History

Roman Cheesecake?

UNUSUAL, IMPRACTICAL, AND DOWNRIGHT BIZARRE RECIPES

FROM THROUGHOUT HISTORY

Written and Researched

by Matthew Walker

FOREWORD

BY MATTHEW WALKER

Welcome to a new culinary journey. I know what you’re thinking, my life has nothing in common with these people, why the hell should my cooking? Well to that I say NONSENSE! People have always been people. Every generation has gathered around a nice dinner and every generation has rolled their eyes at their siblings doing something daft.

If you look at the vandalism carved to Roman Gladiator arenas, Victorian school desks and Viking temples, you’ll find they all essentially say the same things. There are jabs at personal friends, romantic scratchings, strange brags about who you slept with, and even just doodles.

There’s a great anecdote that I can’t find the evidence for about Viking writing, taking years and teams of historians with ladders to find and translate, right at the height of the temple walls that reads … “Wow! Its high up here!” However seeing as I can’t find the evidence for that one, here is a shortlist of vandalisms from different eras that I thought was equally iconic.

“Celadus makes the girls moan.” Roman era brothel

Bragging tags and names like “perfection gang” and “the green one” written on the Pyramids of Giza.

“Thorni f***ed. Helga carved.” Viking romance

“Benedikt made this cross”. Apparently Christians traded stuff with Vikings when they weren’t murdering each other.

“Many a woman has come stooping in here, no matter how pompous a person she was.” Viking again, whether they meant “rich and poor women both entered this building” or “even the rich bitches shagged here” is up for interpretation.

Anyway, you get the picture. So I’ll be providing recipes as well as any important social and cultural context required for the dish to make sense and not just be “some soup Grandpa used to like” but for the ancient world.

I will also be citing references because a lot of these recipes are borrowed from sources like historical cookbooks in the archive.org collection - which also has a load of fun old monster movies, (worth a look) - or from historians on Youtube and recipe blogs that know much more about this stuff than I do. This won’t necessarily be the most historical archive due to my degree being in Sociology, but I hope to give a wide array of insights into the lives of these people.

I should also mention these cultures are predominantly “white”, which is a bit of a Western bias, but that’s because I thought it would be in poor taste as a middle class British kid to talk about Native American or Polynesian dishes without consulting professionals. The non-European cultures I have explored are typically older (Ancient Egyptians, Feudal Japan etc) to avoid causing offence to existing cultures.

I hope you enjoy this dinner party through history, and if nothing else it’ll make a fun tapas night for a themed costume party.

CUISINE

The Celtic diet is pretty much as basic as you can get without going full paleolithic. Celtic people spoke some ancient version of Welsh and Gaelic and worshipped a set of simple gods, varying depending on region.

Greatest godly hits include: the Morrigan –an Irish triple goddess in charge of life, death, and rebirth. Rhiannon - a headstrong, young politicians wife/arguable goddess from Wales, who had a messy love-life and a Stevie Nicks song written for her and some horned god whose name was lost to history, but tended to focus on nature, travel and antlers.

That being said, despite their primitive materials, never underestimate a Celt! Especially not Boudica! She was a Celtic queen whose husband made a deal with Emperor Nero in exchange for peace on the land she lived on. When Nero broke the deal, killed her husband and publicly whipped Boudica in front of her people, she led an army to burn down Roman camps in Colchester, London, and St Albans, killing hundreds of soldiers with a disorganised ambush technique.

The Romans, viewing the Celtic people as old fashioned and technologically inferior, were less than impressed. Boudica being a woman didn’t help. Its said that when she was eventually caught by them, she poisoned herself out of spite so as to not allow them the satisfaction of murdering her.

This is not that book though. This is a book about food, The story of Boudica does however illustrate the lifestyle this food is catering to. It had to travel well, be made with fairly basic tools and be filling enough to provide energy for fierce and unpredictable warriors to not only survive bitter British winters, but also incoming attacks from people with much sharper swords.

PLAYLIST

Anything by Florence and the Machine that feels earthy and primal and of course Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac.

Fruited Bread

One of few things that unites the Welsh, the Irish and the Scottish … aside from mutual hatred of the English, is fruit bread. In Wales this dish has been adapted to something called Bara Brith – often served with tea and butter while an older relative comes to visit - while Ireland made a version called BarmBrack.

Thank you in advance to Putnoe Wood and Mowsbury Hillfort in Bedfordshire for these recipes from your history files.

Process

Ingredients

500g stone ground wholemeal bread flour (I don’t actually expect you to stonegrind, lets be honest)

300g soft fruit and berries. Blackberries, blueberries etc

250g of honey

1 tsp salt

Water to mix

1. Add the flour and berries to a large bowl, preferably made within the last week over a campfire while your irritating uncle tells you how he almost caught a live boar or something.

2. Mix the salt and the honey together.

3. Add water to form a solid dough.

4. Tear apart into small handfuls and cook in a frying pan or griddle until golden brown. Or, if you’re going to lean into the anachronisms, use an oven to bake at 170 degrees for an hour.

Wild Boar

In the real world, there aren’t wild boar roaming Wales any more, we sort of ate them all. But just so you get the imagery, picture Pumba from the Lion King, except less Disney.

Process

1. Marinate the pork in the mead. Add your parsley or other seasonings and let sit overnight.

2. The next day, add more booze. Do it! The Romans are coming you’ll want to be drunk for that.

3. Bring to the boil over the fire until the booze has boiled away a third of the liquid. Allow to simmer until tender, usually for a few hours.

Ingredients

1kg of pork

800 ml of ale or mead (or beer if you’re cheating)

Carrots

A few local herbs like thyme, parsley, or garlic

200g of baby onions

2tbsp of honey

10 tbsp dripping or olive oil

4. Remove the meat with an awkward wooden lovespoon* that’s probably not crafted for the job properly.

5. Ramp up the heat until the sauce becomes thick enough to hide the taste of campfire cooking. Then serve with whatever makeshift bread you have on your person.

Creams and Cheeses

It’s not a glamourous dessert, but its a real dessert. It’s what they would have!

Process

1. Skim the cream off the milk and pour them over a variety of local non-poisonous berries. (Blackberries, blueberries, raspberries etc.)

2. Then for extra points pour the leftover goat milk into a bowl and heat it over the fire with the juices found in thistles.

3. This acid will be enough to slowly bring the milk to curdle into a pleasant soft cheese.

4. Scrape together onto a fancy wooden board and talk about how you’re an amazing luxury chef with a deluxe cheeseboard and that the forest spirits can stuff it.

Ingredients

A small jug of goat milk

Brown/purple thistles

A display of berries and honeys

FUN FACT

Samheim, a winter festival practiced by the ancient Celts is still celebrated today by certain groups of Pagans. It marks the beginning of winter and a shift out of the summer harvest. Some argue that due to its overlap with Halloween and links to the supernatural, that it influenced the beginning ideas around Halloween.

GRUB Gladiator

So we’ve made it to ancient Rome. Julius Caesar is in control and being a manwhore in the ancient world. Murdering people, sleeping with Egyptian royals, and creating new routes to trade on so that he can get his end away with Cleopatra and an assortment of other rumoured guests.

This lead to the empire of Rome living up to their name and “roaming” through other cultures so that Julius could in fact prove to be the manliest, most shagging, most fighting, most winning person in the room.

Think like Elon Musk going to space except in a tunic that showed a little more leg than regulation.

On top of travelling and obtaining a vast quantity of new spices and flavours from far off lands (as well as calling dibs on damp British towns like London and Bath), they also had access to a lot of really fancy Italian and Mediterranean ingredients like tomatoes, and grape wine. Throw in some new

technology like sturdy fishing boats, and better tools to find and hunt down meat, and hey presto! you have a far bigger range of potential dishes to dive into.

Its notable to say that they also had takeaway food. That’s not a punchline that’s a real thing they had. It was called a Thermopolium, they kept food in a hot ceramic pot and dished it up to people dashing past. Though to be clear, this isn’t fine dining, its the place you’d pick up a skewer of dormouse to soak up the raw wine after a rough night partying to harp players and poets in the local Dionysian temple.

Special thanks to the “historical Italian cooking” blog and “Ursula’s historical recipes” on YouTube

PLAYLIST

Pompeii by Bastile. I know its basic but its the only modern pop song I know that’s semi related.

Glires/ Faux Dormouse

So, a quick disclaimer. Its very illegal here to eat dormouse, and also rodents are historically linked with … well, the black plague for starts. So in this example I will be using the closest legal meat I could find. Apparently dormouse tastes like squirrel, and rabbit also tastes like squirrel. Its legal to eat rabbit here in the UK, but at the same time you could probably pull off this recipe with chicken.

Process

Ingredients

2 servings of rabbit meat or chicken breasts

500g of forcemeat (mince and breadcrumbs)

50g of chopped nuts

6 garlic cloves

1. Mix the mince meat and bread crumbs together, grinding the meat and the nuts into a nice malleable texture.

A pinch of salt and pepper

A light layer of honey

2. Grind up some garlic cloves because they’re the first and only seasoning from Italy that matters. (see also: garlic bread)

3. Cut into your faux-dormouse with a very careful hand right down the centre. I personally like to imagine that the dormouse owes you money.

4. Mould into a vaguely rodent shape for extra credit because this is what the Romans would do.

5. Season and Stuff the forcemeat stuffing and the ground nuts into the torso of the dormouse.

6. Coat with honey and potentially a thin layer of wine if your feeling in the party spirit.

7. Bake in an oven for 20 - 25 minutes at 180 degrees and you’ve got a clay baked rodent.

Sea Medley

So picture the scene, its late night after a day at the colosseum and you head home for dinner. Someone in your life has been on a generous fishing trip today and dropped you off a spare bass and a jug of wine to enjoy while the sun sets. You’re cooking in a modest marble house as a wine merchant and your guests have only just started arriving. Life is good, and its not quite dark enough to need oil lights yet.

Process

1. Place the prawns (defrosted and drained) into a small saucepan with a spoonful of honey and oil.

2. Fry them for 3 minutes.

3. Remove with a perforated spoon (the one with the holes in) and keep warm.

4. Cook the sauce until its halved.

5. Add black pepper and oregano, as well as any other seasoning.

6. Bass: gut and scale the fish with that one knife that your a tad too fond of.

Ingredients

Bass

A whole fresh sea bass

100ml white wine

Honey

Oregano and seasonings (eg pepper)

Olive oil

Fish sauce

30 ml white wine

Vinegar

Prawns

225g of fresh peeled prawns

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp clear honey

2 tsp chopped

fresh Oregano

Black pepper

7. Make a sauce using olive oil, wine, and white white vinegar and a fish sauce.

8. Leave the sauce to boil before adding any spices and flavours you feel the dish needs.

9. When the sauce thickens, put out the fire its boiling on and put the sea bass in to poach.

10. Plate up on some angsty Roman pottery that depicts soldiers doing not-safe-for-work activities, and share out the prawns.

FUN FACT

Julius Caesar was heavily rumoured to be bisexual, a norm in ancient Rome unless he was perceived as “submissive” within the dynamic (which he was also rumoured to be). It got to the point where even his closest teams of guards were known to joke that he was “a husband to all wives and a wife to all husbands”.

