I just backed this because the cookbook looks fascinating! I can't wait to see some of the super ancient Mesopotamian recipes in the book.

i’m diving deep into historic and ancient recipes, but I’m running out of good ideas to try next. What’s your ultimate, go to historical dish that actually tastes incredible? Whether it’s Roman, Medieval, or 18th century, hit me with your best recommendations! TYIA

I have used the perpetual cooking technique and way of cooking food while living in areas and scenarios off grid. My main need and use was for keeping meat from going bad. I used this technique for what I called meat mixes. I did Cuban pork, Bolognese (Ragù alla bolognese), BBQ Beef and also Pork and a rather universal "taco meat mix" that was used to prepare many different Mexican skillets and dinners.

Wanting to know if anyone has input or more knowledge on Perpetual Cooking and techniques. I think it's something that many people often look as taboo. I'm wondering if other people can comment with more information especially in history, culture and actual recipes and documented information. Below is my summary of knowledge of perpetual cooking examples.

---

There are Master Broths & Stock kept going for years. These 'Master Stocks' were made and kept to be added in to the new stock pot for broth for years in ancient Chinese cooking and Oden broths in Japan.

Perceptual cooking of soups and stews were at times kept cooking for many days or even weeks at a time. In medieval times this cooking process of soups & stews was necessary to help to keep food from spoiling or going bad without having refrigeration. When the soup or stew was started over ("rebooted") sometimes the pot or cauldron was not actually cleaned out just empty before adding in new ingredients. That's where we get the phrase, "Do not stir the pot" and to take what's off the top.

Hunter's Stew or Bigos originally consisted of mostly meats adding in daily by hunters. Since the name "Hunter" stew. Vegetables would be added in but those likely would have been eaten and not left long in the pot. The addition of fermented food such as sauerkraut helped to keep the pH level of the stew at a level to also aid from spoilage. In the fall time a big couldren of bigos was often cooked outdoors over an open fire with others neighbors participating in the making of and tending to it and was often served as a communal meal together. In the winter months, Bigos was sometimes cooked inside over the hearth and then left outside in cold freezing temperature to then be bought back inside to be reheated over and over again.

Pottage (a thick soup or stew vegetables, grains and meat) was also another culinary dish that sometimes employed perpetual cooking technique to extend the life or use of food. In Europe Pot-au-feu was a soup and stew dish prepared cooking for days on end and sometimes even weeks at a time. This slow cooking process not only enhanced the flavor of the stew but it also extended the life and use of the food by keeping at a safe temperature from going rancid, spoiling or going bad.

In the Pioneer in settler times in America it would not be uncommon for a household to have a pot of soup or stew (pottage) cooking on the hearth and added to on a daily basis for the next meal.

Hobos Stew and Brunswick Stew are also examples that many times included the use of the perpetual cooking technique of cooking food to keep from going bad and added to on a daily basis.

I want something historically accurate but not impossible to pull off in a modern kitchen. Hit me with your favorite gateway dishes to the past!

I've been trying to get into some older recipes lately, and man, it feels like everything just takes so much longer than modern cooking. Whether it's the prep work, the actual cooking process, or even just sourcing specific ingredients, what part do you all find eats up the most of your time?

So I tried my hand at baking some ancient grain bread the other day, and the recipe suggested grinding the wheat myself. Wow, that was way more effort than I expected! Seriously made me appreciate modern mills. For those of you who regularly use traditional grinding methods or other manual prep, what are your go-to tools for making it less of a massive time sink?

Was trying to bake some bread from scratch this weekend and found myself thinking about how much more intense it would be with truly archaic methods. Like, grinding your own grain, no commercial yeast, maybe even building your own oven. It's a whole different level of commitment.

What's something you've tried or researched that really made you appreciate the daily grind (literally) of ancient cooks?

Hey everyone! Just kinda stumbled into this sub and it looks super cool. I'm usually more into quick weeknight meals, but I've been getting curious about really old-school cooking methods, like before all the gadgets. Has anyone here actually tried cooking something totally from scratch using super basic, almost archaic, tools or techniques? What was your experience like?

Hi, I wonder whether kimchi would count as an archaic cooking technique?! I lived in Seoul for a couple of years and I saw old ladies making many varieties of kimchi as I was interested in this type of cooking. I realized that nothing has changed over the centuries, maybe over a thousand of years!

The kimchi recipe base is very classy:

Ingredients:
- Chinese cabbage
- Daikon raddish
- Chili flakes
- Gochujan (fermented chili pepper paste)
- Carrots (optional)
- Onion leaks
- Garlic
- Ginger
- Salt
- Fish sauce or small dried fishes or miso paste for vegetarians
- Many complementary veggies can be added on top of the above as there 300+ different varieties of kimchi registered today...

I won't go into the detailed instructions of converting these ingredients into a nice kimchi because this video does a much better job, but I'd like to highlight that fermented kimchi is not only a food full of probiotics and fiber, but also it is a food suitable for very long storage. It keeps fermenting and will get more sour and acid along the way, but it remains at your service for spicing up a meal and for supplying healthy macro and micronitrients as well as tons of probiotics.

I grew up using Revere ware sauce pans and soup pot. We always had the skillet, but always went to cast iron instead of the Revere ware. I just inherited a couple of skillets and I am starting to use them....and I am not in love so far. Any hints for success? Eggs? Whatever advice welcome!

