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Last night we were discussing in the thread "Ancient Baklava for Wendy" about Honey. In fact Kokkopuffs mentioned Honey.
So I took the chance to undust my wise books to learn more about the origins of honey and find a nice healthy and very ancient recipe!!
Honey belongs to the category of Food that was not discovered by chance. Salt, wine, olives and olive oil, cheese, are among the products that somehow in the very remote past, in the corner of Earth that is called Mediterranean and Aegean Sea, our anchestors realized their nutritional and gastronomical value.
It's very difficult, not to say impossible to date the "inventions" of these products.
Archaeological findings help of course but when we are talking about 6000 BC with lack of script it's not always easy to identify a bee-hive or an olive press. Everything seem so similar.
As I posted yesterday scientists think that Egyptians were the first to domesticate the bees at the end of the third milenium BC.
In the Aegean we have a bee-hive from Santorini that was discovered in the ancient town of Akrotiri which was destroyed after the explosion of it's volcano.
The citizens of Akrotiri were living a luxurious life and we have many clues that proove that they knew what the word gastronomy meant. We are talking about the year 2000 BC...
This bee-hive that was founded in Santorini is very important because it dates in 1628 BC . The first writen passage about bees and bee keeping dates 1000 years later in the forensic speaches of the Athenenan lawyers of the 5th century BC (Lysias-the most famous "lawyer" and speech writer of classical antiquity) .
From those speeches we learn that honey in ancient Athens was sold in the market with the honeycomb, It was a very popular product not very rare but expensive.
Honey was also used as a preservative medium for poultry.
In the 4th ce Aristotle knows well that the smell and taste of the honey depends on the flowers that your hives are close to.
In Roman period honey was very popular and Apicius have several ( I have counted 6) recipes with honey. He uses it in poultry and pork
Of course in the Middle ages te use of honey expands and it doesn't refer only to the bee-honey. As I was surfing one night in a specific site about medieaval texts , I came across a report of an Arad traveller in the Middle East around 1300AD and there he mentions coconut honey
As for what kokkopufs mention about the relation of Honey and Longevity I haven't found anything . I have in mind the famous survey of Harvard University about the relation of Olive Oil and Longevity but I don't know anything about Honey
As for the ancient recipe.
Hopmeric poems were wroten around 8th century BC although they refer to a very remote Era. n the 8th century BC hoeny was in use, so Homer must have known Honey.
In Iliad when King Priamos goes to the tent of Achilles to beg for the corpse of his dead son Hector , Achilles ( the Greek) offers him the sweet with sesame and honey, something that 3000 years later, today you can have in my country
We call it pastelli and it's very simple but not so easy to make.In the villages and in monasteries that they make huge quantities, all the men of the village are gathered in order to make this pastelli. It need a lot of physical strength to stir a pot filled with honey and sesame
Ingredients
100 gr of sesame
4 tsp of honey
Place both ingredients in a pan and stir the mixture continuously for 20 min. When the mixture turn to golden remove from the fire and let it cool.
When its cold enough, wet you hands and take small quantities in order to create small balls. Your hands should always be wet.
You have your home made pastelli.
Of course I have other ancient recipes with honey but this is the most ancient one
I will post some other recipes in the Pastry Forum
Bibliography:
Andrew Dalby, Siren Feasts, A History of Gastronomy in Greece
Doumas Chr, Thera, Pompeii of the Ancient Aegean , Excavations at Acrotiri 1967-1979. London
Carne E. The Archaeology of Beekeeping, London 1983
Athenaeus, Deipnoshopist II 38,b
Lysias, Against Stephanus (Lipsiae)
Aristotle, About the History of Animals ,613b5
Plinii, Naturalis Historiae.
So I took the chance to undust my wise books to learn more about the origins of honey and find a nice healthy and very ancient recipe!!
Honey belongs to the category of Food that was not discovered by chance. Salt, wine, olives and olive oil, cheese, are among the products that somehow in the very remote past, in the corner of Earth that is called Mediterranean and Aegean Sea, our anchestors realized their nutritional and gastronomical value.
It's very difficult, not to say impossible to date the "inventions" of these products.
Archaeological findings help of course but when we are talking about 6000 BC with lack of script it's not always easy to identify a bee-hive or an olive press. Everything seem so similar.
As I posted yesterday scientists think that Egyptians were the first to domesticate the bees at the end of the third milenium BC.
In the Aegean we have a bee-hive from Santorini that was discovered in the ancient town of Akrotiri which was destroyed after the explosion of it's volcano.
The citizens of Akrotiri were living a luxurious life and we have many clues that proove that they knew what the word gastronomy meant. We are talking about the year 2000 BC...
This bee-hive that was founded in Santorini is very important because it dates in 1628 BC . The first writen passage about bees and bee keeping dates 1000 years later in the forensic speaches of the Athenenan lawyers of the 5th century BC (Lysias-the most famous "lawyer" and speech writer of classical antiquity) .
From those speeches we learn that honey in ancient Athens was sold in the market with the honeycomb, It was a very popular product not very rare but expensive.
Honey was also used as a preservative medium for poultry.
In the 4th ce Aristotle knows well that the smell and taste of the honey depends on the flowers that your hives are close to.
In Roman period honey was very popular and Apicius have several ( I have counted 6) recipes with honey. He uses it in poultry and pork
Of course in the Middle ages te use of honey expands and it doesn't refer only to the bee-honey. As I was surfing one night in a specific site about medieaval texts , I came across a report of an Arad traveller in the Middle East around 1300AD and there he mentions coconut honey
As for what kokkopufs mention about the relation of Honey and Longevity I haven't found anything . I have in mind the famous survey of Harvard University about the relation of Olive Oil and Longevity but I don't know anything about Honey
As for the ancient recipe.
Hopmeric poems were wroten around 8th century BC although they refer to a very remote Era. n the 8th century BC hoeny was in use, so Homer must have known Honey.
In Iliad when King Priamos goes to the tent of Achilles to beg for the corpse of his dead son Hector , Achilles ( the Greek) offers him the sweet with sesame and honey, something that 3000 years later, today you can have in my country
We call it pastelli and it's very simple but not so easy to make.In the villages and in monasteries that they make huge quantities, all the men of the village are gathered in order to make this pastelli. It need a lot of physical strength to stir a pot filled with honey and sesame
Ingredients
100 gr of sesame
4 tsp of honey
Place both ingredients in a pan and stir the mixture continuously for 20 min. When the mixture turn to golden remove from the fire and let it cool.
When its cold enough, wet you hands and take small quantities in order to create small balls. Your hands should always be wet.
You have your home made pastelli.
Of course I have other ancient recipes with honey but this is the most ancient one
I will post some other recipes in the Pastry Forum
Bibliography:
Andrew Dalby, Siren Feasts, A History of Gastronomy in Greece
Doumas Chr, Thera, Pompeii of the Ancient Aegean , Excavations at Acrotiri 1967-1979. London
Carne E. The Archaeology of Beekeeping, London 1983
Athenaeus, Deipnoshopist II 38,b
Lysias, Against Stephanus (Lipsiae)
Aristotle, About the History of Animals ,613b5
Plinii, Naturalis Historiae.
