#archaic recipe
Today, I’ll be making a simple barley porridge, as recorded by Ibn Sina (Avicenna) in the 11th century! This dish shares a lot of similarities to my Sumerian Sasqu recipe from a few months ago, suggesting that it may have been a regional dish in antiquity that has been preserved through the centuries to modernity.
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 (for about 3 portions)
6 tbsp barley
1l milk
honey
sliced almonds (garnish)
cardamom seeds
Method
1 - Simmer Milk and Soak Barley
To begin with, we need to prepare our barley. Soak about 5 or 6 tablespoons of barley grains in a bowl of water overnight, to help break them down in the cooking process. So if you want to make this today, you should’ve started this yesterday. Or at least 4 hours beforehand. Drain these before using them!
Then, pour about a litre of milk into a saucepan, and set it over a medium high heat. Though the original recipe uses undescribed milk, I’m using whole-fat cow milk. But sheep and goat milk, or even almond milk, can also be used here! In any case, let everything heat up until it is just about bubbling.
2 - Add Barley and Spices
While the milk is bubbling, go de-husk a few tablespoons of cardamom pods - using the seeds themselves in the dish. Keep these seeds aside for later!
When the milk is at a rolling boil, pour in your soaked and drained barley, along with your cardamom seeds.
3 - Serve up
Serve up in a bowl of your choice, garnish with a few scoops of sliced almonds, and dig in while it’s still hot! Add in some honey, to taste, if the dish isn’t to your taste!
The finished dish is a delightfully soft yet fragrant and sweet dish! The barley has broken down slightly into a toothsome paste, and the taste of the cardamom gives the talbina a wonderful floral kick to each mouthful.
The original sources for this dish describe it moreso as comfort food - something that is rarely recorded in medieval cookbooks! Typically, contemporary documents would describe similar dishes, or things that would pair with the recipe in question. However Ibn Sina (Avicenna), along with numerous other contemporary Arabic writers, explicitly states that this dish is not a day-to-day thing, rather one that “relieves some sorrow and grief”
“The talbina gives rest to the heart of the patient and makes it active and relieves some of his sorrow and grief.” [Saheeh al-Bukhaaree (5325)]
Though I used honey here, pureed and stewed dates may have been used as well - which we can see in my earlier sasqu recipe.
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 making a quick side-dish from Rome, as recorded by Apicius! He has a few ways of preparing mushrooms, but this is one of the more flavourful methods he shows us!
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 page!
Ingredients
500g mushrooms (I used chestnut mushrooms)
2 tbsp red wine vinegar (or malt vinegar)
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp pepper
fresh coriander or parsley
Method
1 - Chop the Mushrooms
This is a rather simple recipe, but to begin with, we need to prepare our mushrooms. I used chestnut mushrooms, sliced into thin segments, but button or Portobello mushrooms may also be similar to what was available in antiquity, along with edible morels. If you have smaller mushrooms, you can skip slicing these, and proceed with cooking them as is!
2 - Sauté Mushrooms
Into a hot pot, pour a generous amount of olive oil - enough to coat the base. On top of this, toss your mushrooms. Sprinkle this with a bit of salt to help draw the moisture out of the mushrooms, before placing the pot over a medium heat. Stir everything around gently, so the mushrooms sweat out their moisture. Depending on what mushrooms you use, this may result in them being crushed slightly. Sauté these for about 3 -5 minutes.
3 - Sauté other ingredients
When your fungal friends have taken on a bit of colour, toss in some fresh coriander, and some freshly-ground black pepper, and a couple of tablespoons of red wine vinegar, before stirring everything together and returning to the heat for another 3-5 minutes. Be careful not to burn your mushrooms!
4 - Serve!
When your mushrooms are cooked, take these out of the cooking liquid, and place them in a bowl. Put the liquid over a high heat and let it boil down and reduce into a sauce.
Pour the sauce over your mushrooms, and dig in with some bread!
The finished mushrooms are super tender and flavourful - the vinegar really amplifies their meaty texture. The chestnut mushrooms I used retained a little bite to them, which was a welcome sensation!
Although the original recipe states that you should remove the coriander when serving the mushrooms, I chose to leave a few of them in so the dish retains a little bit of colour. The vinegar doesn’t have a very sharp taste once the sauce has thickened and reduced, and gives the mushrooms a lovely dark glaze.
Today, I’ll be taking a look at a Roman recipe, recorded by Apicius, which was likely eaten at contemporary roadside eateries in the Roman Empire - the simple isicia omentata - or what is basically a Roman burger patty! The end result is like a spiced and fragrant meatloaf!
