The Delicious Legacy

*********** Sponsor The Delicious Legacy Podcast on KO-FI by visiting https://ko-fi.com/thedeliciouslegacypodcast ****************** She is a giant of the Spanish Food and Wine movement.... She probably single-handedly brought Basque Cuisine in the limelight of the English Speaking world...María José Sevilla has worked for many years in the field of Food and Wine. She is a cook, a writer and a broadcaster who has been at the centre of the discovery of Spanish cuisine by chefs and food writers throughout the world. Who best then, to tell me all about the long history of Spanish food and cuisine other than her?We caught up into a chat in her home, discussing her new book "Delicioso: A History of Food in Spain" which you can order here:https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/deliciosoThis is the first book in English to trace the history of the food of Spain from antiquity to the present day. From the use of pork fat and olive oil to the Spanish passion for eggplants and pomegranates, María José Sevilla skilfully weaves together the history of Spanish cuisine, the circumstances affecting its development and characteristics, and the country’s changing relationship to food and cookery.Enjoy!Thom & The Delicious Legacy

******* TW ****** THIS EPISODE DEALS WITH DEATH, VIOLENCE AND THEMES OF WAR THAT SOME PEOPLE MIGHT FIND UPSETTING!!! ****Hello,New episode is out.I hope you have a listen to a rather longer episode than normal, and please let me know your thoughts!Some Palestinian Dishes: Maqluba, Musakhan, Ka’ak, Maamoul, KnafehCookbooks by Palestinian authors or about Palestinian food that Angela Zaher Recommends.Bethlehem by Fadi Kattanhttps://www.waterstones.com/book/bethlehem/fadi-kattan/9781958417287Falastin by Sami Tamimi (and also Boustany)https://www.sami-tamimi.com/cookbooks/falastinYasmin Khan: Zaitoun: Recipes and Stories from the Palestinian Kitchenhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Zaitoun-Recipes-Stories-Palestinian-Kitchen/dp/1408883848aitoun-Recipes-Stories-Palestinian-Kitchen/dp/1408883848Joudie Kalla: Palestine on A Plate:https://www.palestineonaplate.com/Thank you, much love and see you on the flip side!Thom & The Delicious Legacy

Hello!It's heating up this summer!And what better way to cool down other than learning about the history of ice cream and sorbets?!Resources and further reading:"Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat" by Bee WilsonISBN: 9780141049083How Ice Cream Got Its Conehttps://www.seriouseats.com/2019/06/ice-cream-cone-history.html The Delicious History of Ice Cream:https://medium.com/@andersoncuellar/the-delicious-history-of-ice-cream-6a75938630f0 Martini Fisher Ancient History of Ice Cream: https://martinifisher.com/2020/10/30/the-ancient-history-of-ice-cream/ Saltpetre: Regency Refrigeration:https://regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/saltpetre-regency-refrigeration/Thanks for listening!If you enjoy the content why don't you buy me a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/thedeliciouslegacypodcastMuch LoveThom

Hello!New episode for your archaeogastronomical delights , is out now!Today I have author, chef and food historian Jay Reifel in this episode as my guest, and we muse about all things "Baghdadical"!10th century Baghdad the capital of the Islamic world in a sense it was a sensuous place.And it produced perhaps a cookbook, more than mere recipes something extremely modern in some senses, and something that didn't exist in the West (if we want to put labels on things) for another 400 years or so!This cookbook, "The Annals of the Caliph's Kitchen" contained a treasure of information and it was more than 500 pages long!What's Jay's favourite recipes, what did the Abbasids loved to cook and eat and what were the ingredients that we might not know today?Anyway I hope you'll enjoy today’s musings!Love,Thom & The Delicious Legacy

Hello!On this exclusive episode for you, I'm discussing the music of the podcast, the themes written by my friend and musician Pavlos Kapralos. Over the past five years of the podcast I used a few of Pavlos's compositions, for my ancient Greek food themed episodes and for the Byzantium ones.Here we talk about his approach in creating the songs, his inspiration and what do we know of ancient Greek music: how it sounded, what instruments the ancients had and how do we recreate it today!Plus what is the Byzantine music? Both secular and church hymns, and how its the link between the ancient and modern folk music in the East.I hope you'll enjoy this different episode today!If you wanna listen to the whole episode, without adverts, then please subscribe to Supercast or Patreon:https://thedeliciouslegacy.supercast.com/#episodeshttps://www.patreon.com/thedeliciouslegacyPavlos's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@pavloskapralos3969Love,Thom & The Delicious Legacy

Hello my curious & hungry archaeogastronomers!What is "oinos tethalassomenos" ? Where does one find the best eels?What was a highly regarded game meat?Let's discover a few of the many unknown delicacies of the ancient Greek world. What was in vogue? What was considered tasty, healthy and accessible to eat for the average citizen of the wider Greek world, two and a half thousand years ago?Ancient Greeks were quite the foodies.They recognised local specialities, and local food excellence appears to be an ancient Greek innovation, balanced by the equally novel idea that food preferences, also, vary from place to place. Several lists of local fine produce are quoted by Athenaeus, in Deipnosophistai, from texts of the sixth to fourth centuries BC.Moreover, importantly, they were also practical; the food was seasonal obviously, in the age before the huge global networks of fast transportation and just 2000 years shy of electrical refrigeration!So wine that needed to be sold and transported should be preserved and should taste good. As well as other perishable goods and foods too. So many innovations and styles were discovered.What unusual herbs, salads, pickles, fish and meat, were in vogue, beyond the standard ones of olive oil, olives, grapes, figs, sheep and goat? What were they and how these were consumed in ancient world?Enjoy!Thom & The Delicious LegacySupport The Delicious Legacy on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/thedeliciouslegacypodcast

