SC - Concrete Midas Funerary Feast Information

[Bethany Public Library]

Hallo folks.

This is about a month later than I wanted it to be, what with one thing and
another, but I DO have some real information about the Midas feast (not the
museum of U Penn's fundraising feast, but the archaeological find). Although
the museum catering people declined to respond to my requests for their
recipes (and I'm not sure how historically accurate they would have been in
their methods), Doctor McGovern has corresponded with me  a couple of times
over this, generously sharing his expertise and some sources which I will
detail below. I think we may have some real *useable* information about the
contents of that stew. Enough information, at any rate, to make a pretty
good stab at a modern redaction.

First and foremost, the tomb and it's finds are described in detail in a
Univ.. of Pennsylvania monologue by Rodney Young. The title (I don't have a
copy yet, trying to figure out how to get one) is approx.. 'Gordion I, The
Great Tamuli'.

There is a treatment of the find in the U Penn Museum's journal called
Expedition (issue no 1 of 2000). I may have that on hand somewhere, tucked
away, am still looking here at the library.

More information is available at the following sites, some of which you may
have seen already:
www.sas.upenn.edu/~mcgovern/
www.upenn.edu/museum/Wine/wineintro.html
www.upenn.edu/museum/News/midas.html
www.museum.upenn.edu/Midas/intro.html

Last but not least, there is an great article on the subject from "Nature"
that ran in December 1999.  I have a copy of that forwarded by Dr McGovern,
and I'll quote a bit of it here (all typos mine):

"A funerary Feast Fit For King Midas. A Royal banquet has been reconstructed
from residues in pots found inside the tomb."

"We have chemically analyze the ancient organic contents of vessels from the
Tumulus MM, "Midas Mound", the site at Gordion in Central Turkey that is the
likely tomb of King Midas. The analysis revealed that a spicy meal of sheep
or goat and pulses was eaten by mourners at a feast before the interment. We
 also identified a mixed fermented beverage of grape wine, barley beer, and
honey mead in the  most comprehensive iron Age drinking set ever found.....
......Preservation conditions were  extraordinarily good inside the tomb,
which is the earliest known intact wooden structure in the world,  dated at
about 700 B.C......The identification of the body as King Midas is strongly
supported by the monumental size of the earthen mound built over the tomb,
the richness of the burial goods, and the contemporaneous Assyrian
inscriptions....."
    "Our chemical reconstruction of the banquet entree is based on
well-preserved 'fingerprint' compounds. Triacylglyceroids, composed
principally of saturated palmitic  (C16) and stearic (C18) fatty acids, with
small amounts of unsaturated oleic (C18.1) fatty acids predominate in the
residues. These compounds, together with cholesterol and C6, C8, C18
saturated acids (caproic, caprylic,  and capric acids, respectively) can
best be explained as deriving from sheep or goat fat. A rancid odor, which
may have come from this fat, was detected by the excavators when the tomb
was opened. Other compounds indicate that the meat was first barbecued
before being cut off the bone and seasoned with Mediterranean herbs and
spices.
    "......The Homeric epics, reflecting both the Greek and Anatolian
traditions of the eighth century B.C. and earlier, describe out-door funeral
banquets in which skewered and roast sheep and goat were served, together
with a mixed fermented beverage (Greek 'kykeon') similar to that in the
Midas tomb.(Barley grains were added to kykeon, which may have been in the
form of beer.) This beverage, in which other fruit such as  apple and
cranberry might have been used instead of grapes, had long been a
traditional drink in Europe, suggesting that the Phrygian population  could
have been of European extraction, perhaps from the Balkans or northern
Greece."

(Article attributed to Patrick McGovern, Donald L. Glusker, Robert A Moreau,
Alberto Nunez, Curt W. Beck, Elizabeth Simpson, Eric D. Butrym,  Lawrence J.
Exner, Edith C. Stout, all at the Museum Applied Science center for
Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA.)

Doctor McGovern has identified for me that the pulses in question were most
likely lentils. The term "Mediterranean herbs and spices" translates into
"bitter vetch or wild fenugreek. A compound related to capsaicin was
detected, but pepper was probably not available to the ancient Phrygians".
This from his e-mail to me on 8/30/00.

Now, it seems to me that the above description bears a striking similarity
to some of the Andalusian recipes found webbed at Cariadoc and Elizabeth's
Miscellany. What we have is a stew made of bits of barbecued lamb or goat,
which are then tossed into cooked or cooking seasoned pulses (probably
lentils) seasoned with fenugreek and possibly also bitter vetch which are
cooked with copious amounts of animal fats. The mystery ingredient sounds
intriguing. I wonder what could possibly have given those pepper-like
compounds?



A last note:
Although I am managing to get on to read this list once a week or so, I am
in the process of getting ready to cook for Aethelmearc Fall Crown Tourney,
thus I won't really be able to find and enter into any discussions that are
published directly to the sca-cook's list. It would be best, if folks want
to correspond with me, that they contact me directly at betpulib at ptd.net ,
keeping in mind that it may take me a while to respond.

Cheers

Aoife

Dame Aoife Finn
m/k/a Lisbeth Herr-Gelatt
betpulib at ptd.net