The World That Was

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today, I'll be making a simple barley porridge, as recorded by Ibn Sina (Avicenna) in the 11th century! This dish shares a lot of similarities to my Sumerian Sasqu recipe from a few months ago, suggesting that it may have been a regional dish in antiquity that has been preserved through the centuries to modernity. Ingredients (for about 3 portions) 6 tbsp barley 1l milk honey sliced almonds (garnish) cardamom seeds Method 1 - Simmer Milk and Soak Barley To begin with, we need to prepare our barley. Soak about 5 or 6 tablespoons of barley grains in a bowl of water overnight, to help break them down in the cooking process. So if you want to make this today, you should've started this yesterday. Or at least 4 hours beforehand. Drain these before using them! Then, pour about a litre of milk into a saucepan, and set it over a medium high heat. Though the original recipe uses undescribed milk, I'm using whole-fat cow milk. But sheep and go...

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today, I'm making a quick and easy accompaniment to any medieval Irish meals you have planned - a bowl of praiseach (pronounced: prashock)! The basis of this is a simple savour porridge, that's then flavoured with some sautéed mustard greens! Although wild mustard (charlock) greens are usually used, any suitably pungent edible greens can be used! In any case, let's now take a look at The World That Was!  Ingredients (for 4 portions) Mustard Greens / Turnip Greens 2 cups oatmeal (or oat groats) 2 cups milk (or water) butter Method 1 - Prepare the Greens To begin with, we need to chop some greens. Though praiseach is normally made using wild mustard (charlock), you can also use normal mustard greens, or even turnip greens (like I'm using here). They all have similar taste profiles - being pungent, slightly spicy greens - that react similarly when being cooked. In any case, chop your greens finely, removing any untoward-looking leav...

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! This week, I'm going to be recreating a simple carrot and coriander soup that was popular in medieval French cuisine - the simple Potage de Crécy. Although I'm using orange carrots, which were rare in antiquity, carrots, parsnips, or any combination of these would work well here! In any case, let's now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Check out my Patreon for some more recipes! Ingredients (for 2-3 portions) 1 onion (or an equal volume to the amount of carrots) chopped 3 carrots (or an equal volume to the amount of onions) diced 2 cloves garlic olive oil ground coriander 500ml stock (e.g. chicken, vegetable, etc.) Method 1 - Prepare and Cook Onion To begin with, we need to peel and chop one whole onion. Onions of all kinds were a staple of most cuisines from the neolothic period to modernity, as they're hardy, filling vegetables that have a multitude of uses. In any case, chop this int...

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today, I'll be making a quick side-dish from Rome, as recorded by Apicius! He has a few ways of preparing mushrooms, but this is one of the more flavourful methods he shows us! In any case, let's now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Ingredients 500g mushrooms (I used chestnut mushrooms) 2 tbsp red wine vinegar (or malt vinegar) 1 tbsp salt 1 tbsp pepper fresh coriander or parsley Method 1 - Chop the Mushrooms This is a rather simple recipe, but to begin with, we need to prepare our mushrooms. I used chestnut mushrooms, sliced into thin segments, but button or Portobello mushrooms may also be similar to what was available in antiquity, along with edible morels. If you have smaller mushrooms, you can skip slicing these, and proceed with cooking them as is! 2 - Sautee Mushrooms Into a hot pot, pour a generous amount of olive oil - enough to coat the base. On top of this, toss your mushrooms. Spri...

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today, I'll be making a simple cherry pudding recorded in the 14th century AD - from the region of the Holy Roman Empire! Cherries were (and still are) a very popular fruit to eat, given the extensive range at which they can be grown. The original recipe is recorded in The Forme of Cury - a 14th century English manuscript - but the origin of this recipe likely comes from a central European source, given the variety of recipes recorded here. In any case, let's now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above. Consider supporting me on Patreon if you like my recipes! Ingredients 500g fresh ripe red cherries 200ml red wine 100g white sugar 1 tbsp unsalted butter 100g soft white breadcrumbs salt Edible flowers (e.g. clover, lavender, etc) Method 1 - Prepare the Cherries To begin with, we need to wash, de-stem, and stone the cherries. Do this by cutting into them carefully with a knife, before using your thumb ...

