Carthaginian Recipes

[Pertinax]

This is not an antique survival but certain elements,particularly the use of spelt (red wheat), at least have a distant echo of possible truth about them...Spelt has a very tough endosperm , so moderns prefer to use softer varieties to the detriment of our digestion.Spelt has also a more complex and higher deliverable protein content.

http://www.spelt.com/

 

So you do not imagine that I eat other than I speak, our household consumes Spelt loaves, one such under the moniker "Hadrian's Bread".The loaves are nutty, firm, very moist and keep well- they are much more filling than white bread , but importantly leave no indigestible residue in the gut.

 

 

[DecimusCaesar]

Interesting article Pertinax. I probably couldn't renew the thing every day for ten days (sounds like an awfully long time to cook food) and the camel cheese sounds pretty interesting, though I'm not sure I would like to try it . I would rather have it with some other cheese.

 

If it's healtheir than white bread i would like to try it

[Pertinax]

Interesting article Pertinax. I probably couldn't renew the thing every day for ten days (sounds like an awfully long time to cook food) and the camel cheese sounds pretty interesting, though I'm not sure I would like to try it . I would rather have it with some other cheese.

 

If it's healtheir than white bread i would like to try it

http://www.coquinaria.nl/english/recipes/Rombread.htm

Two observations, we may have here an "ancient" sourdough recipe, that is a "natural wild yeast fermentation", here is how:

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/sour.htm

and the "long stay" method would certainly encourage wild yeasts.

Camel cheese was the prefered method of ingestion of milk in the Roman world (for those of status), that is milk itself was eschewed as a barbaric drink (from a cow in particular) , camel having the most whey is the most easily digestible.The Romans were ahead of us , cow's milk now comes with such a cocktail of growth hormones that I never touch it ( dairy animals for large supermarket supply live only 3 years ,after forced growth-not 10 years as was once the norm,so one is ingesting a product from a heavily pharmaceutically "tampered" beast that is heavily stressed by much heavier milking, the hormones have been detected as damaging the exterior cells of the human pancreas-diabetes is therefore a threat ).Eat spelt , drink camel (well goat is fiine)!Stay Roman and healthy.

 

http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/X6528E/X6528E03.htm#chIII.

[DecimusCaesar]

I used to have goats milk when I was younger, I got it fresh from a farm and not from the shops, we had to travel a while to get it as well as fresh eggs. I had read about cow's milk containing too much hormones but I had no idea that it caused such damage.

 

I had also read in the Classical World by Lane Fox about how drinking cow milk was a barbarian thing to do, something not fit for a Greek or Roman. Perhaps Camel cheese is much better after all.

 

This does bring to mind how much chemicals, addatives, pesticides and other stuff that gets into food. I heard from someone a few years back that KFC could no longer call themselves 'Kentucky Fried Chicken' because the chickens had been so genetically mutated in laboratories that they were no longer chickens. They had been altered to have softer beeks so that they couldn't peck each other while they were kept in cages, that they had been altered not have feathers (no need to pluck them) and that they grew to enormous sizes at incredible speed (much more meat...)

 

Anyone know if this is true?

[Pertinax]

AD hides his light under a bushel! Please look at this tasty morsel-

 

http://perso.orange.fr/dalby/extra/SalammboFeast.html

 

"a few little dogs with fat bellies ,with pink bristles, fattened on olive pulp" , delicious!

"hedehogs in garum" most savoury.

[docoflove1974]

I heard from someone a few years back that KFC could no longer call themselves 'Kentucky Fried Chicken' because the chickens had been so genetically mutated in laboratories that they were no longer chickens. They had been altered to have softer beeks so that they couldn't peck each other while they were kept in cages, that they had been altered not have feathers (no need to pluck them) and that they grew to enormous sizes at incredible speed (much more meat...)

 

Nope...false. Snopes says so

[Andrew Dalby]

The Carthaginians were skilled and innovative farmers, traders from end to end of the Mediterranean, and not averse to luxury. But what did their food taste like? I love the Carthaginian menu invented by Flaubert for his novel Salammbo in the 19th century (here is a link to the French text and two English translations on my website), and I really admire the research that Flaubert did, but can his dream Carthaginian banquet be anywhere near historical reality?

 

So, what can we discover about Carthaginian food? A potential source was the native farming writer Mago. His book (originally in Punic) was translated into Latin by Decimus Silanus, and into Greek by Cassius Dionysius of Utica, whose work was then abridged by Diophanes of Nicaea: but all these works are lost. A few fragments survive, but, frustratingly, only one of them is actually a "recipe". It's fairly elaborate one, too -- how to make passum (raisin wine). Here it is. You can find an alternative translation on a website on Carthage and its culture but I have made my own:

 

Mago gives the following instructions for excellent passum, and I have made it this way myself. Harvest well-ripened very early bunches of grapes; reject any mildewed or damaged grapes. Fix in the ground forked branches or stakes not over four feet apart, linking them with poles. Lay reeds across them and spread the grapes on these in the sun, covering them at night to keep dew off. When they have dried, pick the grapes, put them in a fermenting vat or jar and add the best possible must (grape juice) so that they are just covered. When the grapes have absorbed it all and have swelled, after six days, put them in a basket, press them and collect the "passum". Then tread the pressed grapes, adding very fresh must made from other grapes that have been sun-dried for three days. Mix all this and put the mixed mass through the press. Put this "passum secundarium" into sealed vessels immediately so that it will not become too "austerum". After twenty or thirty days, when fermentation has ceased, rack into other vessels, seal the lids with gypsum and cover them with skins. Columella, On Farming 12.39.

 

Question 1: has anyone tried this?

 

Question 2: does the last sentence apply to the "passum", or to the "passum secundarium", or are they mixed at this stage?

 

Question 2: what other clues are there to Carthaginian wine and food flavours?

[Pertinax]

Thank you AD, I hope this helps all those with an insatiable desire to see Carthaginian recipes!

 

Is the exact meaning of the translation that, the "secundarium" is actually the total admixture of the ingredients?

 

Can we extrapolate any "tastes" from the Punic dinner table at all? In terms of known or conjectured imports?

I suppose I am asking you to produce a "Carthaginian Empire of Pleasures"!

 

I will also meld the only two "Carthaginian" food threads we have .