Someone's in the Kitchen with Stalin

Vladimir Lenin was famously disinterested in food and eating.  For Lenin, food was a necessary inconvenience.  Cuisine was a bourgeois extravagance.  His successor Stalin, however, brought with him a Georgian flair for dining that was in sharp contrast with the Spartan fare of the early USSR.  As Nikita Khruschev noted, "I don’t think there has ever been a leader of comparable responsibilities who wasted more time than Stalin did just sitting around the dinner table eating and drinking." 

A Feast for a Viking

The image of Vikings in contemporary culture bears little resemblance to the actual Nordic people who, from the 8^th to 11^th centuries, exploded onto the global scene.  While it’s easy to imagine a horned warrior subsisting on roasted meat and beer, the reality of both the Vikings and their food is a good deal more complex. 

Pre-Columbian Maya Feast

Medieval European dishes are both familiar and alien to the modern Westerner. While the forms and methods (roasting, boiling, ect) are instantly recognizable, the ingredients and their combinations are not. More jarring than what is present is what is absent. The Columbian Exchange is a term used to describe the process by which 'Old World' and 'New World' crops and animals crossed the Atlantic. Prior to this exchange, Italian food had no tomatoes, English cooks made do without potatoes, and Indian dishes remained mild in the absence of spicy peppers. In much the same way, Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican food will be instantly recognizable to anyone acquainted with Mexican or Central American cooking. The flavors however, will be uniquely Maya shaped by a unique palette of spices rarely used today.

Ancient Greek Dinner Party

The diet of the Classical Greek world was often jokingly referred to as a dish of puls(grain or bean paste) followed by another puls. While this may be an exaggeration, their diet was one of frugality. Population growth and poor soil management drove the Ancient Greeks to the brink of famine on a regular basis. Thus, simple meals of grain, olive oil, and wine were the order of the day across the classes. The distinction between rich and poor was not characterized by more elaborate dishes, but rather the inclusion of meat and fish (prepared simply).

Sumerian Street Food: The Oldest Carryout on Earth

Ancient Sumeria was home to some of the oldest human cities on record. They hold claim to the oldest written word and oldest code of laws. The also established a major agricultural network which fed one of the fist true urban populations. Sumerian city dwellers usually lacked the space or facilities to cook in their own homes, and so relied on food stalls which lined the city's street for their daily meals. Here is my attempt to recreate a Sumerian take-out dinner.