YESTERDAY A BBC Item on 4000-Year-Old Recipes caught my eye—and taste buds. What about making a Mesopotamian stew?
The recipe, translated from cuneiform courtesy of Klaus Wagensonner, was rudimentary: “Leg meat is used. You prepare water. You add fat. You sear. You fold in salt, beer, onion, arugula, cilantro, Persian shallot, cumin, and red beet, and leek and garlic. You sprinkle coriander on top, kurrat and fresh cilantro.”
Easy-peasy, with Home Stuff Mostly. I’m kinda vegetarian except for sausage, so my protein is “Impossible”-label plant-based meat. Arugula (aka rocket to Brits and others) is one of my fav greens. Shallots and leeks are sorta onions, right? A little research suggests that modern German hefeweizen (wheat beer) is about as close as we’ll get to Mesopotamian brew. I’ve already got the salt, beer, coriander, cumin, and garlic. It sounds like fresh beets are the only addition to my Vons list. What the hey, I’ll get some shallots and leeks for authenticity. Be right back.
Pause here for a Vons shopping trip.
Amounts of This and That? Fortunately, people have been encouraged to try Mesopotamian cuisine, even to posting YouTubes. For example, I got my quantities and techniques from The World That Was which posted “Tuh’u Sumerian Lamb and Beet Stew.” There’s also The Past is a Foreign Pantry, with a charming Brit gal offering a similar recipe from Babylonian Collection 4644. Hers uses another root veggie (parsnip, carrot, or turnip) rather than beets.
Here’s my Tuh’u. I used my large stainless steel Dutch oven. My “Impossible” plant meat renders less fat, so I kept my olive oil handy to balance this.
Don’t worry about the burny bits; they’ll enrich the broth.
Next into the pot goes the salt (and pepper) and sliced onion. Stir a couple minutes for it to release aroma. Meanwhile peel and chop the fresh beets. (Canned are not a textural substitute.) I cleaned everything up as I went along because beet juice stains.
Ball up a handful of arugula and dice it. Ditto for cilantro.
Stir the beets and greens into the pot. Then the recipe says add a cup of beer and 1/2 cup of water. My bottle of hefeweizen was a bit more than one cup; I poured it all in and reduced the water to suit.
Mix in a hearty teaspoon of cumin, a hefty tablespoon of crushed garlic, and some sliced shallots. Bring to a boil. Then simmer until the beets are to your liking. (My preference is on the firm side, not mushy. Maybe 15 minutes simmering does it.)
Mix in a hearty tablespoon of coriander and some sliced shallot. I read that Mesopotamians had a variety of grain and seed breads, so I served mine with Rustik Oven Hearty Grains & Seeds Bread. Gee, a lot of my cooking involves the word “hearty.”
I don’t know how to say bon appetit in Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Amorite, or Aramaic—or to communicate in cuneiform. But do enjoy! ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024