Hello my hungry archaeogastronomers!Humans always wondered why food spoils, what makes it go off, and how to preserve it for longer, and keep it nutritious and healthy. Along the millenia we devised many ingenious ways to make fresh food last, and taste good but also provide us with calories and nutrients.Nicolas Appert was not a scientist, but a former brewer who became steward to the duke Christian IV of Zweibrücken, then to the Duchess of Forbach, and thereafter became a confectioner. As he made the sweets that were preserved with sugar, he became obsessed with an idea: research into the keeping of foods that until now were considered highly perishable, such as milk, meat and green vegetables.A native of Chalons-Sur-Marne 1749 -1841 Appert is considered to have discovered the process of preservation by sterilization. No man is a prophet in his own country as the saying goes and so it was the Americans who were the first to call the process ‘appertizing’. He was at least officially declared a benefactor of humanity in 1822 by the Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale, but nonetheless died in poverty and was buried in a communal grave, like Molière before him. He made his methods common knowledge so that everyone could preserve food at home, and never bothered to take out a patent (which the Americans and English did not scruple to do on their own accounts). Preserving was basically a very simple business, once you had the idea. All you had to do, said Appert, wasFirst, enclose the substances you wish to preserve in bottles or jars; second, close the openings of your vessels with the greatest care, for success depends principally on the seal; third, submit the substances, thus enclosed, to the action of boiling water in a bain-marie for a period of longer or shorter duration, depending on their nature and the manner I shall indicate for each kind of foodstuff; fourth, remove the bottles from the bain-marie at the appropriate time. This method was to be the basis for all the preserved food produced on the planet, from industrial conveyor-belt lines to housewives bottling jars of garden produce in a home sterilizer. The drawback to glass was its fragility, and it was soon replaced by cans of welded tin-plate, used first by the Dutch for fish and then by the British for fruits preserved in syrup.Without him the history of canning and tinned food, would be perhaps a lot different, and the subject of today’s episode not possible...So on today’s episode I have a very special guest to tell me all about the history of one very specific, iconic and somewhat perhaps misunderstood tinned food: SPAM! Yes Spam! Dr Kelly Spring is the author of a brand new book that it is coming out this June in UK and July in the US about Spam, called “Spam - A global history”Kelly is a food historian and consultant and you can find more about her work and her services at theforkfront.com where they bring the past to life through food. She also has a food history podcast called Hungry Historians which you can find on Spotify. I’ll put a link in the show notes with the podcast as well as her new book. Enjoy!!!Get a copy of the book here:https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/spamListen to Kelly's podcast here:https://open.spotify.com/show/2dd70WM8rXd2rMKepkbjwu?si=708838ac72d549c6Love and cheeseThom & The Delicious Legacy

Hello my lovely archaeogastronomers!The Delicious Legacy has gone a bit drunk with the most snobby of drinks, champagne!On this weeks interview I've invited the author Becky Sue Epstein to tell me all about the fascinating history of Champagne. This fancy, fizzy wine from the north east of France, which became the staple of kings, queens royalty and the rich and famous all across the world! How and why?Let's find out here!The book "Champagne- A Global History" is out now by Reaktion Books and you can but it straight from their website here or Becky's websitehttps://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/champagne-2https://www.beckysueepstein.com/books/champagne-global-history/Enjoy!The Delicious Legacy

Hello!Menus.These little pieces of paper, seem to be so obvious and ubiquitous today, not worth thinking about, no further certainly aside from the restaurant.The new book from Nathalie Cooke, disproves this notion wholeheartedly. It provides glimpses into the meals enjoyed by royalty and the rogues, food prepared for the great and the good, adults and children, and how they reflect changing notions of health and institutions should feed for nourishment or punishment.With lavish illustrations, this is an exquisite book, which will make you think deeply.Nathalie writes "Menus whet our appetites. They tell us stories. They open windows on our past. They are designed both to pique and satisfy our curiosity. But even more so Nathalie argues that are strategic documents. They shape the diners' choices and enhance their dining experience.Ultimately, the endeavour is to emphasize the persistence of key elements over time and across contexts despite the myriad variations in menu design."Tastes and Traditions asks not just what is on the menu, but what the menu is doing. One takeaway is that menus “do not always present their wares in a straightforward way; some go off the beaten path, becoming almost as important as the food itself.”Cooke argues that we, as modern readers of historical menus, experience these documents as artifacts, with hindsight, curiosity and often surprise...Enjoy our conversation!Find out more on how to win a copy of Tastes and Traditions here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/do-you-want-copy-129031460Thom & The Delicious Legacy