Explanations

The way this works

None of the recipes presented here are exactly copied from and ancient recipe book. Ancient people had little salt, no pepper, and certainly no Worcestershire sauce (that cure to all bad English cooking)! They also did not have soy, chilli, tomatoes (all New World products), or even that much cinnamon. They also did not have modern stoves and ovens, and so if they cooked or fried food the way we do, their dishes would have either burnt or come out half-cooked.

We, despite all our geekish interest in history, are no archaeo-diet freaks. We gladly use Tunisian extra virgin olive oil, abundant spices, and good meat. We do stay away from new world products as much as we can (our "ancients" and "mediaevals" did not live in Central or South America, sadly), since the idea is to work within Ancient and Mediaeval Eurasia. Actually, to be honest, there is a geographical limit too. We are not claiming that we are cooking the ancient recipes of China or Cambodia. We are in fact concentrating on the area west of the Urals and east of Iceland.

Historical Information

Since as professional academics, we can barely step out of our teaching mode, almost every single recipes will be accompanied by a historical explanation. You are free not to read it, but just don't tell us, we get hurt. 

The Nature of the Recipes:

It is often the case that the surviving manuscripts contain old recipes for dishes which are much older than the manuscript itself. Either no scribe deemed it necessary to actually write down the recipes or to record the preparation process for any of these dishes (it is possible that the cooks simply passed on the knowledge orally to their apprentices) or, the recipes were recorded but their manuscripts are lost to us.

Therefore, sources that we do have at our disposal not only inform us about the dishes which were popular when the manuscript was composed but also about the dishes which originated and were popular decades or even centuries before the manuscript was composed.

Such is particularly the case with one of our sources, A Baghdad Cookery Book. It is meant to tell us what kind of food was popular in the Abassid court in Baghdad in the 10th and 11th centuries. The names of so many of these dishes, however, point out to older backgrounds with these dishes, including many inspired by the popular dishes of the Sasanian period.

Another important point to remember is that most of these sources are from the court of the kings. Therefore, they reflect a more luxurious style of eating not necessarily common among everyday people. For example, majority of these dishes include a great deal of meat. While it is possible, and likely, that a ruler, be it a Safavid Shah, an Abbassid Caliph, or a Roman emperor could afford to have a meat dominated diet, such was not the case for average citizens. They either made the same dish with a more affordable replacement, such as chicken, or cooked simpler, mostly vegetarian, versions of them.   

The Modern Recreation

So, as mentioned before, our recipes are inspired by these old recipes. While we do have recipes which are almost exactly the same as what is being presented in one of our sources, many of our dishes are modified for health reasons. Just as mentioned above, certain characteristics of these recipes, for example the dominance of meat, indicates a royal audience and thus does not reflect what everyday people ate. We are cooking for our friends and family and not kings and queens! Therefore, we have decided to make the dishes less royal, but probably more authentic, and cut down on some of the most obvious royal additions such as an abundant amount of meat and fat! We are also healthy individuals who like to hold on to our health and do not fancy giving our friends a heart attack either!

Another reason is that with modern cookware, many of the tricks necessary for an ancient cook are not largely unnecessary. We have refrigerators and our foods don't get spoiled as easily. Our stoves and ovens cook evenly, and more importantly, we have better ingredients that can provide a richer taste. So, we don't need to overcook the meat, boil everything before frying it, or cover it with onions so to make sure the (we are sure "slight") smell of rotting in the meat is covered. So, very commonly, our modifications are in the area of cooking processes and updating the methods.