Ancient Roman Cheesecake

The one thing that took me off guard researching this recipe is the sheer and unadulterated amount of cheesecake recipes. I say that, they don’t resemble modern day cheesecake, but they are sort of the missing link between the two. The unusual big foot hybrid between weird soft cheese from the dark ages and that Oreo stuffed cheesecake in your fridge from the party a few days ago.

Ingredients

226g ricotta cheese

3 eggs

Honey to taste 64g all purpose flour

Luckily for you, its a sweet dish. And after stinking out your student flat with sea bass smells you’re probably going to need it to win back your housemate’s favour.

All the recipes are sort of different, but Savillum, so far, is the closest to contemporary cheese cake I’ve found! And yes, I know Hannah Hart did it before me!

Process

1. Preheat oven at 220 degrees C.

2. Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl, then add the riccotta cheese, honey, and any flavours like an optional lemon zest, or if you’re feeling anachronistic, try chocolate.

3. Sprinkle in the flour and stir until evenly combined.

4. Pour the batter into a tin or ceramic tray.

5. Bake until browned (35 - 40 mins) before adding any more honey on top and serving.

THE Viking MEAD HALL

Contrary to popular belief, the Viking diet was far from the beer-and-meat-slicked rugby fantasy that you’re all picturing. It was far more porridge with yoghurts and fish with bread. They were essentially sharing a diet with an Instagram fitness blog.

It’s believed that the main reason they took over their neighbours was less about testosterone fueled blood sport and far FAR more about the lack of food and other resources found around Scandinavia. No offence to Sweden, but its not exactly known for its vast fruit.

It’s just a shame that Viking imagery got hijacked by Nazis during the 2nd World War, because their myths are far more interesting than the Romans, less known than the Celts and far FAR camp-er than the Nazis and altright weirdos would care to admit.

Obviously, there’s Loki, now a Disney villain but formerly a genderqueer trickster god who managed to get pregnant via HORSE while shape-shifting and give birth to an 8

legged monster stallion. Yes, you read that right. There’s also the myth where Thor dresses in drag as his own mother to get his hammer back from a frost giant that really REALLY fancies Thor’s mum. Speaking of Thor’s mum, she swapped sexual favours for magical gold jewellery.

You get the picture. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s a pantomime waiting to happen!

PLAYLIST

Valhallah calling by Miracle Sound

Vikings also made sure that the woman of the house did the finance, because maths was close to witchcraft, which was a woman’s job apparently. Ironically, despite having strongly gendered roles at the time, they still allowed women to attend war and go to Valhallah, the Norse heaven for warriors. Women controlled the cash and would fight anyone who dared threaten them. So, essentially the same rules as modern day Liverpool.

Porridge

I know its amateur hour ... but the ancient world is literally held together via wheat products, rotting fruit alcohol and the luxury of being able to just hang out for over 12 hours a day when you aren’t farming. But this isn’t like 19th century workhouse porridge, It also has honey and the limited amounts of fruit native to Sweden, Finland, and Norway.

Process

1. Peel and slice the pears, remove the core and cook them in honey and water.

2. Simmer milk and barley in a separate pot until the barley is “halfway tender”.

3. Remember to stir the porridge.

4. Add pears and more honey to the gruel before serving.

Ingredients

6 Pears

2 Cups of water

Planked Salmon, with flatbread and wild garlic

You’ll be relieved to know that this dish has a slightly higher flashiness rate than your healthy breakfast choice, but again still pretty amateur hour. You’d think with how well Scandinavia is doing with the happiness charts in the 2010s they would have come from a less humble beginning. No wonder they conquered countries with actual flavours (… yes, as a Brit I totally acknowledge the irony there.)

Process

1. Place the salmon on the plank, skin side down.

2. Season with salt, wild garlic and spring onion.

3. Smoke over an open fire using a spit, or a plank with the fish nailed to it. Alternatively, I’m sure you could smoke it using kitchen gas fires.

4. Melt butter in a saucepan and add chopped wild garlic and spring onion

5. Drizzle over the fish.

6. The fish should be cooked for roughly 20 minutes and should be golden and crispy with a juicy centre.

Flatbread

1. Mix the flours with the salt, water, and yoghurt or beer until you form a springy dough.

2. Leave to set for about 30 minutes.

3. Knead and add any additional flavours you want to try, before creating 8ish small/handsize flatbread shapes.

4. Let them rest before frying them over a medium heat (mild fire, BBQ, or gas grill) and cook food until golden brown.

Ingredients

Deep fried cakes

Fried cakes, an ancestor of the Doughnut! Because literally every culture mastered doughnuts, swords and alcohol independently from one another by some strange twist of historical fate. No, seriously, I don’t know why cultures keep doing this, its like how animals keep evolving into crab shaped creatures (called Carcinisation, it’s a real thing look it up!)

Process

1. Mix flour, salt, nuts, and raspberries in a bowl, add milk and mix.

2. Add eggs and honey.

3. Whisk to form a batter the consistency of porridge (again).

4. Use two teaspoons of lard/veg fat.

Ingredients

150g Barley flour

150g Rye flour

150g Wheat flour

Half a teaspoon of salt

200g Chopped

Hazelnuts

200g Chopped

Raspberries

50g Milk

2 tablespoons Honey

2 large or 3 small eggs

Lard, Butter, or Vegetable fat

5. Fry for 10 minutes until the product is golden brown and drizzle on honey.

DINING Egyptian

In everyone’s Egyptian fantasy they always imagine themselves as a decadent Pharaoh dripping in gold, bathing in a luxury bath every night. This is not that cookbook. In reality you might be a merchant selling meats, silks and spices, or if you’re lucky you could get a nice gig as a priest.

Normal people didn’t get decadent feasts, but they also didn’t slum through what the slaves were fed. Your meals would depend entirely on the Nile and whether it provided enough water for crops and enough fish for dinner without you getting eaten by crocodiles.

Once again, we’re looking at the ancient staples. More basic breads, meats and vegetables, but this time there’s a twist. The Egyptians worked out how stews work and also how to prepare regional fruit like dates’. Most importantly, they had the earliest found

recipe for beer! Still tasted and smelt like piss, so nothing really changes.

While we’re bursting bubbles, Cleopatra looked normal, she wasn’t notably hot, as you can see in the busts and coins made in her likeness. The main reason everyone loved her was because she was one of the most educated people on the planet at the time. She knew 9 languages, lots about politics, and kept the entire country of Egypt prosperous for twenty two years!

If I did that and people still judged me entirely on who I dated at age 20, I too would consider an asp bite!

PLAYLIST

Walk like an Egyptian, Rah Rah Cleopatra (Horrible Histories).

Date Balls

When I say date balls, I do mean the fruit and not what you threaten your lover with if they cheat on you. That being said this was a staple sweetness for the ordinary person in Egypt, as dates grew locally and honey was the only sweet thing in that era that wasn’t a Roman leader or a young Pharaoh priestess.

Process

1. Slice open the dates, and mix with cinnamon and walnuts vigourously.

2. Form the mix into balls and coat them in honey.

3. Dust with almonds.

4. Serve warm or chilled for an extra texture.

Ingredients

3 Tablespoons of honey

170g of moist Dates

(pitted)

1 teaspoon of Cinnamon

160g of Walnuts

Ground or slivered

Almonds

Egyptian Bread

Yes, we’re doing bread again. I know, the ancient world loved a carb. It’s not my fault that bread is in literally every culture known to man. As mentioned before, the system goes, swords, bread, alcohol, marriage Even pirates had those! Literally, cave people are thought to do it, and by the new kingdom of ancient Egypt they had 40 types of bread.

Process

1. Use ground grain (the ancient Egyptians didn’t have this and their teeth showed the grit, like it REALLY showed!)

2. Add the salt and the starter, if you decide to use it.

3. Knead, In a jar or with your feet if you’re feeling super realistic, but I’d advise hands.

4. Set the dough aside to rise for a couple of hours.

5. Fry on a griddle and serve with beer and your filling of choice!

Ingredients

2 and a half cups of Emer Wheat Flour

240 ml water

Half teaspoon of salt

224 grams of optional starter

FUN FACT

Because the ancient Egyptians thought cats were magical, they used to adorn them with jewellery. This was especially important to get onto the good side of bast, the cat goddess of maternity and magic. On the other hand there’s Sakmhet, a lion goddess of war who was only turned docile from a killing spree by getting her drunk!

Ful Medames

This is a dish they still eat in Egypt today. Also, this dish is the closest you’re going to get to a nice classy vegan dish available at this time in history without heading over to India for a spiced curry. I didn’t include ancient Indian recipes because I don’t trust myself to do them justice!

Process

1. Open your can of fava beans, and juice your lemon.

2. Prep and crush your cloves of garlic

Ingredients

1 can of fava beans.

1 lemon.

3 cloves of garlic.

1 teaspoon of cumin. Salt and olive oil to drizzle on top.

3. Mash the fava beans on the stove and cook on a medium heat for a few minutes.

4. Season with salt and cumin.

5. Add the lemon juice and top with garlic and olive oil.

ANCIENT ALCOHOL

For as long as people have existed, so has that one alcoholic relative that goes a tad too hard during whatever cultural celebration you have before Christmas was invented.

That being said, contrary to the classic story of British people being “the most alcoholic”, it was actually China that has the first ever historical reference to alcohol, meaning Sake beats Roman wine and British Beer!

However ... there’s also evidence to suggest that accident or not, neolithic cavemen also got totally plastered on fermented beverages.

Distillation (making strong spirits via boiling away excess chemicals) was invented in 9th century Arabia as a cure for major illnesses, this is the old world equivalent of curing the common cold with cocaine. “Just chug an entire bottle of vodka and you’ll be fine Grandma.”

Furthermore, whisky was added to water on 16th and 17th century ships in order to purify it and remove bacteria after having it sit in crates for months on end.

Alcohol also became a major bartering tool in the new world because most Cultures developed it and there was a large market for it. Hard spirits became the forefront of the alcohol trade because they didn’t spoil during long journeys and the crew could use it to keep morale up before they arrived to trade. Usually they’d trade it for palm oil and rubber!

Unfortunately, they also traded it for people, which is a gross part of history but I’d be lying if I didn’t mention it. Imagine finding out that not only were you someone’s slave forever, to be raped or forced to work hard manual labour without thanks or reward… but you were bought for the equivalent of one shelf of the Aldi hard spirits aisle!

This is all to say that alcohol has had a messy history but there’s no escape from it. If Asia, Europe, Egypt, AND America can all come to the same conclusion independently before global travel of “fermented fruit = good” then it was sort of inevitable.

In conclusion, drink responsibly, quit while you’re ahead and don’t trade your alcohol for real human lives!

FUN FACT

The word “honeymoon” comes from the month (aka moon cycle) in which a newly married Viking couple were given free rations of honeyed mead in order to drink and consummate their marriage with the goal of making a baby.

Ancient Egyptian Beer

So, we’re in Egypt again. The Nile is filled with corpses and crocodiles and since you know where the sewage is going you’d rather not risk it either. The problem is you need to survive and not die of dehydration. also beer works as money in this society too. So lets go!

