Merry Christmas my lovely archaeogastronomers!

The second bonus episode of this Christmas season is out!

Just less than a week now till Christmas day, this is a special one, with friends of the podcast -and fellow podcasters- plus food historians, Neil Buttery, Sam Bilton, Brigitte Webster and Ali Pino

talking to me about their favourite historic Christmas recipe!

What do they like preparing, eating and sharing with friends and family and why?

Let's find out here!

Plus, I'm in the kitchen, preparing a bunch of traditional Christmassy things! English such as Christmas Pudding, mince pies, and Smoking Bishop and the famous Greek melomakarona of my childhood!

Have a lovely time off, with health and happiness for all your families and loved ones!

Listen to Sam's Comfortably Hungry Podcast here: https://open.spotify.com/show/3iSZMea3TBwMx1tZ1c9rN7?si=f2b5705dd1b14b12

To listen to Neil Buttery's podcast, go here: https://open.spotify.com/show/5dJzPk1ux4b4o8Q9s2L7m6?si=4dd7111b1dde40ac

And for Ali's podcast go here: https://open.spotify.com/show/5IV7dms3DLxrVF81zj6ZRY?si=5c63b4da75174237

Much love as always,

Thom

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"Capons, hens, beside turkeys, geese, and ducks, beside beef and mutton must all die for the great feast; for in twelve days a multitude of people will not be fed with a little! Now plums, and spice, sugar and honey, square it among pies and broth...Youth must dance and sing and the aged sit...and if the cook do not lack wit, he will sweetly lick his fingers..."

Hello and welcome back to another archaeogastronomical adventure!

Christmas time in nearly upon us!

And what better way to start the celebrations, other than an episode about the Christmas food traditions of the Tudor era?

We are not quite in modern times yet, we are short of out of the Medieval time, the world is expanding with Europeans travelling East- West and South all over the Atlantic in the Americas and bringing back strange new foods!

So what did the English eat then and how the common folk and aristocracy celebrated during these troublesome times?

For this reason I invited back Tudor food expert Brigitte Webster to tell us all about the food of the Tudor Christmas Table!

You can get Brigitte's fantastic book here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eating-Tudors-Recipes-Brigitte-Webster/dp/1399092596

Enjoy!

The Delicious Legacy

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Hello!

Have you heard of Avgotaraho and Trahana?

Two very different, interesting ingredients and dishes from Greece's vast menu.

Let me take you into a journey with the nomadic transhumanism shepherds of the Balkans and down to the labyrinthine lagoons and wetland of West Greece in Messolonghi where Lord Byron made a heroic last stance giving his life for Greece's independence and freedom.

There a part of what used to be called Roumeli region, from around November through April, it is the season for lavraki (sea bass), the rockfish govios (goby), and a small local shrimp, roughly an inch long, that is fried and eaten whole. November also marks the beginning of the saltwater eel season, which is a very important local fish commercially—most of it is exported directly to Italy, and there much of it is consumed in Comoccio, south of Venice, where eel is the national dish...

Well today's episode is all about them, their history, lineage and how they are made and eaten! Listen, get hungry and repeat! :-)

Enjoy!

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London.

Mid eighteenth century.

A busy, raucous city, capital of a growing economic power.

Wars abroad. Art, theatre, music. Plotting.

What better symbol of English manliness, in the face of all the difficulties, winning against all enemies, than beef?

And what better meal than a steak? And where do you get your steak with your mates and your cigars and your politics and plotting?

Welcome to the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks, on of the most prestigious private members clubs in the history of private clubs!

Enjoy!

The Delicious Legacy

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

Welcome back to another episode! An exclusive interview with author, food writer and all around brilliant human Sejal Sukhadwala, where we talk about Indian food, Indian history, the word curry, and the spread of said food but also Indian cuisine around the world and especially UK. We've met at the British Library Member's Area -hence the background chatter- and talking for nearly two hours about the long story of Indian food.

Since starting this podcast over two years now, I’ve covered many many topics from the ancient world. But I’ve never ventured in great detail in India’s past, to examine her vast, rich cuisine and history into any detail. Of course we know the ancient Greeks and Romans had trade networks in land and on sea that stretched to the Indian subcontinent, and there was a complex and interconnected commerce of spices, of many expensive ingredients used in the ancient Greek and Roman cuisine. Chiefly pepper, black and long pepper, but also cinnamon and ginger and various others. Some of the world's earliest civilizations rose and fell in the Indian subcontinent long before the Greeks wrote and spread the Homeric epics. But what do we know of the Indian culinary history? What do we know of their foods and ancient recipes? Did the complex mix of religions over the millennia and especially with Hinduism and later on Buddhism played a significant role in the diet of the people?

Have many things survived? What's the lineage that connects the past inhabitants of this vast land to the present day? Many of our staples today and some of the most popular vegetables and fruits have their origins in India. Cucumbers and aubergines are two prime examples. Sugar from sugarcane first is mentioned in ancient India of 1000BCE as we’ve seen in the episode of the podcast with Dr Neil Buttery a couple of months ago…

Well I’m very happy to say that I have a very esteemed guest on today’s episode to talk to us about many aspects of the complex and often misunderstood cuisine! Today’s episode will be a sort of introduction to the world of Indian cooking and I hope in the near future to explore a lot more in depth and detail the fragrant sweet and savoury character of the food from ancient times till the modern age of spice trade with the English Portuguese and Dutch…

Enjoy!

Thom & The Delicious Legacy

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Hello my lovely archaeogastronomers!

Today we'll explore the traditional Greek charcuterie, how is it made, what meat is used, and what continuation and connection has with the Byzantine and the ancient past.

