The World That Was - Ancient Mesopotamian Leek Stew (Pašrūtum)

Hello and welcome to the first official World That Was recipe!

Today, we'll be looking at a bronze-age Sumerian recipe, found on a tablet from the Yale Cuneiform Collection. This piece was photographed and translated by Klaus Wagensonner, the translation of this you can see below!

(Image courtesy of laphamsquarterly.org)

This is one of a few recipes taken from Yale University's cuneiform tablets, and is a sample from a collection of Babylonian recipes. Its name is pašrūtum (pronounced "pashrutum"), and simply translates to "Unwinding". Of the collection, this is one of only a few vegetarian examples of Mesopotamian cooking. However, since Mesopotamia was a relatively well-watered region of the world in antiquity, this is potentially not indicative of Babylonian tastes. Vegetables and fruits would have made up the bulk of people's diets back then, as it was easy to come by, sustainable, and filling.

In any case, let's take a look at The World That Was.

Ingredients:

15ml / 1 tablespoon olive oil

1-2 whole leeks, finely chopped

150g / 1.5 cups cilantro or parsley, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

500ml / 2cups broth (chicken or vegetable)

100g / 1 cup stale sourdough bread, crumbled

Directions:

1 - Prepare the Water

You'll first need to prepare a broth or stock for this, so put your 500ml or 2 cups of boiling water into a pot or jug and add your stock cube of choice. In this case I'm going with chicken stock, but you can just as easily go for vegetable stock if you want this to remain a vegetarian dish. Ancient Mesopotamians obviously didn't have stock cubes back then, but to save time, these will do for now. 

The original recipe simply asks you to "prepare water" which is pretty vague, so this is how I'm interpreting this recipe today.

(If you want to make vegetable broth yourself, just toss in some aromatics - onions, parsnips, and leek greens - with some herbs and spices - like sage, rosemary, and thyme - before stewing them together in a pot for a few hours. Strain this, and then use as a delicious stock for soup in the future!)

2 - Chop the Leeks

Finely chop your leeks into thin slices. Remember, we want everything here to cook at the same rate. There's nothing worse than biting into a lump of under-cooked leek when enjoying this stew.

3 - Add the Oil (or fat)

Now, in a pot that can fit everything, add your olive oil and heat it over medium heat until it shimmers. Add your chopped leeks and saute them for about 5 minutes, or until they start to turn translucent - but not before they brown!

I used olive oil, but if you wanted to be even more authentic, you could use butter, or even sheep fat.

4 - Add the Other Ingredients

When they start turning translucent, add the minced garlic, and cilantro. However, I'm not a fan of food tasting like soap - so I'm substituting it for parsley - a close analogue. In any case, saute these for another 5 minutes until they smell amazing and fragrant.

5 - Add the Stock

Pour your stock mixture into the pot with the rest of the vegetables and scrape up everything off the bottom of the pot, so everything gets incorporated. Turn the heat up to high and wait for it to boil. Once it reaches a rolling boil, turn the heat down low and let it simmer for about 25 minutes. 

6 - Add the Barley

If you want, you could add about a cup of barley to the soup at the same time as the stock. This adds new flavours and textures to the dish, and although it was not mentioned in the original clay tablet recipe, it wouldn't be totally out of place in the culinary landscape of Mesopotamia. 

The barley takes about 20-25 minutes to cook until tender, so remember to add this in time for it to soften up!

7 - Plate Up

Before you serve it up, be sure to pound up some stale sourdough bread into small crumbs and scatter them across the top. I figured this is to add body to the soup. Add salt and pepper to the stew to taste. And finally, plate up the stew in a bowl of your choice, garnish with a sprig of cilantro or parsley, and dig in!

This soup is simple, easy, and very filling. It's prepared in under an hour, has very gentle aromas when cooking. The flavours are mellow and comforting, and definitely suits the translation of "Unwinding"! It actually seems to be a very early form of pottage, like what we see in the Medieval period in Europe. As such, the longer you stew it, the softer the vegetables would be, and the tastes become milder and more suffused with one another. I'd highly recommend this dish if you want to try your hand at some ancient cuisine that's easy to make!