An unsafe assumption. Grain trading along what would much later become the Silk Road began 5,000 years ago. See also this book on the prehistory of the Silk Road, which says that by 2,000 BC, there was extensive interaction between the nomads of the Eurasian steppes and the non nomadic people on either end of their domain.
ETA: I forgot about the sea trade. Indian ocean trade between Sumeria and Indiawas ongoing when these tablet recipes were written down. There’s debate about who the Sumerians meant when they wrote about their trade with the land of Meluhha, but archaeological evidence and written references on cuneiform tablets to goods that came from India leave little doubt that they were trading with India at this time.
Final PS: we know that the Egyptians had pepper by 1200 BC because it’s been found in mummies. Sumeria would have gotten access to it well before Egypt.
The recipes i presume would never be followed exactly, especially 4,000 years ago unless it was dictated by law (like bread and beer were). For dishes like these each household would cook it to taste and based on what ingredients they had available, to strictly stick to it might be authentic but not realistic. I also presume they used modern cooking techniques and cooking implements, so how authentic is this really?
I am interested in the vegetarian recipe, curious what goes in it.
Agreed. The video was only 3 minutes long, and it essentially countered the entire tone of the post. Plus, only one person said that they genuinely disliked the taste of the Broth of Lamb, and only because they said it was very “Lamb Forward”, which as someone who likes lamb, sounds totally fine with me.
If they did that, we’d probably suffer the disappointment of seeing how much guesswork and creativity went into following the ancient recipes. Most likely, the tablets have lists of ingredients (not necessarily with quantities) and some very, very vague instructions that assume the reader is familiar with the Babylonian kitchen of the day.
I’m pretty sure I read about this in Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Kriwaczek, but similar things have also been said about ancient Roman “recipes”. The modern concept of the recipe with precise instructions for making a dish from start to finish is only a couple hundred years old AFAIK.
I’ve seen these changes to produce even in my lifetime. I remember stopping in Long Island at the side of the road to buy peaches and apricots thirty five years ago. They were so delicate and fragrant, bruising in the box, exploding in your mouth. Now, all I find are waxy doppelgängers.
