Imagine yourself dining with Socrates, Plato, or Pythagoras... maybe even Cicero and Julius Caesar...being a soldier marching with Alexander's the Great army in the vast Persian empire discovering new foods... or try and picture the richness of fruits and vegetables in the lush Hanging Gardens of Babylon...what foods did our ancestors ate? How did all begin? Why am I so hooked on ancient recipes and ingredients? Is the food delicious? Wholesome? Do you need to know? I think so! Recipes, ingr ...
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A Short History of Pickles, Vinegar and Fermentation
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Hello! Pickled food through the ages and continents! We will go to the ancient lands of China, India, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, and through them to Persia, the Arab world, Spain and Latin America! I think a history of civilization is a history of pickles, and fermentation! Without fermentation we wouldn't have beer, wine, cheese, miso, kimchi.…
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Hello! With the arrival of the Olympic Games in Paris, we have a reached a peak of reminders of the ancient Greek Olympic games and with them, a tonne of misinformation and misconceptions about the ancient Olympians! Well, the most important thing, was left out however from most of these articles; The food and the drink and the partying in Ancient …
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China in Seven Banquets Part2 -An Interview with Thomas DuBois
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Hello! Part two of our archaeogastronomical adventure is out! How the myth of Marco Polo bringing "pasta" back to Italy started? What's the truth behind it? What are the origins of tea and tea drinking ceremonies? How important are dairy products, milk and cheese in Chinese culinary history and what's the impact today? All this and a lot more on ou…
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China in Seven Banquets Part1 -An Interview with Thomas DuBois
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Hello! Excited to have as a guest Professor Thomas DuBois introducing us to his new book, an adventure through China's culinary history "China in Seven Banquets, A Flavourful History" , published by Reaktion Books: https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/china-in-seven-banquets You can purchase Professor Thomas DuBois book from many online shops like here…
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The Culinary Treasures of Persia: Part Two
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Enjoy a nearly three thousand year exploration of Persian food, culture and inventions that made our culinary pleasures, even more pleasurable! Info if you want to find out about yakhtchal, the ancient Persian refrigerators check here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhch%C4%81l The Shahnameh (“Book of Kings”) By Ferdowsi -the Persian epic poem htt…
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An early fourteenth-century Baghdadi cookbook begins thus: “The pleasures of this world are six: food, drink, clothing, sex, scent, and sound. The most eminent and perfect of these is food, for food is the foundation of the body and the material of life.” What is a "rhyton"? What's a yakhtchal? And how is that Persian walled gardens are connected t…
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Hello! Burmese food writer turned activist MiMi Aye has been raising awareness about the crisis in Myanmar since the coup in February 2021. MiMi’s award-winning book ‘MANDALAY: Recipes & Tales from a Burmese Kitchen’ is loved by Nigella Lawson and was chosen by The Observer, The FT, and The Mail on Sunday as one of their Best Books of 2019. MiMi al…
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'Many other improprieties a good servant will avoid.’ ... Rules for health, hygiene and manners in Middle Ages... Yes! They existed. People were worried about manners, and food poisoning and etiquette. Yes people washed their hands before they sat on the table. And much, much more! Listen to todays fascinating episode! Voiceover on "The babees book…
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Rice and the history of biryani; one dish that conquered the world!
