The Delicious Legacy

A Greek Gourmand, travels through time...Imagine yourself dining with Socrates, Plato, or Pythagoras! What tasty morsels of food accompanied the conversations of these most significant minds in Western philosophy?Now picture yourself as you sat for a symposium with Cicero, or Pliny the Elder or Julius Caesar. The opulent feasts of the decadent Romans!Maybe, you're following Alexander the Great during his military campaigns in Asia for ten years. Conquering the vast Persian empire, while discovering new foods. Or try and picture the richness of fruits and vegetables in the lush Hanging Gardens of Babylon.What foods did our ancestors ate?How did all begin? Who was the first to write a recipe down and why? Sauces, ingredients, ways of cooking. Timeless and continuous yet unique and so alien to us now days. Staple ingredients of the Mediterranean world -as we think now- like tomatoes, potatoes, rice, peppers, didn't exist. What did they eat? We will travel far and wide, reconstructing the diet, the feasts, the dishes of a Greek Philosopher in a symposium in Athens, or a Roman Emperor or as a rich merchant in the last night in Pompeii.....Lavish dinners, exotic spices, so-called "barbaric" traditions of beer and milk, all intertwined...Stay tuned and find out more here, in 'The Delicious Legacy' Podcast!Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-delicious-legacy.

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Ancient Greek Music with Pavlos Kapralos

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Ukrainian Food Culture - With Olia Hercules

A Culinary Invasion: Roman British Food

Sep 23 1h 3m

* * * Reminder: The first ever FOOD HISTORY FESTIVAL is happening on the 18th of October and it's all online! Get your tickets here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/serve-it-forth-food-history-festival-2025-tickets-1490885802569?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdss

It's going to be a fantastic day with many excellent food historian guests, and of course my fellow Serve It Forth members, food historians, Dr Neil Buttery, Dr Alessandra Pino and Sam Bilton!

Join us for a day of historical dishes, cocktails and recipes! * * *

Famously, Diodorus Siculus the Greek geographer said for Britain:

"It is the home of men who are complete savages and lead a miserable existence because of the cold; and therefore, in my opinion, the northern limit of our inhabited world is to be placed there"

But nevertheless the Romans went and conquered it and made it part of the Roman Empire for nearly four hundred years.

The stereotypes even then two thousand years abound:

"Those near the coast in Kent may be more civilised, but in the interior they do not cultivate the land but share their wives with family members, live on milk and meat, and wear the skins of animals."

Horace wrote.

Diodorus continues: "The numerous population of natives, he says, live in thatched cottages, store their grain in subterranean caches and bake bread from it. They are "of simple manners" (ēthesin haplous) and are content with plain fare..."

But beyond this, there was a thriving Celtic and British Roman culture that existed. The local foods and customs and rich pasture for animals helped the invading Romans create a rich culinary legacy, based on many imported foods from across the empire and introduced numerous plants and animals to Britain that since became native to the land, from humble leek to plums to rabbits and pheasants.

So on this episode together with fellow chef and podcaster Lewis Bassett (The Full English) we sat down to chat and explore the legacy of Rome in the British Isles, through food, culinary pathways and how this intertwines with class and politics to our modern age!

Join us and let's find out what did the Roman-British table and pantry had to offer!

Music by Pavlos Kapralos.

Enjoy!

Love,

The Delicious Legacy

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-delicious-legacy.

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Part Two: A Compendium of Ancient Greek Food

Serve it Forth: A Day in Life of Food Historians

History of Fava Beans in Greece

Arctic and Antarctic Exploration Food & The role of Inuits

Aug 27 43m

Hello!

New episode is out!

Firstly, remember my news? Our first and possibly only food history festival is happening this year! October 18th , Saturday all day, and of course online! So you can all attend virtually! Get your tickets at eventbrite at serve it forth food history festival. It’s going to be an amazing day, with some fantastic guests, and of course my three fellow food historians, Alessandra Pino, Sam Bilton and Neil Buttery!

Tickets here, with 25% discount!

But let's go back to our adventure!

There’s a vast, uninhabited desert, a huge continental mass than no humans colonised…. A desolate, white, freezing cold land mass, with millions of penguins and seals but no human beings, no permanent settlement by our species, not unless one counts the scientific stations established in the mid of the last century or so.

The Arctic was inhabited for many centuries before the Vikings ventured to Greenland. These people survived and thrived even on occasion! Of course the Antarctic is so much more extreme than the Arctic. And so far and isolated from any other place. But explorers, navigators, and sailors from European Colonial powers who were brave enough, curious enough and driven by some bizarre desire to be the first to reach the south pole or explore the continent from one end to the other, these humans had to learn how to first survive in these extreme, inhuman conditions! And learn, copy, improvise and improve from societies and nations who lived in similar conditions…These adventurers needed to survive for months, many many months on end on ice! Perhaps without ever reaching for outside help. And of course food is paramount!

Some links about stuff on this episode:

How does kiviaq taste like?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhPCJOaE4ZM&t=132s

Indigenous fish techniques from Canada's First Nations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6li84mjUZT8

Kerguelen cabbage:

https://www.britannica.com/plant/Kerguelen-cabbage

Macquarie Island cabbage:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azorella_polaris

The Flora, Vegetation, and Soils of Macquarie Island:

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Flora_Vegetation_and_Soils_of_Macqua/fEtEAAAAYAAJ?hl=en

Music by Pavlos Kapralos