Episode 019 is now up and running! This episode features quite a few letters between Bronze Age rulers of places like Ugarit, Hattusa, and Egypt. What they tell us is that famine, drought, and seaborne invasion all converged during the high point (or low point) of the Late Bronze Age Collapse, between 1230 and 1175 BCE.
Today, I’m going to be making a simple pulse and leaf salad present in ancient Cretan - and possibly wider Hellenic - culture! It’ still eaten today, in a modern dish called “palikaria” which is eaten in the Eastern Mediterranean around feast days. Although the modern version of this dish is associated with Christian religious festivals, its likely that it arose from pre-Christian practices!
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 ½ cup small broad beans ½ cup chickpeas ½ cup green lentils 1 tbsp salt ½ cup olive oil ½ cup red wine vinegar parsley arugula sesame seeds
Method 1 - Soak Pulses To begin with, we need to prepare our pulses. If you’re using dried pulses, soak these overnight in some water. If you’re using them canned, simply drain them. Next, we need to wash these in salted water. Do this by placing into a pot, a half a cup of chickpeas, a half a cup of green lentils, and half a cup of broad beans (or butter beans, if you can’t get your hands on them) Pour in some water until the pulses are just submerged. Heat this slightly over a medium heat for a few minutes.
2 - Make Dressing While your pulses are soaking together, go make your salad dressing. Although probably a more modern development, it’s not unlikely that a simple olive oil and wine vinegar dressing was made and used in antiquity. In any case, quickly whisk together equal amounts of olive oil and red wine vinegar until it emulsifies into a smooth seasoning. Make sure to taste this and adjust to your preference.
3 - Toss Salad Now, we need to drain our pulses, again. The ritual washing of things in salted water (such as sea water) was a common motif in contemporary Hellenic religious practices - and it’s likely that some food types were prepared in a similar manner (particularly dishes being prepared for a ritual) Place a bed of your rocket (or arugula) leaves onto a plate, and spoon on a generous portion of your pulses. Drizzle with a bit of your dressing, and sprinkle a handful of sesame seeds onto the plate.
Serve up and dig in!
The finished dish is a simple yet filling meal, packed full of protein! The pulses used would have been available in antiquity, and archaeological records show that lentils, chickpeas, and broad beans were all cultivated in the Eastern Mediterranean since the Neolithic period - albeit in differing amounts, depending on the size of the settlement, and the quality of the soils.
It’s been a whole year since I started this project, and seeing it grow to the size it is today is amazing - I never imagined that it would ever get this popular! So to celebrate, I decided to take a look at some roast duck - based on some Sumerian cuneiform fragments.
In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!
1 - Prepare the Duck To begin making this roast duck, we need to prepare our duck. I’m using a whole bird here, but you could just as easily cook this in pieces - it’s up to you! Start by scoring the breast with a knife a few times, to increase the seasoning surface area. The original fragment claims to be dealing with an unnamed bird, so I opted for duck - as wildfowl would have been a staple for Mesopotamia. But chicken or squab would have also been eaten around this time.
In any case, season your bird of choice using some salt, some freshly ground black pepper, some ground cumin, and some ground coriander. Rub this into the meat with your hands if you can handle it. Though I’m going to be dry-roasting this, it’s likely that the meat would have been boiled in a stew or soup broth for a while before being roasted in an oven.
2 - Roast the Duck Place your seasoned bird breast-side down on a roasting rack. And then place this into the centre of an oven preheated to 200C / 400F for about two hours (based on a 2kg bird of course), flipping this over about 30 minutes before serving so the breast meat roasts perfectly. When you’ve flipped the bird, go and prepare your soup.
3 - Prepare the Soup To pair with this, I made a quick and easy leek and herb soup. Start by chopping a leek into segments as thick as your thumb or so. Also chop an onion in half, and mince each half.
Toss some butter into a pot and put it onto a high heat. When the butter melts, toss in your leeks and onions. Return the pot to the heat, and let everything sauté away for a few minutes until the onion turns soft and translucent. At this point, toss in a few shakes of cumin and coriander, along with 750ml of water (or a soup stock of your choice). Into this, add some thyme and mint sprigs.
Let everything cook away for about 20 minutes, or until the leeks are practically falling apart.
Fish out your herb sprigs, and serve up alongside your duck!
The finished roast is super succulent, and very flavourful. The seasoning on the duck gave it a sharp zesty flavour, which paired very nicely with the herby, minty flavour of the soup. The meat itself has a lovely crisp skin, and tender flesh. This is a reconstruction of a fragmentary recipe from the Yale Cuneiform collection - others have postulated that it is separate to the pigeon stew recipe fragment, while others have claimed it to be a continuation of it. I chose to do a simple roast here, as ovens for cooking and baking would have been able to do this with little modification in antiquity (such as the use of a spit or shaft of metal or wood to cook the meat over a naked flame.
