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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)

#131

Post by ErroneousBosh »

AdamN wrote: post #126
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Man shearing this one is a pain in the a$$. Hand me the sticking knife ...

Well, not quite, but it's one you're going to cull out at the end of the year when it's time for them to go to market.

And of course, the only truly stockproof sheep enclosure is a deep freeze.

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

#132

Post by ErroneousBosh »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #115
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I thought animal farming in general is an arcane science. My friends have goats but they aren't farmers and they haven't got a clue how to care for them. The females sometimes are left with milk in their breasts after their young are weaned and one of my friends will get anxious about that and ask us to help her milk them. It's impossible. You can't milk a goat that doesn't want to be milked. If you push them too har…

I absolutely love goat's milk and I would love to keep goats, but they are every possible kind of a pain in the tits to deal with.

A neighbour of mine had a goat that we thought had some terrible thing happen because she was choking and gagging and frothing at the mouth like some cartoon rabid animal. Nope, far simpler. She'd eaten a grey lycra-and-elastic sports bra off the washing line, got a bra strap hooked over her tongue, and the rest of the bra down her throat. Hooked the strap with my finger, pulled it out in one quick deft rather unpleasantly squelchy motion, and ten seconds later you'd never have thought there had been anything wrong with her.

The bra went in the bin.

Bloody goats.

Your friends either need to learn how to care for goats - if only there was some world-wide repository of knowledge with books and videos and stuff! - or give them a good home somewhere else. They're probably hard to milk because as you say they're not used to being handled, and it may be too late to do that by now. If that's the case, you may never be able to milk them no matter how you handle them, and maybe you can breed from them, or maybe you can give them a nice new home, cosy and fragrant, along with some onion, garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, and chilli, with a kilo or so of spinach too.

As an aside, you probably want to get yourself a copy of "Self-Sufficiency" by John Seymour, and have a read of that.

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

#133

Post by [deleted] »

dyauspitr wrote: post #99
globular-toast wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would you skip the dead animal? That is by far the best part of every meal. PS don’t jump into the whole animal cruelty spiel. I’m aware and I agree, it’s just that I don’t care. Vegetarian food, aside from maybe the narrow slice with how the Indians prepare it, is completely unsatisfying and I’m OK with animals suffering as long as I can continue to have meat because it’s just so delicious. That being said, I wo…

[deleted]

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

#134

Post by globular-toast »

dyauspitr wrote: post #99
globular-toast wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would you skip the dead animal? That is by far the best part of every meal. PS don’t jump into the whole animal cruelty spiel. I’m aware and I agree, it’s just that I don’t care. Vegetarian food, aside from maybe the narrow slice with how the Indians prepare it, is completely unsatisfying and I’m OK with animals suffering as long as I can continue to have meat because it’s just so delicious. That being said, I wo…

India is the most populous country in the world so it's hardly a "narrow slice". Anyway, Italians and Mexicans are just as good with vegetables.

Even people who like steak grind some plant on it to make it taste good (pepper). Basically all interesting flavours come from plants. Meat just tastes of meat.

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

#136

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #132
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought animal farming in general is an arcane science. My friends have goats but they aren't farmers and they haven't got a clue how to care for them. The females sometimes are left with milk in their breasts after their young are weaned and one of my friends will get anxious about that and ask us to help her milk them. It's impossible. You can't milk a goat that doesn't want to be milked. If you push them too har…

I absolutely love goat's milk and I would love to keep goats, but they are every possible kind of a pain in the tits to deal with. A neighbour of mine had a goat that we thought had some terrible thing happen because she was choking and gagging and frothing at the mouth like some cartoon rabid animal. Nope, far simpler. She'd eaten a grey lycra-and-elastic sports bra off the washing line, got a bra strap hooked over…

>> The bra went in the bin.

XD My friend got her skirt munched. While wearing it.

I totally think it's like you say: the goats have never learned to be milked and now they'll never learned. The new generation might, but who's going to teach them? Not me because I'm only there half the year (when it's hot and I don't want to move).

>> As an aside, you probably want to get yourself a copy of "Self-Sufficiency" by John Seymour, and have a read of that.

Thanks. I'll have a look.

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

#137

Post by culi »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #110
culi wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Possibly! It seems more likely that migrants brought rice cultivation. Or maybe a mixture of both. Maybe some "I wonder how we could grow that here. Lemme visit that new community of immigrants"

In Sicily and Spain, rice cultivation began because Islamic expansion brought advanced irrigation and cultivation techniques. It's called the "Arab Agricultural Revolution"

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

#138

Post by bitwize »

amir_karbasi wrote: post #34
alephnerd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appreciate the clarification!

My pleasure! I also find languages very interesting and have had the opportunity to grow up in a bilingual home and learn French and German. One more fun fact is that potato is a direct translation of the French “Pomme de terre” (“sib zamani” or “ground apple”). Back to the actual topic, this is a recipe that’s definitely worth trying. Persian shallots are actually more garlicky than oniony. A great addition to lamb…

I find it fascinating that the Persian word for "foreign"/"Western", farangi, actually means "Frankish", which gives some idea of the "compressed geography" people experience regarding faraway places. It was also used to name a race on Star Trek.

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

#139

Post by Rendello »

jamal-kumar wrote: post #68
Rendello wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've made this Roman recipe probably a dozen times and everyone who's tried it really likes it [1]. The strange ingredients are garum [2] and asafoetida [3]. The former is just a fish sauce, so that's not hard to substitute, but you have to find asafoetida on the Internet or at an Indian food store. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LynenQ5h2Y 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garum 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

I can usually find hing (asafoetida) in grocery stores in certain more populous parts of Canada in the spice section, it's quite a good garlic substitute for those who can't do garlic

It's used by Janes as eating root vegetables like onions or garlic is discouraged or forbidden in that religion [1].

(Un)related: onions and garlic are pretty close to each other. Chicago is named after šikaakwa, [2] the native word for the local Allium that's alternately called "wild onion" or "wild garlic" in English [3]. You can hear a similar word for onion in a different Algonquin language, Ojibwe [4].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism#Ahimsa_in_practice:_Ja...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago#Etymology_and_nickname...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allium_tricoccum

4. https://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/main-entry/zhigaagawanzh-na

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

#140

Post by tptacek »

Rendello wrote: post #139
jamal-kumar wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can usually find hing (asafoetida) in grocery stores in certain more populous parts of Canada in the spice section, it's quite a good garlic substitute for those who can't do garlic

It's used by Janes as eating root vegetables like onions or garlic is discouraged or forbidden in that religion [1]. (Un)related: onions and garlic are pretty close to each other. Chicago is named after šikaakwa , [2] the native word for the local Allium that's alternately called "wild onion" or "wild garlic" in English [3]. You can hear a similar word for onion in a different Algonquin language, Ojibwe [4]. 1. https…

Yep, Chicago is named for ramps. They're delicious and you can only get them for like 3-4 weeks in the spring.
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