#ancient recipe

Io Saturnalia! The Roman celebration of the end of the year, Saturnalia, is next week! So celebrate another end of another year, I’m making a simple baked treat to serve for any saturnalia celebrations you have planned - a quick and easy Dulcia Piperata (as recorded by Apicius)

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Check out my Patreon for more!

Ingredients
1 cup / 150g flour
2 eggs
½ tsp ground rosemary
75 g chopped almonds
2tsp ground pepper
100 ml sweet white wine (or grape juice)
2 tbsp honey
Milk
75g Chopped hazelnuts

Method:
1 - Mix Dry Ingredients
Toss about a cup of flour in a bowl. Add in some rosemary, a couple teaspoons of ground pepper, and about 75g of chopped almonds to the bowl. Mix everything together, just so it’s all evenly mixed. Rosemary is a commonly-found herb in the Mediterranean, and found it’s way into Roman cooking in a variety of dishes! I’m using plain white wheat flour, but wholemeal wheat or spelt would have also been used here.

2 - Mix the Other Ingredients
Next, crack two eggs into a measuring jugs, before adding your wine (or grape juice, if you’re not using alcohol), and milk. Add in enough milk to bring the total volume of liquid up to about 450ml. Pour the jug of liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well. The whole thing will be like a pancake batter. If it’s too thin, add a few more tablespoons of flour, and if it’s too thick, add a little more milk!

3 - Bake
Next, prepare a baking tin by wiping some olive oil over the sides and base of it! Pour the mixture into your tin. Bake at 190ºC / 375ºF for about 30 minutes. It should be done when a skewer comes out clean when the centre of it is poked. Take it out, and let the whole thing cool down in the baking dish. It may collapse a little, but this is totally fine and to be expected!

4 - Finish
When the cake is still warm, spread some honey over the top and sprinkle it with chopped hazelnuts and a few whole hazelnuts. The honey will caramelise a little at the edge of the dish, which adds a lovely deep flavour to the whole thing!

Serve up warm with another spoon of honey, and dig in!

The finished dish is super light and sweet, with a tangy undertone from the wine! The honey drizzled over the top infuses into the body of the cake, resulting in a springy, sponge-like cross-section! The rosemary adds a lovely woody kick to each slice, and pairs wonderfully with the taste of the white wine!

This week, I’m going to be making a quick and easy rice pudding dessert, recorded in a 14th century Neapolitan cookbook - the Cuoco Napoletano! Rice began being used in medieval Europe intensively around the 9th or 10th centuries AD - though evidence for it’s cultivation in the Eastern Mediterranean date back to Alexander the Great’s conquests into Asia.

In any case, let’s now take a quick look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!

Ingredients (makes 4 portions)
2 cups rice
4 cups almond milk
1 cup sugar
saffron

Method
1 - Wash and Cook Rice
To begin with, we need to cook some rice. I used basmati rice, but Arborio or other, fatter-grained rice would have been used in antiquity as well! Begin by washing a couple of cups of rice in some cold water. Move the grains around with your hands, to get rid of excess starch. When the water runs clear, place your rice in a pot, and fill up with cold water until the rice is just about submerged.

Place your pot over a high heat until the water boils. Let everything cook until the rice is almost done - but not quite ready. Take it off the heat and let it cool down.

2 - Prepare Saffron
Next, rehydrate your saffron a little. Do this by letting it sit in some boiling water for a few minutes. Saffron is VERY expensive, so you can of course skip this step - it’s really only to add colour, and a slight woody taste - to the finished dish!

3 - Prepare the Milk
While your rice is cooling, go pour about 4 cups of almond milk into a saucepan, along with a cup’s worth of sugar. Bring this to a boil over a medium heat. The original recipe tells you how to make almond milk as well, by combining ground almonds with water. Keep your sugar and milk mixture stirring occasionally, while you wait for it to boil.

4 - Combine Ingredients
When the almond milk is at a rolling boil, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer away. Add in your cooled rice back into the pot, along with your rehydrated saffron! Mix everything together, and let it cook for another ten to twenty minutes. Or until your rice is lovely and soft, and stays in a soft mound when you pile it up with a spoon.

