Tiring of festive turkey? Try lamb, Mesopotamian style. Assyrian specialist Jean Bott茅ro discovered ancient cooking tips when he translated cuneiform from 3500-year-old baked clay tablets found in the cabinets of the Yale Babylonian Collection. In The Oldest Cuisine in the World (Chicago), he introduces us to the tastes and methods of long-dead palace cooks, recapturing the gastronomy, rather than recipes, of a brilliant people.
It is tempting to try out the flavours he evokes. Take a piece of mutton, trim off the fat. Add the meat and fat to a pot of boiling water (the fat enriches the stock). Peel onions and beetroot, put them whole in the pot with rocket, coriander and cumin. Add beer and salt. Mash together garlic and leeks, and add. Simmer until the meat is tender. I would skim the broth before adding the vegetables. Sprinkle fresh coriander, and serve. It looks stunning, a ruby red stew.
Nearer in time is the new translation of a Renaissance classic, The Art of Cooking (California). These are courtly recipes too, evidence of conspicuous consumption. Saffron is added with a lavish hand, and costly spices from India appear in recipe after recipe. There is even a zabaglione, a froth of eggs and sweet wine. Recommended to soothe the brain, says Martino of Como. There is a twist: no one would now thin a pudding with meat broth.
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After cooking come the leftovers, but that 鈥渨armed-over鈥� flavour of reheated turkey needn鈥檛 be a problem if you arm yourself with Harold McGee鈥檚 On Food and Cooking: An encyclopedia of kitchen science, history and culture (Hodder & Stoughton). McGee has added much since the first, 1984, edition.
Unsaturated fatty acids are the main culprits of off-flavours in meat leftovers. To minimise them, season leftovers with antioxidant-containing herbs and spices such as oregano or rosemary, wrap in low-permeability film and keep reheating times as short as is safe.
McGee has fun, too. He researched the chemistry of melting for the best cheese on toast. Cheshire, Leicester, Caerphilly and Colby are all great. Inject tenderisers into meat using a cooking syringe. Chop cabbage to increase the liberation of flavour compounds from their precursors.
