HistoryExtrahttps://www.historyextra.comHome of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast2026-05-25T14:31:03.000Zhourly12000-01-01T12:00+00:00Why did Britain ban soft cheese during World War Two?https://www.historyextra.com/membership/why-did-britain-ban-soft-cheese-during-world-war-two/2026-05-25T14:30:27.000ZThink of cheese, and your mind might wander to a lunchbox staple or a cheeseboard brought out at Christmas.
But there’s much more to this ancient food than that.
Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, cheesemonger Ned Palmer helped uncover the history of this well-loved food and it is more surprising and varied than you might think…
1. Cheesemaking has ancient origins – according to cow bones
With a comestible like cheese, it is difficult to determine exactly when it began being made, because physical evidence of it can be scarce. However, there is one particularly interesting way that archaeologists have been able to work out how long ago cheesemaking began: they look at cow bones.
As Palmer explains, for cheesemaking, you only need female cows, and they can produce milk for a long time. Therefore, when looking at bone distribution at different sites, “if you suddenly see bone distribution change to being lots of female animals who are much older, then you would infer that they’re making cheese." Using this technique, archaeologists have estimated that cheesemaking began around 7,000 BC in the Fertile Crescent (modern-day Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Palestine and Israel) – the birthplace of agriculture and, later, the place of the world’s first cities.
Alongside cow bones, archaeologists can also detect evidence of cheesemaking by analysing ancient shards of pottery that still carry fat residue from cheese. In Britain, this dates cheesemaking to around 4,000 BC, with evidence suggesting that while Stonehenge was being built, cheese was being made nearby.
- Read more | 12 modern trends with surprisingly ancient roots
2. Romans introduced mass production of cheese
What have the Romans done for our cheese? For a long time, it was thought that the Romans taught Britons to make cheese, but this has now been debunked.
While they didn’t teach cheesemaking, the evidence suggests that the Romans did introduce its mass production. In the Roman army, each soldier was given one ounce of ‘aged soldiers’ cheese’ that was hard and nutritious – the perfect ration for a travelling soldier to carry. With 5,000 men in each Roman legion, the amount of cheese that needed to be made on a regular basis was huge, meaning production had to be more efficient and reliable. This led to the introduction of recipes, vats and cheese-cutting knives.
“They brought the kit, and they brought a few people and taught the locals how to make cheese for them”, says Palmer. “They taught us how to make good, consistent cheese; more technological cheese in bulk”.
3. Monks used cheese to pay tax
Thinking of monasteries, we tend to picture monks in quiet prayer, leading simple and peaceful lives away from the rest of society. What we might not imagine is monks making cheese to pay their taxes.
Monks considered it a virtue to be self-sufficient, so making their own produce – including cheese – was something they prided themselves on. But beyond that, monasteries had to pay rent to their motherhouses to keep their farms going.
Through working the land and their huge flocks of animals, monks could produce cheese on a large scale, which they would then send back to their parent house as a tithe. This tithe would be considered a contribution to the Church, just like a monetary donation, allowing monasteries to stay open and commit themselves to supporting the Church and clergy.
4. The Ploughman's lunch was a marketing ploy
A hunk of bread, with some cheese and pickle has been a staple meal for centuries, but only in the recent past has it been known as the Ploughman’s lunch. This naming was all part of a marketing ploy to get people to eat more cheese.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the Milk Marketing Board promoted the meal in pubs as a simple, affordable lunch for workers. Due to rationing during World War Two, this meal had fallen out of favour and the campaign aimed to bring it back into popularity.
Of course, it wasn’t just for ploughmen, but the name stuck. “It would’ve been the forester’s lunch, and the canal boat driver’s lunch and the sailor’s lunch as well but why not call it a Ploughman’s?”
5. Port and Stilton is not as classic a pairing as you might think
Though cheese and wine have most likely been eaten together for thousands of years, the deliberate pairing of specific types, such as port and Stilton might actually be coincidental.
“As an accident of history, port and Stilton both became really popular around the same time”, explains Palmer. During the 17th and 18th centuries, road building was increasing and places like Stilton became a place for coach drivers to stop for a rest, leading to a rising popularity in the cheese they consumed there.
At the same time, port was devised as an alternative to the wine people were used to drinking. “[Britain was] at war with the French and couldn’t get nice French wines, so people tried to up it a bit by adding brandy and inadvertently created port”.
The rise in popularity of both port and Stilton taking place in tandem meant that they started to be paired together, and from there, the combination became a common way to enjoy them both.
- Read more | You probably eat these foods every day, so why did the ancient Romans think they were disgusting poison?
6. Blue cheese was discovered accidentally
There are two origin stories for blue cheese and they both suggest that it was a completely accidental discovery.
The first is that people in the Fertile Crescent were making simple soft cheeses, which were then made in Northern Europe as the craft spread. But the cooler, wetter climates in Europe led the cheese to develop mould spores. Then, as Palmer describes, “a frugal peasant woman who’s making cheese looks at them, tries them and thinks [the mould] is quite nice…she then figures out a way to get the temperature and humidity just about right” to recreate that same mould. And thus, blue cheese was born.
