As a cook and history guy, food history is like...super informative. Who ate what during whatever period or place and how it got to the table is like the most historical materialism you can do. It's something id really like to study in a formal capacity

Yeah the types of foods that societies relied on are a much stronger influence on culture and development than weather imo. Of course the weather itself plays a role in which foods are available though and this leads to people misattributing the behaviour to the weather instead of correctly recognising that everything we've ever done socially revolves around the survival need to eat.

Rice can have multiple harvests in a year while wheat typically leaves a seasonal labor surplus that tended to be absorbed by military campains.