What's enlightening is how astonishingly little salt is used, by our standards.
Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)
41–50 of 149 posts
Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)
#42Gonna be quite challenging to get "1/2 cup of rendered sheep fat"
if you have a good butcher they might be able to get you some that you can render, but its a hassle. I've done this for beef fat to make some british pie things.
Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)
#43Gonna be quite challenging to get "1/2 cup of rendered sheep fat"
In Australia where lamb is more common than in the US, it'd be pretty easy to keep the fat after roasting a lamb shoulder, or to freeze the fatty offcuts from forequarter chops and render them after I had enough.
Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)
#44Coincidentally this book which has been a labour of love of his creator is going into print this week: https://www.tableofgods.com
It's quite expensive though, but it does look amazing.
Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)
#45Honestly the recipe sounds like adding beets to a regular lamb stew recipe. If I havent watch this video and saw the dish, I would think some fancy restaurant is trying to be "innovative"
Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)
#46Gonna be quite challenging to get "1/2 cup of rendered sheep fat"
I was able to get some tail fat from a halal butcher. But never seen lamb fat anywhere else
Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
The recipe is also similar to Hamedh [0], a delicacy in Iraqi and Baghdadi Jewish households. The only major difference is the addition of tomatoes thanks to the Columbian Exchange, and rice - which would have not been cultivated or traded in West Asia yet. On that note, in Arabic, Farsi, and Hindustani the word for Tomato is essentially shared ( tumatar / tamatimu ) with the English word "tomato". But anyhow, a lot…
Actually, in Persian, tomato is literally translated as “western plum”. This is common in our language as we usually say “western” or “foreign” as a prefix to many things that were introduced to Iran (strawberries, sit-style toilets, etc)
As an aside, tomatoes are golden apples (pomodoro), and oranges are Chinese apples (Apfelsin) in some languages.
A lot of cultures appear to name botanicals using apples or, in GP’s context, stone fruit as “reference” points.
Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
The recipe is also similar to Hamedh [0], a delicacy in Iraqi and Baghdadi Jewish households. The only major difference is the addition of tomatoes thanks to the Columbian Exchange, and rice - which would have not been cultivated or traded in West Asia yet. On that note, in Arabic, Farsi, and Hindustani the word for Tomato is essentially shared ( tumatar / tamatimu ) with the English word "tomato". But anyhow, a lot…
Actually, in Persian, tomato is literally translated as “western plum”. This is common in our language as we usually say “western” or “foreign” as a prefix to many things that were introduced to Iran (strawberries, sit-style toilets, etc)
Chinese does the same thing, using prefixes like 西 (western), 番 (foreign), and 洋 (foreign) for introduced items.
For tomatoes, interestingly, it has two common names that follow this pattern: 西紅柿, literally translated as "Western Red Persimmon", and 番茄, literally translated as "Foreign Eggplant".
Other produce examples include 番薯 (Foreign Yam) for sweet potato, 西瓜 (Western Melon) for watermelon, 洋蔥 (Foreign Onion) for bulb onion etc.
Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)
#49What's enlightening is how astonishingly little salt is used, by our standards.
The ingredient ratios are the Yale researchers' interpretation—they're not from the source text,
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/ancient-mesopota...
> "Like most premodern cooking manuals, the Babylonian recipes rarely list the quantities of each ingredient, and so basic experimentation is needed to determine viable proportions for the assembly of a dough or the salting of a stew. The “experimental” approach likewise offers answers to questions that can only be addressed through trial and error. For example, many of the identifications of herbs proposed by modern scholars are based mainly on medical compendia, and some of the plants thus identified can produce an extremely bitter or perhaps pungent taste when used in food."
Here's the recipes as literally translated (I used tesseract to OCR):
> "Unwinding. Meat is not used. You prepare water. You add fat. (You add) kurrat, cilantro, salt as desired, leek, garlic. You pound up dried sourdough, you sift (it) and you scatter (it) over the pot before removing it."
> "Stew of lamb. Meat is used. You prepare water. You add fat. You add fine-grained salt, dried barley cakes, onion, Persian shallot, and milk. [You crush] (and add) leek and garlic."
> "Elamite broth. Meat is not used. You prepare water. You add fat. Dill, kurrat, cilantro, leek, and garlic bound with blood, a corresponding amount of sour milk, and (more) garlic. The (original) name (of this dish) is Zukanda."
> "Tuh’u. Leg meat is used. You prepare water. You add fat. You sear. You fold in salt, beer, onion, arugula, cilantro, Persian shallot, cumin, and red’ beet, and [you crush] leek and garlic. You sprinkle coriander on top. [You add] kurrat and fresh cilantro."
Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)
#50If you like this, you may like the "Tasting History" YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@TastingHistory
He basically covers a different historic dish every week ranging from the oldest recorded dishes to cafeteria food from 1990; or what they served on the Titanic, etc.
It's a great channel, and covers history well.