The other, more famous story (one which has many versions) is that of a young peasant boy who had a simple lunch of bread and cheese with him while tending to his flock of sheep. When some bandits appear on the horizon, he hides his lunch and runs away. On his return he notices the bread and cheese have gone mouldy, and being a starving peasant, he eats them anyway. His conclusion was that the cheese, at least, was still quite edible.
Both tales are likely apocryphal, and it’s more likely that the discovery of blue cheese occurred wherever people were experimenting with cheese production.
7. The British government banned all soft and blue cheese during the Second World War
During the Second World War, rationing was common as countries’ money and key supplies went towards the war effort, and imports were often disrupted or stopped. But in Britain, a very specific type of rationing was put in place – the government banned all soft and blue cheeses.
Facing supply chain problems and a long war, the government prioritised the production of hard, durable cheeses: only ‘Government Cheddar’ was allowed to be made. These could survive longer journeys and were more reliably consistent, unlike their softer counterparts, which could go mouldy or dry out before they could be eaten. To sustain the nation during rationing, cheesemakers were ordered to only make large, hard cheeses.
The cheese ration was just 28 grammes, and the control over production became familiar enough that the nickname ‘Government Cheddar’ was given to any cheese made from British milk throughout the war and for a while after.
8. Wallace and Gromit helped save Wensleydale
In the 1990s, sales of Wensleydale had dropped significantly and there were concerns that its production would grind to a halt. Then came along the loveable duo Wallace and Gromit, with Wallace’s famous catchphrase, “cheese, Gromit!”. Known for his love of cheese, Wallace’s favourite was Yorkshire Wensleydale.
Allegedly chosen as the character’s favourite because it was a funny sounding word that was easy to animate, Wensleydale became closely associated with the films and led to a surge in sales; in fact, for a while, Wensleydale became Britain’s biggest export in dairy to the rest of the world.
Two stop-motion characters helped prevent a major part of the cheese industry from failing, and the people of Hawes – where the Wensleydale creamery is situated – have never forgotten that. They partnered with Aardman Animations to create a signature ‘Wallace & Gromit Wensleydale’ and, according to Palmer, “there are statues of Wallace and Gromit everywhere [at the creamery] because they’re very grateful to the two lovely cartoon characters who saved their cheese”.
9. Cheesemaking was historically women’s domain
In early cheese-making, much of the production took place in small holdings, where families lived with just a few animals. In these smaller dairies, it was women who developed their cheese-making skills through trial and error, testing out different techniques and following their instincts.
“For these small peasant cheese makers, it was mum teaching how to do it as her mum had, you didn’t need to write it down”. This instinctive pursuit led by women slowly disappeared as Enlightenment thinkers aimed to standardise cheese production and move away from the “semi-mystical secretive craft of women handing down recipes”, says Palmer.
Ned Palmer was speaking to Isabel King on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
]]>Popcorn with sardines? These must be history’s 21 strangest sandwicheshttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/popcorn-with-sardines-these-must-be-historys-21-strangest-sandwiches/2026-05-24T15:00:34.000Z1. Yeast
In the 1920s, a concerted effort was made to market yeast as a yummy ingredient beyond its use in making bread and fermenting alcohol. The whole thing had been masterminded by Fleischmann’s, a commercial yeast business in the US, and worked spectacularly well as sales skyrocketed.
It did not make yeast any tastier, though. Take this abomination of a sandwich: a yeast cake is broken up and mixed with “table sauce” (which could be tomato ketchup or Worcestershire sauce) to form a filling that looks more like plaster used on walls. It looks and tastes awful, and that’s before you even consider the distress that eating raw yeast can have on a person’s gut.
2. Banana and liverwurst
Of all the delicious possibilities that could have filled the 1931 recipe book The New Banana, questions need to be asked about how this one made the cut. The filling – mashed banana and liverwurst, mixed with tomato ketchup or chilli sauce – has an unfortunate resemblance to squished-up brains as it is smeared on buttered bread. If that doesn’t appeal, the book’s pages on sandwiches, which describes banana as a “natural mayonnaise” also suggests combining the fruit with diced ham.
3. Mock banana
If there is one positive for the banana and liverwurst sandwich, it at least contains real banana. During the Second World War, when imports of many foods dropped significantly, Britons had to come up with a rationing-friendly alternative for their banana sandwiches. What they devised was boiled parsnips with a splash of banana flavouring. It could have just been called a parsnip sandwich, of course.
Regardless, it actually didn’t taste that far off the mark, and it’s hardly the worst wartime food swap. During the First World War, German soldiers made their bread with sawdust and flavoured their coffee with coal tar.
4. Farmer's egg
It’s hard to go wrong with an egg sandwich, right? Well, a recipe from 1912 put that to the test. The ‘farmer’s egg’ filling is made from egg yolks, butter and a dressing of vinegar, heated up to make it nice and creamy. Not bad at all, you may be thinking.
