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He is a serious amateur historian, with a couple of books on cryptological history and is also interested in historical cooking - mostly colonial American cooking. To be honest, I think I have to give some credit to my husband for helping me extend the “Silk Road concept” to historical dishes. Using the Silk Road to explore historical cuisines and connect them to the present was still to come. It was more a process of discovery over time.īy the mid-2000s, when I began writing Volume 1 of my book, also entitled The Silk Road Gourmet, the concept of employing the Silk Road to relate current cuisines was well-developed in my mind.
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Over the years, I noticed patterns and connections between the dishes in different countries, and I started to think about the links: I knew there was trade between nations, both in antiquity and in the present, but I did not frame my observations immediately.
Recipes lost to time free#
I always scheduled free time when traveling to explore the cultures I was visiting, and I always ate on the economy or when possible watched the cooks - at the guesthouses where I was staying - prepare meals. Much later, after college and graduate school, I held a few jobs that enabled me to travel to exotic locales in Asia for extensive periods of time. I started cooking Asian (Indian) cuisine when I was about 12 or 13, and I started traveling internationally when I was 16 through an American Field Service fellowship to Thailand. I grew up in a busy Italian-American family where most socialization took place in the kitchen - so I am natural-born “foodie.” Cooking and feeding people have always been expressions of creativity and caring for me. The best place to begin is often at the beginning, so I just want to note that I have always been interested in food. I am thrilled to be discussing The Silk Road Gourmet with AHE. LK: Hi James! Thank you so much for the invitation to speak with you today. How did you first become interested in the Silk Road and the art of cooking? Had you always been interested in the cultures and cooking traditions of the Near East and Central Asia? However, it was also an intersection of recipes, foods, and flavors. The Silk Road was a conduit of trade, technology, and philosophy across the Eurasian continent. Laura Kelley, welcome to the Ancient History Encyclopedia! It is a pleasure to speak to you about your blog, The Silk Road Gourmet, in addition to your research on ancient cuisine. In this interview, James Blake Wiener of the Ancient History Encyclopedia speaks to Laura about her interest in cooking - past and present - as well as how she has been able to reconstruct recipes from ancient Central Asia, Mesopotamia, and Rome. As a frequent traveler, Laura first noted the commonalities between recipes and cooking methods, which in turn provided the catalyst for her research as an independent scholar. Laura Kelley, author and founder of The Silk Road Gourmet blog, analyzes the links between recipes, civilizations, and trade across great distances and over long periods of time. The reconstruction of ancient recipes challenges experimental archaeologists and chefs alike, while concurrently offering unique glimpses into the culinary tastes of diverse ethnic groups.