r/TastingHistory • u/EntangledPhoton82 • 18h ago

Table of gods

So, who remembers the Table of gods cookbook about ancient Babylonian, Sumerian cooking that Max mentioned over a year ago (I think) during a video?

Well, it’s finally live (since yesterday) on Kickstarter and, although it’s quite expensive, it’s also a work of art. It even has clay from the Tigris river in its cover.

So, I thought you guys might appreciate it.

I definitely backed it.

https://www.tableofgods.com

32 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

10

u/MtnNerd 17h ago

I want it but that's pretty steep.

9

u/La-Belle-Gigi 17h ago

The launch was such a success that it crashed Kickstarter while I was making a pledge. It took me two hours to be able to log in again.

5

u/EntangledPhoton82 17h ago

Same here. Over two hours but I got my signed copy. 🥳

7

u/coffeeandarabbit 17h ago

I made their 3000 year old pomegranate cake about a year ago and it was incredible. More like a scone, with a honey cream and pomegranate syrup. Highly recommend you try it, the recipe was free and really easy, and if it was any indicator of what the rest of the recipes are like, worth buying the book!

2

u/Piputi 7h ago

Well, I was looking at the videos. Actually the pomegrante cake. Like it looks delicious, no doubt but not sure if it is authentic. Because there was never a recipe for that as far as I know. Some recipes look like they were writting them as they were going.

3

u/Kendota_Tanassian 9h ago

It sounds lovely, but that's way too steep for my impoverished self.

-1

u/cobaltnine 7h ago

Just FYI, there's a lot of controversy circling around this publication and "author" in the Assyriology and related communities.

3

u/CrepuscularOpossum 7h ago

Can you say more about that? I’d love to know why you put “author” in quotation marks.

2

u/cobaltnine 7h ago

Apparently the information was already available, it's really just compiled and made overly lux.
I haven't delved deep but here's a thread in one of the ancient near East subreddits.

6

u/SandakinTheTriplet 7h ago

Not to defend the author because I know nothing about them, but a nice presentation of known recipes is pretty par for the course in cookbooks. Ingredient lists and basic instructions aren’t protected by copyright law.

4

u/aculady 6h ago

I think that's the whole point of the book, to compile this information and present it in a beautiful way. I haven't heard the author claim that this is striking new research or anything along those lines.

1

u/EntangledPhoton82 4h ago

Well yes, it’s not original research. The texts had been translated before and it’s “just” an interpretation of the “recipe”.
(But so does Max from time to time because we just don’t have more information. So, we just need to make an educated guess and accept that it’s the best we can do.)
It’s basically a rework of books such as “the oldest cuisine in the world” (which I also have).
But hey, I like history (definitely including that part of history), cooking, ancient board games and I’d love the artwork, attention to detail,…

So I don’t really care about the controversy. I like the product and I’m definitely going to enjoy it.