Serve up either warm or at room temperature, and dig in!

The finished dish is quite simple, yet very sweet! The three main ingredients - rice, almonds, and sugar - would have been readily available in many medieval Mediterranean markets - particularly in those markets at the conflux of trade routes, such as along the Italian coast.

The original recipe also mentions that other kinds of milk can be used when making this - such as goat milk. However, it neglects to mention that if you use those kinds of milk, stirring it when it’s coming to a boil could cause curds to form - making it more like a kind of cheese, rather than pudding.

This week, I’m going to be making a simple party dish - recorded by a Syrian writer in the 13th century! Though the dish is described very literally as “gourd dish”, it is, in fact, a delightfully savoury and crunchy snack that can be served at parties alongside a simple yet nutty dipping sauce! Thanks again to Charles Perry for the translation of the original Arabic!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! If you like my recipes, consider checking out my Patreon!

Ingredients (serves 4)
1 - 2 courgettes / zucchinis (or 1 bottle gourd / calabash)
½ cup walnuts (finely ground)
½ cup tahini paste
bunch of finely chopped mint
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp ground cumin
lemon juice (to taste)
honey (to taste)
olive oil / sesame oil (for frying)

Method

1 - Prepare Ingredients
To begin making this dish, we need to grind up about a half a cup of walnuts into a fine powder, along with about a tablespoon of cumin seeds, and a tablespoon of coriander seeds. Then, finely mince some fresh mint. All of these ingredients are native to the region in question, i.e. the Near East, and were used throughout history to today!

2 - Prepare Sauce
To make the sauce, simply pour about a cup and a half of tahini paste into a bowl, along with your crushed walnuts, ground cumin, and ground coriander to taste! Squeeze the juice from half a lemon, and add it to the sauce, before tossing in your chopped mint, and get to mixing! Taste this when you’re done to see how bitter it is. If it’s too dry and sour, add a bit of honey to loosen things up a little and sweeten it! Make sure you do this to taste, mind you.

3 - Prepare Gourd
When your sauce is done, we need to deal with the gourd! A common issue in antiquity is the ambiguity over the translation of “gourd” as many gourds we see today come from the New World (i.e. the Americas). However the bottle gourds (or calabash) and courgette (or zucchini) were commonly cultivated in the Mediterranean in the medieval period - with evidence for the courgette dating back to the Hellenistic Period! So for this, I’m using a courgette, as it’s easier to deal with. Slice this into thin segments, about as thin as your little finger.

4 - Fry Gourd
When you’ve cut the segments, coat them in flour, before placing them into a pan filled with sesame oil over high heat. They should foam a little, depending on the water content of your courgette. Let these fry for a minute or two, or until they’re golden brown on one side, before flipping them over and letting them brown on the other side for the same amount of time.

When they’re done, place them on some paper towels or a rack to drain off excess oil for a minute. Plate them up with some of your dipping sauce and dig in!

The finished dish is very light and crisp - and pairs wonderfully with the nuttiness of the sauce! The thinner segments act more like modern-day crisps (or chips, depending on where you’re from), and are a fantastic dish to have at any medieval parties you’re heading off to!

This week, I’m going to be recreating a simple carrot and coriander soup that was popular in medieval French cuisine - the simple Potage de Crécy. Although I’m using orange carrots, which were rare in antiquity, carrots, parsnips, or any combination of these would work well here!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Check out my Patreon for some more recipes!

Ingredients (for 2-3 portions)

1 onion (or an equal volume to the amount of carrots) chopped
3 carrots (or an equal volume to the amount of onions) diced
2 cloves garlic
olive oil
ground coriander
500ml stock (e.g. chicken, vegetable, etc.)

Method
1 - Prepare and Cook Onion
To begin with, we need to peel and chop one whole onion. Onions of all kinds were a staple of most cuisines from the neolothic period to modernity, as they’re hardy, filling vegetables that have a multitude of uses. In any case, chop this into fine chunks, so they cook evenly. When this is done, toss some olive oil into a pot, and heat it up over a medium high heat.

