Now let’s take a huge leap forward on the human timeline from the paleolithic age to the relative near past of about nine thousand years ago. The people archaeologically known as the Ubaidians began to settle the area known today as Iraq. The Ubaidians built small villages. In fact, it’s generally acknowledged that they were first village builders in the region. The land they settled was unforgiving. There were few trees, the climate was hot and arid, and the soil was frequently lacking nutrients and not at all good for planting crops. The sun and the wind mocked the temerity of the settlers by alternately baking the land with relentless 100° F days throughout the summer months and then eroding what little topsoil was left by blowing everything away in annual wind storms.
However, this same uncompromising land did have two particularly good features, namely the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and these two rivers flooded. In fact, they flooded a lot, especially in winter and spring. The floodwaters brought much-needed nutrients to the soil and formed temporary marshlands that teemed with seasonal fish and fowl. The ancient Ubaidians learned that when the often unpredictable and destructive flood waters receded, they could actually grow things. Better yet, they could eat those things or feed those things to their goats, and then eat well-fed and delicious goats.
For a couple thousand years, the Ubaidians flourished. They became accomplished farmers, raising enough food to feed themselves and their livestock, and they developed agricultural technologies that would ultimately come to shape and impact human civilization to this very day. Along with agriculture and village building, the Ubaidians set trade routes. The Ubaidians traded pottery, food, livestock, textiles, and ideas.
It’s speculated that in roughly 3300 BCE, settlers from beyond the nearby mountain areas began to arrive on the Ubaidian landscape, perhaps following trade routes back to the source. Over many subsequent generations, these newcomers merged with the Ubaidians and their culture changed, eventually becoming the Sumerian, and later Akkadian, cultures. The new population built on the technologies of the past and created walled cities, with even better irrigation and food growing techniques. Importantly, they also developed food storage. Being able to store food gave a certain measure of security and sustainability for the inhabitants and is often cited as a cornerstone for the development and expansion of human civilization.
Civilization Started as a Drinking Game
It’s true. If it wasn’t for a young queen, an overconfident uncle, and an all-night competition to see which one of them could drink more beer, we might not be the world we are today. But before we get to that, let’s talk about writing in Sumer. I promise we’ll get to the drinking game.
One of the many innovations that came from the Sumerians is writing. The history of cuneiform (a word meaning wedge-shaped) is fascinating. The very short version is that the Sumerians wanted to count things like sheep and grain and other commerce items. Clay tokens were used to symbolize particular products. Each token was marked with a pictograph representing goats or ducks or sacks of grain. Clay tokens, each with the symbol for “goat” etched on them, gave an accounting of how many goats someone had bought or sold. Initially, these clay tokens were put into containers and sealed. The problem was, if the number of tokens in the container was forgotten or disputed, the seals had to be broken and the process had to start all over again.
Some upstart came up with the idea of simply marking the outside of the containers with symbols and did away with the whole token idea. The next innovation involved flattening out the containers into tablets and “writing” the symbols vertically. The process kept being refined until cuneiform “letters” were written in rows from left to right. Here’s why this is important. As the development of writing continued, the Sumerians began documenting other events too, like names and poems and religious rites. They even recorded recipes (more on that exciting development later).
Cuneiform tablets surprisingly survived for a very long time, but were largely indecipherable until the mid-nineteenth century. The mysteries of cuneiform were finally unlocked and translated into modern language due to the discovery of the Behistun inscriptions. The inscriptions were carved onto a cliff in the side of Mount Behistun, in Kermanshah, western Iran. The carvings are massive, extending more than one hundred yards in length and fifteen yards in height. They chronicle the life and times of King Darius and, most importantly, are written in three separate, newer cuneiform languages. These inscriptions, in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian, cross-referenced between each language, became the base rubric for translating the oldest forms of cuneiform.4 For the first time in several thousand years, archaeologists and linguists could quite literally read accounts of the daily life and times of a people long gone.