Process

1. Soak one cup of wheat berries in a bowl of room temperature water overnight

2. Drain the bowl of water and put the wheat in a glass jar.

3. Cover the jar with a cloth and secure with an elastic band.

Ingredients

Wheat berries

2 cups of barley (approx 400g)

A cheese cloth

A glass jar (the Egyptians used clay but I’m cheating) Water

4. Let stand at room temperature for 1 – 3 days until the tails sprout from the grain, keeping the grain moist but not drowned.

5. Shake gently for circulation.

6. Once the grains have sprouted bake them on a tray for 3 hours at 150 degree Celsius. When they’re done they’ll smell nice and nutty.

7. Boil two cups of barley in water until you get porridge.

8. When the porridge is lukewarm add to the wheat and 6 cups of water.

9. Let sit for 4 days.

Optional: Add honey or date syrup if you’re a wimp like myself.

Word of warning, apparently it stinks, but that’s what you get for living in a world before breweries.

Roman Wine

I couldn’t find a classic historical recipe for wine that wasn’t like “add cinnamon to a bottle of pre-made red wine”, which lets be honest is cheating. So this recipe is adapted from the “how to make everything” Youtube Channel. They also had a video about making moonshine from dumpster fruit, with the specific assignment of “when life gives you dumpster-fire, make moonshine”, so that’s fitting.

Process

1. Collect and de-stem your grapes.

2. Crush them, if you really want to go classic you can stand on them but honestly I’m sure you could do it with a food grinder.

Ingredients

1 large bucket of de-stemmed Grapes (although I suspect this could be scaled down to one large cooking bowl if you’re only after a bottle or two)

1 sachet wine yeast

A cheese cloth

3. Strain out the solids from the mix using the cheesecloth until its just grape juice. Bonus points if you use a clear bottle.

4. Add your wine yeast and leave to ferment for two weeks. Recommendations for time vary from 10 to 15 days, but they say wine ages well so I have no idea what to trust.

5. Once its fermented, pour it into a fancy goblet, and drink while feeling smug about your success!

Sorry for the lack of set recipe measurements but I’m using only what I have to work with.

Mead

No historical recipe book would be complete without MEAD!

Ingredients

4 parts honey

1 part water

Brewer’s yeast

Whether you’re using this recipe strictly for a historical experience or you’re hosting a Viking themed uni night, it’s best to get prepped early and know what you’re doing before you go full medieval! Also, the original Vikings would have used rain water and waited for 5 years, thankfully we don’t have to do that.

Process

1. Dissolve the honey and the water in a pan. Boil it until it makes a mixture called “musk”.

2. Skim off any scum off the top, though usually that’s more related to honeycomb. Add yeast.

3. Pour into a second vessel (read: glass bar or bowl).

4. Let cool until circa 38 degrees Celsius.

5. Let sit for a day out of direct sunlight.

6. Transfer it into a bottle and let sit for a few more nights.

7. Pour into mead horn and drink until you don’t care about the next morning’s lecture!

Sake (pronounced sack-ee)

I usually only do 3 recipes per category, but, sake (rice wine) was too awesome to ignore. We’re keeping it simple today so there won’t be any cobras marinading in the bottles or anything, but I thought it would be a cool gateway drug to new cultures.

In Harajuku, Japan, There’s a wall of sake barrels that’s said to keep the Shinto god happy and thank them for the success of the area. According to the Japan Times, when Japanese people drink their Sake they feel “happy and closer to the gods” and lord knows I need more of that in my life.

Process

1. Rinse the rice until it runs clear and cook in a rice cooker.

2. Crush the Chinese yeast balls into powder.

3. Spread rice on a clean, sterilised tray to cool down, before adding the powder, reserving a small portion of yeast for later.

4. Add a paint strainer over the plastic bucket, before putting the rice on there and airlock sealing it.

5. After 3-4 weeks strain the crumbled rice with a cheese cloth or the strainer itself. Strain again with the cheesecloth until you’re left with a milky white liquid

6. Pour that into a glass and close.

7. After a few days, the white sediment will settle and you can add your crushed berries or other flavouring before bottling and pasteurising.

Ingredients

3 - 4 cups of short grain rice (approx 500g)

3 Chinese yeast balls

Flavouring (eg blueberries etc)

BELOW

DECKS

It’s easy to imagine why there was a booming popularity for pirates during the golden age of piracy, right? Europe had just discovered other countries like Columbia exist and were bringing back all sorts of fun treasures, but mainly A LOT of gold. Like enough gold to inspire the myth of El Dorado, an island made of gold.

Meanwhile, back at home, unemployment and homelessness was skyrocketing and smaller businesses were being driven away by ruthless land owners. With this in mind it;s easy to understand why young people were considering an “alternative” career path. Pirate ships were also considered more accepting of flexible sexuality than other walks of life, with Matelotage, an act akin to marriage but for inheriting boats, being considered common practice among men in the 1500s - 1700s. Rumour has it that it became such a problem for the church at the time, that the French owned island of Tortuga sent over 1650 female prostitutes and petty criminals in order to be a “good influence” on the crew. This merely introduced non-monogamy to the mix.

However, the idea of a woman being a “good influence” on pirates becomes hilarious when you remember that the most successful pirate in history was in fact a woman. “Madam Ching the Chinese pirate queen” controlled over 400 ships, and, more impressively, managed to pay off the governments with enough money to retire from the gig alive.

Of course you can’t talk about pirate queens without bringing up the fact that the infamous Anne Bonney used to flash wealthy sailors before killing them just so they knew that it was a woman murdering them in cold blood. She also had a complex love life and a legacy of cross-dressing, bisexuality and violence. Well worth a read!

Anyway, pirates were pretty awesome, however their dinners … not so much.

PLAYLIST

The Legend of Anne Bonny by Karliene.

Hard Tack

These tough crackers, known as “hard tack”, were a staple because they don’t go off for ages, The trade off for this is that they are just short of being a barely edible stone that you could break a tooth on. You have been warned.

Process

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees.

2. Pour the flour, the water and the salt into a bowl of dough, we’ve done this a lot every culture loves a bread so you get the gist.

3. Roll out to 8cm of square crackers and poke holes in it with a fork so it doesn’t get air bubbles.

4. Bake for 30 minutes on each side.

Ingredients

256g of flour

1 cup of water

2 tsp salt

FUN FACT

The word “Buccaneer” comes from the French word “Boucan” meaning to smoke or cure meat. Not a glamorous banquet but being realistic you’re on a damp chav-boat off the coast of England filled with sweaty bastards before the invention of freshwater showers. So yes, dry meats and dry crackers ahoy!

Smoked Meat Jerky

Process

Grog

Yes, grog is real. This time the spirits are being mixed with water, not to keep the water pure, but to make the spirits last between the whole crew during long and tedious ship journeys.

Process

Ingredients

45 ml Dark rum

120ml water

2 sugar cubes

Lime juice to taste

1. Mix in a cocktail shaker or glass and shake or swish enthusiastically. lets hope that improves your mood!

1. Wrap meat and freeze for an hour to make it easier to cut.

2. Mix the marinading ingredients into a liquid super-paste.

3. Slice meat evenly and marinade in the sauce for 24 to 48 hours.

4. Drain the sauce and cook all meats in a dehydrator or smoker at a low heat for about 2 and a half hours.

Ingredients

3lbs of steak, venison, or other red meat

½ cup soy sauce (64g)

½ cup water

2 tbsp Worcester

sauce

4 tsp sugar

Any other seasonings

Regional Fruit Pies

a recipe taken from “the art of cookery”

While on land, Sailors and pirates would eat a lot of turtles and tortoises (aka meat kinder eggs) local fruits, and birds. Unfortunately, eating turtle is illegal so I deep dived into a 17th century cookbook called “The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy” by Hannah Glass to bring you a basic recipe for a fruit pie.

Process

1. Skim off the butter into the flour.

2. Using as little of the water as possible, Work it well into a paste, then pull it into pieces until its “cold.” I think in the modern era you can just put the mix into a fridge.

Ingredients

A peck of flour (approx 7kg)

Six pounds of butter (2.7 kg)

Gallon of boiled water (boiled to purify) Your fruit of choice (usually apples and berries in the UK)

A dusting of sugar

3. Roll into a solid pastry ball and line a tray with it “for the walls of a good pie.”

4. Lay fine sugar at the bottom of a “baking tin-patty” (read: baking tin) then add your fruit and cook with a drizzle of lemon juice until softened.

5. Put fruit into the pie shell, layer with a lid of pastry and bake for 20 - 30 minutes until the pastry is golden brown.

PS. It’s worth noting that Hannah herself describes her work as “far exceeding anything of the kind yet published” … I strive to have that level of self confidence!

Versailles DINNER AT

While the poor people were becoming bisexual pirate queens and rugged swashbuckling heroes, the wealthy of the time were sipping champagne and eating 12 course meals purely to flex on how they could afford it. The most famous of which, is everyone’s favourite beehive hairstyle owner and head-in-a-basket Madam Marie Antoinette. Lets debunk everyone’s favourite snobbish rich quote, she didn’t actually tell anyone to “eat cake”, which is disappointing to me because that’s my personal favourite coping mechanism for a mediocre life.

The truth is Jean-Jacques Rousseau cited a “great princess” saying “let them eat brioche” and the rumour-mill took it from there. Even going as far as to produce libelous magazines. No I mean literally the word “libel” comes from the word “libelle” which was a series of semi-pornographic and cheaply written political pamphlets that attacked Louis and Marie, staging her as a spoilt and entitled strumpet up to all manner of sinister behaviours.

Also my hot take is that the Bourgeosis would be social media stars if they were alive today. I mean they were vain, they showed off in exclusive parties dripping in luxury furs and cosmetics, and were so wildly out of touch with the common man that it inspired a literal revolution! Even down to the distinct hair and makeup trends, hell Louis the 14th literally popularised the high heel, it didn’t become considered a “woman’s product” until Marie did the ultimate “hoodie stealing girlfriend” move and pinched them.

So they beheaded the king. They beheaded the queen. They had a revolution, and things were rough for a while for everyone. Marie even apologised for stepping on her executioner’s foot before the chop.

Whether the French revolution was just or not is not for me to say, I’m here to talk about how bonkers the food was.

PLAYLIST

Dorian Electra’s 2018 music, and Lady Gaga’s older stuff. Especially her song “Vanity”

Restorative Soup

The word “restaurant” comes from the idea that soup was medicinal and could “restore” one to their former glory. Therefore restaurants were considered health shops at the time, specialising in soup. Also brace yourself, the working classes of France had a whole thing about potatoes, don’t worry, its coming. I can’t tell you this recipe will be good, just that it’ll be factually accurate.

Process

1. Peel and puree the potatoes.

2. Slice and butter bread and add the onions of onions.

3. Stir in half a pound of salt and the butter gradually.

4. Combine ingredients and serve with the bread.

Ingredients 50g of potatoes

Potato Banquet

Back in the 1700s, Paris was unaware of whether the potato was safe to consume. It was part of the nightshade family and was associated with pig food. so AntoineAugustin Parmentier, a pharmacist at the time, decided to prove a point by really making potatoes delicious. Here’s a medley of ways to cook potatoes. This guy was so obsessed with potatoes he won AWARDS on behalf of them. He was of course, correct.

Fries

Process

1. Wash, peel and cut potatoes into appropriate strips.

Ingredients

6 potatoes

A hot pan of vegetable oil

FUN FACT

Mayonnaise was made in 1756 so its reasonably accurate to serve with mayo!

