A Mesopotamian recipe.
The first time I heard about the Yale Culinary Tablets was when some scientist from Yale University had recooked three of those recipes. The newspapers understandably wrote a lot about this experiment! Naturally, I tried to get these Old Babylonian recipes! And I did – and practically I could also join a class at university about those recipes.
The recipe I tried out first was a kind of green soup with leek and coriander. I thought I should start with something simple. I never had used leek before – it had seemed boring to me. Now I am a huge fan of it: Leek is very aromatic and can change a dish completely – for example as replacement for onions. That’s why I want to share this recipe and maybe convince you of leek, too!
Ingredients:
- 1 leek cut up in rings
- 1 garlic clove
- ½ bunch coriander leaves
- 1 tsp coriander seeds
- 1 onion (the original recipe uses wild leek, Allium ampeloprasum, German “Ackerlauch”. I couldn’t find this, but one usually uses the bulb of “Ackerlauch” like one uses onions, so I replaced it with onion)
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp of dried sourdough
- 0,5l water
- salt
Preparation:
„Garden turnips broth. Meat is not used. Prepare water; add fat [ ]; onion; arugula; coriander and cake crumbs (?), bound with blood; add mashed leeks and garlic.“
From: Jean Bottéro, The oldest cuisine in the world. Cooking in Mesopotamia (Chicago/ London 2004), p. 29.
That is what the Babylonian cookbook says albeit not completely preserved and not everything can be clearly translated. I was not able to get blood (admittedly, I also didn´t really want to, nor did I have any idea, where to get animal blood). I assume that the blood was used to thicken the soup and add a salty taste to the dish. Therefore I decided, not to thicken the broth, but add some extra salt to it.
Cut up the garlic, coriander leaves and onion. Together with the coriander seeds, mash the vegetables in a mortar to make a pesto. Heat the oil in a pot and add the pesto to roast it for some 5 minutes. Add leek rings and 0.5l water. Now cook the soup for half an hour. Add salt as desired. Finally, sprinkle with coriander leaves and sourdough before serving the broth.
I really like the soup, it makes a delicious appetizer! But it is important to note, that my interpretation of the recipe just gives an idea of what the original soup might have tasted like. As you can see, the text isn´t fully preserved. We don´t know, what culinary knowledge the author of the recipe presupposed for cooking it. Maybe there were some steps of preparation one would automatically do as a Babylonian cook, but we don´t know them.
Anyway, if you want, enjoy trying this Babylonian soup!
Luise´s Bronze Age Feast 