Apart from commerce and trade, the Sumerians wrote extensively about their religious beliefs. The names of the first goddesses and gods, and a whole cosmology explaining how the world, Underworld, and heavens were formed, was painstakingly and lovingly put down onto clay tablets. Food, drink, hospitality, and the stories of the gods show up quite a bit in these early texts. It seems that food and drink were as big a deal to the Sumerians as they are to us today. The scribes of the time certainly wrote a lot about food and beer and what to do with it all. And it’s these stories and poems for the goddesses and gods that tell us civilization started as an epic drinking game gone bad.
In the stories, Enki, the god of wisdom, learns that the young queen, Inanna, is about to show up on his doorstep. He gives directions to his staff to prepare the household for Inanna’s visit:
When Inanna enters the holy shrine,
Give her butter cake to eat.
Pour cold water to refresh her heart.
Offer her beer before the statue of the lion.
Treat her like an equal.
Greet Inanna at the holy table, the tabe of heaven. 5
Well that’s a nice way to welcome a visitor into your home, isn’t it? A little butter cake, some beer, cooling water to shake off the heat of the day, and treatment as an equal. Clearly, hospitality was important to the Sumerian gods.
Enki and Inanna, however, don’t stop at butter cakes and a quick, refreshing pint of fine Sumerian IPA. They start drinking, really quaffing it back in fact. And as we’ll learn later, Sumerian beer rivalled many modern beers, with an estimated alcohol content of around 3.5 percent.
Enki and Inanna drank beer together.
They drank more beer together.
They drank more and more beer together.
With their bronze vessels filled to overflowing,
With the vessels of Urash, Mother of the Earth,
They toasted each other: they challenged each other. 6
In my experience, drinking beer, drinking more beer, then drinking more and more beer is going to end badly for someone. And I somehow suspect that someone might be Uncle Enki.
Enki, swaying with drink, toasted Inanna:
In the name of my Power! In the name of my holy shrine!
To my daughter Inanna I shall give
The High Priesthood! Godship!
The noble, enduring crown! The throne of kingship!
See, I told you it was going to end in tears for Enki. Inanna, perhaps slightly less drunk than her favourite uncle Enki, responds, “I take them.”
When you think about it, it’s an astute thing to say. When drunk uncles, especially drunk uncles who are gods, start handing out power and the foundational tools for building civilizations, it seems like a good idea to take what’s on offer.
Enki and Inanna keep drinking, and as they do, Enki continues to give Inanna many wonderful gifts, known as the Me (pronounced like the month of May). The Me include truth, the art of lovemaking, the giving of judgements, and the making of decisions. Also, shepherding, libation priests, the holy tavern, procreation, kindling the fires, the art of feeding pens, leather making, scribing, purification rites, and the heaping up of hot coals. In fact, Enki and Inanna raise their cups fourteen times and, on each occasion, good ol’ uncle Enki gives Inanna more and more Me. Each time, she simply replies “I take them,” until Inanna is left with all of the Me. Reading a full list of the Me, one can see that they represent all the facets of civilization and show how to organize city-states and the activities that go on in them, including how best to properly worship the goddesses and gods of each city by offering them lots of food and drink.
Enki eventually passes out. Inanna loads her barge full of Me and departs rather quickly. Enki wakes up the next morning a little worse for wear, blearily looks about the palace, and discovers that everything is gone. His staff recounts how he generously gifted Inanna anything that wasn’t nailed to the temple floor. Enki dispatches monsters to capture Inanna and bring back the Me, but to no avail. Inanna has made it home to the City of Uruk and has shared the Me with the people, for which they adore her.
Inanna suggests a giant festival be thrown in her honour and, even after a marathon drinking session with her uncle, decides that there should be plenty of food and beer on the menu.
Let all of Uruk be festive.
Let the king slaughter oxen and sheep.
Let him pour beer out of the cup.
Let all the lands proclaim my noble name.
Let my people sing my praises. 7
And for several thousand years afterward, they did.
We Know the Gods Liked to Eat, but What about the People?
The really good news here is that the Sumerians kept great records. Their cuneiform tablets recorded commercial transactions, like how much barley and grain was bought and sold, but they also recorded recipes. It’s believed that most of the recipes recorded came from dinner parties thrown at the homes of the wealthy elite and from temple records showing offerings given to the gods.