Parmentiers

Ingredients

6 potatoes

1 tbsp of sunflower oil

Knob of butter

2 tsp dried parsley

Salt and pepper

Process

1. Peel and dice potatoes into half inch cubes.

2. Season to taste.

3. Cook in the oven at 180 degrees at for 5-10 minutes.

2. Wash and leave in water for 2 hours to remove the starch.

3. Prepare a large pan of boiling hot oil (filling roughly a third of it).

4. Place the potato strips into the oil and allow to cook until golden and crispy.

5. Season and Serve.

Marie Antoinette’s Macaroons

I’m stretching the truth a little, Marie had one year in which to run into these biscuits before she met her end. According to our records a nunnery in 1791 and 1792 began popularising this recipe in order to pay for their rent. Here is a recipe so you too can delight the pallet with a nuns favourite snack.

Process

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees.

2. Mix egg whites and almonds until well combined.

Ingredients

175g icing sugar

125g ground almonds

3 large eggs

75g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Icing

150 g softened butter

80g icing sugar

2 tbsp cocoa powder

3. Mix in the sugar until the mixture forms soft white mountain peaks that stand up on ends.

4. Pipe small biscuit shaped disks onto your cooking tray and cook in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

5. Mix together all the icing ingredients and pipe them into the crunchy meringue shell before sandwiching them together and selling them to save the nunnery!

TEA WITH THE EMPEROR

Now, full disclosure, I am a white British person and this isn’t my era of expertise I am the least qualified to talk about this and it’s probably going to be full of anachronisms.

Now that we’ve got that out the way, I bet you’re picturing Japanese life in the Meji era as a Jackie Chan movie filled with sword wielding, honour-bound, slightly sexy Samurai. The truth, as always, is much more mundane.

Samurai was a class of person in Japan, typically a soldier. The lower rank of Samurai also did farm work and the higher rank tended to act as policemen. Despite having a rich cultural background, The last Samurai died in 1877, which for context is around the time the Wild West was being formed in America. Meaning, it’s not impossible for a Samurai and a cowboy to have met each other.

The Samurai diet also contained considerably less rice than you’re picturing, with white rice being a rare and expensive good. Only wealthy emperors would be able to afford it, instead typical Samurai would have eaten a lot of root vegetables, fish and tofu. They also didn’t eat much meat like their western counterparts due to the two major religions in the region at the time, Buddhism and Shintoism, advocating for vegetarianism and pescetarianism.

While we’re conquering cliches, the Geisha, a genre of event hostess known for tea ceremonies and being master musicians and theatre performers, weren’t expected to be prostitutes despite their reputation. In fact during the Edo period of Japan prostitution was legal, however geisha were not allowed to hold prostitution licences.

But of course, I couldn’t write about Japanese tradition and Shintoism, without going incredibly off course and talking about mythology for a second. In this case, the tale of the sun goddess Amaterasu, who locked herself away after her brother threw a flayed horse at her in a fit of irritation. As someone with siblings I totally understand this reaction. It took half a dozen roosters and an entire party hosted by the goddess of the dawn, in order to lure her out of the cave. The only way to keep her away from the cave long enough to lock it behind her, was a mirror to show her her own beauty. Again, as someone with siblings, I find this story far too relatable.

Anyway, if you really want to embody the life of the samurai, try these recipes and be thankful that your brother isn’t an irritable storm god.

PLAYLIST

Tokyo by Imagine Dragons, Halo by Diverseddie.

Sushi

Popularised in the 5th century originally as “poor people food” because it didn’t need cooking and is essentially raw fish. Sushi has become a cultural staple to the point where Japan has the biggest fishing market in the world (and a Shinto temple apologising to the fish and thanking them for their service. Very Marie Kondo.) Sushi now considered a luxury good across the world.

Process

1. Wash the rice in a sieve until the water is almost clear.

2. Drain and add to a heavy bottomed pot along with the water. Boil the rice for 15 mins.

3. In a small bowl, whisk the vinegar, sugar and salt together.

4. When the rice is done, dump it into a large bowl and cover with the vinegar mixture. Using a large spatula and fan, fold the vinegar into the rice while cooling the mixture with the fan.

Ingredients

Rice

325g short grain sushi rice

1½ cups cold water

4 tablespoons rice vinegar

3 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 pack unseasoned nori for sushi

Filling

225g ōtoro (aka tuna), minced into paste

2 spring onions finely minced

2 teaspoons sesame seeds

5. Keep fanning until the rice comes to room temperature. Lay down the Nori (seaweed wrap stuff) and fill with a thin layer of rice.

6. Add the filling to the side closest to you and the side furthest away, before carefully rolling and serve to your guests.

Tempura

This is a simple dish of battered fish and vegetables invented when Portuguese sailors ended up getting lost and going to Japan instead of China in the 16th century. They were the first Europeans to end up there.

Process

1. Mix the dry ingredients, and pour in the fizzy water and the ice slowly until you have a nice batter.

2. Coat the fish and the vegetables in the batter before adding them to the deep frying oil once its boiled.

3. When you’ve achieved the medium golden batter, serve with soy sauce.

Ingredients

70g Cornflour

30g Plain flour

80ml Sparkling Water

Crushed ice

An assortment of small fish pieces, vegetables etc

Deep Frying Oil

Soy sauce to serve with

Gyoza Dumplings

Made in 6th century China and taken to Japan in World War 2 by soldiers. One of the origin stories associated with Gyoza dumplings is that a medical advisor used to stuff them with medicinal herbs for easy digestion. They applied the warmed package to the ears of the sick to prevent frostbite during bitter winter months.

Process

1. Mix the flour, the salt, and the boiled water into a pastry, leave it to rest for a while in the fridge.

2. Mix the onions, cabbage, ginger, and garlic in a food processor or manually with a knife if you’re feeling historically relevant.

3. Add the meat mince and mix by hand, make tiny pasties out of the pre-made shell mix and fry in a frying pan until golden (roughly 2 minutes).

4. Serve with soy and oyster sauce.

Ingredients

Filling

4 Spring Onions, 2 large Cabbages

leaves

1½cm piece of Ginger

5 water Chestnuts

Sake for cooking with Soy sauce

Oyster sauce

140g minced chicken or pork

Shell

250g plain flour

1 tsp salt

150ml boiling water

SUPPER AND

Seances

I regret to inform you, dear reader, that this is the part where my journalistic integrity breaks down. Though the Victorian era was a great time for innovation, factory work and fancy parties, I personally would argue that the majority of people were not eating particularly interesting food. There were a few outliers to the traditional diet, which I have talked about below, but the majority of recipes were traditional dishes like roast meats, ordinary cakes and porridge that remain staples today in Britain.

Furthermore I would argue that the Victorian era did great damages to the British cooking pallet, with one famous chef of the era, Mrs A.B Marshall declaring that British chefs should boil and mutate food “until it no longer tasted or resembled its original form.”

Now that I’ve got my personal grievances with the era out of the way, I feel we should be talking about the real headlines of the era. The weird and wonderful dinner party choices of the Victorian era. Starting of course with seances!

There is a strange historical pattern where after a period of great uncertainty, like the industrial revolution, comes a great rise in superstition and exploration of the supernatural. With this boom came opportunists, most infamously the Fox sisters. These were three real life sisters who claimed to be mediums with the ability to communicate with the dead.

In reality the sisters were communicating to one another under the table with signals, before loudly cracking the bones in their feet, or knocking an apple on a string under the table in order to create the illusion of black magic. They managed to get away with this stunt for over 30 years before one of the sisters revealed the trick to a famous newspaper in 1888.

Its understandable how popular the Victorian fascination got with death though, as a lot of things were unknowingly made of poison. There was lead in paint, arsenic in certain shades of green wallpaper and asbestos in the ceiling. Even the idea of the “mad hatter” comes from the insanity caused by mercury poisoning from the fabric dyes used in Victorian headgear, that would cause delirium and radical behaviour changes.

To the credit of the Victorians however, scientists like Marie Curie and Florence Nightingale did their best to stop this. It also totally explains why people used to get cured by the “sea air” when they visited a cottage by the coast, it was just the only place they’ve been where the walls weren’t dripping in poison and the sky wasn’t built out of petrol fumes.

Anyway, if you want to eat something from the Victorian era that wasn’t poison, you’ve come to the right place. Here are the least boring recipes I could find.

PLAYLIST

Steam powered giraffe, Hozier’s albums.

FUN FACT

Queen Victoria popularised the idea of the three course meal. Before her, ridiculous banquets were all the rage!

Indian Curries

It’s important to note that the Victorians didn’t invent curries. They stole them. I’m not going to get into the debate of appreciation and sharing ideas VS stealing them point blank. There are lots of ways to obtain recipes, supplies and good ideas throughout history that don’t involve mass bloodshed … taking over India was not one of them.

Disclaimer! This Recipe stolen almost verbatim from Hannah Glasse’s famous late 1700s cookbook. She is a white woman and this is arguably one of the first traces of Indian recipes being found in mainstream Victorian media.

Process

1. Skin, wash, and boil two whole chickens in a quater pot of water.

2. Drain the water and put the chicken in a fresh dish.

3. Chop and fry the large onions with butter and then fry with the chicken until they’re all brown.

Ingredients

2 small chickens

Water

3 large onions

2 ounces of butter

A large spoonful of ginger and “beaten” pepper

An ounce of turmeric

The juice of two lemons

4. Take your turmeric and you ginger with the pepper and mix them into the dish.

5. Pour the boiled water from the chicken into the mix and add your lemon water.

6. Personally I’d serve it with rice.

Bone Marrow Pasty

This is a tad closer to home. While rich people, explorers and the queen were becoming acquainted with tropical food and fruits. The poor factory staff tended to eat much more commonly available scraps in order not to starve. Think like the Oliver musical, or on a good day, maybe A Christmas Carol.

Process

1. Chop the spinach and boil it until tender. I did warn you about the sheer amount of boiling in this section.

2. Make the pastry, any pastry. Whichever kind of pastry you already have, I’ll even allow pre-packaged puff pastry.

3. Store your spinach, the bone marrow and the sugared currents into the pastry pocket before clamping down.

4. Fry them with a little butter or oil coated on the top.

Ingredients

This recipe is taken from a book with no ingredient measurements.

Spinach

Bone marrow

Currents

Sugar

Pastry, “the best rich light crust you have” (see also pirate pastry)

Fudge

I told you these were domestic, however, it was only at this point that British colonies discovered that adding things to other things creates dessert. According to Wikipedia, fudge shops started popping up around the 1880s and became popular for women in American colleges to sell in order to make student life affordable. We even have the name of the woman who was believed to have introduced the craze, Emelyn Battersby Hartridge at Vassar College, New York.

Process

1. Combine sugar, chocolate, and cream.

2. Cook over a moderate heat until a few drops of the mixture put in cold water form a soft playdough feel.

3. Remove from heat and add butter. Beat until it begins to harden.

Ingredients

400 grams of sugar

220g light cream

60g unsweetened

chocolate

1 tablespoon butter

4. Put into a buttered platter/tray leave to cool (probably in a fridge) before serving to friends and family.

SALOON

DINING

Another thing that happened in the 1800s was cowboys. You’ll find Your Granddad’s western movies depict life in the Wild West as a simple “good vs bad” gun fighting town. They either gloss over the “Cowboys vs Indians thing” or lean really hard into it in a white saviour/wise earthly Native American way. I won’t be touching it either, this is not that book.

