Ancient Cuisine
THE WORLD’S OLDEST CUISINE?
Who invented the world’s oldest cuisine? If you said your grandmother, you are incorrect. Many believed it was the Roman’s who created the world’s oldest cuisine but experts say evidence of ancient cuneiform tablets were discovered, leading to believe culinary traditions from early civilizations in Ancient Mesopotamia. Such cuneiform tablets feature more than two dozen recipes for meat, fowl, broths, and vegetables, pies, flavored with various herbs and spices. And if these were a type of cuisine who where these intended for?
The tablets “have revealed a cuisine of striking richness, refinement, sophistication and artistry, which is surprising from such an early period,’’ according to Jean Bottero, a French Assyriologist, wrote in biblical Archaeologist magazine in March 1985. “Previously we would not have dared to think a cuisine 4,000 years old was so advanced.’’ This would lead many to believe, if the Mesopotamian recipes would be classified as ‘cuisine ‘or merely ‘cookery’. Since the Mesopotamian was the first society to invent a form of writing. It wouldn’t be too hard to believe that they also created the first cuisine. In many ways the findings could suggest that these recipes were both a cuisine and a style of cookery. It was around the time 3100 B.C.E so they did not have the privileges of modern technology like we have now in days. “Written on the best-preserved of the tablets are 25 recipes, 21 for meat and 4 for vegetables. Instructions call for the most of the food to be prepared with water and fats and to simmer for a long time in a covered pot”, Mr. Bottero said. Meats included stag, gazelle, kid, lamb, squab, and bird. “The common Mesopotamian rarely, if ever, tasted the dishes described in the tablets”, according to William W. Halo, the curator of the Yale Babylonian collection and a Professor of Assyriology and Babylonian literature. He cited ‘‘the quality and quantity of the ingredients as well as the
Who invented the world’s oldest cuisine? If you said your grandmother, you are incorrect. Many believed it was the Roman’s who created the world’s oldest cuisine but experts say evidence of ancient cuneiform tablets were discovered, leading to believe culinary traditions from early civilizations in Ancient Mesopotamia. Such cuneiform tablets feature more than two dozen recipes for meat, fowl, broths, and vegetables, pies, flavored with various herbs and spices. And if these were a type of cuisine who where these intended for?
The tablets “have revealed a cuisine of striking richness, refinement, sophistication and artistry, which is surprising from such an early period,’’ according to Jean Bottero, a French Assyriologist, wrote in biblical Archaeologist magazine in March 1985. “Previously we would not have dared to think a cuisine 4,000 years old was so advanced.’’ This would lead many to believe, if the Mesopotamian recipes would be classified as ‘cuisine ‘or merely ‘cookery’. Since the Mesopotamian was the first society to invent a form of writing. It wouldn’t be too hard to believe that they also created the first cuisine. In many ways the findings could suggest that these recipes were both a cuisine and a style of cookery. It was around the time 3100 B.C.E so they did not have the privileges of modern technology like we have now in days. “Written on the best-preserved of the tablets are 25 recipes, 21 for meat and 4 for vegetables. Instructions call for the most of the food to be prepared with water and fats and to simmer for a long time in a covered pot”, Mr. Bottero said. Meats included stag, gazelle, kid, lamb, squab, and bird. “The common Mesopotamian rarely, if ever, tasted the dishes described in the tablets”, according to William W. Halo, the curator of the Yale Babylonian collection and a Professor of Assyriology and Babylonian literature. He cited ‘‘the quality and quantity of the ingredients as well as the