The problem arises with the eggs themselves: the recipe calls for them to be boiled for no less than 30 minutes, which means that by the time they come out of the pan, they give off a hideous, sulphurous smell. A different name could be the ‘farter’s egg’.
5. 'New York'
The people of New York should be rightly proud of their sandwiches, from the chopped cheese that comes with minced beef to the pastrami on rye (film fans will recognise the latter from the iconic “I’ll have what she’s having” scene in When Harry Met Sally).
New Yorkers would want nothing to do with this gloopy mess, however – not least because it did not originate from their city at all. Published in a British recipe book in 1905, what seemingly embodied New York were raw oysters and buckets of mayonnaise in a roll.
6. Toast
Take two pieces of bread for your sandwich, then take another piece of bread and toast it, and finally put the cold toast in between the bread. That’s it: that’s the toast sandwich. Oh, you can add salt and pepper, too. This bland offering from Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, published in the 1860s, was said to be ideal for “invalids”. It is certainly cheap and easy, but not a lot else.
- Read more | The secret life of Mrs Beeton: 10 pieces of life advice from her famous Book of Household Management
7. 'Dairy'
There have been many creations that have challenged the notion of what constitutes a sandwich. To date, the status of the hot dog as a sandwich has yet to be resolved. But a recipe book from the early 20th century tried to slip in an entirely new form of sandwich altogether. In just two lines, the ‘dairy’ recipe reads: “On thin slices of Swiss cheese, spread fresh butter and put the two slices together.” So, buttered cheese: is that a sandwich?
8. Popcorn
Have you ever sat in a cinema, looked down at the tub of popcorn in your lap and thought: ‘I wish there was more seafood in this?’ If so, there is a sandwich from 1909 for you.
To freshly popped popcorn, add salt, cayenne pepper, Worcestershire sauce and enough tomato ketchup to form a paste – and just before adding that to buttered toast and melting some parmesan on top, throw in a handful of sardines. The result is a strangely crunchy yet mushy texture.
Also, don’t take this along to the cinema, as you may stink out the screen.
9. Salmonburger tropicale
Throwing in the word ‘tropicale’ suggests that the creators of this sandwich wanted to evoke a certain exoticism, as if it could be eaten on the beach along with a cocktail served in a coconut. The result is barely edible, let alone exotic.
Canned salmon, pickle relish, salt and lemon juice is placed on a burger bun with a pineapple ring, then cheese on top and the whole thing stuck under the grill. It comes from the 1957 recipe book, Turn to Sandwiches, although it’s more likely to turn people away from sandwiches for good.
10. 'Goblin'
Don’t be put off by the name (actually, maybe you should be): the goblin sandwich appeared in a small booklet titled How to Run a 1946 Halloween Party. The main thing to remember is that this was published by the Doughnut Corporation of America, so every food option includes, you guessed it, doughnuts.
The goblin has a filling of ground-up Brazil nuts, devilled ham, avocado and Worcestershire sauce, which goes in the middle of a split doughnut. That’s something ugly enough to merit that name.
11. Mashed potato
Just think of the amount of carbs there must be in a mashed potato sandwich. If you’re still tempted to make one, ignore the bland 1909 version – which amounts to plain diced potato on brown bread – and try the creation of Singin’ in the Rain star Gene Kelly.
Described as “the greatest man sandwich in the world”, it consists of buttered baguette, a thick layer of yesterday’s mashed potato, slices of onion, mayonnaise and generous lashings of salt and pepper. This is grilled and then washed down, according to Kelly, with the “nearest mug of beer”.
12. Mock crab
What to do if you enjoy lovely fresh crab, but they are out of season? One answer is to use mock crab, so named because it makes something of a mockery of real crab. It is made from cheese, olives, creamy butter, paprika, mustard and – the main ingredient – anchovy paste. Surely, it is best just to wait until crab is back in season and make a different type of sandwich in the meantime.
- Read more | 10 foods named after famous people from history
13. Spaghetti
Now, the spaghetti sandwich can be a scrumptious, messy treat. That does not apply to this 1931 version published in a newspaper in St Louis, Missouri. Here’s some breaking news: it’s horrible. The cold, sauce-less spaghetti is beaten into a paste alongside a hard-boiled egg, onion, parsley, mayonnaise and a sardine, then spread on well-buttered raisin bread.
Luckily, this recipe appeared at the time of the Great Depression, so Americans may have struggled to get all the ingredients together. Even if they did, hopefully they had more sense than to use them on this sandwich.
14. Orange peel
The name says it all: orange peel, with the sandwich staple of mayonnaise, on wholemeal bread. This texture and taste oddity comes from a 1921 recipe book titled The Business of Being a Housewife. Was this particular housewife’s business to pick incongruous ingredients for a sandwich when there are countless other fillings available? If so, mission accomplished.
