@grandaha.bsky.socialRome gets the credit for garum, but the fermented-fish playbook was already written on Babylonian tablets and sold under the Greek name garos long before a single Roman amphora. The salt trade built it; the empire just branded it.
@janettespeyer.bsky.socialDid ancient cultures believe figs symbolized fertility? Is chocolate one of the most romantic foods? Why did people spend thousands of years searching for love on a plate? #FoodAphrodisiacs #FoodCulture #FoodsOfLove #foodhistory
Feed your curiosity
foodculturebites.com/food-aphrodi...
@grandaha.bsky.socialRome graded its rotting-fish sauce like a sommelier — garum, liquamen, muria, allec, each a different fraction of the same barrel, and nobody fully agrees which was which. The top stuff ran about 1,000 sesterces for six liters, priced against perfume. #FoodHistory #Garum #Cooking #TheStockpot
@grandaha.bsky.socialRome's prized fish sauce wasn't a home ferment — it was factory work. Scaurus stamped his name on the amphorae like a brand, but the salting quarter at Baelo Claudia ran on the labor of people nobody bothered to record. #FoodHistory #Garum #AncientRome #Cooking #TheStockpot
@nichecanada.bsky.socialToday we have "Canadian Sugar Was Built on Violence" by @donicabelisle.bsky.social
Canadian sugar company Rogers Sugar (formerly B.C. Sugar) profited from violent, exploitation-based plantation labor.
@culinavetus.bsky.socialSo, there is a recipe for what is pretty clearly #Baumkuchen from around 1500, and I nearly missed it because it is named like a roast custard. Naming stuff is hard...
@indiahouse.bsky.socialDid the BRICS dinner present the India promoted by the government, rather than the India that actually exists?
India’s diversity should be represented — not selectively edited.
👉Follow: indiahousefoundation.org
@piespuddings.bsky.socialThe famous Grasmere Gingerbread was invented in 1854 by Sarah Nelson, a domestic servant who began to sell her gingerbread in the Grasmere village school.
You can find the recipe at piespuddingsandpottages.com/recipe-post/...
@grandaha.bsky.socialRome ran on fish guts. Garum was fermented from the innards oily fish would otherwise waste — salt, enzymes, and a long ferment doing the work no cook wanted to smell. An entire imperial industry built on the part everyone else threw out.
@grandaha.bsky.socialRome ran garum like an industry: dedicated factories, a supply chain, and branded tiers from mass-market to luxury. This fermented fish sauce wasn't a rustic condiment — it was a commercial product with a paper trail most ancient foods never left. #FoodHistory #Fermentation #Cooking #TheStockpot
@grandaha.bsky.socialThat "original and genuine" Worcestershire on your table is souring itself with tamarind — the same Bengali pod that's been doing the work in Indian kitchens for centuries. The nobleman-brought-it-back origin story is marketing. The souring paste came first.
@culinavetus.bsky.socialA recipe for fish in #aspic, and some thoughts on why Middle German insists on using the same words for jellies and bread sauces. Because of course it does.
@grandaha.bsky.socialThe name means "date of India" — tamar hindi — but the tree came out of African savannah. It was souring pots across South Asia long before lime showed up to take the credit. #FoodHistory #Tamarind #Cooking #TheStockpot
@grandaha.bsky.socialEveryone reads tamarind as Indian—the name literally means "date of India." It's African. The sour pulp and iron-hard shell made it ship provision, so it crossed the Atlantic in the same holds as enslaved people and sugar. #FoodHistory #Tamarind #Cooking #TheStockpot
@janettespeyer.bsky.socialCorn is more than the yellow kernels we know. Indigenous peoples domesticated maize and turned it into countless foods. Follow corn’s extraordinary journey across cultures. #corn #FoodHistory #FoodCulture #IndigenousFood #Foodculturebites
Feed your curiosity:
foodculturebites.com/corn-one-nam...
@piespuddings.bsky.socialPotted shrimps originate in the 18th century in English coastal areas where local brown shrimps were preserved in melted butter flavoured with mace.
You can find the recipe at piespuddingsandpottages.com/recipe-post/...
#britishfood #foodhistory #recipe #starter #brownshrimps #butter #Georgian
@grandaha.bsky.socialThat funk in Worcestershire sauce? Tamarind. The same pod that sours a Gujarati dal and sweet-sours pad thai is the tartaric-acid backbone hiding in a bottle most people think tastes of anchovies. One fruit, three cuisines that never compared notes.
@grandaha.bsky.socialSichuan peppercorn isn't a peppercorn — no relation to black pepper or chili. That numbing tingle isn't heat at all; it's hydroxy-alpha-sanshool physically vibrating your nerves. Before chili ever reached China, it anchored the region's pungent trio. #FoodHistory #Sichuan #Cooking #TheStockpot
@janettespeyer.bsky.socialDid you know ketchup began in ancient Asia as a fish sauce? Explore how this global sauce evolved into the iconic comfort food we know today.
#FoodHistory #FoodCulture #Ketchup #foodstories
Feed your curiosity: foodculturebites.com/how-ketchup-...
@culinavetus.bsky.socialStill more medieval and early modern recipes for filling cooked eggs back into their shells. These are called 'kroseier' and the name is not the oddest thing about them.
