Prehistoric American Food

It was harder to find information than I had expected.

My favorite site was Prehistoric Texas food.

Also worth checking:
http://www.answers.com/topic/food-producers-in-prehistoric-societies

This might help:
http://www.beanbible.com/

Ancient Greek Food

Greek ingredients: olive oil, sugar, butter, sea salt, Greek olives, Greek cheeses, phyllo dough, Greek honey, Greek oregano, lamb, thick strained yogurt, Greek coffee, cucumbers, if a Greek recipe says lettuce it almost always means romaine.

Ancient Greek Recipes: of course this focuses on feasts that the rich had, but it does give a taste of the style of food. A symposium would last hours & hours and start with a glass of wine mixed with honey (oinomelo) and bread. Followed by several appetizers , fresh fruit, meat
phase 2: epidorpion (which now means dessert) several kinds of pies, sweets, dried fruits, nuts, cheese and wine mixed with water.

or, more modern Greek food:
Greek Recipes
More Greek Recipes
Eat Greek Tonight: 180 recipes

Dilled Peas with Peppers - Arakas me Anitho & PiperiesMarinated Bell Pepper Salad or Appetizer
Spanakopita (one recipe or another): Greek Spinach pie (and feta cheese)
Hummus with Tahini - Chickpea & Sesame Dip
Spicy Appetizer Stuffed Peppers with Feta Cheese - Piperies me Tyri
Stuffed Peppers with Bulgur & Basil - Piperies Yemistes me Pligouri

Greek Fisherman's Soup - Kakavia
Greek Lentil Soup

Classic Moussaka with Eggplant
Creamy, Cheesy Baked Pasta with Meat - Pastitsio
Stuffed Cabbage - Lahanodolmathes
Easy Greek Spanakopita (Spanakotyropita) - Spinach Pie with Feta Cheese
Classic Greek Salad
Lamb Burger with olives
Tzatziki (thick yogurt, cucumber, and garlic)
Greek Style - Pork Chops with potatoes in the oven
Chicken with Sweet Red Peppers - Kotopoulo me Kokkines Piperies

Baklava (one recipe, or another): rich, sweet pastry, contains nuts
Greek Jam Tart

Greco-Roman Feast: Roman recipes?

More that may help:
Basics of Traditional Greek Cooking : The basics of cooking the fabulous traditional Greek foods that have become famous around the world are easy to learn and easy to follow.
How to Build a Greek Meal : Although there are certain holiday and/or regional traditions, you can pretty much throw out any preconceived ideas of menu planning.
How Greek Foods are Cooked : The Greek language might make it seem as though dishes are cooked in exotic and unusual ways but cooking methods are actually simple. Learn more.
Ingredients Used in Greek Cooking : What ingredients are used in recipes for the delicious foods of Greece? You may be surprised to find that you already know most of them and either have them in your kitchen pantry or can find them at your local market.

Food from Mali

Especially for those preparing to attend a Mali themed potluck, this may be just enough to get you started. Most of the references are about current eating habits in Mali, and not historical information.

As I hope you would do at any potluck, please bring the list of ingredients and label a dish if it has known allergens or ingredients one might not expect.

From oxfam, "The main foods eaten by a moderately well-off family living in Mali’s capital, Bamako, are rice, millet, sorghum, and beans, cooked as a sort of porridge, served with a meat or fish sauce. A common meal in southern Mali is called tô, a pudding made from pounded millet, served with a sauce of meat or vegetables. In the North, the Songhay and Touareg make thick doughy pancakes served with wild leaves. Tô is also popular in Burkina Faso."

Africa Guide says "The food in Mali is similar to that found in Senegal and other areas of West Africa.

Along the Niger river, fish dishes are popular and include Nile perch (or capitaine) which is either fried or grilled, stewed or baked."

iexplore seems to be more of tourist/traveler information. They say Mali National specialties include La Capitaine Sangha (a kind of Nile perch served with hot chilli sauce, whole fried bananas and rice).