15. Grapefruit and sardine
This is not to say that fruit and fish cannot make for a good pairing, with the sweetness and zest of the former complementing the seafood. At its most basic, all lovers of fish and chips will know that their battered cod can be boosted by a squeeze of lemon. But when mixing together grapefruit and sardine into a sandwich, surely all you get is an aftertaste so bitter that every bite is accompanied with a wince.
16. Chicken aspic
Aspic – a gelatine made from meat stock and set into a jelly – has been responsible for some of the strangest-looking foods in the recipe books of the last century. A cursory image search and you’ll find a collage of wholly unattractive cakes of sludge-like jelly with meats and vegetables floating inside.
It’s had several periods of popularity, and it was during one of these that this sandwich from 1909 was created. Shredded chicken is set inside an aspic made of chicken stock along with some herbs. The truth is that it might taste alright, but if we eat with our eyes first, then aspic will always struggle to make a good impression.
17. Olive and pineapple
The combination of olive and pineapple is a little contentious, especially whether they belong together on the top of a pizza. Few would disagree that those two ingredients make for a strange alliance in this ‘sandwich’ from 1937, though.
The filling is made from olives, cottage cheese, raisins and cream, which is smeared not on bread, but two pineapple rings. It looks unappetising, it’s tricky to hold and everything spills out with each bite. Let’s stick with the Hawaiian pizza, shall we?
18. 'Valentine's'
This was meant as a treat for 14 February, but as it comes from a book called 1001 Sandwiches (published 1936), there are plenty of preferable options to this multi-layered mess. The first layer – on bread cut into heart shapes – is egg mayonnaise, the second is chopped olives, and the third is raspberry jam.
The icing on the cake of this sandwich is, well, icing, made of cream cheese and more jam to give the whole thing a pink frosting. The finished product resembles a cake; the taste does not. Your valentine will not thank you for making this sandwich for them.
19. Hoyt
The previous entry on the Valentine’s Sandwich suggested that there were 1,000 better options in 1001 Sandwiches from 1936. If the Hoyt is any indicator, though, that may not be the case. Blue cheese and chilli sauce are mashed together and sandwiched in between crackers, which are then smeared with peanut butter. The only benefit of using crackers instead of bread is that the Hoyt is small, although some may argue it therefore does not constitute a sandwich at all.
20. Onion and mayonnaise
Admittedly, this does not sound like it belongs on this list: onion and mayonnaise are two standard features of many beloved sandwiches that work well together. Yet the 1927 version found in Salads and Sandwiches has a glaring problem. To make it, the onion is soaked in water and dipped in vinaigrette, before going on buttered bread. As for the mayonnaise: there is none. The recipe suggests adding corned beef, but there is no mention of mayonnaise at all.
21. Roujiamo
As the legend goes, the 4th Earl of Sandwich did not want to step away from the card table one night in 1762 and so asked a servant to bring him two slices of bread with some beef in the middle. And so, the sandwich was born. While the veracity of this story has been disputed, there is no question that his name forevermore became associated with the snack.
This does mean, however, that much-older roujiamo from China – where meat, usually pork, is seasoned with spices and shoved in a crispy flatbread – can be overlooked. It certainly sounds like a sandwich, and its origins go back well over 2,000 years, long before the card-playing earl. This isn’t a strange sandwich, but it does deserve some recognition.
]]>From excess soil to resurrection: the many ways Egyptians used winehttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/from-excess-soil-to-resurrection-the-many-ways-egyptians-used-wine/2025-05-20T08:00:30.000ZFermenting change
Today we associate it with relaxation and refinement, ritual and religion, even industry and investment. And the varied uses of wine are nothing new. After grapes arrived in Egypt, over 5,000 years ago, wine made major, lasting – and often surprising – impacts on its society and culture. The earliest vineyard remains in Egypt date from the fourth millennium BC. The oldest wine jar yet discovered was made c3000 BC – and jars continue to be found.
Following the introduction of grape cultivation from the Levant sometime before 3000 BC, grapes became the main ingredient fermented to make irep (wine), which was typically red. For lengthy periods, wine made from the fruit (dates) or sap of palm trees was more affordable, and other fruits such as figs and pomegranates were also fermented with sugar to make wine.
Wine was both a staple and a valuable commodity to be bought and sold. Vineyards were largely owned by nobles who could also enjoy wine on an everyday basis, while ordinary people typically drank it only during festivals, or might receive it as a work bonus.
Scenes of the grape harvest appear in several tombs, the earliest from the Old Kingdom in the third millennium BC. Some tomb depictions show the whole winemaking process from harvesting, treading and pressing to fermentation. In these illustrations, wine is most often presented in a small round cup.
- Read more | Life in Ancient Egypt: what was it like?
Over time, Egyptian wine began to be exported, particularly after Alexandria, founded in the fourth century BC by Alexander the Great, became a global trading hub. Recently discovered wine amphorae – bottles with two small looped handles – demonstrate that wine from around Lake Mareotis (or Mariout), lying immediately south of Alexandria, reached destinations on the Strait of Sicily and as far as the coast of what’s now southern France near Marseille. Several classical writers, including the Roman poets Horace and Virgil, mentioned Mareotic wine; the Greek writer Athenaeus described it as “pleasant [and] fragrant”. Cleopatra is said to have carried Mareotic wine on her fleet.