When the oil is shimmering, toss a couple of crushed cloves of garlic into the oil, along with your onions. On top of this, sprinkle some salt, some freshly ground black pepper, and some freshly ground coriander. Put all of this back onto a medium high heat for a few minutes while you deal with your carrots.

2 - Prepare and Cook Carrots
Go peel a few carrots - aim for about an equal amount of carrots to onions. When they’re peeled, slice them into discs - making sure they’re all the same size, so they cook evenly. Although orange carrots were fairly rare in antiquity, they’re the dominant strain today. But remember that throwing in some parsnips or heriloom carrots wouldn’t hurt either!

When your carrots are prepared, add them to your onions when the pot smells lovely and fragrant, and the onions have turned translucent. On top of your carrots and onions, pour about 500ml of a soup stock of your choice. I went with chicken stock here, to add a more meaty background taste, but any stock would work well enough here!

3 - Cook
Place your pot over a high heat, and let it come to a boil. When it hits a rolling boil, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer away for about 30 minutes, or until a knife, when stabbed into a piece of carrot, comes out easily.

Serve up in a bowl of your choice, garnish with a little sprig of parsley or cilantro, and dig in!

The finished soup is rather sweet, thanks to the carrots and onions, and has a lovely zesty taste thanks to the coriander. The broth thickened up nicely, and the carrot chunks softened into a toothsome mouthful.

Today, I’m going to be recreating a recipe for a German apple pie from the Registrum Coquine - the contents of which are suited for a middle-class palette of medieval European world

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Consider supporting me on Patreon if you like my recipes!

Ingredients
6 apples
2 cups flour
water
butter (or oil)
ground cinnamon
ground nutmeg
cloves (either whole or ground)
honey (if the apples are too tart)

Method
1 - Peel and Chop Apples
To begin making an apple pie, we need apples. Though the original recipe doesn’t state any particular apples, tart apples tend to make the best filling. Peel your apples, and chop them into fairly evenly-sized chunks so they cook evenly. I found that about 6 apples suited a pie fit for about four people.

2 - Prepare the Filling
When your apples are chopped, go toss some butter (or oil) into a pot, and let it melt. When it’s foaming, toss in your freshly-grated nutmeg, cinnamon, and a few cloves, and stir them around so they’re all covered in hot butter. You can, of course, crush your cloves, but I enjoy the sensation of biting into a whole clove - it’s up to you!

When your spices have cooked a little, toss in your chopped apples! Stir everything around so they’re all covered in butter and let it all cook away over a medium heat for a few minutes - until they soften and turn golden. At this point, take them off the heat and let them rest while you make your dough.

3 - Make Pie Dough
Since the original recipe assumes people know how to do this, we’re going to be using a cup or two of plain flour mixed with a little water. Add it little by little until it comes together into a cohesive dough. Knead this together until it’s smooth, and roll out using a rolling pin. Do this twice - once for the base of the pie, and twice for the lid. Roll the dough out fairly thin, as the whole pie won’t be baked for too long.

Pour some olive oil (or butter) into a pie dish, and stretch your pie dough over it, tamping it down with your knuckles into the corners.

4 - Assemble Pie
Pour the cooked apples into your pie dish, spreading it out evenly. When this is done, place your other circle of dough over the top. Crimp the edges of the two discs of dough together - it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t look too pretty! It’ll bake wonderfully, and taste delicious either way!

When your pie is ready, toss the whole thing into the centre of an oven preheated to about 180°C/356°F for about 25 minutes!

When the pie is done, take it out of the oven to cool down to room temperature before dividing up and digging in! Drizzle some honey over the slice you’re eating to really amplify it’s texture!

The finished pie is delicious and sweet, the spices forming a lovely warming sensation with each bite. The texture of the cooked apples is practically melt-in-your-mouth, and contrasts with the pie crust! As a side note, the pie crust itself - once cool - is rather tough. However the crust on the base of the pie is soaked in the juice from the apples during the cooking process, and is a much more palatable part of the pie. If I were to make this again, I’d either omit the top lid of the pie, or remove it before serving.

