History

Sour Cherries, Gooseberries, and Currants from 18th Century America

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Over the past few months, archaeologists at George Washington’s Mount Vernon have uncovered some 35 bottles of preserved berries from the mansion’s cellar.  The bottles have been buried for approximately 250 years, and several unopened bottles have yielded perfectly preserved fruit, liquid, and other organic residues. The bottles are undergoing cleaning and preservation, and the contents are being scientifically analyzed by the US Department of … Read more

Harappan Jewelry Found in a Bronze-Age Omani Tomb

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Harappan-style medallion with 8-pointed star

A bronze-age group tomb in the Dahwa region of Oman has yielded several pieces of silver jewelry with Harappan designs – indicating period trade between the Indus Valley people and the Umm al-Na culture which flourished in Oman from 2600-2000 BCE. The star medallion pictured above is one of the pieces recovered.  The site, which was excavated from 2013 – 2021, also produced remains of … Read more

Cod with Hannah Glasse’s 20-Year Catsup

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Hannah Glasse's Catsup

Following up on a previous post on the Catchup to Keep 20 Years from Hannah Glasse’s 1770 edition of the Art of Cookery cookbook, is the meal we cooked a few days ago. I cracked the jars of catsup made with Glasse’s recipe and extensively filtered the liquid results. The result was a dark brown thin liquid with a strong, spicy odor. A couple of … Read more

A Taste of Pompeii

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Fresco from Villa of Mysteries

Have ever wondered what sort of wine was served in an ancient Roman banquet?  You know, the kind made famous by TV dramas like I Claudius, where guests lounged for hours, picking at sumptuous delicacies and were entertained by musicians and artists from around the world?  Well now you can savor at least one wine reconstructed from ancient varietals in the area near Pompeii. The … Read more

What to do with Leftovers – Roman Style

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Roman Pork with Apricots

I love dishes that blend meat and fruit. From Kyrgyz Beef with Apples to Bhutanese Fish with Mandarin Oranges, and Iranian Fish with Sour Cherries. As some ancient Mesopotamian archaeological assemblages of fish bones in proximity to crab apple cores suggest, humans have been pairing meat and fish with fruit for millennia. This is a Roman dish from the book credited to Apicius that blends … Read more

Catchup to Keep Twenty-Years

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Over the weekend we made an interesting colonial American recipe. Its from a chapter for sea captains in Hannah Glasse’s 1770 edition of the Art of Cookery. Called Catchup to last Twenty Years, I suspect it is a proto-Worcestershire sauce, used to enhance the flavor of a wide variety of foods. Its made from anchovies, lots of ginger and shallots, mushrooms, mace, cloves and pepper, … Read more

Turkish Cevizli ARE Mesopotamian Mersu

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Cevizli Incir

Sometimes, perception can be like a flash of lightning that changes the world forever. Once something is seen and understood, there is no unseeing or unknowing. A few years back, I had such a food-related epiphany. I was in Istanbul and went into one of the many great food and spice shops that line the streets for some Iranian saffron to take back to the … Read more

An International Diplomatic Row Over Mango Mousse

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The world is waiting with baited breath to see the outcome of the inter-Korean Summit this Friday. Some are predicting an announcement that will end the 1950s Korean War, others are hoping for baby-steps towards peninsular reunification. Japan is angry about the dessert. Japan is angry about the dessert, because on top of a mango mousse decorated with fresh spring flowers sits a plaque depicting … Read more

The Silk Road at the The Corning Museum of Glass

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I love glass and glassmaking. Glass is fire and imagination combined. Long have I loved watching craftsmen at historical sites blow air into a molten mass to form a useful bowl or bottle, or see the artisans of Murano twist and sculpt it into a decorative statue. When I was a child, I played with prisms and suncatchers – throwing rainbows around my room. Years … Read more

A 1675 Vindaloo Roast Chicken

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Move over Hannah Glasse. Your published recipe for butter chicken that is widely hailed as the first English recipe for curry, has an English contender. In a 1675 anonymous manuscript full of recipes and potions in the Wellcome Library in London (Wellcome Manuscript 4050) is an English recipe for a vindaloo-flavored roast. In the recipe, cloves, mace, and lots of black pepper form the spice … Read more

A Roman Bowl from a Mongolian Tomb

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This bowl is a fine example of pinched-glass craftmanship. It is of Roman (possibly Byzantine) origin and is believed to be dated to the 5th Century ACE (based on the age of the tomb which is from the Hunnu period.) It is also proof of the power of the Silk Road on both trade and politics, because it was found a few years back in … Read more

Early 20th Century Georgian Winemaking

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On the subject of Georgian winemaking, I recently found these incredible old photos depicting various aspects of wine making and drinking. I found the photos on the British Library’s Endangered Archives Project website, but they are originally from the National Archives of Georgia. The first three were taken by the photographer, Constantine Zanis, probably in the late 19th or early 20th Century. They are of … Read more

Asian Food in Colonial American Cuisine

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When we think of the diets of our founding fathers and mothers, we imagine porridges, breads, fresh and preserved fruits and vegetables, and gently flavored roast meats. What most people don’t realize is that the colonists had a taste for exotic fare from all over the world and would pay dearly for delicacies from India, China, Indonesia and other places far from the shores of … Read more

Interview in Ancient History Encyclopedia

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A very cool thing happened a couple of days ago: I was interviewed by James Wiener of Ancient History Encyclopedia. The focus of the interview was largely my work on ancient cuisines, but there is some discussion of the Silk Road cuisine and recipe reconstruction as well. Take a peek! Reconstructing Cuisines and Recipes from the Ancient World The reconstruction of ancient recipes challenges experimental … Read more

The Origins of Curry Powder

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Where did curry powder come from? There is no real equivalent in authentic subcontinental cuisines for a ready-made powder. The closest thing to a curry powder is a masala, and that is almost always more of a paste than a powder because of the addition of wet and dry ingredients to the mix. On the subcontinent, seeds and roots, etc. are roasted, ground and mixed … Read more

Indian Curry Through Foreign Eyes #2: Mary Randolph

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Next up on our exploration of curries is Mary Randolph’s Curry from her book, The Virginia Housewife, first published in the United Sates in 1824. Although she was well born, Mary and her husband’s fortunes fell in middle age and The Virginia Housewife was written to help lift her family out of poverty. The Virginia Housewife underwent multiple revisions and no less than 19 editions … Read more