I will however be talking about prostitutes … because prostitutes ran the west. This isn't hyperbole or some madonna/whore complex, women didn’t have many jobs and men didn’t have many girlfriends over there. It got to the point where men would pay to see a pair of women’s underwear! So, the women took this opportunity lying down, and in a hundred other positions.

A lot of these women became incredibly wealthy and became known for their charitable contributions, funding schools, medical care and churches (Ironic I know.) Wyoming got women the right to vote 50 years early because of the wealth and power these women had.

While we’re there, cattle ranching wasn’t a glamorous gun wielding job, it was too cold at night and too hot in the day.

There weren’t many fights and it wasn’t a job that paid well. Essentially your job was being a sheep herder but bigger, with cows. You moved large animals from one section of grassland to another, kept them fed and occasionally made steak or leather.

For a brief moment in the 1850s, the president explored the idea of herding hippos instead of cows. This was because there would be more meat on them and they’d allow people to farm in marshlands like Lousianna. Evidently they didn’t go through with this, but author Sarah Gailey used it as their inspiration for a couple of brilliant western novellas that I would recommend reading called the “River of Teeth” series.

Much like the environment and the job they had, cowboy food was rough. It had to travel well, survive hot temperatures without going off and store well for long journeys. So this is what they came up with.

PLAYLIST

Dolly Parton (especially “A Lil' Ole Bitty Pissant Country Place” from the best little whore house in texas musical), Orville peck, and the Toy Story sound track.

Cowboy Breakfast

For a day in direct heat controlling large livestock, it’s generally considered a necessity to have a heavy, calorie loaded breakfast. The “cowboy breakfast” has evolved over the years to include eggs and seasoning and all sorts of other anachronisms, but here’s the basic gist.

Process

Coffee

1. Fill coffee pot with hot water. Boil with beans/grounds directly in the water.

2. Leave to set before serving directly.

Beans

1. Wash the beans and soak them overnight.

2. After you drain them, place the beans in a Dutch oven covered with water.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer until the beans are nice and tender.

The rest of the breakfast

1. Cook the sausage over a medium heat.

Ingredients

Breakfast

Half a pound of sausages

25 ounces of potatos/hashbrowns

6 eggs

Cheese

Beans

2 pounds of pinto

beans

2 pounds of ham hock

2 onions chopped

4 tablespoons sugar

2 green chilies

1 can of tomato paste

Coffee

¼cup coffee grounds

1 quart warm water

2. Break egg into a bowl and mix with a fork before adding it to the frying pan and stir, Cook it until it resembles scrambled eggs.

3. Add the hash browns, the (grated) cheese and any sauces and flavours you want in this dish.

One Shot Pot

For a long time, these miners, cowboys and saloon owners cooked everything in a large pot over an open fire with no other alternatives. Ever since the dawn of time people have done a half-arsed slow cooker meal for themselves when they were too busy to care.

Process

1. Early in the morning cut up stew meat, in small pieces (beef or venison), onions, garlic, celery (celery salt will do fine).

2. Cook until tender which will take about two hours.

3. Then add the canned vegetables.

4. If no canned goods available you can add one cup macaroni.

5. 1 cup rice and several diced potatoes.

Ingredients

Stew meat

Onions

Garlic

Celery

1 can of tomatoes

1 can of green beans

1 can peas (alternatively rice and potatoes)

Cobbler

Ingredients

2 cans of fruit

120g of sugar

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

150g butter

1 small egg

Process

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, and drain the liquid from the fruit cans, lay them on the base of a dish and mix them with 2 tbs of sugar and cinnamon.

2. Mix the dry ingredients together until they resemble breadcrumbs, then add the egg and mix until the cobbler mix resembles dough.

3. Dollop the dough over the fruit and bake in an oven for 40 minutes, before serving with ice cream or custard.

Dustbowl

DINNERS

After the bustling heights of the roaring twenties, came the crashing fall of the Great Depression. People were no longer rouging their knees and pulling their stockings down (which was a real thing they did), it was all a mess.

The biggest piece of evidence for this mess was the shanty town taking over of New York’s Central Park. This was filled with the recently unemployed and the destitute in what was known as a “Hooverville” named after President Herbert Hoover. Needless to say they weren’t a fan, in fact most of them suspected he was the cause of this major economic shift.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom though, as necessity is the mother of invention and with a wide array of newly emptied and cheaply available land came plenty of opportunity. People began making tiny versions of golf courses out of what was around, as they were cheap to produce and provided some level of income to what was essentially blank land. These grew in popularity with people trying to compete against one another and do more unique and unusual things with their course, leading to the invention of crazy golf.

My personal favourite has got to be the guy Roman Mars mentioned in the “99% invisible” podcast, who set up outside a brightly lit neon advertising sign so that he could stay open for longer hours and didn’t have to pay for lighting or electricity in the early evenings. It’s this kind of ingenuity that made New Yorkers who they are today and it’s this kind of tenacity that made 1930s food so iconic.

1930s food is a food made of necessity. For example, it saw the dawn of meatloaf. A product that managed to make a leftover serving of sausage mince feed a small family without breaking the bank. This may not seem like much, but it was this sort of decision that was a game changer for those feeling the pressures of the time!

PLAYLIST

The Chicago playlist, Tous le meme by Stromae, “show me a little swing” and “Trombone” by Aronchupa. Anything burlesque-y.

FUN FACT

Aside from rouging their knees, women in the 1920s and 30s celebrated the freedoms promised by the short skirt by painting their knees with flowers, butterflies and other doodles.

Potato Pancakes

If we’re honest these are probably closer to a strange hybrid between hashbrowns and traditional pancakes. Either way if there was a way to make leftovers less terrible for the masses the 1930s found it and recycled it multiple ways.

Process

1. Mix the mash, eggs and flour in a bowl until its a suitable batter.

2. Spoon the batter onto a hot frying pan and fry until golden.

3. Serve with whatever you’d have on a traditional pancake.

Ingredients

2 cups of leftover mashed potatoes

1 egg

A quater cup of all purpose flour

Olive oil or leftover bacon grease

Meatloaf

Not the band. The food. If you had a little sausage mince kicking around that could feed one person, you could pad it out with all sorts of tricks and slap it into a large baking tray for before your spouse comes back from the jazz bar. It’s a brilliant feat of ingenuity and a real “loaves and fishes” style stunt from the archives.

Process

1. Fry onions, celery, garlic and carrots.

2. Add salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce.

3. Allow veg to cool and mix the mince in a bowl.

4. Add remaining ingredients together and mix well.

5. Place into a loaf pan and cook for an hour at 180 degrees.

Ingredients

1 Onion, diced fine

1-2 Celery

1 Carrot, diced fine

1tsp Garlic, minced

2tsp Salt

1 ½ tsp Pepper

2tsp Worcestershire

Sauce

2/3 cups Ketchup

1lb Lean beef mince

1/2lb Ground Pork

½ cups Breadcrumbs

2 Eggs

1/3 cup Parsley, minced

Wacky Cake

Yep, the idea of a cake that substitutes ingredients last minute isn’t a new thing, it was all the rage. It’s just a shame they gave it such a tragic “mid-2000s trying to be quirky” style name for it.

Process

1. Insert all the ingredients, don’t stir until the hot water is added.

2. Stir until smooth (the old timey instructions say 3 minutes).

3. Pour into a suitable tin and cook at 180 degrees “until done”. Probably 25 - 30 minutes.

Ingredients

1 cup sugar

1 egg

½ cup milk

½ cup cocoa

½ cup boiling water

½ cup lard

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon soda

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

IN FASHION

So it took us a mere couple of decades to go from the Great Depression to the Second World War. There’s a man with a bad moustache running Europe and using anyone who isn’t like him as a scapegoat for the collapse of Germany’s economy at the time.

The interesting thing about the second war isn’t Hitler though. I’ve been to the location where Adolf Hitler died, there isn’t a monument to history, in fact its a fairly ordinary park now. Dictators and idiots have been in power since before the social construct of “Europe” and they will probably even be there afterwards. Historians were quick to scrub away any trace of him, including statues. Hell, even Berlin prefers to focus on the recent Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie.

The interesting thing about Europe in the 1940s was the resilience of the people, and the things the war inspired. Ordinary households were forced to go under rations that restricted household favourites while their loved ones went off to war, which caused them to beg, barter, trade and steal for whatever they could get their hands on. They turned to traditional recipes like the ones that got their mums through the Great Depression and inventing new favourites that we still eat today.

They were even motivated to renovate fashion, giving birth to upcycling and the dawn of the jumpsuit! I still think the jumpsuit is the future of fashion. However, the most useful thing to come from such dark times was medical science! A lot of really important medical advancements like blood transfusions, vaccines and penicillin were all created in order to help soldiers survive the horrors of war and disease. I just hope the amount of people saved by these inventions will one day balance out the human cost of the war.

Despite all this, its undeniable that the Second World War was a horrific moment in time, while the men were at war and the children were evacuated, people had to get inventive with what they had around. They dug out old recipes, in a tradition that seems to keep happening throughout history.

When things get bad, humans reach for Grandma’s recipe book. Be it a recipe from Babushka’s family cookbook, Nan’s bakery guide she inherited in chef school, or Abuela’s big notebook of essentials and I think that's brilliant.

PLAYLIST

The Bioshock soundtrack, Tom Leher’s comedy songs from the 1950s, Caro Emerald, anything with a bit of swing to it.

Preserves

This was the housewife’s biggest secret for making the sugar allowance last so long. We already know Britain is full of enough berries to last a lifetime and pickling, jamming and jarring supplies makes them last months longer than their open counterparts. In the words of everyone’s favourite evil Mary Poppins from Doctor Who, “lets make Jam!”

Process

Coffee

1. Rinse off the fruit.

2. Add them to a large pan of sugar and lemon juice.

3. Cook for 20 - 30 minutes, until the material forms a gel on a cold plate.

4. Pour into jars and seal with lids before setting them aside to cool.

Ingredients

900g of mixed summer berries

450g of sugar

2 tablespoons of lemon juice

Butter or vegetable oils

Toad in the Hole

A simple yet filling dish that was great for using up leftover pancake mix after breakfast. This British staple had a boom in popularity with the dawn of powdered eggs to supplement the ration limits.

Process

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

2. Cook the sausages in a tin for 5 - 10 minutes.

Ingredients

30g of margarine/ butter or dripping

450g sausages

150g plain flour

Pinch salt

1 tablespoon dried egg powder

2 tablespoons water

3. Mix the dry ingredients and the milk slowly into a nice batter.

4. Pour over the sausage and cook for 30 minutes until it becomes golden.

½ pint of milk or milk and water

Cadbury’s Ration Biscuits

A simple yet filling dish that was great for using up leftover pancake mix after breakfast. This British staple had a boom in popularity with the dawn of powdered eggs to supplement the ration limits.