God of wine
Wine wasn’t just a pleasant drink in ancient Egypt – it was linked to significant episodes in foundational mythology.
In a pivotal tale, green-faced Osiris (below) – one of the most significant gods in the ancient Egyptian pantheon – was murdered by his jealous brother, Set, who locked him in a coffin and threw it into the Nile. Osiris’s blood infused the river with rich minerals, and caused the annual flooding that underpins the Egyptian soil’s fertility – an event that, to the ancient population, was nothing short of divine.
According to Greek and Roman historians, excess soil washed into the Nile turned the river a reddish colour. In the ancient myth, though, it was Osiris’s blood that was not only turning the waters red but also irrigating and nourishing crops.
In the story, Osiris’s remains were found by his wife, Isis, who carefully put his body parts back together. He returned to life, and impregnated her with the god Horus. Naturally, Osiris’s death and resurrection led him to become associated with rejuvenation, paralleling the cycle of the land from one harvest to the next – including the renewing grapevine.
In the Temple of Edfu, built 237–57 BC on the site of an earlier monument between Luxor and Aswan, one inscription reveals how the local “vineyard flourishes” when the “inundation” of the Nile takes place and the land “bears fruit with more grapes than [the sand of] the riverbanks”. Because wine production depended on the annual flooding, Osiris became closely connected with the drink – especially red wine, which closely resembles soil and blood.
In the Pyramid Texts – the oldest funerary texts, dating to the third millennium BC – Osiris, earlier venerated as the god of agriculture and resurrection, is described as the “lord of wine in flood”. He was regarded by Egyptians as the originator and teacher of viticulture and winemaking.
Drunken deities
Considered the blood of the gods, red wine was a common offering in temples. Osiris, in particular, was honoured through annual offerings of grain and wine. Because red wine wasn’t always affordable, barley wine (essentially a kind of beer) was often substituted.
In everyday life, Egyptians referred to wine as the ‘eye of Horus’, the divine child of Osiris and Isis. One ritual involved pouring wine into a depression on the temple altar, also called the Eye of Horus – a reference to the injury he sustained during the battle with his uncle Set, god of violence. In that episode, Horus’s eye lost its blood, so filling the altar depression with wine represented rejuvenation.
In another myth, when the rule of sun god Ra was coming to an end, he sent his daughter Hathor – in the form of Sekhmet, a lion-headed warrior – to destroy the mortals who’d conspired against him. Sekhmet got carried away, and looked set to destroy all of humanity, so Ra and the other gods devised a strategy to stop her. They poured red-dyed beer, or wine, to create lakes throughout the land. Believing that these pools were filled with blood, Sekhmet quaffed them, became intoxicated and fell asleep. In another version of the tale, her wrath was quelled using the power of music, dance and wine.
Recalling this story, at a new year Festival of Drunkenness people celebrated and re-enacted the god’s plan that saved humanity, while also being sure to appease the wrathful goddess.
Other deities were honoured with wine, not least Shesmu, god of the wine press. Texts from the third millennium BC record a feast during which grapes were pressed as the people sang that god’s name. Because red wine looked similar to blood, Shesmu came to be associated with punishment for serious crimes. In coffin texts and one discovered papyrus, Shesmu fills his wine press not with grapes but with the heads of criminals, then squeezes them into agonising oblivion for their unforgivable sins.
Pharaoh's finest
In ancient Egyptian texts, the pharaoh is variously described as a “winegrower” and “brewer”, as well as the “cupbearer” to the gods. And around 400 scenes depicting wine offerings are found in temples from the Greco-Roman period, especially near wine-producing locations. These show pharaohs using wine to get closer to the gods and to bless the lands.
For example, in the Temple of Dendera, on the Nile north of Luxor, an illustration alongside the inscription “good wine, I pour it on the ground” shows a cup being tilted downwards, its liquid flowing out in zigzags. And the Temple of Abydos to the west features a clear depiction of Pharaoh Seti I making an offering to Osiris.
The grapevine – which grows fresh leaves and appears renewed each year – was an important item in funerary rituals, too, increasing a deceased person’s chances of resurrection. When a pharaoh was laid to rest, their tomb was filled with enough wine to take into the afterlife, either in real jars or in the form of wall paintings. Wine was placed in tombs as early as the fourth millennium BC – for example, in the resting place of Scorpion I (c3250 BC).
Among the 5,398 items found in the tomb of Tutankhamun were jars of wine inscribed with the winemaker’s name and the year of production, indicating a sophisticated wine culture. These included eight jars of the most exclusive variety, shedeh.
Analysis of the residues in these vessels revealed that they’d contained both red and white wines. Some wines, oils and foods were stored in the annex but, notably, two wine jars were placed alongside Tutankhamun’s body in the burial chamber. The red wine was placed to the west of his remains, while the white wine was set to the east, suggesting that this placement was an essential part of the burial ritual and held huge symbolic value, representing regeneration and rebirth.
