Where It All Began: A Brief History of Edibles

While you may think that the first edible was a mysterious pot brownie whipped up by a peace-loving hippie living in California sometime in the 1960s, the origins of THC infused treats go way beyond the everyday brownie. 

Over recent years in the US, the demand for edibles has exploded to an all-time high, making the pot brownies of old a distant memory. Edibles have become so commonplace that we don’t often stop to think about where it all started. The idea of edibles may seem relatively new to those of us living in the US, but civilizations have been using cannabis in their cuisine for centuries. 

In India, cannabis has a deeply rooted history based on spirituality and medicine. One of the earliest edibles ever made dates back to 1000 BC Ancient India and is actually a drink. It’s called “bhang”. Bhang is made by grinding the leaves and buds of the female cannabis plant into a paste, which is then added to milk and filtered, and finally spices, and sometimes sugar, are added to the mix. 

Medicinally, bhang is used to treat nausea, pain, and was even given to warriors before battle to calm their nerves. Spiritually, cannabis was deemed one of the 5 sacred plants on Earth in the Hindu text Atharvaveda, and it is said that the Hindu God Shiva drank bhang to improve inward focus and channel his divine powers. 

At about the same time that bhang was created, a sticky North African treat called “majoun” was being cooked up with cannabis as well. There are many recipes for majoun but it is typically made with a mixture of dried fruits, various spices and nuts, butter, honey or sugar, and a healthy dose of hash or kief. Once all of the ingredients are finely blended together, it can be formed into little balls, similar to trendy no-bake energy balls, or used as vegemite-like paste. Majoun was first made by the nomadic Berber tribe as an after-dinner treat that was used to help with meditation and self-healing. 

While India and Northern Africa may be responsible for some of the first edibles, countries all over the world have dipped their hands into the cannabis cookie jar as well.

In Medieval Times, folk recipes from Uzbekistan and Poland both reflect cannabis snacks in their kitchens. There’s also evidence of cannabis appearing as a spice in Cambodia that is still used in a traditional “happy soup” today. In the Aceh region of Indonesia, cannabis is used in a toffee-like candy, called “dodol aceh”. Cannabis has also played an important role in the “ital” diet of Rastafarians in Jamaica for centuries and continues today.

It wasn’t until the 1960’s that edibles gained popularity in the US. Author Alice Toklas published a cookbook in 1954, The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, chronicling her time in Paris with her lover and literary legend, Gertrude Stein. Inside you could find a recipe for the mythical “Haschish Fudge”. 

This scandalous recipe caused quite a stir in the literary community, and Alice’s cookbook has gone down in history as one of the best selling cookbooks of all time. This fudge-like cannabis-laced dessert has been heralded as the first pot brownie, but this is not the first time the world had seen this recipe – and it wasn’t even Alice’s recipe. 

When it came close to publishing time, Alice reached out to her friends to help her fill the book. The hashish fudge was a contribution of her friend, Canadian artist Brion Gysin. Gysin had spent a good amount of time living and working in Morocco where he discovered the sticky hash-filled treat majoun, one of the world’s oldest edibles. He decided to include the recipe, not only because he enjoyed it, but because he wanted Alice’s book to be a success and scandal is an effective sales technique (just ask Kim Kardashian).  

The success of this cookbook helped inspire a 1968 movie called “I Love You Alice B. Toklas” where a young beautiful hippie transformed Alice’s recipe into brownies. With the help of hippie culture and cannabis advocates like “Brownie” Mary Rathbun, pot brownies became a staple of the cannabis scene. Since then, the edible market has slowly transformed into what we see today. All thanks to an ex-pat passing on an ancient recipe to a friend. 

The road to modern-day cannabis-infused edibles has seen it’s twists and turns, but their popularity only continues to rise. As our knowledge into the benefits of cannabis in our everyday lives advances, and as chefs continue to test the limits of cooking with cannabis, there’s a high chance that edibles aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.