Guys! We can’t accept it just because it is said, even by a major museum. We have to think. Perhaps, if we were looking at this figurine in person, rather than via. a lowish resolution photograph, that we would see something that would make it clear. But, I don’t think so. The British Museum labels…
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Delwen Samuel Papers
The joint website of Delwen Samuel and Mark Nesbitt, Ancient Grains, is no longer up on the internet. To find their website, you can go to the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine: Archived website, Ancient Grains. I am cutting and pasting Samuels publications from the page on the WayBack machine to help keep them accessible ….
Rye Milling Tables for Home Millers
Here are the screen specifications for making the common grades of rye flour, including white wheat flour, which is a flour that you will sometimes encounter in the historic record. Flour Type Mesh Size Particle Size (µm) Extraction Rate White Rye 60-70 250-300 65-70% Light Rye 50 300 ~80% Medium Rye 40 425 ~85% Wholegrain…
Confirmed Well Sifted Mesopotamian Late Neolithic Bread circa 6400 – 5900 BCE (8,600 – 81,800 BP)
Two big takeaways. First, and this is truly huge, this paper seems to prove that wheat and barley were sifted through multiple sieves. It is not news that Neolithic breads were sifted — but the analysis of the phytoliths, hard structures found in grasses — have wear patterns indicative of multiple sifting as in first…
The 1993 Paper on the Detoxification of Amanita Muscaria by Koujun Tsunda
This paper, Koujun Tsunoda, and his colleagues is the most extensive test of Amanita Muscaria detoxification through drying and boiling. “Change in Ibotenic Acid and Muscimol Contents in Amanita muscaria during Drying, Storing or Cooking” was published in 1993 by Food Hygienic Studies of Toxigenic Basidiomycotina. III. For a variety of reasons so let’s leave…
The Bread of the Baker’s Wife
What is there to say besides? Wow! Please, open a bakery in my town! The cheerful handsome baker and his wife showing of a selection of their breads captures, forever, the spirt we find in bakeries throughout the world. Proud artisans. The baking couple was not invented in the 17th century. The couple, whether within…
Teach Mushroom Identification Rather than Preach Abstinence
In mycological text after mycological text, in mushroom poisoning report after mushroom poisoning report we get the advice to use abstinece as the fool proof means of avoiding mushroom poisonong. Many texts, for example, advise against foraging for any Amanitas becuase one Amanita, Amanita phalloides, represents something like 95% of all mushroom fatalities globally. This…
Mushroom Stew by E. Smith, circa 1730
Mushrooms species appropriate for this recipe: This recipe was intended for the commercial mushroom, Agaricus bisporus. Because the mushroom is minimally cooked, this recipe is only appropriate for mushrooms that can be eaten raw in some quantity. The only other mushroom I suggest is porcini, Boletus edulis. This recipe for a basic mushroom side-dish is…
Historic Edibility Assessments for “False Morel”, Gyromitra esculenta
[Photo by Barbora Batokova] Gyromitra esculenta Fries, was originally Helvella esculenta Persoon. Up to World War II, the mushroom was considered edible, even excellent, although we note a whisp of caution creeping into the 1900 Mcllvaine assessment and again into Krieger’s assessment. Assessments now, in most countries, are negative. The internet is full of references…
The Egyptian Triangle Bread
One apparently common bread during the pharaonic period was a bread shaped in the form of an equilateral triangle and painted white. The example here is from the the downtown Egyptian Museum. Note the white covering and the areas where the white has chipped off. The equilateral triangle was an important shape in ancient Egypt….
William Rubel 