Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)

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dvh•about 3 hours ago

Apparently their beets looked the same as ours:

> The kind of beets used in such an ancient recipe should not be different from the beets we use today, even in name. We read in Dictionary of Assyrian Botany (by Campbell Thompson, 1948) that in the ancient Mesopotamian region it was called ‘shumundar,’ it was as red as blood, and has a spinning-top shape (pp. 49, 51).

alephnerd•about 3 hours ago

The recipe is also similar to Hamedh [0], a delicacy in Iraqi and Baghdadi Jewish households. The only major difference is the addition of tomatoes thanks to the Columbian Exchange, and rice - which would have not been cultivated or traded in West Asia yet.

On that note, in Arabic, Farsi, and Hindustani the word for Tomato is essentially shared (tumatar/tamatimu) with the English word "tomato".

But anyhow, a lot of home cooking and traditional meals actually have a pretty long history.

[0] - https://www.splendidtable.org/story/2000/12/12/hamad-iraqi-b...

bornfreddy•38 minutes ago

I think the taste of their beer would have been much different from what we drink today?

eikenberry•about 1 hour ago

Close to a recipe on Tasting History... https://www.tastinghistory.com/recipes/babylonianlambstew Our current favorite dinner watching along with Alton Brown.

Rendello•44 minutes ago

I've made this Roman recipe probably a dozen times and everyone who's tried it really likes it [1].

The strange ingredients are garum [2] and asafoetida [3]. The former is just a fish sauce, so that's not hard to substitute, but you have to find asafoetida on the Internet or at an Indian food store.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LynenQ5h2Y

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garum

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asafoetida

comrade1234•about 2 hours ago

How's the presentation? Just imagining it, it would seem that the meet would have a weird color.

debo_•about 1 hour ago

It looks great. When I first saw it, I thought "this color can't be beet"

analog8374•about 1 hour ago

I dislike lamb but the rest sounds great. Maybe I could sub beef.

Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)

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Discussion (20 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews