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Grevling posted:That guy who made bread using Ancient Egyptian yeast who was making the rounds earlier reenacted the way they baked bread in the Old Kingdom using a conical clay mould. Onions were that much sweeter? How did that cultivar go extinct? Normally modern cultivation makes things sweeter, not remove the sweetness. Except for Tomatoes where reducing the sugar was a side effect of cultivating for maximum redness.
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May 25, 2020 17:11
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I want to know more too. Maybe they were not sweet and they ate thrm like apples anyway. My grandpa apparently used to do that.
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May 25, 2020 17:21
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SlothfulCobra posted:Onions were that much sweeter? How did that cultivar go extinct? Normally modern cultivation makes things sweeter, not remove the sweetness. No idea about either the sweetness thing, but I do know that apart from a lot of religious and general medicinal uses, the ancient Egyptians specifically used onions for birth control, often in the form of a vaginal pessary mixed with other ingredients. What makes it useful is an abortifacient in it's raw form is that it's a diuretic and can stimulate contractions, I think largely by the same mechanism that causes crying, and it might have been that they bred for that so it was better at making uterii spit out pregnancies. Even if they didn't deliberately breed for bitterness, the super sweet ones might have just been another case like silphium, which kind of seems like a bog standard case of "monoculture is bad, also really loving hard to maintain even with modern technology and Monsanto bullshit".
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May 25, 2020 17:32
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Scarodactyl posted:“It was unbelievably emotional for me,” says Blackley. “I stan Egypt.” sadly it appears this mans brain has been poisoned by the internet. quote:“I hadn’t exactly done my homework,” says Blackley. “They weren’t trolling me—I’m from the games business, I’m immune to trolling at this point. They were just after the proof. I was really embarrassed I hadn’t done this right.” quote:The online reaction actually seemed to encourage Blackley. “I feel I have a responsibility of being a modern representative of ancient Egyptians and not letting people give them any poo poo,” says Blackley.
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May 25, 2020 17:40
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I have long wondered this: apparently the term "Greek" which is so different from the word "Hellene" comes from Latin, who named all the Greeks Graeci after the Graekoi, a Greek tribe who settled southern Italy. In turn they named themselves after the hero Graecus, which seemed to be a common way to choose a tribe name. For example the Ionians named themselves after the hero Ion. Some people think (according to wiki) that the name might have originated from the word Graia, which was an archaic Greek word for "old". I'm inclined to believe the hero story since Herodotus mentions many tribes naming and re-naming themselves after heroes.
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May 25, 2020 18:04
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 Bead-work bracelet of Queen Ahhotep I. Gold, lapis, carnelion, and turquoise. 16th century BC.
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May 25, 2020 18:30
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Scarodactyl posted:I want to know more too. Maybe they were not sweet and they ate thrm like apples anyway. My grandpa apparently used to do that. I do that all the time, no ‘sweet cultivar’ needed. They’re delicious. 
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May 25, 2020 18:36
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Arglebargle III posted:
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May 25, 2020 18:40
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HELLO LADIES posted:No idea about either the sweetness thing, but I do know that apart from a lot of religious and general medicinal uses, the ancient Egyptians specifically used onions for birth control, often in the form of a vaginal pessary mixed with other ingredients. What makes it useful is an abortifacient in it's raw form is that it's a diuretic and can stimulate contractions, I think largely by the same mechanism that causes crying, and it might have been that they bred for that so it was better at making uterii spit out pregnancies. Even if they didn't deliberately breed for bitterness, the super sweet ones might have just been another case like silphium, which kind of seems like a bog standard case of "monoculture is bad, also really loving hard to maintain even with modern technology and Monsanto bullshit". It isn't as though sweet onions are impossible to farm or find either, though, they're just not the main commodity onion.
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May 25, 2020 19:16
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Arglebargle III posted:
Magnificent
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May 25, 2020 19:21
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Shamelessly stolen:Digital Maps of the Ancient World posted:
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May 25, 2020 19:22
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Arglebargle III posted:I have long wondered this: apparently the term "Greek" which is so different from the word "Hellene" comes from Latin, who named all the Greeks Graeci after the Graekoi, a Greek tribe who settled southern Italy. In turn they named themselves after the hero Graecus, which seemed to be a common way to choose a tribe name. For example the Ionians named themselves after the hero Ion. Some people think (according to wiki) that the name might have originated from the word Graia, which was an archaic Greek word for "old". I'm inclined to believe the hero story since Herodotus mentions many tribes naming and re-naming themselves after heroes. I wish "Danaan" had stuck around. I'm also partial to "Yavana".
