Eats History

The oldest written hummus recipe in the world is 776 years old.

It was written in Aleppo, Syria in 1250 CE by a historian named Ibn al-'Adeem. Not a chef. A historian. Who also happened to document one of the most extraordinary cookbooks of the medieval period.

The base of the recipe is identical to what you make today. Chickpeas, tahini, lemon, garlic, salt. That part has not changed in 776 years.

What has changed is the garnish. After the hummus is spread flat on a wide plate, the 1250 CE manuscript says to drizzle it with sweet olive oil, scatter chopped parsley and pistachios across the top, dust it with Ceylon cinnamon, and finish with crushed rose buds.

The manuscript also notes that the dish will look quite nice if you arrange whole chickpeas on top. A medieval Syrian historian giving you plating advice.
I made it exactly as written. It scored a 9.4 out of 10. It would hold up in any Mediterranean restaurant open today.

Full recipe and the full history: eatshistory.com/the-oldest-hummus-recipe-in-the...…

18 hours ago | [YT] | 439

Eats History

In Ancient Greece, the unpredictable and feared King of the Sea had to be appeased by offering food, but he couldn't even eat it.

We know that the Greek gods only ate ambrosia. Divine nectar. Nothing you or I could grow, grind, or cook. So instead, the Greeks did something more interesting. They baked and fished as a symbol of sacrifice.

For the baking, they made specific cakes. Different shapes, different ingredients, different recipes for different gods. A cake for Artemis on the full moon with candles placed on top, which means the birthday cake with candles you had last year traces back 2,500 years to a Greek woman standing in moonlight making an offering to the goddess of the hunt.

For Poseidon, the god who could swallow a fleet whole or split the earth open with his trident, the offering was almost insultingly simple. A flat wheat and cheese cake. Two ingredients. Carved into law on a stone inscription in the 1st century CE Athenian sacred calendar.

And fresh tuna from the sea that was his domain. We know the tuna is right because Athenaeus documents it by name: the people of Halae held a festival to Poseidon specifically during tuna season and offered the first fish caught to the god. It was called a thynnaion. A tuna offering. Named. Documented. Inscribed. So I made both.
The tuna: seared in olive oil with nothing but sea salt. 90 seconds a side. Still red inside. Simple and correct.

The cakes: wheat flour and soft ricotta pressed flat, stamped with fish and tridents, baked until just golden. On their own, a rustic savory cookie. Drizzled with warm honey and scattered with poppy seeds while still hot from the oven, something else entirely.

7.8/10. Ancient, austere, and quietly extraordinary.
Full history of Greek sacrificial cakes, the tuna-Poseidon connection, and the complete recipe at the link below. 🔱🐟


Full Recipe: eatshistory.com/an-ancient-greek-recipe-for-poseid…

2 days ago | [YT] | 1,049

Eats History

1,000 years before the first taco truck, someone in the American Southwest was pressing blue corn flat between their palms, laying it on a hot stone, and folding it around spiced venison.

No salt. No cheese. No salsa. Just three ingredients the Ancestral Puebloans of the Four Corners region had been cooking with for over 2,000 years: blue corn, deer, and dried chiles that have grown in the Southwest since before recorded history.

When the Spanish arrived in 1540 and ransacked a Pueblo village looking for gold, one of Coronado's men wrote home: "We found in it what we needed more than gold and silver — corn and beans and salt, the best and whitest I have seen in my life."
More than gold. He was talking about this food.

I made it twice. First without salt, the way it would have been made before European contact. Then with. The difference will make you understand immediately why every civilization in history has gone to war over salt.

Blue corn flatcakes pressed by hand. Venison and whole guajillo chiles simmered into a dark, earthy broth. Green onion on top. Folded and eaten with your hands.
8.2/10. Slightly gamey, deeply spiced, and genuinely ancient.

