#edible archaeology
Today, I’ll be going back to the Hellenistic Period, to the Hasmonean dynasty of Judea. The recipe in question is a simple honeyed-hens, recorded by Seleucid accounts of a feast held by one of the ruling elite. Though the original recipe refers to it plainly as chicken with honey, I’m going to be recreating it today based on our knowledge of contemporary dining habits!
In any case, let’s now take a look at the World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above!
Ingredients
4 chicken thighs
salt (to taste)
pepper (to taste)
ground cumin
ground coriander
2 tbsp wholegrain mustard
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp honey
2-4 cloves garlic
Method
1 - Prepare the Chicken
To begin with we need to season our chicken. Do this by sprinkling some salt, some freshly ground black pepper, some ground coriander, and some ground cumin on top of your chicken, before rubbing it in with your hands. In antiquity, chicken would have been eaten, along with wildfowl like duck, and even doves or pigeon. Any of these birds would work well here, but chicken would be the easiest meat to deal with today.
Leave your chicken aside while you go make the sauce.
2 - Prepare the Sauce
Next, we need to make a sauce to go with this. In antiquity, mustard seeds and vinegar would have been the base of several sauces or condiments. You can easily do this here, but a better solution would be to use pre-made wholegrain mustard, like I’m doing.
In any case, toss about a tablespoon or two of mustard into a bowl, along with a good glug of olive oil. On top of this, add an equal amount of honey, along with a few crushed cloves of garlic. Mix all this together into a fairly thick sauce. If you want, you can thicken this over a medium heat for a few minutes until it’s just about bubbling. I didn’t do this, but it turned out well!
3 - Assemble the Dish
Toss your seasoned chicken into a lightly oiled baking dish. Pour over your sauce, and try and spread it around evenly. If you want to, you could place the chicken into a Ziploc bag with the sauce and leave it to marinate overnight in the fridge.
Either way, place your prepared chicken into an oven preheated to 200° C / 400° F, and let it all bake away for 40 minutes, flipping them over halfway through so they cook evenly.
Take the chicken out when they’re browned and cooked through, serve up warm on a bed of edible greens like rocket, and dig in!
The finished dish is super succulent and flavourful. The spices were very floral and nutty, improved by the time spent baking. The mustard and honey mix caramelised at the bottom of the baking dish, which was a delicious bit of sweet heat when serving up!
The meat itself was very tender, with the skin on top crisping up significantly during the cooking process. In antiquity, it’s unknown if birds were divided up into legs, wings, thighs etc, before or after cooking. Though it’s likely that they may have been prepared both as a whole roasted chicken that was then divided up at the table, as well as pre-cut into more easy to manage pieces like I did here. It’s really a matter of personal preference today anyway.
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 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 a medieval drink from 13th century Egypt - and is still drunk today! A simple, refreshing drink called subiyah/ It was originally made to drink during Ramadan - a holy month of fasting in the Islamic calendar - but this is able to be enjoyed around the year! It’s simple to make, and has a very nice crispness to it!
In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above!
Ingredients
3-4 slices of sourdough bread (crusts removed)
3-4 cups water
1 tsp cardamom pods
fresh mint
fresh parsley
Method
1 - Soak and Strain Bread
To begin with, de-crust three slices of sourdough bread and tear the bread into small chunks, before placing them in a bowl. The original recipe requires “bread” and gives no elaboration - so I went for sourdough because it has a more distinct taste than a regular slice of white bread.
In any case, pour in three cups of water into your bowl to soak the bread. Leave all this to get soggy for about thirty minutes. After thirty minutes, your bread chunks should be saturated with water, and practically falling apart. At this point, strain the bread water into a container that can be easily sealed. Make sure you remove as many solids from the mixture as you can.
2 - Combine Aromatics and Spices before fermenting
Next, toss some parsley leaves into your container with the water, along with some fresh mint, and a handful of cardamom pods that you’ve crushed slightly. Mix everything together, and seal up. I used a mason jar for this, because it’s convenient - but in antiquity, people would have used a damp cloth placed over the opening of the container.
Leave the container aside for a day or two at room temperature. This will let the whole thing steep, letting the flavours mingle.
When it’s done steeping, pour your subiyah through a strainer, removing the herbs, pods, and any remaining large chunks of bread. Serve up chilled, with a sprig of mint and take a sip!
The finished drink is quite mild tasting, but has a very soothing background sensation. It’s very light, and looks a lot like lemonade. A wonderful drink to have on a warm day!
Today, I’ll be taking a look at a staple of Irish medieval cuisine: the humble nettle soup. Late spring and early Summer is the ideal time to make this dish, as the nettle leaves used here won’t have matured fully, and retain a soft, lighter texture than older woodier leaves. Plus they won’t sting your hands as badly as mature nettles. Plenty of Irish families have their own takes on this recipe, and this is influenced by my family’s take on the tradition!
In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!
Ingredients
2-3 cups nettle leaves
1 onion, minced
2-3 cloves garlic (or two bulbs of wild garlic, minced)
chives (for decoration)
butter
½ cup milk/double cream
500ml water or stock
salt
pepper
Method
1 - Chop and cook the Garlic and Onion
To begin with, we need to peel and chop a whole onion, before tossing this into a pot with some melted butter. You can of course use oil, but dairy products was (and still is) a major part of Irish culinary traditions - so try and use Irish butter here if you can.
In any case, let your onion sauté away for a couple of minutes until it turns translucent and fragrant. When it hits this point, toss in a couple of cloves of crushed garlic - or some wild garlic if you have any!
2 - Deal with the Nettles
Next, ball up some nettles and chop it roughly with a knife. Be careful, as the leaves and stems of this plant has stinging fibres (which will get denatured and broken down when it’s cooking).
Nettles act like spinach when you’re cooking them, so have about 2-3 times more than what you think you’ll need on hand. Add your chopped nettles into the pot, and let them cook down before adding the rest!
3 - Cook Soup
When all of your nettle leaves have cooked down, pour in 500ml of soup stock (or water) into the pot. Then, toss in about a half a cup of whole milk, or double cream if you have it. Mix this together gently, before putting this onto a high heat. Bring it to a rolling boil, before turning it down to low until it simmers. Let the whole thing simmer away for about an hour.
Serve up hot in a small bowl, garnish with some chives or seasonal herbs, and dig in!
The finished soup is very light and flavourful, but quite filling for what it is! It’s another variation on a medieval pottage, with ingredients that could have been easily foraged in the spring and summer. As it can be made with only a few ingredients, it could have formed the basis of more complex dishes - such as the addition of more vegetables, or meat products.
Given how little the dish has changed from antiquity to modernity, it’s likely that the basics of this soup go back to pre-historic Irish culinary traditions.
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!