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today, I'll be making a simple bread-based soup - referred to as juscellum by Apicius! It's a lot like Tuscan "aquacotta" soup, which is prepared in a similar way - though today it often includes tomatoes, which would not have been available in antiquity. Ingredients 1 onion 1 carrot 1 stick celery 3 cloves garlic thyme 2 slices bread (torn or grated) 2 eggs 750ml chicken stock olive oil salt pepper Method 1 - Chop Ingredients To begin with, we need to chop and dice an onion. You don't need to worry about being too careful here, as they'll soften up considerably while its cooking. Peel and dice a carrot or two - carrots and parsnips were considered to be the same vegetable to the Greeks and Romans, so either one works well here! Finally, deal with some celery by slicing it thinly. 2 - Sautee and Cook Toss a bit of olive oil into a pot, and place this over a medium heat. When it's shimmering, toss in your onions, car...

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today, I'll be taking a look at a staple of Irish medieval cuisine: the humble nettle soup. Late spring and early Summer is the ideal time to make this dish, as the nettle leaves used here won't have matured fully, and retain a soft, lighter texture than older woodier leaves. Plus they won't sting your hands as badly as mature nettles. Plenty of Irish families have their own takes on this recipe, and this is influenced by my family's take on the tradition! In any case, let's now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Ingredients 2-3 cups nettle leaves 1 onion, minced 2 cloves garlic (or two bulbs of wild garlic, minced) chives (for decoration) butter 1/2 cup milk/double cream 500ml water or stock salt pepper Method 1 - Chop and cook the Garlic and Onion To begin with, we need to peel and chop a whole onion, before tossing this into a pot with some melted butter. You can of course use oil...

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! This week, I'll be taking a quick look at a dish from the Hittites - a stew known from Assyrian sources as "a broth of pulses". Since this is a very vague description (even by bronze age source standards), I'll be basing my version off of with what we know about Hittite eating habits! In any case, let's now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Ingredients 1 onion, minced ½ cup broad beans (also known as broad beans or butter beans) ½ cup chickpeas, soaked overnight ½ cup lentils ½ cup yellow split peas ½ cup bulgur wheat ½ cup pearl barley 2 tbsp butter 1 tbsp cumin cumin fresh Rosemary or Thyme 4 cups water or stock Method 1 - Chop and Cook Onion To begin with, toss two tablespoons of butter into a large pot, before placing it over a medium heat. While this is melting, finely mince an onion, before tossing this into the butter when it's melted. Let this cook away for a couple of...

 Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! This week, I'll be making a spinach and herb soup from Achaemenid Persia! Although spinach was not explicitly recorded in this period - it's not unlikely that green leaves like these were used in dishes, simply going by the name "greens" in modern translations. In any case, let's now take a look at the World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! Ingredients (for about four small bowls of soup) 100g spinach leaves 1 onion 2 cloves garlic 200g chickpeas, drained 200g kidney beans, drained 1 cup parsley, minced 1 cup coriander, minced (or use another cup of parsley) turmeric ground coriander ground cumin salt pepper oil Method 1 - Prepare Onion and Chickpeas To begin with, we need to chop and mince our onion. Then, go pour some olive oil into a pot, and place it over a medium high heat. When the oil is shimmering, toss your onion into the pot and let it cook away for about 5 minutes - or until it becomes soft a...

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! This week was St Patrick's Day, an Irish holiday - and so I decided to make some medieval Irish beef stew to celebrate. Ireland, being a huge producer of beef and dairy products, relied on these foodstuffs in antiquity to modernity. This recipe is an adaptation from a reconstruction made by Maeve L'Estrange - a culinary archaeologist from UCD! In any case, let's now take a look at the world that was! Follow along with my YouTube video above! Ingredients 500g lean beef 1 onion parsley cloves salt pepper 2 tbsp butter wine vinegar (or just regular vinegar) 50g breadcrumbs thick slice of bread Method 1 - Chop Ingredients To begin with, we need to prepare our onions. Halve and mince a whole onion. Toss a few pads of butter into a large pot. Place this over a medium-high heat until it melts. Toss your chopped onions into this, and let them cook away for a few minutes. Also roughly chop some parsley by rolling it into a ball, and mincing i...