We see recipes that included meats such as lamb, mutton, and gazelle. Temple cakes dripping with date syrup and elaborate sweet and savoury breads were detailed extensively. These foods were considered luxury items and would have been too expensive for the average citizen. The general population wouldn’t have as much access to such delicacies on a regular basis, but would have substituted ducks, pigeons, and fish that were plentiful in the seasonal marshlands.8
Sumerian records show that the most common food ingredients included grains like barley, semolina, and wheat, which could be made into simple breads, beer, and porridge (like mashes that could be served both sweet or savoury). Vegetables were plenty—there were peas, beans, lentils, leeks, onions, and garlic. It’s also believed there were cucumbers and varieties of lettuces available, although linguistically the words used to describe these vegetables don’t translate exactly. Fruits played a big role in the Sumerian diet. Chief among them were dates, a beloved favourite of the goddess Inanna. Apples, melons, figs, and grapes are mentioned too.
The Sumerians had a well-stocked spice rack that would make any cook happy. Salt was used as both a flavouring agent and as a preservative. Coriander, cumin, thyme, turmeric, saffron, carob, and cardamom were readily available. From what we can deduce, several cooking methods were commonplace. Meats, breads, and vegetables were roasted on spits or cooked in hot ashes. Although interestingly enough, most meats were only browned or seared over open flames and then added to boiling broths to finish tenderizing and cooking. Examples of cooking procedures recorded on clay tablets show that boiling and braising were the most employed methods. Foods that were fully roasted, or grilled, as we might frame it today, were given as offerings to the gods. Roasted meat does smell delicious, and it was believed that the aromas wafting about tempted the goddesses and gods to stay close by.
Breads and barley-based cakes were cooked in small domed ovens. Ki.ne, which translates in Sumerian to “place of fire” or hearth, could be applied to a temporary fire pit, much like today’s campfire. Foods were cooked on skewers, and pots were set to boil. Ki.ne also referred to small household ovens. Later in the Akkadian period, the word Ki.ne evolved into kinunu, which meant “oven.”9 A kinunu was made of clay bricks and had an opening at the bottom where wood and compressed briquettes were added. Above the heat source was the cooking area. Breads were placed on wooden planks or clay plates. Most households had such an oven.
As Sumerian culture flourished, communal ovens and what we might consider local bakeries developed. In Iran, the piping hot tanur oven is still used to this very day, much the same way it was used in ancient Sumer. If you’ve ever seen a brick-fired oven at a pizza restaurant, you’ll get the idea of how such ovens worked. Vegetables and smaller proteins, like locusts and crayfish, would also be cooked in the household kinunu.
When you stop to think about it, not much has changed in the several thousand years since the times of the ancient Sumerians. They grilled, boiled, roasted, and braised their foods. We may have fancy gadgets, six-burner gas stoves, microwave ovens, stainless steel smokers, and centuries of culinary techniques at our disposal, but the basic methods remain pretty much unchanged: foodstuffs plus water plus heat plus spice equals a delicious meal. Even with basic cooking utensils and preparation techniques, I can imagine amazing, delicious, and nutritious meals being prepared with these ample Sumerian ingredients.
Let’s Talk about Beer and Ninkasi
Now, I’m one of those people that believes there are six major food groups—meat, dairy, bread, fruits and vegetables, chocolate, and beer. Chocolate wouldn’t be available for many, many centuries, so in the case of the ancient Sumerians we must leave that one out. But oh my, did they know about beer. Barley beer, made from a mash of barley, honey, and fermenting dates, was so popular that it was currency. People were paid in beer!10 Let that sink in for a minute or two. I could get used to the idea of compensation packages being a combination of wages, paid vacation time, and a beer allowance, but I digress.
This delicious Sumerian barley concoction wouldn’t have resembled the beer that you can find at your local brew pub today. There were no hops used, and the finished product certainly wasn’t a golden amber or unfiltered pilsner. Sumerian beer was something more like alcoholic oatmeal, complete with chunks of fruit and barley mash. Drinking a vessel full of Sumerian beer would have been tantamount to eating half a loaf of bread. But you know, there’s something particularly enticing about half a loaf of alcoholic bread. There is one famous cuneiform tablet that shows two people drinking out of one large cup, using straws. The beer was so thick, clay tubes were used to suck up the liquid and filter out some of the solids. Who knew that the invention of beer was also responsible for the creation of drinking straws?
