These carbonized rings were studied by Andreas Heiss, one of the leading archaeologists working today. These are made of uncooked dough. They were found along with clay rings that had been used as loom weights. Heiss, the primary author, may not be the only archeobotanist with a sense of humor. But he is the only…
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…
Making a Small Cob Oven
This video shows how to make a small cob oven. I have added commentary pointing out details that I think will be helpful to many viewers.
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…
The Buttered Loaf
This is a style of bread that we, fortunately, yet unfortunately, have lost. For some hundreds of years there was a dessert made by opening up a warm loaf or roll and pouring into it with sugar-sweetened melted butter flavored with rose water into the warm crumb, now irresistibly yummy. The cultural question might be…
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…
Greek Bread Baking Methods
While this is obvioulsy a tandoor style oven from ancient Greece, I have not been able to find confirming archeological evidence for tandoor oven from Greek archeological sites. If you know of evidence for a tandoor oven from a Greek site, please leave a comment. The video I have included here shows breads placed up…
The Furies: Part 1
This is the first part of a two part project. First listen: React to what you hear This a translation project. You are translating musical ideas into prose. For your first listen, I just want you to let yourself fall into this music without being influenced by what narrative the composer might have had in…
William Rubel 