The Oldest Comfort Food

A few days ago, a friend posted this article from the American Schools of Oriental Research blog on Google Plus.  The article explains in some detail how we know what we know about the food cooked by the inhabitants of ancient (e.g., Biblical period) Israel.

In the web article, Cynthia Shafer-Elliott, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible and Archaeology at William Jessup University in California, examined Biblical references to food, vegetables, legumes, and other foods known to grow or otherwise been available in the area for millennia, and available food preparation tools and techniques to support her conclusion that most Israelites often ate stew, probably on a daily basis.  Pottery usable for stewing has been found, as well as a kind of oven called the tannur (compare to the tandoor used in India), for baking flatbreads.  A photograph of a reconstructed tannur appears in Ms. Shafer-Elliott's web article.

Ms. Shafer-Elliott's conclusion that the early inhabitants of Israel stewed much of their food. makes sense in light of the practical difficulties of other forms of cooking technology, such as hard boiling, in the ancient and early medieval world.  Ms. Shafer-Elliott's article mentions a written Assyrian source that contains at least 100 different stews and soups.  The ancient Romans, including Roman legionaries, ate porridge (stewed grain) as a large part of their daily diet.  The Vikings likely enjoyed lots of stews and porridges, and Hungarian herdsmen of the same period were making goulash--a kind of stew--at the same time.  Meanwhile, at least 2,000 years ago, the Chinese were making soup, a fact we know because a little of one batch still survives.

Clearly, the crock-pot chef's favorite cooking style--take a heatable piece of crockery, put in some liquid and tasty food ingredients, and simmer for hours till done--has a long and honorable history.  It makes me feel a little bit connected to the past every time I make a stew or soup in my crock pot.