Today, I’ll be taking a look at medieval Ottoman cuisine - specifically the food seen in ottoman courts! The recipe in question is cılbır, or poached eggs with herbal yoghurt. This is a simple yet tasty recipe that is still eaten today in Turkey!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Consider checking out my Patreon if you like these recipes!

Ingredients (for 3 portions)
3 eggs
150g greek yoghurt
freshly chopped parsley (or dill, or cilantro)
2 cloves garlic
ground coriander

Method
1 - Make the Yoghurt
To begin with, we need to make a simple yoghurt for the eggs to sit on. Start this by finely chopping some fresh parsley - dill or cilantro would have also been used! Toss this into your yoghurt, along with a clove or two of crushed garlic. Mix all of this together, until it’s very well combined. Leave it to sit aside while you poach your eggs.

2 - Poach the eggs
Place a pot of hot water over a high heat until it boils. At a rolling boil, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer gently.

There’s a couple of methods of poaching eggs. I cracked an egg into a ramekin, and then dropped this into a ladle, before lowering into the water. Some of the whites of the egg became spidery and flyaway, but don’t worry! This will look amazing and silky when it’s out of the water.

Let the egg cook for a couple of minutes, before draining it and dunking it in cool water - to stop the yolk from becoming overcooked.

3 - Assemble the dish
Place a nice dollop of the herby yoghurt onto a plate, and place one of your poached eggs atop this. Sprinkle with a bit of freshly-ground coriander, and dig in with some fresh bread!

The finished dish is deliciously light yet filling. The herbs really pairs well with the texture of the egg. Although rather plain looking, it’s an easy yet luxurious way of presenting an otherwise simple dish in antiquity.

Çılbır is still eaten in turkey today, proving it’s role as a cheap yet filling meal for many throughout the centuries.

Ottoman cuisine formed as a fusion of Mediterranean, Near Eastern, and Central Turkic motifs in the early Medieval Period, which is exemplified here - using an array of culinary styles that are seen elsewhere in the region (such as Greek tzatziki being prepared in much the same way as this recipe, with the addition of mint and cucumber)

This week, I’m making some hard-boiled eggs in a pine nut sauce, as recorded by Apicius. This is a quick and easy recipe that would have served as a cheap but filling meal for many Romans in antiquity - requiring at least eggs, pine nuts, and garum. However, the recipe recorded by Apicius gives us a glimpse at a more middle-class meal!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! If you like what you see, consider supporting me on Patreon!

Ingredients
200g pine nuts (soaked overnight in water)
4 eggs
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp garum (or fish sauce)
pepper
salt
dried lovage (or celery seeds, ground)

Method

1 - Prepare the Sauce
To begin making this recipe, we need to soak our pine nuts in some water overnight. So start making this the day before you want to eat it!

Place the soaked pine nuts into a mortar and pestle, and get to grinding. They should break down fairly easily. Grind this into a consistency you like - I enjoy a few whole pine nuts here, but you could of course make this entirely smooth!

Then, add in some pepper, and some dried lovage. This herb can be a little hard to come by, so you can of course use some celery seeds instead! They both have a similar taste profile.

On top of the seasonings, add a tablespoon of honey, a tablespoon of vinegar, and a tablespoon of garum - the staple of Roman cuisine! Garum is a fermented fish sauce, which appears frequently in Roman recipes, but is difficult to come by today - mainly because the method used to make it has been replaced by more sanitary methods - but Vietnamese fish sauce works well as a substitute! Mix everything together until it’s well combined. Don’t be dissuaded by the addition of fish sauce here! It won’t actually have a fishy taste!

2 - Boil Eggs
Next we need to do the most technically challenging part of this recipe: boiling some eggs. Place four eggs into a saucepan and fill it up with cold water until the eggs are just submerged. Place this pot over a high heat and let everything boil for 3-5 minutes.

When the eggs are cooked to your liking, shock them by dropping them into some very cold water, and peel them.

Cut the eggs in half and arrange them in a fancy pattern in a bowl. Onto these eggs, spoon a little bit of your sauce. Eat at room temperature and dig in!