I grew up eating bacon, ham, salami (danish style, milano style) and not much in the more traditional local Greek charcuterie. We were never famed for it in our modern cuisine as one knows Greek salad, feta cheese, pastitsio, souvlaki, moussaka etc...

I was curious: We don't do at all our unique preserved meats? And if so, why? And if it exists, why I don't know about it? I must taste it!

What is "Syglino", "Apaki" or Pasturmas?

Anyway let's find out of the unique smoked, salted, and matured meat preparations of Ionian Islands, of Peloponnese, Macedonia, Cyclades, Thrace and Crete!

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Volcanoes...

Ancient sacred rituals...

Cheese matured at the bottom of wine barrels. Cheese steeped in olive oil for months. Today's adventure in the eastern Aegean islands of Greece, is an unusual one.

The islands have their own unique, unusual and tasty cheeses that defy specific categorizations.

Greece. Cheese.

What can possibly else be said?

Enjoy today's adventure!

• A YouTube lecture from Professor Tate Paulette:

"Fermentation in Ancient Mesopotamia, Beer, Bread and More Beer":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDva-HQmLUo

And his book is out soon and it's called, "In the Land of Ninkasi: A History of Beer in Ancient Mesopotamia" , link to get it here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Land-Ninkasi-History-Ancient-Mesopotamia/dp/0197682448/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LACZB9Y4597H&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.D8RjokggtN32jESMm27WyQ.FotreWbyENYZGO3fXGoHZ7LODlxcIb5sEFoKLfMWR0M&dib_tag=se&keywords=In+the+Land+of+Ninkasi%3A+A+History+of+Beer+in+Ancient+Mesopotamia&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1730400252&s=books&sprefix=in+the+land+of+ninkasi+a+history+of+beer+in+ancient+mesopotamia+%2Cstripbooks%2C84&sr=1-1

• An interesting project to map ancient roads, shipwrecks on modern topographic maps:

Putting human past on the MAPS:

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/06/harvard-digital-atlas-plots-patterns-from-history-ancient-and-modern/

• Isaac Rangaswami Wooden City a newsletter about London.

https://woodencity.substack.com/

• The Hollow and the Whole — Picking Apples at Nightingale Cider in Tenterden, Kent

https://www.pelliclemag.com/home/2024/03/20/the-hollow-and-the-whole-nightingale-cider-katie-mather

• A Slice of Cheese podcast with Jenny Linford from FoodFM Radio.
• https://open.spotify.com/show/2weTJIKyG5XqQ04qFfwPUv?si=5b08742d7c5f4e6e

Thanks for listening and reading!

Love

The Delicious Legacy Podcast

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Hellenistic Egypt: A land of opportunity. A rich, ancient, fertile land where anything is possible.

Hello! Welcome back to another episode of The Delicious Legacy

Bustling and busy cities with their markets and food stalls, and sellers hollering theirs goods isn't a new phenomenon exclusive to our metropolis of New York or London. These markets and people existed as long as cities existed!

But how these markets were organised in the ancient Mediterranean? What did they sell? How did they smell, who could trade and where in the city were they?

Well let's find out on the latest episode where we explore a particular market of a town that we have so much information -found quite literally in the rubbish- written by her own inhabitants, at the time they were alive!

I'm talking of course of the City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish, or as we know it , 'Oxyrhynchos', and the episode today is based on the book of Peter Parsons.

Enjoy!

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From Neolithic hunter-gatherers, to ordering food via an app on our phone and getting delivered with our groceries the English Table went through an extraordinary travel.

For access on the extra content subscribe on my Patreon page...

Food writer legend. Award winning author. Editor at Penguin Publishing. The lady is extraordinary!

Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson. Two names that might not resonate as much with today’s audience as they should, but significantly their food writing in the 60’s & 70’s created the genre that led to everyone from Delia Smith to Nigella Lawson today. They are perhaps the two most important cookbook authors and recipe writers (amongst many other things they did) of post-world war two Britain -and indeed very influential in the English speaking world-, in shaping how modern books about recipes and food are written; how the subject of food is seen as inclusive of many people from diverse backgrounds with the act of cooking and putting food on the table for a family and friends (regardless of social class or level of experience with cooking)

Anyway find out more about her life, and her new book and English food here!

The book is out on November the 4th: https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/the-english-table

Music by Pavlos Kapralos:

Much love,

The Delicious Legacy

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Hello!

Fermented food is literally everywhere.

Why do we love fermented foods so much? When did we start making them intentionally and crucially are they good for us?

Today's special guest on the podcast is James Read, author of the book "Of Cabbages & Kimchi"

James Read is on a mission to smuggle bacteria into our kitchens. In Of Cabbages & Kimchi, he takes the ten greatest ‘living’ ferments – fermented foods that are neither cooked nor pasteurized – and places them under the microscope, before cooking with them in all their delicious versatility.

From the fiery funk of kimchi to the velvet tang of kefir, James describes the microbial process, then shares his recipes for recreating these wonders in your own kitchen. Alongside his recipes, James investigates the extraordinary cultural and historic backgrounds of fermented foods, exploring how the microbes that bring them to life have developed alongside our culinary evolution.

So I went into his house yesterday and had a lovely chat about his favourite fermented foods. We also tried some lovely home-made kimchi, soy sauce and tepache drink the Mexican slightly sweet slightly sour fermented beverage!

Find out more about James and order his book here: https://jamesreadwriter.com/

He is also on Instagram as @jamesreadwrites

Enjoy our conversation and if you have any questions or recommendations do let me know!

The Delicious Legacy

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If you love to time-travel through food and history why not join us at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-delicious-legacy.

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