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today, I'll be taking a look at an Etruscan onion soup. It's the ancestor to a renaissance dish, "carabaccia" , from the same region as Etruscan society (Tuscany), so it shares similar taste profiles that have been transmitted through the populations of Tuscany for centuries! In any case, lets now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above! Ingredients 500g onions (preferably red) 100g almonds (crushed) honey salt pepper 500ml water (or stock of your choice) Method 1 - Prepare the Onions To begin with, we need to peel and chop our onions. I'm using red onions here, because they're similar to the kind of onion found in Tuscany today, but really any onion works here. Cut each onion in half, and slice these halves into very thin pieces. Make sure they're all roughly the same size.  2 - Cook the Onions When you're done dealing with your onions, pour some olive oil into a large pot. T...

 Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today, I'll be taking a look at early medieval cuisine - by recreating a very simple cabbage pottage. Pottage is, essentially, anything you'd toss into a pot to cook - so naturally there's a huge number of variations on the recipe. This one, however, leans heavily onto medieval Irish culinary traditions. In any case, let's now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above! Ingredients 1 head cabbage (savoy) 2 leeks, sliced 2 onions, thinly sliced 1 garlic clove 1L water (or stock of your choice) rosemary butter or oil Method 1 - Prepare Vegetables To begin with, we need to deal with our head of cabbage - I'm using a savoy cabbage, because they're in season at the time of recording - and they also were popular overwinter cabbages, so it works well here. Start by washing your head, and removing the tougher outer leaves, before cutting it in half. Medieval kitchens may have used the outer leave...

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today, I'll be taking a look at another one of Apicius' recipes - something recorded as BETACEOS WARRONIS or Varro's Beets - the name seems to be based on a contemporary Roman agricultural writer, Varro. This is a fairly simple recipe, that results in some succulent, tender chicken along with some very filling and herbal beets. In any case, let's now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above! Ingredients 500g chicken (the cut is up to you, I used boneless chicken breast here) 200g beets, peeled and chopped 150ml white wine honey olive oil salt pepper cumin Method 1 - Prepare the Chicken To begin with, we need to cut and season our chicken. I'm using boneless chicken breasts here, because they were easy to come by, but really any cut of meat will work here. In any case, cut your meat into bite-sized pieces. Next, season them generously with salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and cumin. Althoug...

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! This week, I made another dish from Urartian society - a warm yoghurt and barley soup. Although it's mostly referred to as Greek Yoghurt - at least in Ireland anyway - stained yoghurt was common to the societies of the Bronze Age Near East, not just Greece! In any case, let's take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above! Ingredients 1 cup barley 1 onion, diced 1/4 cup mint, chopped 1/4 cup parsley, chopped butter 3 scallions 2 cups Greek yoghurt / strained yoghurt 2 eggs salt pepper 4 cups / 1L water Method 1 - Boil Barley To begin with, we need to cook our barley. Pour about 4 cups or about a litre of water into a pot, along with your cup of barley. Place this onto a medium-high heat, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Remove it from the heat, but keep it warm. 2 - Prepare the Mint and Onion While your barley is cooking, go chop your fresh mint by picking leaves off the sprigs, and rolling them into a...

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! This week, I made a dish recorded by the Greek playwriter Aristophanes - a simple brown lentil and leek soup! This is an easy and very versatile recipe, and even has parallels with a modern Greek dish! In any case, let's take a look at The World That Was! Ingredients: 1 leek 1 onion 1 garlic clove 1 stick celery 1 carrot 1 parsnip 1 cup / 250g lentils (preferably brown lentils) 750ml water (or stock) 1 1/2 tablespoons vinegar (preferably red wine vinegar) rosemary bay leaves olive oil salt pepper Method: 1 - Chop the Leek and Onion, and Prep the Pot First, pour some olive oil into a pot. Place this over a medium-high heat while you prepare your other ingredients! Slice your leek into rings, each one about as wide as your finger. Then, chop your onion in half, and then into thin little crescents. Toss your leek and onion into your pot when the olive oil starts to shimmer. Next, go crush a clove of garlic into it all. Add a little salt and pep...