National drinks:
• Malian tamarind and guava juices are delicious.
• A traditional drink is Malian tea which should be drunk in three stages; the first is very strong (‘as bitter as death’); the second is slightly sweetened (‘just like life’); the third is well sugared (‘as sweet as love’). Visitors to Mali may be invited to partake in this tea ritual."

Some Recipes
Sesame Seed & honey sticks

Recommended one a site about Mali: Poulet Yassa (Senegalese chicken with onions)

Recipe Hound has a whole list of recipes, including:

• Sweet Millet Fritters (Maasa),
• Chicken and Peanut Stew (Maafe),
• West African Kebabs (steak or liver suggested in the recipe),
• Couscous De Timbuktu (Stew with Dates and Couscous),
• Fried Bean Balls (Akara),
• Malian Fish Stew, and
• Jollof Rice.

There are some Mali and many more West African recipes at Celtnet.org.

Our (West African, mostly Mali) potluck menu:

• beverages: papaya juice, ginger juice & water
• Fried Bean Balls (Akara),
• Pumpkin soup (where is the line between authentic & what our children will eat? the line between easy to make after a long day (step 1: open a can of pumpkin puree) and more authentic (step 1: peel & cook sweet potatoes)?),
• Millet & lentil pilaf,
• Jollof Rice,
• Crunchy cabbage salad,
  
• Poulet Yassa,
• Sesame Seed & honey sticks,
• Couscous de Timbuktu, and
  
• dessert: lime cake, coconut pie, bananas.

Maya Food

Maize (corn) was the most important crop and a staple of their diet. They also grew sweet potatoes, beans, squash, and yucca and hunted for wild turkey, duck, deer, monkey, and peccary(wild pig) and caught fish. Many living in the Yucatan today have a similar diet.

Only nobility could drink chocolate.

Websites to check:
The Maya Foodtimeline on food and agriculture, Wikipedia on Maya cuisine, and Food of the Maya 300 BC to 900 AD (their only recipe is popcorn!).

Learn more about Corn at Newton's Apple. Video. Ethnobotany Teacher's guide

Recipes online:

• Maya Recipes including tamales, pumpkin soup, ...
• Maya Recipes from FuegoNeuvo Restaurant (salsa, soups, main dishes & a drink)
• Apple Strudel (what kind of apples did they have?)

Friends of Big Dog: Don't forget to sign up for your favorite themed food to bring on Friday of the dig!

Italian Renaissance Food

{{You can go straight to the recipes or view other Renaissance Italy Resources.}}

caption: The Marriage at Cana, from the Spiegel menschlicher Behältnis, Basle 1476. From Gode Cookery

What one eats is always influenced by what is available and how much money you have. Renaissance Italy is no exception. I am sure there were significant regional differences – just as there are today, although I can not find any reference to the “olive oil/butter line”. I did find references to olive oil used “for flavor and as a cooking medium”.

The Renaissance was a time of “awakening” and changes and food was not exception. Although Marco Polo is unlikely to have gone to China, people did and their influence was seen in many places.[1] One site said that China was responsible for spices, certain stewing/cooking preparations and the custom of eating fruit before a meal. Italians started stewing foods in fruits, wine and spices during the Renaissance. Multi-colored gelatin was seen in Florence - at least at their exclusive cooking academy.