Doctoring drinks
Wine was an ingredient in medicinal recipes from the fourth millennium BC. Evidence from papyri reveals that its uses varied widely: in treating infections, as an anaesthetic, applied to wounds as an antiseptic, mixed with herbs to create a sedative. As Greek influence in Egypt increased, the theories of Hippocrates (c460–c375 BC) spread – including that wine was a useful cooling agent for fevers, and that it could be used to nourish the body, purge sadness and help urine flow.
Wine jars retaining residues of herbs and balms have been discovered. Medicinal plants were added to create infused wines, or elixirs: fenugreek to treat fevers and indigestion, honey to make an antibiotic, mandrake as a narcotic and, under the instruction of a priest, opium as a sedative.
Coriander-infused wine was consumed by women to ease menstrual pain. Wine was mixed with water to make cleansing vaginal douches, with myrrh sometimes added as an antiseptic. It was even used in a kind of pregnancy test referenced in a papyrus dating from 1550 BC, which explains how a doctor should mix a urine sample with wine. A reaction between the fermented liquid and the urine’s chemical compounds would indicate that a baby was on the way.
Wine also became a key component of the embalming process, which was believed to guarantee a better afterlife. After most internal organs had been scooped out of a cadaver in preparation for mummification, it was cleansed thoroughly with a mixture of water and wine. The retained organs – stomach, intestines, liver and lungs – were also washed with wine ready for dehydration. This inhibited bacterial growth, slowing decomposition.
Wine-powered wonders
After the Ptolemies moved Egypt’s capital to Alexandria in the late fourth century BC, the state began organising grandiose festivals – demonstrations of power and wealth. These aimed to deter potential invaders and boosted the economy, with traders travelling to the city from far and wide during festival season.
We have a fascinating first-hand account by Callixenus of Rhodes, who likely lived in the second or third century BC and whose original writing – now lost – was quoted by the Greek writer Athenaeus a few centuries later. He described a magnificent and highly choreographed festival featuring performances by sileni, the drunken followers of Dionysus, Greek god of wine. An incredible float pulled by 300 men carried a wine press measuring 11 by 7 metres, dispensing local wine to the cheering crowds.
Such mechanical innovations were possible thanks to scholars at the city’s Great Library. Third-century BC inventor Ctesibius of Alexandria even devised singing statues. One of these, which depicted Arsinoë II (who co-ruled Egypt with her brother and husband Ptolemy II) as the goddess Aphrodite, played music as wine flowed out. He may also have created a hydraulic pump to transfer wine.
Working in the first or second century AD, Heron (or Hero) of Alexandria produced more such innovations; his Pneumatica contained no fewer than 16 wine-related inventions. He created the first vending machine, which dispensed measured amounts of liquid when a coin was inserted, and a self-filling wine bowl. He also invented a vessel with multiple spouts that alternately poured water and wine, or a mixture. So in Alexandria, water could indeed be turned into wine.
This article was first published in the May 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
]]>How to make sugar-free Tudor biscuitshttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/sugar-free-tudor-biscuits/2024-08-02T10:40:24.000ZWhat comes to mind when you think of Tudor food? Perhaps you imagine a great feast at which ostentatious pies were served with stuffed and gilded swans on top. After mountains of meat, the wealthy would banquet on luxurious biscuits, candied fruits and elaborate sugar sculptures. Henry VIII’s leading statesman Thomas Wolsey even created an entire sugar chessboard for such an occasion, complete with moving sugar pieces.
But the Tudor period also experienced great want. Poor harvests were common, landowners closed off pasture to peasants, and the growing population put pressure on dwindling food supplies.
In the 1590s, a huge rise in the cost of grain caused hunger and sparked riots. To help people through the shortages, in 1596 the inventor and agricultural writer Sir Hugh Platt published a special recipe book, Sundrie New and Artificiall Remedies Against Famine. One recipe for “sweete and delicate cakes made without spice, or sugar” caught my eye, not least because we are always on the lookout for non-sugary versions of our favourite treats today.
In Platt’s recipe, dried and beaten parsnip replaces sugar and imported spices such as cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, which were among the most expensive ingredients of the era. Although parsnip might at first seem an odd addition, we are accustomed to root vegetables in our desserts, carrot cake being a particular favourite.
In times of scarcity, creative cooks have often come up with thrifty ways of substituting ingredients and using up available foods. Root vegetables are cheap, naturally sweet and easy to grow. During the shortages of the Second World War, the British Ministry of Food similarly recommended using carrots to sweeten Christmas pudding.
Carrots or turnips work as well as parsnips, according to Platt, who experimented with different versions of the basic recipe."I haue eaten of these cakes diuers times in mine owne house,” he wrote, promising that “you shal find them to tast very daintily."
