A 3,700-Year-Old Babylonian Lamb Stew, Recreated by Yale Scholars
Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)
Yale's Babylonian Collection presents modern recreations of ancient Mesopotamian dishes, including a lamb and beet stew from a 1750–1730 BCE recipe. The instructions, adapted by Gojko Barjamovic and Nawal Nashrallah, call for searing lamb in sheep fat, simmering with beer, arugula, and beets, and finishing with a cilantro and kurrat paste. A second recipe, 'Unwinding,' offers a barley-based sourdough bread and broth. These recipes offer a taste of daily life in ancient Babylon.
Let the stew simmer until the sauce thickens after about an hour.
- dvh
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).
- eikenberry
Close to a recipe on Tasting History... https://www.tastinghistory.com/recipes/babylonianlambstew
Our current favorite dinner watching along with Alton Brown.
- alex-moon
"Rocket, coriander, cumin? Somehow I doubt the Babylonians had Mexican herbs and spices." Turns out I was wrong about where these come from! All three are native to the Mediterranean/Middle East and would certainly have been used in this recipe at the time.
- harel
Coincidentally this book which has been a labour of love of his creator is going into print this week: https://www.tableofgods.com
It's quite expensive though, but it does look amazing.
- johnohara
The Babylonian Collection was left to Yale by J.P. Morgan in 1913. His estate at the time was estimated to be worth about $68.3M ($1.59B in 2024 dollars).
When I read that on his wikipedia page I thought "is that all?" I know I'm probably missing a bunch of other considerations, but geez, the 500th spot on the 2024 Forbes World's Billionaires list was shared by multiple individuals worth approximately $5.8B.
- comrade1234
How's the presentation? Just imagining it, it would seem that the meet would have a weird color.
- cantalopes
Gonna be quite challenging to get "1/2 cup of rendered sheep fat"
- bornfreddy
I think the taste of their beer would have been much different from what we drink today?