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Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)

babylonian-collection.yale.edu

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Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)

#101

Post by mlni »

xattt wrote: post #47
amir_karbasi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Potatoes are called "earth apples" in french (pomme de terre) and a bunch of other european languages

Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)

#102

Post by stackghost »

globular-toast wrote: post #96
tensor wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's common. People today have no idea how truly poor they eat. Modern fast food is essentially fake food paste.

Which is a shame because you can eat so well today you can easily skip the dead animal carcass. They couldn't really do that back then in many places with short growing seasons.

Oh good, the vegans are here to leave smug comments

Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)

#103

Post by dotancohen »

thelibrarian wrote: post #82
dotancohen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recorded English-language etymology for "ketchup" suggests that the word comes from one of the Chinese dialect's word for tomato. Do you have any idea which Chinese word sounds like ketchup?

My personal theory based on nothing more than the vibe of the thing is that it comes from the Malay/Indonesian word ‘kecap’ (which is pronounced almost identically to “ketchup”), the word for sweet soy sauce. This is soy sauce that is thickened and sweetened with palm sugar, and I could see European cooks attempting to replicate it based on the vague descriptions given by sailors, and ending up with ketchup.

Interesting, thank you.

Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)

#104

Post by dotancohen »

taneliv wrote: post #73
dotancohen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recorded English-language etymology for "ketchup" suggests that the word comes from one of the Chinese dialect's word for tomato. Do you have any idea which Chinese word sounds like ketchup?

Not exactly a Chinese dialect, but Vietnamese calls tomatoes "cà chua": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/c%C3%A0_chua .

Are the Vietnamese and Chinese languages related? Or perhaps one of the two cultures was introduced to that fruit by the other, and thus preserved the name?

Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)

#105

Post by dotancohen »

alephnerd wrote: post #59
dotancohen wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On that note, in Arabic, Farsi, and Hindustani the word for Tomato is essentially shared (tumatar/tamatimu) with the English word "tomato". In the Levant we use the word بندورا "bindora" in Arabic for tomato.

Huh. Like Pomodoro. That makes sense.

Very likely from Pomodoro. In Arabic P is pronounced B or F.

Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)

#107

Post by ErroneousBosh »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #94
fsloth wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh! So were sheep just for meat back then?

No, the sheep were harvested for wool, but not by shearing. When they shed, we picked the shed wool from them. Modern sheep grow their wool continuously, but that took a while to breed in.

> Modern sheep grow their wool continuously, but that took a while to breed in.

No they don't.

In the summer their wool starts to grow out much thinner, like maybe a quarter as thick - it's really noticeable. This gives what's called a "rise", a gap between the sheep's skin and the thicker coarser wool. Once that's high enough to get shears (or these days, machine clippers which are like a big beard trimmer) into you can shear the fleece off.

If there's no rise you haven't a hope in hell of cutting it.

If there's a good rise it practically falls off.

If you leave them long enough or if the rise starts growing in too soon, they'll start "casting" where their wool just falls off in big chunks. This is actually quite dangerous for them because it's itchy and they roll on their backs to scratch, and get stuck upside down with their legs in the air and suffocate.

And you thought sheep farming was easy and fun ;-)

Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)

#108

Post by ErroneousBosh »

eru wrote: post #86
wolfi1 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do they? there are reports of lost sheep which when found had a very thick fur or whatever the shepherds call it

Sorry, when I said in nature, I meant undomesticated sheep. Domesticated sheep that get lost for a while don't magically learn how to shed their coat, yes.

Pretty much all domesticated sheep will cast their fleeces.

There are some breeds that don't, and obviously due to random genetics you'll get individuals that don't.

Sheep that don't cast their fleeces are damn near impossible to shear and are mostly kept for meat. Likewise, sheep that don't have much of a "rise" (see my other comment) and are difficult to shear quite often, uh, don't have a particularly long career, as it were.

Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)

#109

Post by ragazzina »

harel wrote: post #44

Coincidentally 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.

The fact that they promote the preorder of a 200$ book without showing even a single page is crazy.

Re: Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)

#110

Post by ErroneousBosh »

culi wrote: post #78
alephnerd wrote: post #17

Earlier 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…

> rice - which would have not been cultivated or traded in West Asia yet Surprisingly it was still imported in surprising quantities nearly 1000 years before it started to be cultivated. Not significant enough quantities for it to be a common staple, but still an interesting tidbit

One day, someone - someone like you, maybe, someone with the Hacker Nature - was looking at the rice they'd bought and thought "You know what, it just *cannot* be all that difficult to just grow this stuff here, it costs a fortune to import. How hard can it possibly be?"

So they set to digging irrigation trenches, and had a go at it, and maybe a couple of shitty harvests later they'd got the trick nailed.

And here we are.

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