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May 25, 2020 19:28
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Fly Molo posted:I do that all the time, no ‘sweet cultivar’ needed. They’re delicious. Yeah, it could just be a 'normal" onion. The modern palate is sugar gutted but in a world without HFCS etc a plain onion might be considered relatively sweet.
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May 25, 2020 19:35
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, it could just be a 'normal" onion. The modern palate is sugar gutted but in a world without HFCS etc a plain onion might be considered relatively sweet.
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May 25, 2020 19:55
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Imagine how mindbogglingly burning hot all those gimmicky super strong hot sauces would be to people in a world before the Columbian exchange brought chili peppers over where the spiciest thing you might taste is maybe black pepper.
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May 25, 2020 20:07
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FreudianSlippers posted:Imagine how mindbogglingly burning hot all those gimmicky super strong hot sauces would be to people in a world before the Columbian exchange brought chili peppers over where the spiciest thing you might taste is maybe black pepper. I'm from the midwest and didn't build a tolerance until I was like 30, no imagining necessary
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May 25, 2020 20:15
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FreudianSlippers posted:Imagine how mindbogglingly burning hot all those gimmicky super strong hot sauces would be to people in a world before the Columbian exchange brought chili peppers over where the spiciest thing you might taste is maybe black pepper. Ehh or horseradish or mustard or long pepper. It's not like they had zero options.
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May 25, 2020 20:22
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Remulak posted:If grown in low sulfur soils, like those around Vidalia GA yep. Yeah, I was going to suggest that the soil probably made a big difference. Vidalia onions are renowned for their sweetness and mildness, and are genetically identical to onions raised elsewhere. Onions taken from Vidalia and grown elsewhere don't taste the same. So there was probably a particular patch of land in Egypt that produced the sweet onions.
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May 25, 2020 20:28
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There's plenty of strong spices in the old world but none of them are capsaicin
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May 25, 2020 20:33
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I remember listening to Charlton Heston's commentary track for Ben-Hur and he described how the set decorator wanted some red foodstuff as a decoration in a scene when Judah and his family sit down to a meal and it turned into a bit of a difficulty because obviously they couldn't use tomatoes or red peppers. I forget what they ended up with.
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May 25, 2020 23:39
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Long pepper is much hotter than black pepper, similar to a chile in overall hit and also appearance (hence the confusion).
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May 26, 2020 00:09
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:I remember listening to Charlton Heston's commentary track for Ben-Hur and he described how the set decorator wanted some red foodstuff as a decoration in a scene when Judah and his family sit down to a meal and it turned into a bit of a difficulty because obviously they couldn't use tomatoes or red peppers. I forget what they ended up with. ...why not apples? Arglebargle III posted:I have long wondered this: apparently the term "Greek" which is so different from the word "Hellene" comes from Latin, who named all the Greeks Graeci after the Graekoi, a Greek tribe who settled southern Italy. In turn they named themselves after the hero Graecus, which seemed to be a common way to choose a tribe name. For example the Ionians named themselves after the hero Ion. Some people think (according to wiki) that the name might have originated from the word Graia, which was an archaic Greek word for "old". I'm inclined to believe the hero story since Herodotus mentions many tribes naming and re-naming themselves after heroes. Yeah, the Graekoi were the first Greek-speakers they ran into, which makes sense since they were so close to them on the peninsula. Then they called everybody they ran into after that who spoke the same language "Greeks" too, even though the Graekoi were the only ones who called themselves that. Rome seems to do this constantly to tons of cultures over the centuries. It's kind of their shtick.
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May 26, 2020 03:28
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Fly Molo posted:I do that all the time, no ‘sweet cultivar’ needed. They’re delicious. Are you former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott?