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was!  Today, we're going to look at a recipe from the Etruscans - a pre-Roman civilisation found in Italy in the Bronze Age! This is a simple mushroom and barley soup, which is based on a similar dish from the early Roman republic, recorded by Cato the Elder in his De Agri Cultura  from around 160 BC! In any case, let's take a look at The World That Was. Follow along with my YouTube video above! Ingredients 1 onion 1 carrot 1 parsnip 1 stick celery 2 garlic cloves 250g Portobello mushrooms (or mushrooms of your choice) 750ml / 3 cups water (or stock) 1 cup barley olive oil butter Method 1 - Cook Mushrooms Depending on what mushrooms you used, you may have to remove the gills of them, like you can see me doing in the video. Some mushrooms can be eaten with next to no preparation, so check which ones you're using. Then, toss some butter into a pot, and put it over medium-high heat until it melts. Toss your mushrooms into the pot and sprink...

 Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today, I’ll be taking a look at a recipe from the Yale Cuneiform Collection, a recipe that was possibly intended for the poorer members of Babylonian society, or indeed something that was eaten during times of famine or war - a turnip and onion stew! Turnips do not appear to be eaten frequently in Babylonian cuisine, and seemingly were seen as a "last resort" to them. In any case, let's take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above! Ingredients 1 turnip (shredded) 1 onion (thinly sliced) 1/2 cup rocket/arugula (minced) 1/4 cup parsley/cilantro (minced) 500ml / 2 cups water (or stock) 1 tbsp ground coriander coriander seeds (for decoration) 1 tbsp olive oil (or butter) Method 1 - Prepare the Pot Pour about a tablespoon's amount of olive oil or butter into a pot, and put this over a medium-high heat until it starts to shimmer. 2 - Chop Onion Thinly slice an onion - or dice it into small pieces. I...

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was Today, I'll be making a recipe based on fragmentary records of Hittite banquets. The Hittites were a population (and empire) located in Turkey, Syria, and Northern Mesopotamia, around the 14th millennium BC! This is a savoury applesauce, in contrast to sweet applesauce that is common today. As the recipe is based on only a few fragmentary ingredients, we'll have to take a few educated guesses. Let's take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube recipe above! Ingredients: 1 onion (finely sliced) 3 apples (peeled, cored, and chopped) 2 tablespoons butter 1 teaspoon marjoram/oregano (or za'atar, if you have it) 120ml / 1/2 cup water  Method 1 - Prepare the Apples To begin making this applesauce, we need to start with apples. I'd recommend using some green cooking apples - like Granny Smith, or Bramley - but any apple that isn't overly sweet or too bitter would work fine. Peel the skin from about three of the...

Hello and welcome to The World That Was!  Today, we'll be making a lentil and parsnip soup. Lentils and root vegetables - like carrots and parsnips - are some of the oldest ingredients in the kitchens of the past, and would have formed a staple for the diets of people in the Levant! This is a recipe that is not explicitly recorded, but is based on Hellenistic-period accounts of food people ate, such as "a broth of legumes and tubers" In any case, let's take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above! Ingredients: 1 tbsp olive oil 2 carrots (chopped) 2 parsnips (chopped) 1 onion (chopped/diced) 1 clove garlic (crushed) 750ml / 3 cups water (or stock) 1/2 cup parsley/cilantro (minced) 3 sprigs fresh thyme cumin ground coriander Method 1 - Prepare your Pot To begin with, pour some olive oil into a pot. Olives would have been cultivated along the Mediterranean coast of the Levant in antiquity, thanks to the climate, but not much further inland....

 Hello and Welcome to The World That Was! Today, I'll be making another Sumerian Stew - this time, a lamb and beet stew called tuh’u (pronounced “tuh-i”). This is a luxury dish, given that meat was a rarity in the cuisine of ancient Mesopotamia - as well as in antiquity in general!  The original recipe comes from one of the cuneiform tablets in the Yale Cuneiform collection - and a translation can be seen below, courtesy of Klaus Wagensonner. As usual, you can follow along with this recipe using my video above! In any case, let’s take a look at The World That Was! Ingredients: 250g lamb meat (any cut of meat will do) 1 tbsp olive oil (or melted butter) 240ml or 1 cup beer (wheat or barley beer would be best) 120ml or 1/2 cup water 1 onion, chopped 1 cup rocket leaves, chopped (also known as arugula) 1 cup minced cilantro or parsely 1 shallot, chopped 400g beetroot, skinned and diced 1 leek, chopped 2 cloves of garlic 1 tsp cumin Method: 1 - Prepare the Pot Much like other Sume...