Among our colleagues are food historians and archaeologists engaged in research on ancient cooking implements, techniques, and recipes. Modern Turkish pottery masters are reproducing beautiful Anatolian vessels from the pre-Classical period.
Archaeologists are using carbon dating and analysis of plant and animal DNA to tell us much about early crops and nutrition. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to have written records—warehouse inventories, cargo manifests, and even recipes—to guide us. These cross-disciplinary findings are exciting. Knowing how earlier peoples produced and prepared their food is essential to our understanding of their civilizations.
Photograph courtesy Dr. Taner Korkut, Akdeniz University
Terracotta Vessel by Tufan Dagistanli
Our Turkish gastronomic programs will include opportunities to visit archaeological sites, meet with these specialists, and share meals whose dishes might have been enjoyed more than two thousand years ago.