PROFESSOR SHARES HIS COOK RESULTS OF 3770-YEAR-OLD MESOPOTAMIA RECIPES

Some of us have a family cook book which has been passed on from generation to generation to share in the baked goods secrets. And sometimes peoples enjoy digging up and making recipes from decades ago, just to get a feeling of how it was like back then. 

However, when we talk about old recipes, Bill Sutherland definitely took this idea to another level with his recent exploration into the ancient food preparation. The University of Cambridge professor used a 3,770-year-old Mesopotamian tablet as his recipe book and cooked a now-viral feast which the people who lived in 1750 BCE Babylon would’ve eaten.

So, you might wonder what was on the menu? To our surprise there are many dishes which sounds like familiar meals we enjoy today. One of the items on the menu was “stew of lamb,” which Sutherland called “simple and delicious”. The Stew of lamb  included barley cakes which was then topped with crushed leek and garlic. Another dished Sutherland prepared was called Unwinding with sauteed leeks, spring onions, and sourdough crumbs. But unfortunately this one did not get the best review from Sutherland who remarked, “Looks good but a bit boring.”

There were some dishes which called for very unusual ingredients in now days, but that was a regular item used in foods in that time back. Sutherland had to make some notable exceptions for example in the Elamite broth, it was instructed that the cook use sheep’s blood, which he substituted with tomato sauce.

“I am interested in history, so recreating these recipes just seemed fun. I was surprised by how easy it was to create these ancient meals with only a small amount of modification, and how tasty they were.”