Dress Like a Roman!

In response to Ashley's request, here is a link to a video put out by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles on how to wrap a toga:
 How to wear a toga.
 Halfway through, there are instructions on how to make a toga from a bed sheet:  There are also links to longer articles on Roman dress.

Citizen, matron, curule magistrate, Emperor, general, workman, slave

Mixtura, Moretum, and the New York Times

Greetings, all!  Don't miss  "You Probably Don't Want to Look in the Crisper..."-- a New York Times Magazine article that features an exploration of the refrigerators of 11 New York chefs.  There are some strange items in those refrigerators...along with a surprising amount of expensive champagne.

Today we will revisit two dishes from earlier in the semester-- feta, sesame, and honey "pizza" and the herb and cheese dip Mixtura cum Caseo.  Here they are:

Mixtura cum Caseo

Mixtura contains feta, olive oil, and various greens-- leeks, lettuce, arugula, basil, mint, thyme, coriander...

The sesame-feta-honey  pizzas (Staititai) are made slightly differently from ours-- the dough is similar to our pizza dough, but instead of baking it, you shallow-fry the rolled out disks of dough in in olive oil before adding the toppings.

 To the right, the dough divided into 4 disks before rolling out on a lightly floured surface.  And below, the finished pizza, topped with a mix of chevre and feta cheeses, drizzled with honey, and sprinkled with sesame seeds. 

We will also try an amazing dip called Moretum.  As is the case with Mixtura, there are a number of variations one can make, substituting different kinds of cheeses and flavorings.  Unlike most ancient Roman recipes, this one includes garlic.  I used the recipe from Laura Kelley's The Silk Road Gourmet, which she in turn got from a restaurant I would love to visit:  Hostaria Antica Roma.  It is not the most attractive dish, especially as photographed here in a plastic tub, on its way to class, but it is fantastic.

Moretum, a minimalist version.

Here is the recipe:

Moretum
4-6 medium cloves garlic (more or less as desired)
1/2 pound Romano cheese, grated (could use parmesan)
½ teaspoon salt (or as desired)
2-3 teaspooons of fennel seeds, ground
3-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (more as needed for consistency)

Grind garlic along with the salt in a mortar and pestle or food processor, and then add the grated Romano cheese and blend thoroughly. Add the olive oil as needed for the consistency of a smooth paste.* Garlic Flavor will be less strong if it is allowed to sit for several hours or overnight. 

Optional ingredients for this amount of moretum can also include: a small to medium bunch of cilantro, chopped; ¼ cup chopped celery and two tablespoons of young rue or fennel leaves. If herbs are added, the consistency will have to be adjusted with the addition of more olive oil. Serve room temperature or slightly cool. 

*I decided to try a trick I learned  while researching hummus-- grinding or blending in some ice water, a little at a time, to lighten the consistency.  It worked very well. It may look like mashed potatoes in the photo, but it has a much lighter, smoother texture.

For your projects

Check the UB Learns course documents section-- I have posted a number of documents and links to web-pages that may be of use to you as you work on your projects.  The following reference works may also get you started, and will provide you with further bibliography.

 Barchiesi, A. The Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies. Oxford University Press, USA, 2010.

            Butterworth, A. Pompeii. St. Martin's Press, 2006.

            Hornblower, Simon. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford University Press, USA, 2012.

            Potter, D.S. (ed). A Companion to the Roman Empire. Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.

The oxford encyclopedia of ancient greece and rome, ed. Michael Gagarin.  Oxford University Press.

Women and Slaves in Greco-Roman Culture, ed. Sandra Joshel and Sheila Murnaghan, Routledge, 1998.

A Recipe for ?

