It's not Greek or Roman So It Must Be Ancient!

Author: * Donalda Antonius - 1 Post on this thread out of 124 Posts sitewide.
Date: May 16, 2003 - 00:37

Ancient Persian Fruit Salad Recipe

This recipe, and some of the others I'll post in the future, are from The British Museum Cookbook written by Michelle Berriedale-Johnson.

The inspiration for her cookbook was the Museum itself. She felt that after visiting the Museum, it would be fun to go home and recreate some of the cuisine of the various cultures represented there. You may wonder how a person can seriously hope to recreate the menus of people that lived 4,000 years ago, in a totally different part of the world. The answer is you cannot, or at least you cannot do it exactly. What she has done, wherever they exist, is base the recipes on original recipes, instructions and descriptions of dishes. Where this isn't possible, (there are for example, no extant ancient Greek, Persian, Egyptian or Aztec recipes), she uses foods that we know to have been available at the time, and the techniques which we know they had mastered to create dishes which could have been eaten by them.

Khochaf or Khoshaf or Dried Fruit Salad

Fruit salads made from dried, rather than fresh fruits and macerated rather than cooked are tradional favorites, especially in ancient Persia. The combination of fruits can be altered to your own taste although purists insist that apricots and raisins alone are allowed. Pomegranate seeds can be used for color and the nuts added at the beginning or the end. If added at the end, they retain a slight crunch.

225g / 8oz dried apricots

100g /4oz plump raisins

1 teaspoon pomegranate seeds (optional)

approximately 50g / 2oz sugar

1 tablespoon each rose and orange blossom water

25g / 1oz pistachio nuts or roasted pine nuts (or, 15g / 1/2oz of each)

Put the apricots and raisins in a bowl with the pomegranate seeds and sugar. (the amount of sugar you use is a matter of personal taste).

Pour in plain water then sprinkle with rose and orange blossom water

Cover and leave to soak in a cool place for at least 48 hours. The syrup will acquire a delicious flavor and a deep rich color from the fruits.

Mix in the nuts and serve lightly chilled, alone or with whipped cream.

Whipped cream? Was that really available back then?