Full history + recipe on the blog: eatshistory.com/eating-like-the-ancestral-puebloan…

3 days ago | [YT] | 945

Eats History

The Roast of Kings: A 13th Century Royal Lamb from Islamic Spain

In the 1200s, while much of medieval Europe was eating stewed grains and coarse bread, the courts of al-Andalus were roasting lamb like this. This recipe comes from one of the oldest surviving cookbooks of medieval Iberia — an anonymous 13th-century Andalusian manuscript. It calls for half a lamb rubbed with pepper, caraway, fennel, cinnamon, thyme, oil, and murri… then brushed with beaten eggs and roasted until it has, as the original text says, “an extremely good aroma.”

The lamb is tender, deeply fragrant, layered with warm spice and that fermented depth from murri. The egg coating forms this subtle crust that locks everything in. It’s bold. It’s rich. It tastes like a civilization at its culinary peak.

Full recipe here: eatshistory.com/the-roast-of-kings-13th-century...…

1 week ago | [YT] | 1,072

Eats History

Athena's Sacred Meal: The Olives

Before Rome ever wrote down an olive recipe… the olive tree was already sacred. According to Greek tradition, when Poseidon and Athena competed for the patronage of Athens, Poseidon struck the ground and produced a salt spring. Athena planted the first olive tree.

The Athenians chose the olive.

Her gift wasn’t flashy, but it was practical. Food. Oil. Light. Peace. Civilization itself. Herodotus even tells us that when the Persians burned Athens in 480 BCE and destroyed the sacred olive tree on the Acropolis, a new shoot sprang up the very next day. The tree endured. Just like the city.

So when I made this olive relish from Cato’s De Agri Cultura, I couldn’t help but imagine a similar preparation centuries earlier in Greece, placed before a statue of Athena as an edible offering. Chopped olives. Olive oil. Vinegar. Fennel. Cumin. Fresh herbs. It’s intensely Mediterranean. Salty. Herbal. Sharp. Ancient.

Served over fresh ricotta with bread, it feels simple… but sacred.
Maybe the most fitting offering to the goddess of wisdom wasn’t something extravagant, but a nourishing and rustic recipe tied to the land she governed.

Full Recipe: eatshistory.com/an-ancient-offering-to-athena-oliv…

-Donnie

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 1,107

Eats History

Medieval Lent Was Not For The Weak.

As Catholics around the world settle into Lent season, I thought it would be a cool idea to look into what Lent actually looked like in the Middle Ages… and let me tell you, it hasn’t changed that much. Except for one thing.

The punishment.

Ash Wednesday and Good Friday were what later writers called “black fasts.” One meal. After sunset. Bread. Water. Herbs. That was it. On other days, no food until around 3pm, the hour associated with Christ’s death. No meat. No eggs. No dairy. No butter. No cheese. Nothing that came from warm-blooded animals. And if you broke it?

Today you might feel a little disappointed in yourself. In medieval England, you could be fined. Publicly corrected. In some cases, brought before ecclesiastical courts. Butchers were legally required to close during Lent in certain towns. Meat sales were monitored. Most peasants just kept eating their meatless pottage like usual. But the upper class, who were used to roasted meats and rich sauces, had to get creative.

That’s where this week's dish comes in.
I found a 14th-century fish recipe in The Forme of Cury, the royal cookbook of Richard II’s court. Boiled fish topped with a sharp green garlic-herb sauce made of parsley, mint, rosemary, bread crumbs, vinegar, and something called powder fort.
It’s basically a medieval pesto… poured over boiled fresh water eel (I substituted for catfish).

Was it my favorite dish I’ve ever made? Not exactly.
But as a window into medieval Lent, it’s fascinating.

Full video and recipe coming soon.

– Donnie

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2 weeks ago | [YT] | 1,010

Eats History

This bread recipe is 14,400 years old.

Not ancient Rome. Not Egypt. Not even farming.