The finished dish is a wonderfully savour treat! The sauce has a deep, meaty flavour thanks to the garum and pine nuts, with a warm background due to the addition of pepper!

Though I hard-boiled these eggs, it is likely that they were served soft-boiled as well - the yolk mixing with the sauce to form a rich luxurious sauce in the bowl!

Although I used chicken eggs here, the Romans would have most likely made use of pigeon/dove eggs, or other wildfowl (such as quail or duck). Ostrich eggs from North Africa may have also been used! Although these would have been reserved for only the most extravagant events in Rome - given the rarity of ostriches within the city normally.

Today, we’ll be looking at a recipe from Le Ménagier de Paris - The Goodman of Paris - and recreating some grilled steaks from the 14th century. This book isn’t explicitly a cookbook, but moreso a glimpse at everyday life in Paris in the 1300s - including descriptions of social norms - a relative rarity for medieval literature!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! If you like my recipes, consider supporting me on Patreon!

Ingredients (for two steaks)
2x cuts of beef (I used striploin, but other cuts work just as well. Adjust cooking time as necessary)
3tbsp red wine vinegar
2tbsp Seville orange juice (or 2tbsp orange juice + 1 tsp lime juice)
pepper
salt
cinnamon
oil or fat (for cooking)

Method
1 - Prepare the Meat
To begin with, we need to deal with our meat. Start by seasoning each side with some salt and freshly-ground black pepper. The original recipe claims that venison could also be used here - but since that’s a bit outside of most people’s price ranges, beef is a common substitute!

In any case, when your meat has been seasoned liberally, set this aside while you make your basting sauce.

2 - Make the Sauce
Next, cut an orange in half, and juice it using a juicer. Or just crush them in a bowl by hand - whichever method suits you. Seville oranges are also known as sour oranges, but if you can’t get your hands on any then regular oranges would work just as well! Just add another teaspoon or two of lime juice to your regular orange juice.

Next, toss in a couple of tablespoons of red wine vinegar (or malt vinegar, if it’s more your style) and mix everything to combine.

3 - Cook and Baste the Meat
Moving to the stove, place a liberally oiled frying pan over a medium heat. When the oil is shimmering, place a cut of meat onto the pan, and let it cook untouched for about 3-5 minutes, depending on the thickness of your meat. When one side is cooked, flip it over and let the other side cook away. Over the cooked side, pour a little of your sauce over it. Be very careful at this stage, as the oil could spit violently if it comes in contact with the water!

Cook each steak to the doneness you desire, before taking them off the heat, and letting them rest for a few minutes. This is to improve the texture of the meat, and let the juices inside rearrange.

When they’re done, serve them up with a bit of cinnamon, and dig in!

The finished dish is super succulent, and has a wonderful sauce - it has a slight sharpness that really suits the beef here. Though this is a very simple way of cooking - using few seasonings and aromatics - it can be combined with a multitude of other side-dishes (such as onion soup or a pottage of some kind).

Today, I’ll be taking a look at another recipe from 13th century Syria - and the anonymously written Scents and Flavours Arabic cookbook - the creamy chicken Jurjaniyyah!

The name Jurjaniyyah is derived from an Iranian region - Gorgan - which suggests that this was an imported culinary style, rather than a local recipe! Either way, it’s a fairly simple and tasty dish!

In any case, lets now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!

Ingredients (Serves 4)

500g yoghurt
½ tablespoon flour dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
½ tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons mustard seeds
ground cumin
250g chicken thighs (or cut of your choice)

Method

1 - Bake the Chicken

To begin with, we need to cook our chicken. To do this, season a few thighs of chicken with salt, pepper, and freshly-ground cumin. I’m cooking the meat separately to the sauce, which is unusual for meat-based recipes in this time period - but this is seemingly how the dish was intended to be prepared!

In any case, bake or roast your chicken at 200C for about 30 minutes, or until it’s cooked through!

When it’s cooked, take it out of the oven and let it rest while you make your sauce.

