Noted food historian Sally Grainger prepares an ancient Roman dish using Ferula drudeana during an experiment at Istanbul’s Nezahat Gökyiğit Botanical Garden. “Silphion is a fascinating plant, and I can understand why the Romans craved it,” she says.

what’s your dream occupation?

mine is working as a food historian. it’s niche but i believe, quite important, especially as we’re losing connection to our histories in a constant search for something new.

i also think i’d make a good librarian, language teacher, cultural anthropologist, or food writer. i really enjoy sustainable fashion and fashion history, but i don’t know if i could make a career in it.

how about you? what’s your dream?

tfw you see some stupid post that paints medieval peasants eating just plain grey porridge and acting as if cheese, butter or meat was too exotic or expensive for them, and have to use all your inner strength to not just reblog it with an angry rant and throwing hands with people. so i will just post the angry rant here

no, medieval people did not only eat grey porridge with no herbs or spices, they had a great variety of vegetables we dont even have anymore, grains and dairy products, not to mention fruits and meats, all seasonal and changing with the time of the year. no, medieval food was not just tasteless, maybe this will surprise some of you but you can make tasty food without excessive spice use, and can use a variety of good tasting herbs. if you'd ever tried to cook some medieval recipes you would know that. medieval people needed a lot of energy for their work, if they would only eat fucking porridge all of the time they would get scurvy and die before they could even built a civilisation. they had something called 'pottage' which was called that because it was cooked in one pot. you could leave the pot on the fire and go about your day, doing stuff and come back to a cooked meal. they put in what was available that time of the year, together with grains, peas, herbs, meat etc etc. again, if you would try to make it, like i have with my reenactment friends, it can actually be really good and diverse.

dont confuse medieval peasants with poor people in victorian england. dont think that TV shows what it was really like. dont think that dirty grey dressed people covered in filth were how the people looked like.

they made use of everything. too poor to buy proper meat? buy a sheeps head and cook it. they ate nettle and other plants we consider weeds now. they foraged and made use of what they found. hell, there are medieval cook books!

most rural people had animals, they had chickens (eggs), goats (milk and dairy), cows (milk and dairy), sheep (milk and dairy) and pigs (meat machine), and after butchering they used ALL THE PARTS of the animal. you know how much meat you can get out of a pig, even the smaller medieval breeds? the answer is a lot

if you had the space you always had a vegetable garden. there are ways to make sure you have something growing there every time of the year. as i said they had a variety of vegetables (edit: yes onions are vegetables, for those who dont seem to know) we dont have anymore due to how farming evolved. you smoked pork in the chimney, stored apples in the dry places in your house, had a grain chest. people could go to the market to buy fish and meat, both fresh and dried/smoked. they had ale, beer and wine, that was not a luxury that was a staple part of their diet.

this post ended once again up being longer than i planned, but please for the love of the gods, just actually educate yourself on this stuff and dont just say stupid wrong shit, takk

This really is how it is these days

I learned that a subreddit exists called r/PeriodPantry (for menstrual products) but for a moment I forgot that menstruation exists and thought it was about sourcing historical ingredients for recipes. 😔

why didnt anyone tell me how much lucy dacus slays

>Megumi defending Erina and her tongue, demanding Mr. redscarf leave her alone

how very yuri of you

It would seem from the Epitaphium [Eiusdem Ducis Gloucestrie] that the author of the work may have had a very real respect, and, one might say, affection, for Duke Humphrey, which found expression in the text, and the general tone of the poem. This is not surprising given the duke's character as can be discerned from the overall evidence concerning his life. It would appear that Duke Humphrey's greatest weakness was also his greatest strength. He approached everything on a personal level. This applied to his humanist interests and his relationship with the Londoners as much as his relationship with the court, his enemies and his peers. Consequently, he could only be loved or loathed, not merely respected, admired, feared or disliked for his policies. His public and his private face were, it seems, identical. Although he could be a shrewd self-publicist, he was no politician. His attitude towards the duke of Burgundy and Cardinal Beaufort was hardly diplomatic or detached. This does not mean that he lacked astuteness or the talents required to serve his country effectively. However, he lacked the guile, he lacked the cunning and he lacked the pragmatism to play the politician. He was, in short, better suited to be a ruler, to be counselled than to be a councillor. Just as he could not remain at one remove from his political enemies, neither was he likely to have been distant or condescending to his friends whatever their station in life. I suggest that the myth of 'good Duke Humphrey' was no myth. The esteem in which he was held in London, its environs and elsewhere was probably due to his humanity as much as his humanism or mutual interests. The epitaph is a personal tribute and prayer made in public to a very personal man and public figure.

Frank D. Millard, “ An Analysis of the Epitaphium Eiusdem Ducis Gloucestrie“, Fifteenth Century III (Boydell Press, 2003)

Sis, did you some activists threw tomato sauce on the Sunflowers painting by Van Gogh? I would take them by the hair and make them lick every inch of sauce, until it was all clean up!

No i did not! People physically lashing out on art is so old at this point in 2022

Is it possible to crack one book on American culinary history and not know most of our cuisine is German? High German speakers supply the savory and Low German—namely the Fancy Dutch, the non-Amish Pennsylvania Dutch—supply the sweet.

eating pasta is antifascist

Funny how swathes of crucial, historical events or movements are propelled forward by individuals. So you need to understand the individual to understand much of what goes on in the world. And to understand the individual, you cannot separate them from their personal relationships, daily activities, the mundane stuff. So much of what we consider boring facets of everyday life are so central to comprehending what is going on on a larger political or cultural scale.

Then again, are individuals really what propel these events? Definitely questionable. But that doesn't negate the fact that these shared experiences we all participate in fundamentally alter the world in big ways.

What I'm trying to get across is the idea that you cannot separate the individual from their environment and ignore the importance of the boring everyday, social and communal activities etc in shaping who they are. Behind every 'success story' (or the opposite) there are many, many more people involved than only that single person.

Happy New Year!

I took a long, long break for the holidays because I thought it would be "healthy" and "allow me to focus on fun irl things" or whatever, but I'm back now and ready to be insane again. I mean, I was still watching IASIP because I've not been replaced by a new person (yet), but I actually went outside! Sidenote: why haven't they done a New Year's Eve episode yet? :/

We're finally on the home stretch to S16 and I'm so fucking excited! This will be my first time watching Sunny as it airs because I hadn't caught up far enough to watch S15 as it was airing in December 2021. I mean, I could've but I like some order in my viewing experience sometimes. Maybe I'll finally finish some of my garbage fanart and edits this year with all the extra enthusiasm generated by the new season. Fuck, is this a resolution?

In other happy news, tumblr seems to have FINALLY fixed all my account glitches! I wasn't able to do replies or messages, and all my likes and reblogs were getting hidden for weeks. It was like I barely existed here and it sucked so much because I love talking. It only took one whole bloody month for Support to get back to me about my complaints and fix the bugs, but at least it's done now. I'm so happy!!! But also, what a relief!

So what did I miss when I was gone?

There's no episode today, so instead enjoy our latest list of eight things we like! Please go and check out everyone who made the list -- but especially @catandgirlcomic, which is the only one cool enough to have a tumblr!

https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/eight-things-we-like-1970/@