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Hello! Rice is a very ancient food…People ate rice perhaps from 12000 BCE gathered with other seeds and nuts. Today every third person on earth eats rice every day in one form or another. Rice is grown on about 250 million farms in 112 countries. But one dish more than any other, defines the global reach of rice and how it is claimed by many nation…
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Myths and superstitions of tomato and potato's introduction in Greece and Europe
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How old is a Greek salad? And how 'Greek' for that matter? Who introduced the potato to the Greeks? What other dark misunderstandings the introduction of the tomato and potato in Europe has?( and what's got to do with werewolves?) And finally some delightful tomato recipes from the Greek Cycladic Islands for your gastronomic enjoyment! Just to kick…
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Tselementes - The father of modern Greek Cuisine
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Hello! Nikolaos Tselementes. His name is what every Greek says when talking about cookbook. "Did you look at the Tselementes for your recipe"? Indeed when I was growing up i thought that a guide to cooking, or a book with recipes was called "Tselementes"! :-) On his death in 1958, the impression one is most likely to get from the statements of such…
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Hello! Welcome to part two of our exploration of the foods of Aztecs. Corn, food of the Gods and humans. The ceremonial drink cacao and the alcoholic drink pulque All here. Plus the importance of the Florentine Codex, a document with descriptions of many native plants and animals and customs of the Aztecs. Here is the Florentine Codex, digital edit…
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Hello! Season 5, has landed! Episode one, part one is out and it's all about the amazing, delicious and perhaps unique foods and farming methods of the Aztecs, and the other indigenous people of Mesoamerica, the area that roughly today covers the country of Mexico, itself a massive area with many unique ecological niches and diverse nature. The foo…
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History of Irish Food with Regina Sexton Pt2
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Hello! Excite about Part2 of our Irish Food History! The Irish palette, is coarse like an oat cake. Fatty from butter and meat, and salty from preservation of food. What animal shaped the culture of Ireland more than any other? I'll give you a clue with this amazing myth and story. Táin Bó Cúailnge, the story of the cattle raid of Cooley! What's th…
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A History of Food Culture in Ireland with Regina Sexton Part 1
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Pomponius Mela, a Roman geographer, who hailed from the Roman province of Baetica (now Andalusia) in southern Spain writing in 43AD, he described the Ireland and Irish people as “a people wanting in every virtue, and totally destitute of piety”. And yet this country was so “luxuriant in grasses” that if cattle were “allowed to feed too long, they w…
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A Short History of Ancient Mesopotamian Food (From the archives)
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...Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the filtered beer of the collector vat, It is (like) the onrush of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Hello! The lines above are from a brilliant Assyrian hymn to the Goddess of the brewing process: Ninkasi. Also a good set of instructions on how to make beer! Aside from beer, there are many other inventions tha…
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Deep in a mountain in the Pontic Alps, North-East Turkey, there's a monastery reminiscent of Tolkien's Minas Tirith; the seven-walled fortress city built on the spur of a mountain. Nestled in a steep cliff at an altitude of about 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) and facing a beautiful wooded mountain valley is Panayia Soumela Greek Orthodox monastery, dedic…
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A Feta Fetish: Towards a better feta cheese for all
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Hello....! Who hasn't heard of feta cheese among us? Now I'm not saying that you necessary need to like it, but most of us know about this white, tangy & salty Greek cheese served with your Greek salad on your favourite holiday destination. But is the feta cheese we eat a "fait accompli"? (or feta accompli?) What is Sfella or "Feta of the Fire"? On…
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From the archive: Traditional Easter Food in Orthodox Greece
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Helloooooo...! Easter in UK and Western Europe (Catholic or otherwise) is nearly upon us! Traditionally the most important celebration of Christianity. On this episode from the archives, from April 2020, I'm re-publishing the episode about Eastern Orthodox Easter where I describe in some general terms what is happening during the Lent and Easter Su…
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Hello! What is Greek Cuisine today? How do we define the food of the modern Greek nation? Clear and in many ways transparent cuisine. can it be defined from the simplicity and freshness of the ingredients, and her frugal, austere or thrifty nature? Is it just this though? And how Greek is mousaka, a dish that is considered so Greek throughout the w…
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Hello! Today I have the pleasure to interview historian Dr Eleanor Barnett about her new book, "Leftovers". The interview was conducted in January, in anticipation of her new book which is coming out on Thursday 14th of March, as a hardback from Head of Zeus. Preservation of food, and waste management isn't a new problem for our globalized societie…
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Honey: A sweet history. Food of the Gods, first food of Humankind
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Hello! Welcome back to another archaeogastronomical adventure! I think you'll enjoy this one! Sweet and complex and full of myths, legends and symbolism! Honey is a revered food the world over and bees a sacred and important insect. Let's find out about the first ever apiary, the ancient egyptian practises, mesopotamian myths and ancient greek myth…
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Minoan Cuisine: The Foods of Bronze Age Crete
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Hello! I have a genuinely exciting episode from the archives of The Delicious Legacy! Even though this is a re-run I have added some extra bits on the intro and outro with bonus ancient recipes! And it's massive! Labyrinth, Minotaur, Talos, and many other myths and legends, Gods and kings and pirates and poets! This is the sun-kissed, sea-guarded C…
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Hello! Self-Exploding nuts! Now this is fact for the ages! Sadly they haven't been used as a weapon in the ancient past so I can't claim it's known for millennia.. But...Pistachios! Evidence so far points to farmers having domesticated the pistachio during the first millennium BCE “somewhere within its wild range,” which spanned southern Central As…
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A History of Saffron - The most expensive spice in the world
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A huge volcanic explosion... An city buried under tonnes of pumice and ash... No, we are not talking about Pompeii or Herculaneum, but another place and volcano, at least one thousand five hundred years before... An island civilization destroyed by a cataclysmic eruption around 1600 BCE, roughly 3600 years ago! Akrotiri, a town on the Greek island …
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