Ancient Roman cuisine enthusiasts answer your burning questions. If you were to sit down for a meal with ancient Romans, some of the food on your plate might leave you scratching your head. Dormouse and flamingo, anyone? Other dishes may appear surprisingly familiar, like bread, cheese, and wine—still the cornerstones of many a Mediterranean-inspired lunch[…]
A few experimental archaeologists are reclaiming recipes from ancient societies. By Keridwen Cornelius Around 2000 B.C., a baker in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes captured yeast from the air and kneaded it into a triangle of dough. The baked bread was then buried in a dedication ceremony beneath the temple of Pharaoh Mentuhotep II[…]
Beer was extremely popular in ancient Mesopotamia. Sipped through straws, it was enjoyed by people from all walks of life. Introduction People have been gathering over a beer for thousands of years. As an archaeologist, I can tell you the history of beer stretches deep into the human past – and the history of bars[…]
When someone, especially a smart housewife, decides to buy cookware, whether it is anodized or any other cookware, the purchaser must keep in mind whether it is user-friendly or health risk-free. Surely that is a better choice, a good quality brand in reliable and safe cooking for the user. When buying any cookware to know[…]
A medieval kitchen / British Library, Public Domain If your latest diet resolution is already under strain, take comfort from knowing that there’s a long history of people monitoring what they munch. By Dr. Alice White / 01.10.2018 Historian and Digital Editor Wellcome Collection Sure, Doc, I’ll Give Ya Patients! The physicians friend, Charles Williams /[…]
Thermodynamics holds the answers to your wildest campfire dreams. (Brent Hofacker / Alamy) The gooey treat couldn’t have become popularized without the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution, which brought cheap sweets to the masses. By Dr. Jeffrey Miller / 06.28.2018 Associate Professor and Program Coordinator, Hospitality Management Colorado State University Last summer, 45 million pounds of marshmallows were toasted over a fire in America. Many were[…]
Sweeter Alternative/Flickr Human physiology evolved on a diet containing very little sugar and virtually no refined carbohydrate. By (left-to-right) Dr. Mark. Horton, Dr. Alexander Bentley, and Dr. Philip Langton / 10.30.2015 Horton: Professor in Archaeology, University of Bristol Bentley: Professor and Department Head, Anthropology, The University of Tennessee Knoxville Langton: Senior Teaching Fellow in Physiology, University[…]
Very few people today live a true hunter-gatherer lifestyle – and Paleo diets likely oversimplify what would have been on the table many millennia ago. Thiery Simple characterizations of our ancestors by “Paleo diet” fads widely miss the mark. By Dr. Ken Sayers / 02.17.2015 Postdoctoral Fellow in Primate and Human Evolution Georgia State University Reconstructions[…]
Cider, water, milk, and whiskey! By Melissa Swindell / 12.06.2012 Executive Director The Wren’s Nest Practically everyone in 18th America drank chocolate and tea, but what about cider, water, milk, and whiskey? Well, of course they drank water and milk. The colonies were an idyllic paradise—lush forests, rolling hills, crystal clear streams. Not so much.[…]
Still Life with Fruit, Oysters and a Porcelain Bowl, Abraham Mignon, 1660 – 1679. / Rijksmuseum Medieval people took the idea that the food they consumed could influence their sex lives far more seriously than we do today. By Dr. Katherine Harvey / 06.05.2014 Associate Lecturer in Medieval History Birkbeck College University of London The[…]
A view of the millstones and oven of a bakery (Pistrinium) in the Roman town of Pompeii which was buried in volcanic ash following the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. The millstones have square sockets in which wooden beams would have been placed and harnessed to mules in order to turn the stones and so grind the grain[…]
Olive trees on the Greek island of Anaxos. Cereals / Wikimedia Commons The prosperity of the majority of Greek city-states was based on agriculture and the ability to produce the necessary surplus. By Mark Cartwright / 07.25.2016 Historian The prosperity of the majority of Greek city-states was based on agriculture and the ability to produce the necessary surplus which[…]
Coming together for a solstice feast in ancient Peru. Robert Gutierrez, Author provided How did civilization emerge from small groups of hunter-gatherers? Some archaeologists focus on cooperation as the vital ingredient – and find evidence for it in the form of feast-related artifacts. By Dr. Charles Stanish / 07.03.2018 Professor of Anthropology University of South Florida “The Epic of Gilgamesh” is one of the earliest texts known in[…]
Portrait of Alexios III Komnenos in The Romance of Alexander the Great, 1300s, made in Trebizond, Turkey. Tempera, gold, and ink, 12 5/8 x 9 7/16 in. Image courtesy of the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Postbyzantine Studies, Venice, cod. gr. 5 An art historian embraces her foodie side to uncover the tastes of the Byzantine Empire.[…]
Emily Anthes braves locusts, beetles, mealworms and more as she asks whether eating insects is the answer to feeding ever more humans and livestock. By Emily Anthes / 10.12.2014 At first my meal seems familiar, like countless other dishes I’ve eaten at Asian restaurants. A swirl of noodles slicked with oil and studded with shredded[…]
