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This article was printed in -Newspaper, Wednesday,
-the Vancouver Sun January 13, 1988.

Several cookbooks tucked away in the depths of a Yale University
library contain what may be the world's most time tested recipes.
The recipe collection - inscribed on three Mesopotamian clay slabs
dating to 1700 BC - are probably the oldest cookbooks in existence,
says William Hallo, curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection. the
cuneiform figures scratched into the tablets provide instructions for
dozens of Mesopotamian stews, vegetable dishes and meat pies. The
recipes reveal "a cuisine of striking richness, refinement,
sophistication and artistry," said Jean Bottero, a French
Assyriologist. Assyriology is the study of the language and history
or Assyria, an ancient empire in Mesopotamia. "Previously we would
not have dared to think a cuisine 4,000 years old was so advanced,"
Bottero wrote in the March 1985 issue of Biblical Archaeologist
magazine. Twenty-one recipes for meat and four for vegetables are
written on the best preserved of the tablets. Instructions call for
most of the food to be prepared with water and fats and to simmer
slowly in covered pots, Bottero said. Bottero said the tablets most
likely date back to the Old Babylonian period of Mesopotamia, which
means land between the rivers. The area between the lowe Tigris and
Euphrates rivers in what now is Iraq is often referred to as the
cradle of civilization. "They are recipes and as such practically a
unique genre that one simply has not encountered before in cuneiform
literature,: said Hallo, a professor of Assyriology and Babylonian
literature at Yale. Meats included stag, gazelle, kid, lamb, mutton,
squab and a bird called tarru. Frequently mentioned seasonings
include onions, garlic and leeks. Stews were often thickened with
grains, milk, beer or animal blood. Scholars have not been able to
identify all the ingredients, including tarru and two seasonings
called samidu and suhutinnu. "What is striking about all this is the
multiplicity of condiments that were added to one and the same dish
and the care with which they were combined into a blend of often
complementary flavors," Bottero wrote in the 1987 edition of the
Journal of the American Oriental Society. "These combinations
obviously presume a demanding and refined palate... betraying an
authentic preoccupation with the gastronomic arts." the Mesopotamians
liked their food soaked in fats and oils, Bottero wrote. "They seem
obsessed with every member of the onion family, and in contrast to
our tastes, salt played a rather minor role in their diet." Hallo
said many Babylonians "subsisted on the barest necessities: and
probably did not eat the food described in the tablets. "It's clear
they are festive meals of some kind..presumably the elite of the
population," he said. Origin: Yvonne Snushall, clipping from paper
Shared by: Sharon Stevens ++_ End Stevens Recipe ++-

Submitted By SHARON STEVENS On 04-21-95

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