2 - Make the Sauce

Next, we need to make our sauce. Start by placing 500g of Greek yoghurt into a saucepan. Into this, toss a slurry of 1 tbsp flour and 1tbsp water - this will help prevent the sauce curdling as it cooks. Place this over a high heat, and stir it. Contemporary Arabic cookbooks emphasise that you should stir this in a single direction, to reduce the risk of curdling. So stir it until you start to see bubbles forming at the edge.

At this point, turn the heat down to medium, and let it foam up and froth away for about 10 minutes.

3 - Assemble Dish

After 10 minutes, pour in a tablespoon of honey, and a couple of tablespoons of mustard seeds. The original recipe describes the dish as being very pungent, so you can adjust this by increasing or decreasing the amount of seeds you add here!

Place your chicken on a plate, and ladle on some of your sauce. Serve up warm and dig in!

The finished dish is super fragrant, and each mouthful of the sauce has a sharp bite of heat thanks to the mustard seeds. In a sense, it’s almost like horseradish! But overall, it’s more fragrant than it is hot - and acts very creamy!

Mustard seeds have been cultivated throughout the Near East for millennia, and had a variety of uses besides the culinary field. However the popularity of this seed as an ingredient seems to have increased following the occupation of the region by the Roman Empire - as well as subsequent empires and caliphates.

How and why a Persian recipe was recorded in a Syrian cookbook that charts local, regional tastes could suggest that this dish was popular enough at the time of writing in the region that it felt right at home alongside other dishes (such as my chicken with blackberry sauce)

Today, I’ll be making a simple bread-based soup - referred to as juscellum by Apicius! It’s a lot like Tuscan “aquacotta” soup, which is prepared in a similar way - though today it often includes tomatoes, which would not have been available in antiquity.

And now let’s take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above!

Ingredients

1 onion
1 carrot
1 stick celery
3 cloves garlic
thyme
2 slices bread (torn or grated)
2 eggs
750ml chicken stock
olive oil
salt
pepper

Method

1 - Chop Ingredients
To begin with, we need to chop and dice an onion. You don’t need to worry about being too careful here, as they’ll soften up considerably while its cooking. Peel and dice a carrot or two - carrots and parsnips were considered to be the same vegetable to the Greeks and Romans, so either one works well here! Finally, deal with some celery by slicing it thinly.

2 - Sautee and Cook
Toss a bit of olive oil into a pot, and place this over a medium heat. When it’s shimmering, toss in your onions, carrots, and crush a few crushed cloves of garlic. Let this sauté away for about 10 minutes.

When it’s finished sautéing, pour in 500ml worth of water or chicken stock. On top of this, toss some chopped thyme Place your soup over a high heat, and bring it to a rolling boil. When it hits a boil, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer away for 30 minutes.

3 - Prepare Soup and Eggs
While your soup is cooking, go rip up some slices into large chunks. Alternatively, you could grate up dried bread into a powder. Toss your bread into the soup about 10 minutes before you’re serving it, along with your parsley.

About 5 minutes before you serve up your soup, place some eggs into the pot and let them hard-boil.

4 - Assemble Soup
In a serving bowl, ladle in some of your soup, and place your poached egg on top of this. Garnish with a little fresh herb. And serve up warm!

The finished soup is very filling and flavourful - along with looking very colourful when finished! It’s quick and simple to make, which would have made it popular with the lower, poorer classes in ancient Roman and Etruscan societies - as this dish can be made using ingredients that are going off (such as stale or mouldy bread). It can be adjusted using seasonal vegetables and herbs, along with different kinds of eggs that would provided different taste profiles.

Today, I’ll be making a 13th century cheesecake, from Andalucía - the South of Spain! The original text is from a medieval cookbook, by Ibn Razin al-Tujibi, and the audience seems to be for elite members of society. Though today, it’s a simple and easy cake that anyone can make inside an hour!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above!

Ingredients

1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1tbsps yeast (or 1/3 cup sourdough starter)
250g ricotta (or other soft white cheese)
honey
olive oil
cinnamon

Method

1 - Prepare Dough
To begin with, we need to make a simple dough. Pour a cup of flour into a bowl, along with a tablespoon of yeast. Dry yeast wouldn’t have been available in antiquity, but wild yeast from a sourdough starter would have been used, and a third of a cup can be used here.