The First Salmon ceremony being performed. U.S. Department of Agriculture , Public Domain Indigenous people from around the world revere certain traditional foods as sacred. By Dr. Rosalyn R. LaPier / 06.15.2018 Associate Professor of Environmental Studies The University of Montana The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling, on June 11, that asked Washington state to remove culverts that block the migration of salmon.[…]
Humboldt Fog chèvre, born in a dream. T.Depaepe, CC BY-ND By Dr. Heather Paxson / 12.13.2017 Professor of Anthropology Massachusetts Institute of Technology The idea for Humboldt Fog goat’s milk cheese first came to Mary Keehn in a dream. She fell asleep on an airplane and awoke with a vivid picture in her mind of how the[…]
Bone-flinging feast? Giles Gasper Think of medieval food and a whole range of not especially dignified images come to mind. By Dr. Giles Gasper and Dr. Rachel Matthews / 06.02.2014 Gasper: Senior Lecturer in Medieval History, Durham University Matthews: Research Grants and Contracts Officer, Department of History, Durham University Think of medieval food and a whole range[…]
A reconstruction of Homo erectus making fire, Zhoukoudian Museum, China. Darren Curnoe, Author provided Few of us pause to reflect on the hugely important role diet plays in the ecology and evolutionary history of all species. By Dr. Darren Curnoe / 06.05.2015 Associate Professor Biological Anthropology and Archaeological Science UNSW Australia Amateur cook-offs like the hugely popular MasterChef series now in its[…]
Motal cheese is a fresh goat’s milk cheese made primarily in remote mountain areas in Armenia. / Cross of Armenian Unity, Ruslan Torosyan By Laura Kiniry / 04.17.2018 In the mountains of eastern Armenia, about 75 miles north of the capital Yerevan, motal means change. “Motal cheese is like a business card for our region,” says Arpine[…]
A Boyar Wedding Feast, by Konstantin Makovsky, 1883 / Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens via Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Gunther Hirschfeld and Dr. Manuel Trummer / 08.20.2013 Hirschfeld: Lecturer in Cultural Anthropology, Universität Regensburg Trummer: Lecturer in Cultural Anthropology, Universität Regensburg Abstract There is scarcely an aspect of daily cultural practice which illustrates the processes of transformation[…]
In early modern Europe, melted sugar became its own dizzyingly complex artistic medium. By Dr. Darra Goldstein / 09.22.2015 Wilcox B. and Harriet M. Adsit Professor of Russian, Emerita Williams College White House chef Bill Yosses’s cast sugar plate with hand-pulled sugar flowers and petits fours created for French president François Hollande in 2014. Photo[…]
Baking Bread (detail) in a psalter by an unknown illuminator, Belgium, mid-1200s. Tempera colors, gold leaf, and ink on parchment, each leaf 9 1/4 x 6 1/2 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. 14, fol. 8v A food historian does some delicious research. By Dr. Ken Albala / 10.29.2015 Professor of History Chair of[…]
By Maite Gomez-Rejón / 02.12.2015 Food and sex are the most basic human drives. It’s no wonder that aphrodisiacs—food and drink with a reputation for making sex more attainable or pleasurable—are named after the Greek goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite. (She was known as Venus to the Romans—Latin for love or sexual desire.) The femme fatale[…]
“These women really represent their culture. They are the vessels that carry this culture forward.” / Photo by Juana Mari Moya, Getty Images A New York City restaurant does more than serve home cooking from around the world. It prepares each dish with the love that only a grandmother can provide. By Shaima Shamdeen / 02.20.2018[…]
Ava Gene’s, a Roman-inspired restaurant in Portland, Ore., incorporates colatura, a modern descendant of ancient Roman fish sauce, into several of its dishes. / Photo by Deena Prichep, NPR By Deena Prichep / 10.24.2013 Fish sauce — that funky, flavor-enhancing fermented condiment — is part of what gives Southeast Asian cooking its distinctive taste. But it[…]
Dentist (detail), 1659–81, Jan van der Bruggen. Engraving, 26.6 x 18.7 cm. Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam The exploding popularity of sugar among the European rich led to an unprecedented form of affluenza: dental decay. By Dr. Joseph Imorde / 01.19.2016 Professor of Art History Universitaet Siegen In early modern Europe, the opulence of princely festive dinners[…]
Poseidon taking chocolate from Mexico to Europe, a detail from the frontispiece to Chocolata Inda by Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma, 1644 — National Institute of Health Chocolate has not always been the common confectionary we experience today. When it first arrived from the Americas into Europe in the 17th century it was a rare and mysterious substance, thought[…]
The magical substance: Cacao Fruit and Leaf, November 27, 1783, Jan Brandes. Graphite and wash on paper, 19.5 × 15.5 mm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam The association between chocolate and love stretches back centuries. This Valentine’s Day, indulge in a decadent aphrodisiac recipe you can make at home. By Maite Gomez-Rejón / 02.12.2015 Chocolate. The ultimate aphrodisiac. Once available only[…]
The scoop on how a familiar frozen treat once got respectable folk all hot under the collar. By Dr. Christine Baumgarthuber / 07.21.2015 Austerity Kitchen Note: All images from Heller’s Guide for Ice-cream Makers (1918) [I received an] ice cream maker was a gift. And like many gifts, it’s also somewhat of a curse. It coaxes me[…]