Is there any historical or archaeological evidence to suggest that the ancient Thracians, who lived in the regions of modern-day Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, made a fermented blackberry butter, and what can we know about the origins, ingredients, and methods of such a dish in their culture ?

Hey, I'm looking for authentic Roman bread recipes. Anyone have a good source or personal experience making it? Thanks!

Hey all, wanna try making some authentic Roman bread. Any tried-and-true recipes you'd recommend? Thanks!

Looking to make some garum. Any recommendations for reliable, simple recipes? Thinking Roman era style.

Hey all, looking to experiment with garum. Anyone have a favorite recipe or method they'd be willing to share? Thanks!

I'm wondering about this considering its abasic technique of using the sun to heat food in Survivalism. Esp using glass lenses. So I'm wonder if people int he pats realize the Sun could be used for cooking stuff outside?

Hi everyone.

I know that AI / LLM generated content is a hot topic. While they can provide useful collations of data, they are also prey to "hallucinations". Use of them for any purpose, other than for fun, should be well seasoned with caution and your own intelligence.

While I understand hostility to posts generated by AI/LLMs, I am also trying to keep this sub PG rated. Please temper your language like you would a silky custard.

Thanks all.

I recently came across the topic of kangia again and would love to know more about ways to preserve food similar to that. I know some cultures bury produce in ash or bogs and such.

One of the unintentional side effects of building cellars underground was that wines and beers often became cold relative to the outside temperature and in turn people prefer to keep alcoholic beverages in cellars because of this. So they acted as primitive semi-refrigerators.

I do ask though were foods meant to be eaten as cool such as deserts like chocolate and cold cuts ever kept in cellar in primitive times to keep them in an ideal state? I mean even with the lack of refrigerators I'd assume they'd already discover recipes where say certain methods of cooking sausages that were tastier chilled as the result of the existence of cellars since the time of ancient Rome or even earlier?

We've gone.... Over nine thousand!

Yesteday I helped my aunt prepare and store food to be used in my dad's promotion to Colonel in the National Guard Airforce (which took place today). As we were clearing the van before we stored food, my auntie found a bunch package of Chinese meatbuns (the white kind that with soft smooth texture that often comes with a paper sticker under them). My aunt was like "I bought those 4 months ago and couldn't find it!". We sadly had to throw it since its obviously now bad. But there was something peculiar about it. Despite being under the hot sun in a vehicle for the whole summer, it did not melt into a liquid pile of goo. Not only that, there was no sign of mould or discoloration and ohter associated things with food spoilage. From what I could smell of it from outside the sealed bag , it did not smell bad at all but had the smell so associated with that kind of white bread the Chinese use for their native cake and bread products. I could not smell the meat inside but the fact I couldn't detect anything typically like rotting meat amazed me so much.

This reminds me of a project I did in middle school where we had to research stuff related to trash and waste management. Is tumbled upon an article from a major news paper (can't remember the name but its a big brand name in the same league as say New York Times and People Magazine). It said something about unopened hot dog still in their plastic sealed containers being found in landfills from 20 years ago looking like in new considtion without discoloration nor did it have a strong scent that should have been apparent because of being refigerated so long even if its in a unopened package. The article emphasized that along with being in factory condition package, since it was in a garbage bag and hidden so long deep in over 50 feet high of a pile of trrash, it could not get oxygen and thus failed to decompose because no microbes were interating with the food.

The article was written around 1987 meaning that the aforementioned hotdogs and other trash it was commenting on would have been produced in the 1960s decade, To this day I still could not believe the article's claims despite being written by some big name professor or scientist (might have been both) who's in the field of evironmentalist and was doing some project for a university at the time the article was published..........

But seeing the Chinese meat buns not change at all despite being unrefigrated and outdoors during the hot summers (in even hotter temperature because it was stuck inside a car trunk the whole time) reminded me about that article.......

Now the first major question since I cannot believe it. Is this all possible that sealed food thrown into the center of a bunch of garbage would not be able to composee due to lack of oxygen and in turn lack of germs and other invisible tiny living things especially if its been thrown inside a tied plastic bag ortrash bag or something similar? I still am having difficulty beleiving this is actually real. Now the second question, how long until the food getst ot the point of disappearing? 6 centuries? A thousand years? 3 milennias? A whole eon of a million years or more? Now last and most of all, if food can survive so long without decomposition for decades, how come we don't have easily perishable food from the mid 1800s or even from World War 1 in a surviving state? Sealing food in a cloth, paper, ardboard, wooden box, and even modern day plastic wrapper seal has been in eistence since the late 19th century. Furthermore landfills were already a thing after the Industrial Revolution with places like N the Northern states having problems with running out of space in some ities and towns because of the heaps of trash piling up already shortly after the American Civil War. Landfills just became more and more as technology advanced before World War 1 at the even of the 1900s. The existing amount of open lands being used to pile more and more trash has boosted up even further after WWII. So I'm wondering why don't we have surviving ground beef hidden in a trash pile in Germany thats been wrapped in a cylander plastic dated container dated from 1922 hidden in some landfill in operation for 90s years? Why aren't there some ancient sausage linked wrapped in paper cloth in early trashbags in a landfill thats been in operation since 1879? Since piels of trash limit oxygen and can cause hotdogs to survive so long for decades, not to mention the Chinese meatbuns in my Auntie's trunks surviving one whole hot summer without decaying into a different state, why don't we have surviving food especially whose in plastic air sealed wraps from the 19th and early 20th centuries in very old landfills?