As you might imagine, with beer being such an important part of early Sumerian culture, there was a goddess connected to the brewing of beer. Her name was Ninkasi. What I find particularly lovely is that the deity who oversaw beer and alcohol production in general was a goddess, not a god. When I think about most brew pubs, brew masters, and advertisements that show beer drinking today, it’s a particularly male-centric affair. This wasn’t the case in ancient Sumer. Women oversaw brewing beer and other alcoholic beverages. So sacred and exalted was beer making that a poem called Hymn to Ninkasi was inscribed in cuneiform. The hymn is not only a praise poem to the goddess but a clever mnemonic device, detailing the recipe and techniques for brewing beer.11
This brewing song or poem was translated by Miguel Civil, professor of Sumerology at the University of Chicago, in 1964. Beer enthusiast and founder of the Anchor Brewing Company, Fritz Maytag, recreated the beer, appropriately named Ninkasi beer. In 1991, at the American Association of microbrewers, Professor Civil noted, “The brewers were able to taste ‘Ninkasi Beer,’ sipping it from large jugs with drinking straws as they did four millennia ago. The beer had an alcohol concentration of 3.5%, very similar to modern beers, and had a ‘dry taste lacking in bitterness, similar to hard apple cider.’ In Mesopotamia, hops were unknown and beer was produced for immediate consumption, so the ‘Sumerian’ beer didn’t keep very well, but everyone connected with the reconstruction of the process seems to have enjoyed the experience.”12
If you have a mind to recreate Ninkasi Beer for yourself, you may want to spend some time in devotion to this very popular Sumerian goddess.
A Dinner Party Four Thousand Years in the Making
The Sumerian world began roughly nine thousand years ago. The culture continually changed and adapted. Language and technology evolved as new people moved in, assimilated, or took over by conquest. But one thing always stayed very much the same—the love of a good dinner party. It’s important to note that the Sumerians drew a worthy distinction, much like we do today, between “eating” and “dining.” Every creature eats. Only humans and the gods dine. There’s a profound difference between fueling our bodies to stave off death and the sheer human joy of eating and sharing a meal with others. Now, we know precious little about the day-to-day celebrations and dinner parties the ordinary Sumerian people partook in. But we do know a fair bit about the food practices of the temples and the wealthy folk.
Jean Bottero, a renowned Assyriologist, provides, in The Oldest Cuisine in the World: Cooking in Mesopotamia, impressive lists of ingredients for a magnificent ten-day feast thrown by King Ashurnasirpal II to mark the occasion of renovating his capital city. Among the opulent ingredients, we see one thousand barley-fed oxen, fourteen thousand sheep, five hundred gazelles, ten thousand locusts, ten thousand eggs, one hundred roses, one hundred onions, one hundred leeks, one hundred garlics, and the list goes on and on.13 The feast was for sixty-nine thousand people, so it appears they did have to get a few extras! As you might imagine, there was a veritable army of people employed to cook all of this food, and they were broken into various brigades of cooks, bakers, roasters, beer makers, and servers.
Bottero is responsible for translating three cuneiform tablets containing thirty-five distinct recipes. These records, known as the Yale tablets, show an assortment of broth and stew recipes, as well as roasted fowl dishes, and even a few desserts. Unfortunately, many of the recipes have ingredients that Bottero can’t identify, especially some of the spices, and several recipes make assumptions that the reader knows contemporary facts that have been lost to time. Imagine you have a recipe that says “use the typical holiday spices.” We might assume that means cloves, cinnamon, and orange peel, but that’s because when we hear “holiday spices” we commonly think of holidays celebrated in the West in late December. Of course, that’s not what was written. I just said “holiday spices,” which could also mean any spices for any holiday, but you knew what I was referring to. Imagine that knowledge now spread out over several thousand years, and you can see where problems might occur.