Pour in a cup of room-temperature milk on top of this, along with a splash of olive oil. The original recipe calls for “fat” which can be any one of a huge number of things - like butter, lard, or oils - but olive oil would have also been used. Mix everything together until it takes on a very runny texture. Add a little water if your dough is too dry.

Cover this with a towel and leave it to raise over an hour or so in a warm area.

2 - Assemble Cake

After an hour, go oil up a baking dish. Pour in a ladleful of your dough, and spread it around the base.

On top of this, place a few dollops of ricotta cheese. White cheese is specified here - which again could mean any one of a number of cheeses, but ricotta, or a soft feta, would work well here. Ladle in another layer of dough, before repeating the ricotta process. You can also add some honey between these layers. Though this wasn’t specified, it adds a nice kick of sweetness to the final dish.

Repeat this layering process until you run out of cheese or dough, making sure the top of the cake is covered in a layer of dough.

Place your cake into an oven preheated to 250° C /485° F or as high as your oven will go, and let this bake for a half an hour, rotating it halfway through so it cooks evenly.

3 - Finish Cake

It should be done when the top of it is golden and firm. Pour some honey over the top of this while it’s cooling in the baking dish, and sprinkle some cinnamon over the honey. If you want, you could also use some freshly-ground black pepper which adds a nice warm background to the finished cake.

Leave to cool a bit at room temperature, and serve up!

The finished dish is super light and sweet, and although some of the ricotta didn’t melt completely during the baking process, they have a nice texture when biting into a piece. The cake itself is more like a very light, sweet bread, but is still a really nice and simple dish to make!

Today, I’ll be making an Etruscan dish - which is preserved through Roman cuisine through to modernity! The simple testaroli - a rudimentary ancestor to the pasta that we know and love today!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!

Ingredients (for two servings)
½ cup plain flour
½ cup wholemeal flour
1 cup water
pesto

Method

1 - Prepare the Batter
To begin with, we need to make the batter. To do this, toss a half a cup of plain white flour into a bowl, along with some wholemeal flour. Mix in an equal amount of water, to form a thin slurry.

2 - Oil the Pan and Make the testaroli
When the batter is ready, pour a ladleful into a pan that’s been oiled with olive oil. Spread this into a very thin layer, by tilting the pan around. Cook the thin layer of batter for a minute or two over a high heat, or until the edges start to firm up. Don’t cook it all the way through! Flip it over and let the other side cook for another minute or two.

When it’s done, you can eat it as is! Serve up warm with a dollop of pesto - that you ideally would have made following my recipe for it. This serving - technically speaking - isn’t testaroli, but actually placenta(pronouncedplakenta) which is a Roman dish prepared in the same way. It’s likely that this evolved from Etruscan assimilation by the Romans in the Bronze Age.

3 - Cut Testaroli
For a more modern testaroli, place your dough disks and dissect them with a knife. Score them a few times with a sharp knife, before cutting them at an angle, so you make a bunch of thin dough-diamonds.

4 - Cook Testaroli

Toss your dough diamonds into a pot of boiling water, and let them cook away for a few minutes. Since this is fresh pasta, it won’t take too long to cook. Drain them using a colander or a slotted spoon, place them into a bowl, and serve up warm with a large dollop of pesto!

The finished dish is delicious and tender, and is a really quick and simple thing to make! It’s also very filling! Given that it seems to have been originally an “accidental” recipe - based on modern scholarship anyway - it definitely proved to be a staple of Etruscan cuisine. Something that can be made using only a few ingredients which is also very filling would have been a staple in the diets of the Etruscans.

Today, I’ll be making an Egyptian dish that dates to the pre-Dynastic period (the bronze age) - a simple herb and egg omelette that’s still eaten today: “eggah” (in modern Egyptian Arabic). The first records of this dish come from early Arab writers, discussing a much older dish!

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!

Ingredients

6 eggs
1 onion
fresh parsley or cilantro
ground cumin
ground coriander
salt
pepper
olive oil

Method

1 - Chop and cook onion
To begin with, chop a single onion in half, and peel off it’s outer skin. Then slice and dice the onion into small pieces, making sure they’re all the same size.

