii.

Dioscorides (10-90 CE) attributed medicinal properties to the fruit, although later Galen (129-199 CE) wished that carob would not have been imported from the eastern provinces, as he considered them indigestible, implying that it was used as food. He even included it amongst strange foods, such as donkeys, camels, bears and dogs, whose consumption went way further than the civilized world. This concept remained rife up to modern times.

In the Gospels, the carobs appear as fodder, to which people resorted to only in utter need (parable of the prodigal son) or as belonging to the limited food choices of the hermits. Certainly, the wishful abstinence of the hermits from the luxury of food choices could be considered a choice, which explains why St. John the Baptist was feeding on wild honey and, probably, carob, but this has only one common point with the tragedy of hunger, which is the transformation of unfamiliar foods to familiar ones. And unfamiliar foods are consumed every time human food is degraded.

During WW II and in the post-War period, carob was known until then as the chocolate of the poor. It proved to be an antidote to hunger in the Mediterranean countries, including Greece. In Crete, it was consumed whole. It was used for the production of carob molasses and turned into flour. Carob flour was used as a substitute for coffee, and was often mixed with a little wheat flour and chestnut flour or even flour made of dried fruits for making ‘bread’, during the war periods. With the inventiveness that despair brings, carobs filled pans and were cooked as ‘stifado’ without meat or were blended with quince, chestnuts and mushrooms. A short time after the war, in order to forget the anguish of hunger, these preparations were forgotten. Some reappeared decades later, in different qualities and in other combinations, as carob follows the trend of healthy food.

The first known recipe with carob was found in a Babylonian inscription, which is dated to ca. 1700 BCE and represents the earliest, up to date, recipe collection. Meat is cooked with onions, shallots, carobs, leeks and garlic.

The ancient Greeks and the people of Byzantium may have not included carob in their food, yet, in the Islamic recipes of the 14^th century, it holds a prominent position in the byzantine ‘murri’, a product of fermentation of barley or wheat mixed with several other ingredients, including the carob. Drinks that occurred from fermentation were prepared in antiquity, for pleasure or medical reasons. However, carob molasses, ‘χαρουπόμελο’, a product of slow concentration is one that emerged as one of the most popular refreshments of the eastern Mediterranean. In Crete, it is known as ‘charoubia’ and was served on ice. A sherbet, so to say, in the Ottoman standard.

With a taste that reminds of chocolate, honey and caramel, it is not strange that carob replaced cocoa and chocolate.  Nor are they not comprehensible reasons that the foods of the German occupation of Crete, including the carob, were repelled. The bread made from carob flour was also forgotten, although, for a few years it was disguised into a festive pie, which included many sweet-smelling spices. At present, its reputation as a healthy food product and its flexible and strong taste, helped the carob to conquer new roles in gastronomy.