Here are three interpretations of traditional recipes that were found on the Yale tablets. The ingredients, except for the oatmeal stout, are as true to the original recipes as we understand them. I substituted oatmeal stout in place of Sumerian barley mash beer. A barley beer could be used too, but they tend to have much higher alcohol contents. The cooking techniques are approximated as noted on the Yale tablets too, but modern appliances were used.
Tuh’u Broth: Lamb and Arugula Stew
You are about to make a meal that is several thousand years old. Think about that for a moment. It boggles my mind imagining all the people that have eaten some version of this meal. I’m not a Sumerian or Assyrian scholar by any stretch of the imagination, but as near as I can piece together, the word Tuh’u basically means “meat broth.”
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Serves 4 |
Prep Time: |
Cooking Time: |
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2 tablespoons of fat, divided |
2 tablespoons of coriander |
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1 medium yellow onion |
Salt to taste (about two |
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1 leek |
1 bottle of oatmeal stout |
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2 cloves of garlic |
3 cups of water |
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2 handfuls of arugula (plus |
1 pound of lamb stew meat |
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1 tablespoon of cumin |
4 tablespoons of semolina |
Heat one tablespoon of fat in a large saucepan or pot over medium heat. Peel and roughly chop the yellow onion into large pieces. Clean and chop the leek, including the green parts. Peel and chop the cloves of garlic. Add the onion, leek, and garlic to the pot. Give a quick stir to coat with the fat. Stir occasionally for 8 minutes until softened, but not browned. Add one generous handful of arugula. Stir until the arugula wilts. Add the cumin, coriander, and salt. Stir. Pour one half of the oatmeal stout into the pot. Pour the other half into a glass and enjoy. (You are doing all the cooking, after all.) Add three cups of water to the pot and stir. Bring to a near boil, then turn down the heat and reduce to a gentle simmer. Heat a skillet (cast iron preferred) on high heat for 2 minutes. Add the other tablespoon of fat to the skillet. Let sit for one minute. Add lamb stew meat to the skillet. Brown the meat on all sides. When the meat is nicely browned, add it and any juices to the saucepan with the vegetables and beer. Stir in four tablespoons of semolina.
Let simmer on low heat for an hour or until the meat is tender. Ladle the Tuh’u broth, vegetables, and meat into a large serving bowl. For each serving, ladle into a bowl and garnish with the remaining arugula.
For a more modern version of Tuh’u broth, see page 218 in the recipe section.
Flatbreads have been and continue to be a staple throughout the world. Their recipes and cooking methods remain simple and effective, just like this one.
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Serves 4 |
Prep Time: |
Cooking Time: |
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2 cups of barley flour |
1 cup + 2 tablespoons of room temperature water |
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1/2 teaspoon of salt |
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1 clove of garlic (cumin and/or coriander could replace the garlic or be added to it. Try 1/4 teaspoon of each. For a sweet version, replace the spices with chopped dates or dried figs) |
Preheat the oven to 350° F. Put the flour into a large mixing bowl. Add the salt. Chop the garlic finely and add to the flour and salt. Pour in the water slowly, approximately ¼ cup at a time, and mix until a dough forms (do this by hand if you can; it’s messy but so much better). Knead the dough for about 10 minutes on a lightly floured surface. Make small dough balls, each about the size of a golf ball, then flatten them between your hands until you have flat, thin discs about the size of coffee can lids.
Place the dough circles onto a baking sheet or pizza stone and cook for approximately 30 minutes. Remove to a plate and eat while the bread is hot.
Fruit, nuts, and honey. This dish is so simple to make. I can see why these were so popular back in the day, and why they continue to be enjoyed now.
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Serves 4 |
Prep Time: |
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24 dates (pitted dates are easier to work with) |
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3 tablespoons of honey or date syrup |
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1 cup of shelled pistachios |
Chop the dates into small pieces. You can use kitchen scissors to do this with ease. Place the date pieces into a medium bowl and beat into a chunky paste. Use a large mortar and pestle to do this if you have one. Add the honey. Set aside. Take half of the pistachios and grind them to a powder using a mortar and pestle, food processor, or coffee grinder. Put the pistachio powder into a small bowl. Bash the remaining pistachios with a rolling pin until you have nice little chunks, and place them in a small bowl.
