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COPENHAGEN: While the folk of Bronze Age Europe were mostly making do with simple stews and bread, people in Syria were already importing ingredients and using pots of differing temperatures to support \u201csophisticated\u201d cuisine, researchers said on Friday.<\/p>\n
The evidence from Danish experts suggests people living in what is now the city of Hama 4,500 years ago were already enjoying dishes of simmered goat, gazelle and cereals.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s cooks used pots with different heating properties depending on the type of meal they were about to prepare, much as we choose between cast-iron or non-stick frying pans today.<\/p>\n
Mette Marie Hald, from the National Museum of Copenhagen, and her team reached the conclusion after examining animal bones, plant remains and fats from inside cooking pots found in the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels a bit modern, actually, the way that you have different pots and you have different sort of serving wares,\u201d the archaeobotanist told AFP.<\/p>\n
Locally produced pots were made from clay and calcite, while others were made from clay mixed with basalt and were imported from as far away as China.<\/p>\n
Meals could be prepared with imported ingredients such as gazelle, which itself came from much further east.<\/p>\n
Hald said the evidence of \u201csophisticated cooking\u201d they had uncovered in Hama was supported by recipes written down in much later periods.<\/p>\n
Danish archaeologists started digging in Hama in the first half of the 20th century, she said, so there has been quite a lot of research on everyday life there.<\/p>\n
But she added that they had not really focused on food culture before.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a period of kingdoms, well-organised cities and stratified societies,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that way, it\u2019s not surprising that they also knew sophisticated cooking. I think the surprising element is we can actually prove it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n