Platt’s instructions are very limited: he instructs readers to add parsnip to flour at a ratio of one to two, and to “make some cakes thereof”. It could be that Platt intended his parsnip cake to be a type of ship’s biscuit. Such biscuits were ordinarily made of flour and water, not using anything that might spoil so that they would remain edible during long sea voyages – but they were also, therefore, lacking in flavour.
Following Platt’s policy of substitution, I’ve added butter and a dash of milk to the flour and parsnip to make something that resembles shortbread.
Though parsnip does not fully provide the sweetness of sugar that we’re used to, the biscuits do go down well with an (anachronistic) cup of tea. You could also experiment by adding currants for extra sweetness, using carrots in place of parsnips, or making a risen bread/cake mixture instead.
View Green Video on the source website]]>18th-century mushroom ketchup | Historical recipehttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/18th-century-mushroom-ketchup-historical-recipe/2024-05-10T13:14:53.000ZThe chances are that when you think of ketchup it’s a thick tomato sauce – a store-cupboard staple – that goes particularly well with Friday night’s fish and chips or slathered on an American-style hamburger.
As you might suspect, this type of ketchup is a relatively modern invention. Although tomatoes were first domesticated in what is now Mexico and transported to Europe following Spanish colonisation in the 1500s, they took a few hundred years to be fully incorporated into local cuisines. In fact, tomato ketchup wasn’t sold commercially until the mid-19th century, with the famous Heinz brand only launching in Pennsylvania in 1876.
The original ‘ketchup’ actually hails from south-east Asia, where it started life as a salty, fermented, fish sauce. Variously known as ‘catsup’, ‘catchup’ or ‘kitchup’, the name most likely comes from the Chinese word kôe-chiap, which was used to refer to the brine of pickled fish as far back as the sixth century AD. The first English-language recipes date from the 17th century, when British travellers and sailors encountered the sauce in the far east and were inspired to create their own versions back at home.
The earliest British ketchups were typically made using anchovies, walnuts, oysters or mushrooms spiced with ginger, cloves and pepper in a salty, vinegary or alcoholic brine. By the Victorian era, the mushroom version was especially popular: mushrooms grew abundantly in Britain, making it an easy, flavourful and long-lasting sauce to add to meats and gravies. More salty than sugary – and a lot thinner than the modern-day ketchups – it was more akin to Worcestershire sauce.
To create mushroom ketchup, the mushrooms were first salted to extract some of the moisture (and act as a preservative), before being squeezed and heated to draw out the remaining liquor. Once that was done, the liquid was then boiled with spices and strained into bottles.
This is essentially the method in the mushroom ketchup recipe I have included on the right, which is based on a recipe from a 1747 book by the English cookery writer Hannah Glasse. According to Glasse, the sauce could “keep two years” – although, to be on the safe side, I wouldn’t keep it for longer than a couple of months!
Interestingly, there is a recipe for another type of ketchup (or ‘catchup’) in the same cookbook that could supposedly be stored for up to 20 years, as it was intended for the captains of ships travelling on long voyages overseas. Indeed, the existence of ketchup is evidence of the globalisation and colonisation that marked the early modern period – historical processes that continue to shape our modern-day food system and societies around the world.
]]>A sustainable, historical three-course feast: WW2 crumb fudgehttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/a-sustainable-historical-three-course-feast-ww2-crumb-fudge/2024-03-24T21:29:07.000ZThe growth of the modern capitalist food system continued to steam ahead in the early 20th century, but following the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, food waste suddenly became an issue of national survival. With supplies at risk, the British state intervened by introducing rationing and making the wilful wasting of food fit for human consumption illegal. Housewives were urged to grow their own food, and home cooks came up with creative ways of substi- tuting missing items with whatever was available, like mock turkey (or ‘murkey’), made from mutton and sausage meat. Any leftovers were not to be wasted, but refash- ioned into thrifty meals instead.
Our dessert is a dish from the period called crumb fudge, which was put forward by the British Ministry of Food as a means of reusing stale breadcrumbs. Crunchy, choco- latey and surprisingly indulgent, the recipe was a special treat that people would have saved up their sugar and butter rations to make. It’s an incredibly easy dish to put together, and great fun for kids to get in- volved with, too.
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]]>A sustainable, historical three-course feast: Victorian beef frittershttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/a-sustainable-historical-three-course-feast-victorian-beef-fritters/2024-03-24T21:19:27.000ZFor most people living before the 19th century, food was seasonal and locally sourced. Any leftover meat at slaughter was preserved in salty brines or pickles; vegetables were kept in vinegar; milk became long-lasting cheese; and Tudor gentry women, for example, preserved fruits in sugar to last through the barren winter months.
The world of food was shrinking in the Victorian period, however, as the tin can – invented in the 1810s – moved food across continents without the need for salt, sugar or fermentation, while experiments in refrigera- tion meant that by 1900, half of all the lamb and mutton eaten in Britain was imported in huge, refrigerated ships all the way from Australia and New Zealand.