In any case, lets 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 (for 5-6 burgers)
500g minced meat (beef, pork, lamb would be most fitting here)
100g breadcrumbs
2 cups wine (white or rose would work best)
100g pine nuts
50g black pepper
Method
1 - Soak the Breadcrumbs
To begin with, we need to soak 100g of breadcrumbs in a cup or two of wine. This is to add some moisture to the finished isicia, and to help pad out the meat. In antiquity, stale bread would have been used here, as it was a simple way to make the most out of every loaf of bread.
If your breadcrumbs look a little dry, add a bit more wine until it’s all damp.
2 - Mix the Ingredients
Now we need to place 500g of minced meat into a bowl, along with our soaked breadcrumbs. Keep in mind that the texture of minced meat today is more cohesive than what would have been made in antiquity! A mortar and pestle would have done the work on finely-chopped pieces of meat, becoming what’s known as “forcemeat”. But modern ground meat works well!
I used beef here, but ground pork or lamb (or even goat) would have been used in antiquity. The original recipe simply calls for “meat”, so to the readers of the time, the kind of meat would have been obvious! (such as hamburgers today being made from beef)
In any case, mix everything together in a bowl. Toss in about 100g of pine nuts, and 50g of whole black peppercorns, mixing to combine.
3 - Form the Isicia and cook
When your mixture is combined, take a small handful of it in your hands and form it into a patty. Each one should be about 1/5th of the mix (based on how I made them anyway, you can make them larger or smaller than mine). Place each one onto a frying pan with a little olive oil, and let it cook away over high heat for about 5-10 minutes, before flipping them over and letting the other side cook for the same amount of time. (The time it takes to cook them depends on how thick you make them)
When they’re done, serve up on a bed of arugula or rocket, or another edible green of your choice, and eat alongside a bit of bread!
The finished isicia are super light and flavourful! Each mouthful has a bite of heat from the peppercorns, along with a sweet, nutty flavour from the pine nuts! The breadcrumbs soaked in wine gives us a bit of sharpness, depending on the kind of wine you used.
While it’s unknown exactly how these were served in antiquity, it’s not unlikely that they were paired with bread and edible greens, as both of these would be readily available and filling sides for a meat dish like this! Based on earlier Italian cuisines (i.e. Etruscan), stale bread may have been used as a plate of sorts, which would then have been eaten after the main dish (the stale bread turning soft when soaked with the oils from the meat).
Today, I’ll be making a simple cherry pudding recorded in the 14th century AD - from the region of the Holy Roman Empire! Cherries were (and still are) a very popular fruit to eat, given the extensive range at which they can be grown. The original recipe is recorded in The Forme of Cury - a 14th century English manuscript - but the origin of this recipe likely comes from a central European source, given the variety of recipes recorded here.
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
500g fresh ripe red cherries
200ml red wine
100g white sugar
1 tbsp unsalted butter
100g soft white breadcrumbs
salt
Edible flowers (e.g. clover, lavender, etc)
Method
1 - Prepare the Cherries
To begin with, we need to wash, de-stem, and stone the cherries. Do this by cutting into them carefully with a knife, before using your thumb to dig out the stone. Do this to about half a kilogram of cherries.
When your cherries have been stoned for their sins, place them into a bowl, along with 100ml (or a cup) of red wine - I used a merlot here, but a sweet dessert wine would work nicely. On top of this, also add about 50 grams of white sugar. Mix and mash everything together until it forms a very thick, lumpy soup.
2 - Cook the Pudding
At this stage, place a tablespoon of butter into a large saucepan or pot. Place this over a high heat until it starts to melt. At this point, place your breadcrumbs and cherry-wine mix into the pot, along with another 50g of sugar. Mix everything together. If it’s looking a little dry, add in another cup of wine. Put this onto a medium-high heat and let it cook away for about 10-15 minutes. Keep the whole thing stirring as you cook it, so nothing sticks and burns onto the pot.
3 - Cool and Serve
The pudding should thicken up considerably, and act like a porridge when it’s done. Let everything cool a little, before spooning into a bowl of your choice. The original recipe claims that you should decorate it with edible flowers.
The finished pudding is super sweet and flavourful. The breadcrumbs soaked up the cherry juice and wine mixture and became fantastically smooth, with a sharp undertone (thanks to the wine). If you wanted to make an alcohol-free alternative, you could use some grape juice instead!
The pudding itself can also be used as a pie or tart filling, and firms up quite nicely if baked.
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)
