Tasting History with Max Miller · Video summary
History's Worst Copper Merchant & His 4000 Year Old Cake
Tasting History with Max Miller recreates a 4,000-year-old Sumerian cheesecake recipe, based on a cuneiform tablet from the Third Dynasty of Ur. The episode also delves into the infamous copper merchant Ea-nasir, whose ancient complaint letter has become a modern meme.
Watch on YouTube ↗Key takeaways
- 📜The older a recipe is, the more vague it tends to be, sometimes providing only a list of ingredients without preparation instructions.00:38
- 📏The Sumerian unit of measurement 'sila' is roughly equivalent to a liter.01:27
- 🍞The Sumerian term 'gug' for cake implies the use of flour, even if it's not explicitly listed in the oldest known ingredient lists.01:53
- 🌿Wrapping baked goods in grape leaves can act as a natural parchment paper, preventing burning and steaming the food.04:36
- 😠Ea-nasir, a copper merchant from ancient Ur, is known today primarily because of a collection of customer complaint letters found in his excavated home.09:21
- 😡The most famous complaint letter to Ea-nasir, from Nanni, details receiving poor quality copper and being treated with contempt.12:19
Chapters
- 0:00📜 Introduction to Ea-nasir and the Sumerian Cheesecake
- 0:38🤔 The Challenge of Ancient Recipes
- 1:44📝 The Sumerian Recipe and Missing Ingredients
- 4:55✈️ Saily eSIM Sponsorship
- 6:49👨🍳 Sumerian Cheesecake Ingredients and Preparation
- 8:12🗣️ Sumerian Language Lesson
- 8:30🔥 Baking the Cheesecake
- 11:43🏛️ The History of Ur and Ea-nasir
- 12:10📖 Table of Gods Cookbook Promotion
- 13:48💰 Ea-nasir's Identity and Business
- 20:04😠 The Complaint Letters to Ea-nasir
- 23:38🤔 Theories on Ea-nasir's Actions
- 25:42📜 Ea-nasir's Later Life and Legacy
- 28:51🍰 Tasting and Review of the Sumerian Cheesecake
The digest
In an ambitious culinary endeavor, Tasting History with Max Miller attempts to recreate a dessert from the Third Dynasty of Ur, a period in Sumerian history dating back approximately 4,000 years. This isn't just any ancient recipe; it's based on a cuneiform tablet that predates the first known written recipes by two centuries, presenting a unique challenge for modern interpretation.
The Ancient Recipe: A List of Ingredients
The cuneiform tablet, found in a Sumerian palace, doesn't offer detailed instructions but rather a simple list of ingredients and their proportions for a "gug egala kura," or "cake sent to the palace." The specified components include one sila of butter, one-third sila of white cheese, three silas of first-quality dates, and one-third sila of Smyrna raisins. A "sila" is an ancient unit of measurement roughly equivalent to a liter. The lack of preparation methods and the possibility of missing ingredients, such as flour (which is inferred from the term "gug" for cake and later recipes), mean that any modern recreation is largely an educated guess.
Max Miller humorously acknowledges the inherent inaccuracies in such a recreation, noting that anyone who could correct him has been dead for millennia. He opts to use fine flour, likely from emmer or spelt, rather than the more common barley of Sumeria, to achieve a finer texture suitable for a palace cake.
Keep reading in The Digest
The full 4-minute article, 4 more sections, and every new episode from Tasting History with Max Miller and the creators you follow.
- The Recreation Process: A Modern Interpretation
- Ea-nasir: The Infamous Copper Merchant of Ur
- The World's Oldest Complaint Letter
- Tasting the Ancient Cake
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