Roll the date and honey mixture into small balls. You should be able to make about eight of them. Roll in the crushed pistachio powder, pressing the chunks into the date and honey balls, so it adheres and coats the balls.
Move to your favourite serving plate and eat. Then lick your fingers. You’ll thank me later.
Prepare the recipes for Tuh’u broth, simple flatbread, and rolled date bites ahead of time, or incorporate the cooking into your ritual. Alternatively, simply fill bowls with dates, pistachios, figs, apricots, flatbreads, honey, and any other foods that are sacred to Inanna.
Raise a temple to Inanna. You can create an elaborate temple as you choose, then within that temple create a place to gather and eat. Decorate this place, perhaps a dining room or kitchen table, with bowls and plates and fabrics the colour of cinnamon and cumin and coriander. Imagine Inanna, Queen of Heaven, is coming to dine with you. What would you want her to see in this temple you are making for her? Say these words to her:
Bring the Tuh’u broth, hot and delicious.
Bring the bread, fresh from the oven.
Bring dates and pistachios and honey.
Bring beer, bring more beer, bring even more beer.
And as you build your temple for Inanna, call to her. Invite Inanna to share the feast you have created in praise of her. Recite these words:
I make the Queen of Heaven a great feast.
I make the goddess of the evening star a great feast.
I make Inanna, Queen of Heaven and goddess
of the evening star, a great feast.
Call out and ask Inanna to join you. Remind Inanna that there is plenty of food for her.
We bring Tuh’u broth to your temple.
We bring bread and beer to your temple.
We bring sweet dates, nuts, and honey to your temple.
Eat with Inanna. Slurp the broth and dip the bread. Taste the garlic on your fingers. Bite into the tender lamb. Breathe in deeply the scent of spices and onions and good beer. Fill your mouth with dates and pistachios and bread dipped in honey. Remind Inanna what it is to have a belly full of delicious food, prepared in service of her.
Tell Inanna that you remember her story.
We offer you praise, dear Inanna, for drinking with your uncle.
We offer you praise, dear Inanna, for bringing the Me to us.
We offer you praise, dear Inanna, for breadmaking and sharing of food.
Reminisce with Inanna. Laugh and sing and eat food with Inanna. Treat her like an honoured guest, a beloved friend returning home from a long journey. Let the meal and the remembering take a long time.
And when you’ve eaten so much, and drank even more, and told your stories to Inanna, ask her to stay a while longer as you pick up the dishes, wrap any leftovers, and slowly put her temple away. Just before you put away the last piece of the temple, take a moment in silence and listen. Just listen. Does Inanna have a story to tell you?
Thank Inanna. Thank the goddess evening star. Thank the Queen of Heaven. Put away your temple until it’s time for another feast.
4. NA. “Behistun Inscription.” New World Encyclopedia. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Behistun_Inscription.
5. Diana Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer. Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
6. Diana Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer. Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
7. Diana Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer. Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
8. Jean Bottero and Teresa Lavender Fagan. The Oldest Cuisine in the World: Cooking in Mesopotamia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
9. Jean Bottero and Teresa Lavender Fagan. The Oldest Cuisine in the World: Cooking in Mesopotamia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
10. Peter Dockrill. “This 5,000-year-old artefact shows ancient workers were paid in beer.” Science Alert. https://www.sciencealert.com/this-5-000-year-old-clay-tablet-shows-ancient-mesopotamians-were-paid-for-work-in-beer.
11. Joshua J. Mark. “The Hymn to Ninkasi, Goddess of Beer.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. https://www.ancient.eu/article/222/the-hymn-to-ninkasi-goddess-of-beer/.
12. Miguel Civil. “Modern Brewers Recreate Ancient Beer.” The Oriental Institute no. 132, Autumn 1991.
13. Jean Bottero and Teresa Lavender Fagan. The Oldest Cuisine in the World: Cooking in Mesopotamia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.