11 Foods That Have Disappeared from History

As described by 19th-century author U.P. Hendrick, the Ansault pear was "of the highest quality." Sadly, we’ll never taste it ourselves, as it is believed to have vanished soon after Hendrick’s words were written. The Ansault pear is one of many fruits, vegetables, and meats that have disappeared, either due to overconsumption or other causes. These are the once-tasted foods that are now lost to time.

1. Ansault pear

Unlike many foods on this list, the Ansault pear was cultivated fairly recently. First grown in Angers, France, in 1863, it was renowned for its exceptional taste. In 1917, Hendrick described it in The Pears of New York as having flesh so fine that it was dubbed buttery, a term often used for pears. Its distinct, delicate perfume and rich, sweet flavor made it a pear of the highest caliber.

The irregular growth of these trees, combined with the rise of commercial farming, led to the extinction of the Ansault pear. The pear trees were difficult to manage in large orchards, and commercial farmers preferred more reliable varieties. As a result, nurseries ceased cultivating the Ansault pear, and it faded into obscurity by the early 20th century.

2. Passenger pigeon

For centuries, humans consumed the passenger pigeon as a staple food. It was so crucial to the diet of the Seneca people that they referred to it as jah’gowa, meaning “big bread.” Unfortunately, the bird's popularity led to its downfall. Overhunting, along with loss of habitat and food sources, caused their population to plummet from an estimated 3 billion in the early 1800s to just one by 1900. That final bird, a captive named Martha after America’s first First Lady, died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.

3. Auroch

You might recognize the term aurochs from Game of Thrones, but this ancient creature wasn’t quite on the same level as dragons. The real-life cattle species was first domesticated about 10,000 years ago, during the early days of agriculture. Aurochs were massive—Julius Caesar described them as “slightly smaller than elephants”—and more slender than today’s cows. After facing disease and loss of habitat, the species dwindled until the last auroch died in a Polish forest in the 1600s. Modern breeding efforts are now working to bring back a similar creature, or at least a close descendant. One modern aurochs-like cow reportedly produces tender, juicy beef with a distinctly “wild” flavor.

4. Silphium

The ancient Greeks and Romans made use of this leek-flavored herb in a variety of ways. Its stalks were cooked like vegetables, while its sap was dried and grated to season different dishes. It also had medicinal properties; it was reportedly an effective form of birth control, and its heart-shaped seeds may explain why we associate the shape with love. Silphium could only be found on a small strip of land, measuring 125 by 35 miles, in what is now modern-day Libya, and it couldn’t be cultivated. As a result, demand soon outstripped its natural supply. Pliny the Elder recorded that during his lifetime, only one silphium plant was discovered, and it was presented to the Roman emperor Nero sometime between 54 CE and 68 CE.

5. Dodo

When Dutch sailors first reached the island chain of Mauritius in 1598, the native dodo was still abundant. However, less than two centuries later, this flightless bird became extinct. While sailors ate dodo meat to survive long sea voyages, the main reason for their extinction was habitat destruction and the introduction of invasive species such as rats and pigs. Though dodo meat was consumed, it wasn’t for its flavor. The last person to see a dodo, an English sailor named Benjamin Harry, described its flesh as "very hard." In Dutch, the dodo was known as walghvodel, or “disgusting bird.”

6. Steller’s sea cow

In 1741, German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller discovered the Steller's sea cow around the Commander Islands in the Bering Sea. This enormous creature could grow up to 30 feet long, making it far larger than the sea cows of today. The animal was also quite delicious. Its salty meat was compared to corned beef, while its fat was said to have a taste reminiscent of almond oil. Sailors would reportedly drink the liquefied fat from cups. In addition to its meat, Steller's sea cows provided leather and lamp oil, but due to overhunting, the species was wiped out by 1768—less than 30 years after it was first described.

7. Mammoth

Woolly mammoths played a key role in the diets of early humans. We consumed them in such large quantities that hunting may have contributed to their extinction around 2000 BCE (though climate change was probably the leading cause). Despite being extinct for millennia, modern scientists and explorers have claimed to have tasted mammoth meat. As many mammoths are found preserved in the cold Arctic, their flesh can technically be thawed and eaten. However, this doesn’t provide much insight into what mammoth meat tasted like thousands of years ago: When meat is frozen for so long, it turns into rancid mush upon defrosting. Bon appétit.

8. Taliaferro apple

Thomas Jefferson grew Taliaferro apples on his Monticello estate. In an 1814 letter to his granddaughter, he praised the small fruit, calling it "undoubtedly the finest cyder we have ever known, and more like wine than any liquor I have ever tasted which was not wine." Although it is believed that the apple was lost with the original orchard at Monticello, some horticulturists continue to hope it can be rediscovered. However, with few written descriptions of the fruit, it’s likely that we wouldn’t recognize Jefferson’s apple even if we did find it.

9. Great auk

The primary reason humans hunted great auks was for their down, which contributed to the species’s extinction in the mid-1800s. However, they were also hunted for food before that. Fossil evidence shows that Neanderthals were cooking these flightless birds over campfires as early as 100,000 years ago. In Newfoundland, Canada, the Beothuk people used great auk eggs to prepare pudding.

10. Ancient bison

The Bison antiquus, also known as the ancient bison, went extinct 10,000 years ago, long before the American bison faced near extinction in the 19th century. Fossils recovered from the species show signs of butchering with tools, indicating that Native Americans hunted the ancient bison for food in a manner similar to their relationship with modern bison.

11. Old Cornish Cauliflower

While Old Cornish cauliflower wasn’t particularly known for its taste, it had a unique advantage: it was resistant to a plant virus called ringspot that devastated other cauliflower varieties. However, in the 1940s, European farmers began replacing Old Cornish cauliflower with a French variety that was more suitable for shipping, leading to its extinction by the 1950s. This shift allowed ringspot to wreak havoc on cauliflower crops in parts of Britain.