Food hits us hard when  it comes to our roots.  Aden's description of the Seder brings my grandfather right back to me.  I come from a very mixed family, with Catholics and Jews fighting it out with English and Native Americans in my DNA.  My grandfather was  Russian Jewish, from Moldova, and stowed away on a ship at age 14 with his little sister Sarah, to get away from the pogroms. They landed in Canada. Long, long story short, when he was 35 he married my grandmother, who was 19 and of mixed descent-- white missionary met Native American somewhere in the Dakotas.  She was 5'11" and he was 5'5."  They both had mighty brains.  A recipe for a troubled but lively marriage. 

My dad was raised rather schizophrenically by my grandfather, who was trained as a rabbi in the Soviet Union, moved to Canada, apprenticed to a tailor, went to McGill University, and became a psychiatrist, and my grandmother, who was part Blackfoot Indian and more parts missionary stock who grew up in the mountains of Idaho.   She was a card-carrying member of the Communist party, literally, while he was a refugee from Russia who despised Lenin and, later, Stalin. 

They compromised by practicing no religion at home, and celebrated Christmas in a secular way.  But my grandfather talked a lot about Passover and its rituals, more and more as he grew older, so I recognize all the things Aden describes here.  When I was in college and graduate school, I went to a number of Seders, and I can say that I love the charoset and the matzoh ball soup (and the wine!).  Also, we have a tradition very much like the afikomen-- we hide an ornament shaped like a pickle in our Christmas tree each year, and the person who finds the pickle on Christmas morning gets a special prize.

How to Carve a Chicken

A link, for those who don't know:

Jamie Oliver, how to carve a chicken

Chinese New Year Meals

One of my favorite holiday meals is during Chinese New Year.  Each year around January or February is Chinese New Year.  The date of Chinese New Year changes every year.  This year it was January 31st and it's the year of the horse.  On New Year's Eve my family gathers together at my grandma's house and we have a big celebration and feast.  Around this time my family always has these trays of little snacks such as peanuts, pistachios, and candled fruit melons.  The tray has eight compartments, the lucky number in Chinese culture.  The snacks are meant for guests to munch on throughout their stay.  Whenever I would see these trays as a kid I knew it was around the time of Chinese New Year.  The dishes we eat on New Year's Eve always consist of long noodles to symbolize a long life span.  There is always fish to symbolize wealth.  Since my family is from Taiwan we cook traditional Taiwanese cuisine as well.  There is always rice and usually soup for after the meal.  For dessert we eat niangao which is a cake like dessert made of glutinous rice.  Another tradition is the giving and receiving of red envelopes or hongbao in Mandarin with money inside for good luck.

Anthony Yeh

Comment from Martha:

Anthony's post is quite vivid.  I've been to a few Chinese New Year's celebrations (probably not too authentic, since a Jewish UB professor organized them, but he is a serious student of Chinese food and always hired a Chinese restaurant for the occasion, and let the chefs dictate the menu choices). I was always amazed by the variety and number of the dishes served.   No matter if I ate nothing all  day before  the dinner,  and no matter how small the portions I took, I was always too full to eat more before the midpoint of the meal.  And I LOVED the food.  The kind hosts of the restaurant would hastily explain each fabulous dish as they served it, so I know we had the lucky snacks, the long noodles, and the fish that Anthony mentions.  Not sure about the dessert, because I never had enough stamina to eat it. 

Thanksgiving at my Grandmothers

       From the first 16 years of my life we would spend thanksgiving at my Grandmas house. We would have turkey and a small ham steak for my sister who refused to eat the bird. But what is always in my mind about those annual meals is the one side dish that I have been unable to replicate and that was a baked broccoli cheddar rice casserole. It was my favorite dish and reminds me of happy times. Now we spend thanksgiving at my aunt’s house and everything is pretty much the same except for that casserole.

      Rituals for this dinner are really only saying grace before eating. The one dish that is essential to the entire process is of course the bird. What would Thanksgiving be without a turkey? The one dish I absolutely dread is the boiled turnip that my aunt makes for her and my mom, it stinks up the whole kitchen. My favorite tradition that we have done for as long as I can remember is that after dessert we play board games.