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May 26, 2020 03:36
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 Jade fish ornament, Western Zhou Dynasty, 11th century BC. It's 7 cm long.  Some sort of thing, polished stone, Aegean, 29th century BC. (The Cleveland Museum of Art says it might be a pot, or a lamp, and the holes might be for a lid or for hanging.) Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 04:36 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 04:32
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In the USA there are pretty much two or three widely availiable sweet onions. You have Vidalia onions from the Carolina's, there is the Walla Walla Onion from Washington and an onion bred by Texas A&M and mostly grown there although I don't think it has a "trade name". Even today, if you caramelize a non sweet yellow onion they end up pretty sweet.
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May 26, 2020 06:52
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Vidalia is in Georgia.
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May 26, 2020 07:05
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Arglebargle III posted:
While jadeite is harder, nephrite is tougher (than almost anything else) which makes it incredibly good for intricate, highky detailed carvings, allowing delicate carved features that would just break or crumble off with a lesser stone type. Scarodactyl fucked around with this message at 08:26 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 08:24
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I've been trying to find out about Ancient Egyptian onions with not much luck, but I have to say that if you theoretically were to go to a website called libgen and your fingers by chance tap the keyboard to form the words Cambridge World History of Food, it's great entertainment. It's almost 2000 pages long and very detailed, I'm having a blast reading about onions, soybean, coconut and what have you. Most of what has ever been eaten or drunk by humans seems to be in there. Digging a bit led me to the book Food In The Ancient World by Joan P. Alcock which had this to say: quote:In both Greece and Rome, however, onions seemed to have been regarded more as poor man's food. Apicius made great use of them, but Horace included them in his poor man's diet of onions, pulses, and pancakes. Pliny gave varieties of them, those with the strongest taste coming from Africa, followed by those from Gaul. Because a mature onion is mostly composed of water, they were placed in the moist category of vegetables and had numerous medical properties. Shallots known as "pearls," a Marsumian variety, were presumably as small as a cocktail onion and similar to the Egyptian variety. The standard lunch of the poorer classes in Egypt was bread, onions, and beer. As onions are compared to sound white teeth, they were presumably of a small variety. They were reputed to be of a mild, excellent quality and flavor, and were eaten raw as well as cooked. On the wall of the Aten Temple at Karnack was a sketch of a workman eating his lunch of bread, cucumber, and an onion. Onions and garlic formed part of the wages of the builders of Khufu's pyramid (2589-2566 B.C.). Onions are depicted growing close to water in Old Kingdom and New Kingdom reliefs. They were found wrapped in bodies ofmummies in tombs, often being placed in the armpits or the groin. Priests, however, were forbidden to eat them. Makes sense, smaller onions often have a mild flavor. I was unable to find the sketch of a workman eating though. Grevling fucked around with this message at 12:10 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 09:30
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feedmegin posted:Ehh or horseradish or mustard or long pepper. It's not like they had zero options. Horseradish is often used to make pseudo-wasabi for example.
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May 26, 2020 16:29
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 Funerary oil vessel, ceramic. Attica, late 5th century BC. (The cool time period.)
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May 26, 2020 18:12
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https://twitter.com/dapperhistorian/status/1265352701929545728?s=21
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May 27, 2020 01:36
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Whoo that's a lot of sweeping left neglected.
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May 27, 2020 01:51
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Arglebargle III posted:Whoo that's a lot of sweeping left neglected. I was thinking maybe a mudslide.
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May 27, 2020 02:16
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That’s completely insane
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May 27, 2020 02:17
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VanSandman posted:I was thinking maybe a mudslide. Verona has a river too, it's certainly changed course and could've buried it. Hard to speculate without knowing the location.
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May 27, 2020 02:20
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The amount of skill and hard work that must have gone into making something like that purely by hand is insane.
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May 27, 2020 02:42
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to think that Romeo and Juliet could have walked over that without knowing.
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May 27, 2020 13:40
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 I feel like this concerned Apollo has some meme potential.
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May 27, 2020 14:35
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Arglebargle III posted:
When your boy Chryses has a Chryseis crisis Brawnfire fucked around with this message at 16:55 on May 27, 2020 |
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May 27, 2020 15:59
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When you sit down at Elagabulus' house. Edit - when you're told to "carry that back to Apries." Remulak fucked around with this message at 16:37 on May 27, 2020 |
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May 27, 2020 16:33
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