Before refrigeration everyone was much more aware of what was in season and ate fresh when they could, and dried items out of season according to what was available.

caption: Line illustration and A Last Supper picture from Gode Cookery

Most Europeans were still Catholic and feast/fast days were observed. At one point in the late Middle Ages about half of the days of the year were designated fast days when no meat could be eaten. Of course this was not much of an issue for the poor who could not afford to eat meat as often as every other day! Fish was popular, fresh, dried, and salted, especially in the Lenten season.[2]

Common Foods

Almonds and onions were both very common in general, but I can’t say much about them for Italy in particular. (Please check for food allergies if you are feeding a group!) Common in Italy:

• Vegetables
  
• Bread, pizza (no tomato sauce) & hard biscuits
• The middle class at this time was responsible for the popularity of pasta, lasagna, and ravioli (without tomatoes)[3]
• Soups and stews
• Rice/risotto
• Cheese: including brie, cheddar, gouda, buffalo mozzarella cheese
• Omlettes
• Meatballs, pork, small birds, pike (fish) and game
• Wine (Water was used for coking when it was known to be safe)

Search for Cooking Methods for Vegetables on Gode Cookery's How to cook Renaissance foods for details - but boiling when the water was safe, and eating raw salads were both common. That page also discusses use of water & wine & alcohol, elsewhere the site lists foods to never use for Renaissance cooking like corn, tomatoes, turkey (which had not yet reached them from the New World), rhubarb and bananas (probably know but not used), potatoes, and yams (which traders would bring from Africa). Check out the illustration of a spit from Historic Food.

At Home in Renaissance Italy says “During the Renaissance it was common for meals to have four courses, which could consist of one entrée, two meat courses and one course of fruit or cheese. Meat was expensive and eaten regularly only by the wealthy. Short pasta, which would be boiled, became increasingly popular during the sixteenth century and soon dominated the Italian diet.”

From The Food Timeline

Cuisine of Christopher Columbus
He was born in Genoa where a diet with lots of herbs and salads - but no or few spices and no coffee was common. Read more about cuisine of his Genoa days. Recipes - for his whole life - are here.

Recipes Online

• At home in Renaissance Italy recipes. Note: the recipes are by weight in grams, not cups of ingredients. Got a scale?
  
  
• From Gode Cookery: A Renaissance Cookery Book – with recipes ( but in the original…) and the recipes - in the original & “translated” to modern English
  

• Menu & Recipes from Alabama Renaissance Faire: The 2005 Feast
  

• French Renaissance Menu: http://saint-esprit.freeservers.com/food.htm

• Food of the Renaissance from the Virtual Renaissance Team includes "tidbits" and recipes for breads, cheese & eggs, soups, vegetables (did you know the beginning of autumn was the best season for celery?), staples and desserts. They even have the script of a veggie presentation!

• Editure's Renaiassance Food Worksheet includes a recipe for gingerbread and sample menus.

• Renaissance Peas, Sausage, or gingerbread (more like candy)
  
• Renaissance-style Pasta
• 16th century Italian Carrots in Vinagrette from De Honesta Voluptate et Valetudine by Platina and a Cariota
  
• 16th century Italian Peach Compote
• 16th century Italian Pear Pie
  
  
• Janis Herbert's Leonardo da Vinci for Kids has a recipe for Vegetarian Minestrone (p. 46) and Salai's Aniseed Sweets (p.49). da Vinci probably ate minestrone - but not this one with tomatoes! Spanish explorers brought kidney beans back from Peru in the 15th century so he may have eaten them. While we know that Salai liked anise seed; I am not sure we know if he ate this date sweet recipe. (For more on minestrone, see Richard Calhoun's piece).
  

I also enjoyed reading "What Foods are Period When?" by Marieke. Although I was confused by her referring to Protestants in Medieval Times - since they did not exist until the Renaissance in Italy (while it was still "High Middle Ages" elsewhere).

References for this page included:
Victoria & Albert's At Home in Renaissance Italy
Goode Cookery
Thinkquest's library

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[1] Last week I was told that daVinci was responsible for the “modern” spinning wheel, and he was influenced to do this by information on pulleys – from China. I want to check that out.

[2] Salt was a major trade item, probably from at least the time of Viking invasions. I can’t remember when salt flats were created in Europe.

[3] Remember tomatoes were from the New World and originally thought to be poisonous. Extra credit: tell us when tomatoes arrived in Europe and when people started eating them. Make your own food timeline.