Pre-historic Man started processing food in crude ways which included slaughtering, fermenting, sun-drying, salt-preservation, roasting, smoking, steaming and over baking. Intake of salt-preserved food was found to be the popular diet among the sailors as well as warriors until the canning of food was introduced.
That the processing of food dates back into time immemorial is evident from the ancient writings of the Greeks, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians and the Romans as well as from archaeological evidences unearthed from Europe, North America and South America as well as Asia, the procedures for which remained the same until the Industrial Revolution.
The 20th century saw the advent of procedures such as spray drying and freeze drying; the introduction of artificial sweeteners, juice concentrates, dried-instant soups, ready-to-eat meals and now we have advanced towards producing laboratory grown meat as well.
With meat being roasted 1.8 million years back, this info graphics indicates the processing of some of the other important food-stuff till date.