Process

1. Melt the margarine, vanilla and the syrup in a pan.

2. Mix in cocoa powder into the mix, then add the sugar and flour.

3. Cut into squares and cook for 10 mins at 180 degrees.

4. Mix dry icing/chocolate spread ingredients.

5. Add the milk gradually and bring to the boil and lower heat.

6. Best until smooth and until mixture thickens.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon of golden or maple syrup

60g margarine

30g of cocoa powder

120g plain flour

60g cup sugar

¼ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Chocolate spread

30g cocoa powder

1 ½ tablespoons sugar

1 dessert spoon flour flour

½ cup milk

Communist RUSSIAN CUISINE

It’s important to understand, that when I say “Communist” I don’t mean in a glossy “Star Trek” way where everyone is living in luxury in a world without adverts. They didn’t have pristine jumpsuits and free healthcare. We’re talking goulags and frostbite, with only two TV channels available to the public and a house shared between multiple families.

It became quickly apparent to Lenin, the Russian leader of the era, that his people being starved and threatened into submission was not great for morale. The Russian public, including young children, were carrying money in a bag nicknamed their “avoska” bag, with avoska translating as “what if”. As in “what if I get lucky and there is real physical food on the shelves tomorrow?”

In order to keep people’s faith in the system, the Communist administration created a cookbook filled to the brim with elite recipes and the promise that one day, you too would dine on four courses an evening. Such dishes included impossible ingredients like lobster, fresh orange juice and ice cream. Bearing in mind, people could barely get their hands on vegetables, chicken soup, milk, or bread.

People in Communist Berlin however, had found loopholes for this. They would have contraband smuggled in. These items were usually western luxuries like alcohol and cigarettes, but occasionally unusual items like Levi jeans or punk rock music tapes found their way past the border. It was a booming business for young diplomats, with Russian and German people having very few supplies available to them but plenty of money to pay for the goods they’d found.

At the moment, the Russian “Book of healthy and Tasty food” should be in the public domain. Unfortunately, someone published the English translation in 2012 and entirely cornered the market for cooking in this genre. The recipes I’m about to write aren’t direct translations (except the borscht, which was found on a postcard from the era) but instead interpretations based on what was common at the time.

PLAYLIST

Tear me Down from the Hedwig and the angry inch musical, the Atomic Blonde playlist, Babushka by Kate Bush and, of course, Rah Rah Rasputin – not the same era but still.

Borscht

I promised it earlier in the space race, so here it is. This recipe was found on a postcard and translated by a kind redditor on /r/russia for me. Here it is, almost verbatim, with a few tiny alterations.

Process

1. Cut the beets into strips.

2. Add salt, vinegar, fat, sugar and simmer in a pan until tender.

3. Chop carrots, parsley and onions into strips, before cooking with fat in the meat broth.

4. Put in the sliced potatoes, chop the cabbage and cook for 10-15 minutes.

5. Add the beets, sauteed vegetables and flour, sweet pepper, spices and cook until tender.

6. Season the finished borscht with garlic, mashed with herbs and lard. Serve with sour cream and parsley.

7. Meat and bones should be cooked over low heat - Young meat is cooked 2 hours, old -3 hours and longer.

Ingredients

75g Beetroot

50g Fresh cabbage

100g Potatoes

25g Carrots

10g Parsley

20g Onion

20g Tomato puree

5g Flour

5g Lard

Pork fat or lard 10 g

5g Sugar

5g Vinegar

10g Sweet pepper

15g Sour cream

5g Herbs

Beef Stroganoff

Okay so Beef stroganoff isn’t from the Communist Cookbook, but instead its ancestor, “A gift to young housewives” by Elena Molokhovets. The Leninist government decided this cookbook was too bougeoir for the Russian people, literally she was too “bad and bougie” for the communist government.

Process

1. Two hours before service, cut a tender piece of raw beef into small cubes and sprinkle with salt and some allspice.

2. Mix together 30g butter and 1 spoon flour, fry lightly.

3. Dilute with 2 glasses broth, 1 teaspoon of mustard and a little pepper.

4. Mix the beef broth, bring to a boil and strain.

5. Add 2 tablespoons very fresh sour cream before serving.

6. Then fry the beef in butter, add it to the sauce, bring once to boil, and serve.

Ingredients

900g of beef

10 - 15g allspice

100g butter

2 spoons of flour

2 tablespoons sour cream

1 teaspoon mustard

Kyiv Cake

Made since 1956 by the Karl Marx Confectionery factory, this dessert became a major part of Soviet life. Originally this recipe was a result of a baker in the Eastern bloc misjudging a recipe for a fruit cooler and then covering their mistake in icing the next morning. The original recipe consisted of a meringue base, but the bakers of the Ukraine couldn’t mimic this so adapted the recipe. That is what you see here.

Process

Meringue

1. Whip the meringue ingredients until it makes a white foam that’s thick enough to stand on its own, pour in roasted peanuts for texture.

2. Spoon the meringue onto a baking sheet, bonus points for small peaks of mixture. Bake meringue for 3 hours at 100 degrees Celsius.

Syrup

3. Dissolve (amount) of sugar in boiling water, add vanilla extract and stir.

Sponge

4. Line a 10 inch baking tin with butter and flour. In a separate bowl, melt 5 tablespoons of butter.

5. Add 3 tablespoons of boiling water and whisk (preferably to rah rah Rasputin.)

6. In a separate bowl, mix 6 eggs until foamy. Add sugar gradually and whip until pale yellow and foamy.

7. Pour these bowls together gradually, adding the flour and the baking powder, and mix until incorporated.

8. Add to the baking tin and bake for 20 - 30 minutes.

Assembly

9. Brush the sponges with a layer of simple syrup.

Ingredients

Sponge

6 large eggs

350 g all-purpose flour

350g cups granulated

sugar

5 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons water

2 tsp baking powder

Buttercream

Meringue

4 egg whites

2/3 cups sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tiny pinch of salt

1 cup peanuts

Soaking syrup

Sugar

Warm water

Vanilla extract

Chocolate Ganache

75 grams dark

chocolate

100 grams heavy

cream, at least 30% fat

10. Assembly should go: Sponge at the bottom, a light buttercream in the middle, a layer of meringue pieces in the middle, followed by another layer of cake, and topped with the chocolate ganache and decorated with any remaining meringue.

SERVINGS space race

I’m going to be honest with you all, I was expecting something a tad more exciting from the 1970s space race. I mean we’re talking to the era that brought us Abba, Rocky Horror and Scooby Doo! But the reality is far more practical than that. It’s a lot of dehydrated military rations in bright silver foil.

Honestly, by the moon landing, the astronauts of 1969 were just glad they graduated past an assortment of cold soups in plastic pouches, which was the standard in the previous missions like project Mercury ten years before. Though if that sounds like torture, consider that the test to see if you could stomach zero gravity has been nicknamed the “vomit comet” for the last 50 years. Astronauting is not for the faint of heart.

Meanwhile, the Russians were also trying to conquer space with equally questionable dishes. Where the Americans chose sauces, the Russians chose paste. Lots of paste. When the Russian and American space stations trialled solid foods, both sides found that sandwiches would cause crumbs, which isn’t ideal in a zero gravity situation, but tortillas didn’t tend to crumble like bread did and frozen foods such as ice cream were a big hit because it lasted well and didn’t go off on long missions.

This is the long way of saying that relations between the international space crews still consist heavily of Mexican food.

But as expeditions went on, aboard the International Space Station, so did human nature, and people began trading dishes. After all there’s nothing else to do and you’re trapped in a vehicle with 10 centimetres of metal between you and the impossible vacuum of space. So the Americans ate Borscht* and drank Russian Vodka, the French space agency brought along Pâté and the Russians were traded burgers and breakfast burritos.

This food was paired with hours of boring scientific experiments regarding the chemistry of different space rocks and a two hour mandatory daily workout so people didn’t lose all their muscle mass when they arrived back on Earth. With all that being said, here are the more interesting recipes they served up there.

*we’ll get to it, all in PLAYLIST

Star Child by the Orion Experience, life on Mars by David Bowie, spaced out by Ellie Dixon.

FUN FACT

The first ever Pizza to be eaten in space was in 2001, by a Mr Yuri V. Usachev, as a Pizza Hut Product Placement deal.

Astronaut Fruit Cake

A staple of space travel, is that the food is stolen almost entirely from American military rations and microwavable food. They loved cubes and they loves vacuum packed products in silver wrap. This recipe ticks all those boxes!

Process

1. Sift together flour, sugar and salt.

2. Place nuts, cherries, quartered dates, in a bowl and mix until pieces of fruit no longer stick together and nuts are well dispersed in the fruit mixture.

3. Sprinkle the flour mixture over the fruit mixture, while mixing by hand. Beat eggs and vanilla until frothy.

4. Add to the fruit mixture and mix until all ingredients are completely moistened.

5. Generously grease bottoms of a loaf pans, and bake fruitcake in preheated 150 degree oven for two hours, or until firm.

6. Store in airtight container.

Ingredients

220g sifted all-purpose flour

110g granulated sugar

½ teaspoon salt

8 large eggs

½ teaspoon vanilla

330g chopped pecans

660g diced dates cut up

22og glace cherries, quartered

Space Food Sticks

Space food sticks were an early attempt at solid food, produced by Pillsbury (the business with the mascot that inspired the Ghostbusters monster) as a publicity stunt. Some people argue that this is the dawn of the energy bar. Tang also tried to capitalise on this, but that’s more drink than food.

Process

1. Mix together all dry ingredients.

2. Cut in the peanut butter.

3. Add the honey and thoroughly mix.

4. Shape into a stick shape.

Ingredients

220g crunchy peanut butter

220g dry powdered milk

2 tbsp wheat germ

2 tbsp unflavored gelatin

150g honey

1/8 tsp. salt

Space bacon

Brace yourself, this contains enough strange unnatural chemicals to make even the Joker jealous. I want to be clear that bacon should never be a square block outside of space rations. Honestly what is it with long journeys and dehydrated meats anyway? Its three steps away from space hard tack. Apologies for the lack of measurements, my sources were difficult to find and vague.

Process

1. Insert bacon into a blender, and add the sugar, salts and all the chemicals except Ultratex 3.

2. Blend until its an ungodly neon pink paste.

3. Add the Ultratex 3 (aka smoked flavouring powder. Yes that’s a real thing!)

4. Put into cubes on a tray.

5. Fry like traditional bacon, or freeze for a later date.

Ingredients

Smoked raw bacon

Sugar and salt

Citric acid

Xanthan gum

Multidestran

FANTASTIC

future

I’ll be honest, with the Global Warming situation it isn’t easy to stay optimistic. It’s looking dangerously like we’ll get enough degrees of global warming to spell out trouble. We seem more destined for the world of Wall-E than an optimistic Utopian future. With all this being said, the best minds of our generation are looking for incredibly fun and dynamic ways to prevent climate change! Starting with my personal favourite … plastic eating mushrooms!

According to BBC News, These were found by accident, after a scientist put a sample of mushroom into a plastic sponge and came back later to find that the mushroom in question had devoured a hole in it. There is a lot of push to put these mushrooms onto plastic waste barges like the ones currently in the Pacific Ocean. It is believed that these mushrooms could be modified into food or materials for making things, though personally I’m not ready to try plastic-eatingmushroom-pizza until the science has been sorted out more concretely.