Today, I’ll be making a quick and easy sesame snack from the Cretan Iron Age! A treat so sweet that it’s still popular today (with a few adaptations of course) - the koptoplakous as it’s known in antiquity - or the Pasteli as it’s known today!
In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above!
Ingredients 200g sesame seeds 200g honey sea salt (to taste)
Method
1 - Toast the Sesame Seeds To begin with, we need to lightly brown and toast 200g of sesame seeds. Do this by tossing them into a hot pan, and letting them cook over a high heat for a couple of minutes. Don’t let these sit still, keep them moving around the pan so they toast evenly! Do this for about 5 minutes, or until your seeds are nutty and fragrant.
Take these off the heat, but keep them warm while you deal with the honey.
2 - Boil Honey Next, place a pot onto a high heat. Into this, scoop about 200g of honey and let it heat up. Keep stirring it occasionally with a wooden spoon, so it doesn’t burn. Let this cook away over high heat until it foams up significantly. Much like boiling milk, this will happen very quickly, and might catch you off-guard. If it looks like it’s getting too high, take it off the heat and it’ll cool down pretty quickly.
3 - Mix Honey and Sesame After about 10 minutes of foaming, turn the heat down to low before tossing in your toasted sesame seeds. Stir all of this together and let it cook for another 5 - 10 minutes. The honey should start to turn a deeper golden brown, but if it gets too dark, take it off the heat immediately.
When it’s been mixed together, pour it out onto a baking tray lined with paper. Spread it out into a fairly thin layer, but not too thin! Let it sit like this for about 20 minutes or so, before slicing it into segments with a knife.
You can serve this up whenever it’s cooled like this, or leave them overnight to re-solidify a little more! Either way, the finished dish is super sweet, and has a delicious nutty flavour, thanks to the toasted sesame seeds.
The modern name for this dish - pasteli - has its origins in medieval Italian cuisine, as this kind of sweet treat is common throughout Europe, the Near East, Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Though obviously, each region has its own takes on this basic formula, such as the addition of local spices, nuts, or other ingredients!
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!
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 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.
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.
This stone circle is located near the village of Belstone which is on the edge of Dartmoor National Park’s north moor. The nine standing stones surround a Bronze Age burial site. Legend states that a group of nine young ladies were discovered dancing on a Sunday and thus turned to stone.
Lochbuie stone circle, Isle of Mull, Scotland 2017
This small stone circle is the only one on Mull and stands in a breathtakingly beautiful setting, under the watchful gaze of Ben Buie.
You have to cross an extremely boggy field to reach it, so wear your tallest wellies and be very careful if you don’t want to be found as a bog body in thousands of years. Peat bogs are a type of wetland where the water on the ground surface is acidic and low in nutrients. They are filled with decaying organic matter, usually feature rich biodiversity and from a distance, they look rather homogeneous. However closer up, you discover that peat bogs are actually not that uniform in surface, depth or texture. In fact, they’re quite treacherous as you can never tell how deep (sometimes VERY deep) or spongy your next step is going to be. Hiking through them can be hell, as you can sink in bogs quite quickly.
The circle probably dates to the late Neolithic (3000 BC) or early Bronze Age. There were originally 9 stones, all of local granite. One of the stones has been replaced by a low boulder. The circle is about 12.3 metres in diameter, with the tallest stone about 2 metres high and the smallest about 1.2 metre high. Interestingly, the standing stones have been placed so that their flattest side faces the interior of the circle. There are three outlying stones, one about 5 metres from the circle to the south east. This is a fairly unobtrusive boulder about 1 metre high, and its azimuth of 123° with a very high horizon gives a declination of -12°, of no known significance. The second outlier is a very striking monolith about 3 metres high, standing at least 40 metres to the south west. The azimuth of 223.6° with a horizon height of 0.4° gives a declination of -23.7°, and so indicates the position of the setting sun at the winter solstice. The horizon is now partially blocked by nearby trees. Much further away (about 110 metres) is the third outlier, which is roughly 2 metres high. This stone looks like it has suffered a break near the top and was probably much taller when it was first erected. The bearing of 237° and an altitude of just over 2° gives a declination of -16.0°. This is the declination of the sun at the winter Quarter days in early November and early February.
And so… to the final piece and maybe my last post about Afterglow/Undertow.
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And it’s an apt one because the ‘Killer Instinct’ full size bronze bust really was the show-stopper.
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It took pride of place in the centre of the gallery and, in spite of the artworks on the walls, was the ‘piece de resistance’ for the whole show in my opinion.
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People’s reaction to it will be forever engrained in my memory. Fingers crossed the many planned future bronze works will have the same impact.
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An edition of 10 (each with a different colour mask), this turquoise version is headed to New Jersey to the home of one of my most avid collectors.
““What is striking about these results is that the demographic history of a cross-roads region as Xinjiang has been marked not by population replacements, but by the genetic incorporation of diverse incoming cultural groups into the existing population, making Xinjiang a true ‘melting-pot’,” said Prof. Fu.”