This flatbread was baked around 12,500 BC by the Natufians — hunter-gatherers living in what is now Jordan — nearly 2,500 years before agriculture began.
Archaeologists uncovered charred fragments of this very bread at a site called Shubayqa 1. They found that wild barley, einkorn, and even pulverized tubers had been ground, kneaded, and baked on hot stones.

Before the agricultural revolution, humans were already grinding wild grains and making bread. Some researchers even believe that the desire for bread may have helped push humanity toward farming in the first place.

So I recreated it.
Just einkorn, barley, crushed tiger nuts (to mimic ancient tubers), and water. Baked on a hot stone at 500 degrees until blistered and slightly charred.

It’s dense. Nutty. Earthy. Not soft or fluffy. But when you break it apart and realize you’re eating something older than civilization itself… it hits differently!

-Donnie

Full recipe here: eatshistory.com/the-oldest-bread-in-the-world.../

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 859

Eats History

TasteAtlas ranked this the #1 dish in the world in 2025… so I had to explore the history behind it. 🇵🇾

FULL RECIPE: eatshistory.com/vori-vori-paraguays-iconic-soup/

When I saw that Vori Vori, Paraguay’s iconic chicken and corn soup, topped the global rankings, I’ll be honest — I didn’t expect that. A humble bowl of broth with little corn dumplings beating out the world’s most famous dishes? That immediately made me curious.

So I started digging.

Vori Vori isn’t flashy. It’s not layered with exotic spices or complicated techniques. At its heart, it’s a thick chicken broth with soft cornmeal and cheese dumplings. But when you start peeling back the layers, you realize this dish carries centuries of history.

Its roots go back to the Guaraní people, long before Paraguay even existed as a nation. Maize was central to their diet, and shaping it into small dumplings for cooking in broth was both practical and nourishing. The name tells the story too. In Guaraní, repeating a word makes it plural. “Vori” means little ball. “Vori Vori” means little balls. Even the language is woven into the food.

Later, Spanish and Jesuit influence brought cattle and dairy into the region. Fresh cheese entered the dumplings, and what started as an Indigenous maize broth evolved into something uniquely Paraguayan. Then in the 19th century, during the War of the Triple Alliance, this soup became even more important. Soldiers and families needed calorie-dense, sustaining meals built from local ingredients. Vori Vori fit that role perfectly. It wasn’t luxurious. It was dependable.

When I finally made it myself, I understood why it resonates so deeply. The broth is rich but balanced. The squash adds a subtle sweetness. The dumplings are soft, slightly creamy from the cheese, and they absorb the broth in a way that makes every bite cohesive. It feels like survival food that became comfort food.

If you want to make the #1 ranked dish in the world for yourself, I’ve got the full recipe and deep dive into its origins on the blog.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 968

Eats History

Looking for a last-minute dessert to impress your Valentine… but don’t want to spend three hours in the kitchen?

This Byzantine cheesecake might be your move.

It’s one of my most viral and most made recipes ever, and the reason is almost suspiciously simple. Ricotta. Egg. Honey. A bit of flour. A pinch of salt. That’s literally it.

No crust. No water bath. No complicated technique. Just ingredients that have been around for over a thousand years. Versions of this style of baked cheese dessert show up in Byzantine and late Roman culinary traditions, where fresh cheese, honey, and eggs were common staples. It’s simple, elegant, and feels ancient in the best way.

And here’s the thing… it tastes like something far more complex than it is. Light but rich. Slightly sweet from the honey. Creamy with a delicate structure that feels somewhere between cheesecake and custard. It pairs beautifully with berries, a drizzle of extra honey, or just eaten as is.

If you want to make something that feels thoughtful, historical, and wildly easy, this is it.

Here’s the recipe: eatshistory.com/cheesecake-recipe-from-the.../

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 1,040

Eats History

A follower hit my inbox in desperate need for Valentine's Day...

Just so you all know, I'm always here to help!!! 😉

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 1,284