If Garbage ‘shrooms aren’t your style then you might prefer the new tulip wind turbines. These flower shaped wind turbines were designed in Amsterdam after their native flower as a smaller, quieter, more domestic model for getting energy easily and efficiently. It’s said that a cluster of medium size turbines (roughly 3 metres tall, 3 foot taller

FOOD

than myself) could easily power an entire office floor. This sort of technology that marries style with usefulness could really kickstart major global change.

Finally, something a little more low tech that you could do today. There is a search engine called “ecosia” that plants a tree every time you search for something. Personally I’ve probably planted a whole forest just trying to google certain spellings in this book, or double checking the facts so I can nail the jokes first time! Whether you’re googling for work, fun or trying desperately to find that one reaction gif of Pikachu from the new Pokemon movie, its nice to know that the ad-sense money isn't wasted.

With the recipes I’ve chosen, I’ve tried to balance out the unusual with the ones we already have today. This is my big finale, so I thought I’d throw in a couple of bonus recipes that have potential to send off this book in style. Starting with the more sci-fi dishes and descending into something more accessible.

To be clear, this isn’t going to save the world on its own, that will take a lot of people and direct action against the use of fossil fuel, fast fashion brands and major corporations, with just 100 major businesses responsible for 70% of global CO2 emissions in 2017.

Process

Ingredients

A slab of bright pink clone grown chicken

A quarter pan of olive oil

4 potatoes cut into chips

2 eggs

100g flour

150g Breadcrumbs

Clone Meat Chicken Nuggets

According to the Smithsonian, clone meat and organ growing is being explored by modern biologists. However, this also brings up a lot of questions about the safety of the meat, the ethics of growing meat in a lab and whether this qualifies as “playing god.” They’ve decided to start with lab grown chicken nuggets because they require considerably less focus on the structure of the meat.

1. Prepare the potatoes, peeling them and cutting them into a chip shape (see also, the French revolutionary recipes).

2. Coat the pink chicken pieces in a thin layer of flour.

3. Stir up the egg and dip the chicken pieces into the egg mix.

4. Coat the chicken generously in breadcrumbs until there is a thin crispy layer.

5. Fill a pan up with about a third to a half of oil, Heat up the oil slowly over a kitchen stove until hot.

6. Fry chicken until the breadcrumbs become a golden colour and the chicken is thoroughly cooked. Fry the chips too after the chicken.

7. Remove them from the oil carefully, pat off excess oil with a napkin and serve with an array of sauces.

Insect Brownies

If chicken isn’t your vibe, but you still want to get a meaty protein kick, maybe insects might be your style. Insects make up the worlds greatest animal mass, and reproduce quickly making them ideal to farm. They also produce far less methane gas than livestock like cattle and with a few inspired recipes could be a very bold and interesting addition to a future menu.

Process

1. Line a greaseproof tin with butter or oil, and flour.

Ingredients

400g of light brown

soft sugar

165g of cocoa powder

125g of plain flour

80g of chocolate chunks or walnuts

20g of buffalo worms

200g of organic butter

2 free range eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

2. Melt the butter and cocoa together in a saucepan. Add the sugar and vanilla and mix thoroughly.

3. Remove from the heat and mix in the flour, buffalo worms and then the eggs.

4. Pour into a tin and book at 180 degrees for 20 minutes.

Seasonal Vegan Pumpkin Stir Fry

So this is a very down to earth recipe in comparison. But, if we are going to survive global warming and not entirely rot the Ozone layer, it means that the British will have to stop importing fresh strawberries for desserts in the dead of winter and even cut back on meat products, even in small ways like choosing tomato soup for lunch.

Process

1. Fry garlic on a medium heat with olive oil. Add pumpkins and mushrooms, stir for 10 minutes.

2. Add the soy sauce and the sugar, and mix together until flavoured.

3. Boil a set of simple noodles or make from scratch. Drain the water away and add them to the stir fry.

4. Serve with a sauce of your choosing.

Banana Peel Pulled Pork

These are some that I personally don’t have the courage to try. The BBC article describes it as “one of the most controversial recipes” that the journalist, Laura Young had attempted. I’ve included the link to her recipes in the citations page, and here is the tinyURL to the rest of Laura Young’s cullinary adventures tinyurl.com/fay7xpts.

Process

1. Take your Banana peels and scrape away the insides with a spoon.

Ingredients

Peeled pumpkin, cut into pieces

2 cloves garlic

A selection of

2. Chop lengthways and run a fork down the middle until you get pulled strips. Then chop off the tops.

3. Add the oil, spices, and salt before mixing.

4. Leave to marinate and then fry until gold and crispy. Add Barbecue sauce and serve!

Oil

Smoked paprika

Cumin

Chili

Barbeque Sauce

Finally... Oat Milk Hot Chocolate

Honestly this recipe barely qualifies as the food of the future, this is the food of the present. If I go to any university campus I can find someone drinking fancy oat milk drinks at every table, so why not throw in something sweet and good for the planet!

Process

Ingredients

1 litre Oat

Chocolate milkshake

Oat milk vanilla

ice cream

Cocoa powder to serve

1 Small red Chili

1. Finely chop the chilli, add to the chocolate drink and heat gently.

2. Pour the chocolate drink into mugs, using a sieve to remove the chili.

3. Serve the hot chocolate with a spoonful of vanilla ice cream and sprinkle with a little cocoa powder.

Vandalism

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/61841/11 -samples-authentic-viking-graffiti https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/541713/e xamples-ancient-graffiti https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/32276/11 -colorful-phrases-ancient-roman-graffiti

Classical Celtic Cuisine (Celtic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cernunnos https://druidry.org/resources/morrigan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhiannon https://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/celts/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzQojmrJ X3s

Fruited Bread

http://www.putnoemowsburyfriends.org.uk/p df/Iron_Age_recipes %5B1%5D.pdf

Boar Stew

https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/fooddrink/eating-irish-iron-age-ancestors https://www.aliisaacstoryteller.com/post/eating -like-the-ancestors-an-experiment-in-irishiron-age-cuisine

Berries and cream / Soft cheeses

Mowsburyfriends.org downloaded recipes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKae1k1 BDdA

https://www.hamiltontrust.org.uk/topics/unit/1817-cooking-iron-age -food/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VytJ6pgb mRE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVxO9ZYa3A

Gladiator Grub (Roman) https://www.businessinsider.com/fast-foodancient-rome-history-2018-4?r=US&IR=T https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar#Ru mors_of_passive_ homosexuality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfbXQFs OtDo https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/ro man-empire-road-and-trade-network/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHMRLoJ Z5JA https://fascinatinghistory.blogspot.com/2005/0 5/julius-caesars-bisexuality.html

Faux Dormouse Glires https://www.thenovium.org/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvpJTlYJ 8k0

Fish Platter, Bass, Prawns, Shellfish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCSMo01 kvA&list=WL&index=16 https://historicalitaliancooking.home.blog/engli sh/recipes/ ancient-sicilian-sea-bass-4thcentury-bce/ https://blog.britishmuseum.org/cook-aclassical-feast-nine-recipes-from-ancient-greec e-and-rome/

Makeshift Roman Cheesecake https://historicalitaliancooking.home.blog/engli sh/recipes/savillum-ancient-romancheesecake/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1SggjJp Dvo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfCrzx6ndg https://blog.britishmuseum.org/cook-aclassical-feast-nine-recipes-from-ancient-greec e-and-rome/ https://redcipes.com/recipe/ancient-romancheesecake-savillum-namaste-mama/

Egyptian Dining

http://www.historicalcookingproject.com/201 4/12/guest-post-ancient-egyptian-breadby.html?m=1

https://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq3.html# egypt

https://www.experience-ancientegypt.com/ancient-egyptian-culture/ancient-eg yptian-life/ancient-egyptian-food https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitio ns/civil/egypt/egcl02e. html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ful_medames https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6EhRwn 4zkc

Date Balls

https://youtu.be/tvqKmOm5ygI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lnkiv5Vd qI

https://www.pepperandpine.com/how-tomake-vegan-date-balls-ancient-egypt/ Flatbread

https://youtu.be/biE0ifWNfU4 http://www.historicalcookingproject.com/201 4/12/guest-post-ancient-egyptian-breadby.html?m=1

Ful Madames

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPrm3m wjMBM&list=WL&index=17 https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/vie ws/ful-medames-352993

The Viking Mead Hall (Viking)

https://www.fotevikensmuseum.se/d/en/viking ar/hur/mat/recept

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/a rticle/eat-like-viking-food-cooking-diet-fare

Porridge

https://ribevikingecenter.dk/en/learnmore/food/food-porridge-i.aspx https://en.natmus.dk/historicalknowledge/denmark/ prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-vikingage/food/bread-and-porridge/ https://www.ancient-origins.net/historyancient-traditions/ viking-food-0014285

Salmon

https://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes/vikingsalmon-flatbread-and-skagen-sauce https://www.ribevikingecenter.dk/en/learnmore/viking-slow-food/ recipes/planked-salmon-with-wild-garlic.aspx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Doy4kn WLCIA&list=WL&index=12

Below Decks (1700s Pirates/Sailors)

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/a rticle/eat-like-a-pirate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWwMft FGs4o&list=WL&index=17

https://liquordigest.blogspot.com/2011/05/wh at-did-pirates-drink. html?m=1

https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/goldenage-piracy https://allthatsinteresting.com/matelotage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Bonny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_Yi_Sao

Brandy Water!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5XEwT DlriE

hard tack + grog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEXEW wQ5mnw&t=328s

https://youtu.be/FyjcJUGuFV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyjcJUGu FVg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPTdSM OQRnY

Smoked Meat/Jerky (Buccaneer)

https://jerryhedrick.blogspot.com/2018/04/the -jerky-buccaneer-brief-history-of.html?m=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdmPIp QZPRg

Pie with Regional Fruit

https://archive.org/details/TheArtOfCookery/ page/n8/mode/1up

https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/201 7/11/14/pumpkin-pie-recipe-17th-centuryengland/#pumpkin-recipe

Dinner at Versailles (Pre-revolutionary France) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat _cake https://www.foodtimeline.org/foodcolonial.ht ml#frenchrevolution https://www.smithsonianmag.com/artsculture/when-food-changed-history-the-frenc h-revolution-93598442/ https://stravaganzastravaganza.blogspot.com/2 017/08/family-and-food-during-frenchrevolution.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQlanfO un64&list=WL&index=10

“Restorative” Economic Soup for the Poor https://archive.org/details/frenchcook01udego og https://stravaganzastravaganza.blogspot.com/2 017/08/family-and-food-during-frenchrevolution.html

Potato Banquet https://www.geriwalton.com/man-who-madepotatoes-popular-in-france/

Fries https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNVUd_ RllI0&list=WL&index=4

Parmentier https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/user/649114/r ecipe/rosemary-parmentier-potatoes

Marie Antoninette's tea party https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/paris /articles/the-history-of-the-delicious-macaron/ https://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/e asy-macaroons/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaron

Tea with the Emperor (pre-meji Dynesty Japan) https://www.ehow.com/about_5370714_histo ry-japanese-medieval-food.html https://www.grunge.com/236802/what-lifewas-like-as-a-samurai-in-feudal-japan/ https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2096.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFyJGXic gPY&t=158s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Ai_of_ Han https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/program s/stuff-the-british-stole/