Then, pour some olive oil into a pot, and place it over a medium-high heat. When the oil is shimmering, toss your onion into it and let it sauté away while you mince your parsley. Or coriander, if it doesn’t taste like soap to you.

When your onion is soft and translucent and fragrant, toss in your parsley. Let everything sauté away over medium-high heat until the parsley wilts slightly. Leave it aside to cool a bit while you deal with your eggs.

2 - Mix Ingredients
Crack six eggs into a bowl while your onions are cooling. In antiquity, Egyptians would have had access to wildfowl and dove eggs - but chicken eggs work just as well. Next, toss in a tablespoon or two of ground cumin and ground coriander. On top of this, add a tablespoon of flour to help thicken things up. When the onion and parsley mix is cool, toss them into your egg mixture, and whisk them to combine.

3 - Prepare Baking Dish and Bake
Pour some olive oil into a baking tin, and spread it around. Next, pour in your egg mixture. It should settle evenly. Place this tin into the centre of an oven preheated to about 180C/356F and let it cook for about 25-30 minutes, depending on your oven.

It should be done when the top has puffed up and turned a lovely golden brown.

Take the dish out of the oven and let it cool for a few minutes. The top of this will collapse and deflate, but don’t worry, this is what’s meant to happen! Cut it into slices, and serve up warm!

The finished dish is very light and fluffy, with a slight sweetness thanks to the onions. Modern eggah has tomatoes and peppers included in the recipe - but neither of these were available to the region until the Columbian Exchange of the 15th century onwards.

However, early Arabic records about the dining habits of pre-Islamic Egyptian populations references a dish of baked eggs and herbs - which effectively suggests a pre-existing dish like this that was eventually adapted into the eggah we know today!

This week, I’m recreating some Akkadian Kukku - or “butter-cakes” - which would have been offered to deities, much like the qullupu I made a while ago, which were used in the worship of Inanna! However this dish seems to have been eaten by Akkadian rulers, rather than offered to deities.

In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!

Ingredients

1 cup flour

½ cup hazelnuts

½ cup walnuts

1/3 cup honey

½ cup butter

½ cup raisins (or sultanas)

1 egg

dates (for decoration)

Method

1 - Grind the Nuts

To begin with, we need to crush our hazelnuts and walnuts in a mortar and pestle until they take on a sandy consistency. I left a few chunks in my batch - as you can see here - but I cannot recommend you do this, as it makes it rather difficult to take out of your baking tin later on! So, do as I say, not as I do in this case.

In any case, hazelnuts and walnuts would have been cultivated in this region in the Bronze Age, and were used frequently in the civilisations cuisines too!

Place this into a bowl for later, while you cream your butter and honey

2 - Cream the Butter, Mix the Ingredients

Place ¼ of a cup of butter into a large mixing bowl, and pour 1/3 of a cup of honey on top of this. Using a wooden spoon, mash this together until it takes on a smooth, creamy texture.

At this point, pour in your crushed walnuts and hazelnuts, a half a cup of raisins, and a single egg. Also toss in a cup’s worth of flour. Mix all of this together until it forms a wet dough. If it’s looking a little dry as you’re mixing it, you can add a little milk to the mix to bring it together - but no more than a quarter of a cup! You’ll wind up with something that’s more like a batter than a dough.

3 - Prepare Tin and Bake

When your dough is done, butter up a baking tin, and scoop in your dough. Smooth down the top a little, before sticking some dates on top of this. There’s no real pattern to replicate, so scatter them as organised or chaotically as you want!

Place your dough into the centre of an oven preheated to 130C / 275F for half an hour, or until the kukku takes on a lovely golden complexion.

Leave the pan to cool before you take your bake out of the tin - this will help it retain its integrity.

The finished dish is really soft and light, and has a lot of similarities to the Palace Cake from Ur I recreated a few months ago. These cakes are delicious if you drizzle honey over the tops of them before you eat them, so the dough gets imbued with sweet honey goodness.