Sushi https://www.foodtimeline.org/foodasian.html# sushi https://www.historytoday.com/archive/historia ns-cookbook/short-history-sushi https://www.pbs.org/food/fresh-tastes/howto-make-sushi-with-step-by-step-breakdown/

Tempura

https://www.justonecookbook.com/tempurarecipe/ https://www.history.co.uk/articles/thesurprising-history-behind-your-favourite-japan ese-cuisine https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/temp ura-batter

Gyoza Dumplings https://www.recipetineats.com/gyozajapanese-dumplings-potstickers/ https://ajinomotojawo.pl/en/gyoza/ https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/gyoza https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/vegeta ble-gyoza

Supper and seances (Victorian) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine37654373 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx2QMoA1 Th9deXXbo7htq21CUPqEPPGuc https://archive.org/details/cookandhousewif00 johngoog https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/foodand-drink/victorian-cookbook-recipes-19th-ce

ntury-mrs-beeton-book-householdmanagement-a8286401.html

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10136 /pg10136-images.html

https://www.flandershealth.us/leadpoisoning/arsenic-in-wallpaper.html

Colonies and Curries

https://www.secondshistory.com/home/victori an-curry-history

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WTyHi MvD7Y&list=WL&index=14

Bone Marrow Pasties

http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/marrowspin achpasties.htm

https://archive.org/details/closetofsirkenel00di gb/page/158/mode/2up?q=bone+marrow+p asty+spinage

Fudge

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/classic -fudge http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/cand y/old/history-of-fudge2.asp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDh68q ACyw8 https://www.vassar.edu/vq/issues/2013/02/vass ar-yesterday/

Saloon Dinner (Cowboys)

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/wefrontierrecipes/ https://www.chroniclesoftheoldwest.com/chuc kwagon.shtml

https://archive.org/details/whatmrsfisherkno00 fishrich/page/n9/mode/2up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMycRBIX TWk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dxOmk egUrM

Cowboy Breakfast with Coffee

https://www.ophdenver.com/history-cowboybreakfast/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/fooddrink/cowboys-recipes-thatll-put-hair-on-yourchest/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQBZZ6 P3aB0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UAoT2 1eqXI

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/weoldwestrecipes/ https://www.food.com/recipe/cowboybreakfast-62696

One Shot Pot

http://cowboytocowboy.com/wordpress/categ ory/old-west-recipes/page/5/ Cobbler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobbler_(food)# North_America

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collect ion/cobbler-recipes

Dustbowl Dinners (1930s) https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptoriu m/eaa/cookbooks/CK0045/CK0045-0172dpi.html

https://www.dailypreppernews.com/whatpeople-ate-during-the-great-depression/ https://www.survivalsullivan.com/greatdepression-recipes/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooverville https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/warfamine-pestilence-and-design/

Potato Pancakes

https://www.recipelink.com/msgbrd/board_14 /2011/JUN/36398.html

https://illinoiscollegehi262.wordpress.com/202 0/04/28/great-depression-gardens-1930s/ https://littlethings.com/lifestyle/depressionera-recipes/2444536-9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc8_Jsqzf TE

Meatloaf

http://www.vintagerecipeblog.com/2014/10/1

930s-meatloaf-recipe.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgroNpg AR4M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGVl7scrYE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgroNpg AR4M

Wacky Cake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_cake https://www.foodtimeline.org/foodcakes.html #wackycake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZV7Ium pB70

https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipeideas/a32306543/wacky-cake-recipe/

Rations in Fashion (WW2)

https://archive.org/details/PotatoesInPopular Ways/page/n3/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/TomatoesOnYourTa ble/page/n16/mode/2up

https://the1940sexperiment.com/100wartime-recipes/ https://www.history.com/news/world-war-iiinnovations ration guide: https://www.historicuk.com/CultureUK/Rationing-in-World-War-T wo/

Preserves

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/world_wa r_two_foods

https://the1940sexperiment.com/2013/08/13/ summer-berry-jam-recipe-no-115/

Toad in the Hole

https://the1940sexperiment.com/2013/08/11/ toad-in-the-hole-recipe-no-114/ cadbury ration biscuits

https://the1940sexperiment.com/2012/03/04/ chocolate-biscuits-chocolate-spread/

Space Race Servings

https://www.businessinsider.com/astronautfood-in-space-timeline-2019-7?r=US&IR=T# 1971-apollo-15-astronauts-ate-apricot-barson-the-moons-surface-6

https://science.howstuffworks.com/spacefood1.htm

https://www.foodtimeline.org/spacefood.html https://www.nasa.gov/aeroresearch/resources/ artifact-opportunities/space-food/ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/space-station20th-food-on-iss

astronaut fruit cake?

https://www.foodtimeline.org/spacefood.html #astronautfruitcake

https://airandspace.si.edu/collectionobjects/space-food-date-fruitcake-apollo-11white/nasm_A19860578000

Space Food Sticks

https://www.cooks.com/recipe/pp7il8l8/spacefood-sticks.html

https://blog.generalmills.com/2019/07/spacefood-sticks-went-to-the-moon-too/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/nzk74q/inside -the-rise-fall-and-stoner-rebirth-of-pillsburys70s-space-food

Space Bacon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA3UaC Xuyz4

Communist Russia/USSR

https://www.eater.com/2015/9/17/9347663/c ccp-cookbook-preview https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/thebook-of-tasty-and-healthy-food/ https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/02/13/S mugglers-thrive-in-dividedBerlin/7978350888400/

Borscht

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/200 8/mar/15/foodanddrink.travelfoodanddrink https://www.jhpostcards.com/products/ukraini an-borscht-soup-recipes-1988-russia-ussrunused

Beef Stroganoff with Pelmeni Dough

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/beef_stro ganoff_16029 https://recipes.fandom.com/wiki/Elena_Molok hovets%27_Beef_Strogonoff

Kyiv Cake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyiv_cake https://en.womanexpertus.com/kievskij-tortkak-v-sssr-dva-retsepta-prigotovleniya-v-doma shnih-usloviyah/ https://letthebakingbegin.com/kiev-cakehazelnut-meringue-cherry/ https://letthebakingbegin.com/kiev-cake/

Ancient Alcoholics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5XEwT DlriE

Mead

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/ how-to-make-mead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MABVVqjOE&list=WL&index=9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h4klZl0 5Kc&list=WL&index=8

Rome https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2QZoL hlh40

Egyptian beer https://youtu.be/izpoexYN1-8 https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/zy murgy/pharaoh-ale-brewing-a-replica-of-anancient-egyptian-beer/ https://passtheflamingo.com/2017/03/29/ancie nt-recipe-egyptian-beer-egypt-ca-5000-bce/ https://passtheflamingo.com/2017/03/29/ancie nt-recipe-egyptian-beer-egypt-ca-5000-bce/

Sake

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2007/10/1 6/reference/sake-barrels-at-shrines/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtbZFz WvTIo&list=WL&index=10 http://www.thewinepages.org.uk/tradsake.htm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sake https://homebrewsake.com/sake-brewing-inthe-19th-century/?doing_wp_cron=1630760 038.0498640537261962890625

Food of the Future

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business57733178 https://extinctionrebellion.uk/ insects https://www.bugfarmfoods.com/recipes/veryeasy-bug-brownies/

Oatmilk

https://www.oatly.com/uk/christmas-recipes https://help-dad.com/dad-recipes/

Clonemeat

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/lab-grown-meat-earns-approval-be-sold -first-time-ever-180976460/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAyYCE3 vFrM https://www.theguardian.com/environment/20 20/dec/02/no-kill-lab-grown-meat-to-go-onsale-for-first-time

Post Global Warming Veganism (w/ noodles) https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collect ion/vegan-noodle-recipes https://serenetrail.com/vegan-stir-fry-noodles/

Carbon Neutral in Season Crops https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/categ ory/all-seasonal https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/wha ts-in-season-december

Recipes that use Waste Products https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4 HkdS1SxsKSG39fmyZRt0kJ/six-zero-wasterecipes-to-help-you-save-the-planet https://www.lesswastelaura.com/

So, I began this journey when the “Chilluminati” podcast, a podcast that specialises in true crime and urban legends, mentioned in passing that the ancient Romans had a drive through restaurant (which, it turns out is true). Thank you to the Chilluminati boys for the idea, you probably don’t know I exist.

I decided that if I could cobble together some of the interesting recipes and fun facts, then I could create a cool, light-hearted cookbook as a passion project and flog it for a bit of pocket money. Nothing substantial of course, but enough to keep me busy. I thought it would be easy, “like printing money” … turns out that proper research is honest work for honest pay. This fact, of course, disappoints me.

My sources vary a tad, from academic pieces in the Smithsonian museum blog and NASA’s online resources, to amateur Youtube enthusiasts, listicles and Wikipedia pages discussing the sexual history of famous intellectuals. I would like to thank all of them, and I’ve cited them all so they get the proper credit they deserve! But also so I can wipe my hands of historical integrity, blame my sources if I’m wrong.

I would like to thank my beta readers for reading their segment and saying so many nice things about them, by the time you’re reading this, my beta readers have received their vouchers from the raffle. I hope you enjoy the bath products and book vouchers you’ve received.

And special thanks for Olivia Mottershaw for giving me the motivation I needed, as well as Armando Palletella for the titular recipe, as well as plenty of jokes about Italy.

Finally an extra special thank you to a detractor of mine in a social media forum, for interpreting my vague enjoyment of pirate myths and my dislike of the Victorian era as a moral argument. Specifically, they thought that me thinking the myth of Anne Bonnie was cooler than dying of Mercury poisoning in the 1800s meant that I personally supported rape, pillage, swordplay and ill-fitting, flowy shirts. To be clear, I only recommend two of these things.

Special thanks and credit to the photographers at unsplash.com/ and illustrators at Vecteezy.com

I would like to thank Sarah Garwood for her hard work with the graphic design. She caught the vibe I was after immediately and knocked it out of the park every time!

sarahagarwood@outlook.com

EVER WONDERED HOW TO MAKE BEER FIT FOR A PHARAOH? WHAT ABOUT THE ORIGINS OF MINI-GOLF AND EGGLESS CHOCOLATE CAKE? WELL, WE HAVE THE BOOK FOR YOU! IN THIS AMATEUR COOKBOOK WE WILL EXPLORE THE CONTEXT, INNOVATION AND PECULIAR CHOICES BEHIND HISTORY’S MOST FUNDAMENTAL RECIPES.

Test readers had this to say...

Viking Section

"absolutely brilliant, recipes will deffo try and the humour is actually top-notch rather than bog standard dad jokes, I’d buy it."

The only historian that got back to my request had this to say:

"A quirky style I must admit, but all the information in it was correct" Zoe Walker (no relation) from the Jorvik Viking Centre in York.

French Revolution

"Hey! Just given it a read through and love it! I'm currently lying in bed and chuckling to myself on some of the references."

Ancient Celtic Recipes

"Celt one is great!! I love it (: It's a really fun and well thought-out piece to read."

Roman Section

"I found it hilarious, I enjoyed the tongue in cheek when describing Roman hedonism and the dormouse recipe."

World War Two

"I like your writing style, I feel like it stands out if that makes sense. You could probably be a bit of an internet personality"

If you decide to try these recipes, contact @roman_cheesecake on Instagram and we’ll be happy to showcase your creations!