Our feast’s main course, Victorian beef fritters, was partly a reaction to those 19th-century changes. Adapted from a recipe found in Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861), the dish was aimed at urban middle-class housewives who had become distanced from traditional cooking and preservation techniques, and who – in the eyes of the book’s author, Isabella Beeton – needed to know about the benefits of saving food and simpler, rural lifestyles. Even today, more than 160 years on, the fritters are a delicious way to use up the remains of roast beef, and the batter works well for any leftover vegetables, too.
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]]>A sustainable, historical three-course feast: budget broccoli souphttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/a-sustainable-historical-three-course-feast-budget-broccoli-soup/2024-03-21T15:23:09.000ZAfter years of shortages and hardship in the previous century, 21st-century Britons were fast to fall for the culinary excess and wasteful consumption habits of the modern era. In fact, pre-war levels of food waste had doubled by the 1970s. But crisis hit again in 2007 when the global cost of food increased by an astonishing 75 per cent from a 2005 baseline. In this context, wasting perfectly edible food seemed criminal, and prompted the UK’s Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to launch the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, aimed at educating people in how to be more sustainable at home.
This starter – budget broccoli soup – is inspired by one of the campaign’s early recipes, and utilises broccoli stalks left over from other dishes. The fluffy florets are a regular feature in our kitchens, but the thick stems often needlessly end up in the bin. It’s a shame, as they impart a lovely woody flavour that’s worth adding to your culinary repertoire.
Today, our supermarket shelves heave with packaged abundance, while our favourite meals can be delivered ready-to-eat to our doors in just a few clicks. Reimagining leftovers as new recipes and returning to the thrifty habits of our ancestors not only reminds us of the true value of good food, but serves as a fun and creative way of connecting to our past while protecting our future.
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]]>Quiz: what historical recipe should you try next?https://www.historyextra.com/membership/quiz-historical-recipe/2024-02-09T10:03:33.000ZView Riddle on the source website]]>A Christmas feast: three historical festive recipeshttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/three-historical-festive-recipes/2023-12-21T16:32:52.000ZIn the midst of the Christmas festivities of 1577, the parson of the Cheshire village of Winwick preached against “gluttons and dronkerdes” who “thincke they maye eate and drinke as much as they will” during the season of goodwill. This “oftentimes” meant consuming “so much as they cannot disgest”, cramming “themselves like swine... till they bee out of theyr wittes like beastes”. Sound familiar?
Since at least the ninth century, Christmas has been associated with feasting and mirth in the Christian tradition. In fact, in the medieval period, Christmas was just the start of 12 full days of riotous consumption and celebration that ended on Twelfth Night (5 January) with another massive blowout.
Today, turkey takes centre stage on the Christmas Day menu. Native to the Americas, turkey arrived in Britain only in the 1520s and, though it featured in feasts of some of Britain’s wealthiest people, alongside swan and peacock, it wasn’t until the early 20th century that turkey came to be associated with the holiday. Instead, beef or goose were the roast meats of choice; earlier medieval Christmases often featured brawn –preserved salted boar’s meat or pork.
Stuart mince pie
By the late Tudor era, mince pies had become popular festive treats. Contrary to popular myth, Oliver Cromwell never explicitly banned them, even when the puritans outlawed celebrating Christmas itself in England in the 1640s and ’50s. Unlike the bite-sized fruity snacks we enjoy today with a glass of sherry, the mince pies of the 16th and 17th centuries were huge, intended to feed a lot of people as part of the main course. And, as the name suggests, the filling in mince pies was actually meat – veal, mutton, pork, turkey, capon (castrated cockerel) or beef, as in the recipe shared here, which is adapted from Robert May’s 1660 recipe book. With the familiar festive flavours imparted by dried fruits and spices such as nutmeg, mace and cloves, the meaty versions are also quite delicious.
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Georgian Twelfth night cake
Do you end your feast with a traditional Christmas cake or a Christmas pudding?
The history of these holiday desserts is intertwined. Christmas pudding was actually first a kind of thick soup or stew known as plum pottage and later as plum pudding. In its original form, the spiced recipe included dried fruits and – you guessed it–more meat. The word pudding, in fact, derives from the French boudin, meaning animal innards, while ‘plum’ referred to any type of dried fruit. From the 17th century, the mixture thickened and took on its modern spherical shape; until the end of the 19th century it was served as an accompaniment to the main meat.
Meanwhile, Christmas cake evolved from a spiced currant cake known as a Twelfth cake that was traditionally consumed on Twelfth Night. In the medieval era, a bean was hidden inside the cake, and the lucky partygoer who found it in their slice was crowned king of the festivities. A hidden pea might also designate a Twelfth Night queen.
Over time, the legume was replaced with a coin, and in the Victorian period it migrated into the Christmas pudding. Along with the paper crowns that we hide in Christmas crackers, Christmas cake is a remnant of Twelfth Night revelry. The Georgian chef John Mollard published the first printed recipe for a Twelfth cake in1803. Give it a go – and why not hide a dried bean or pea in it for some added festive cheer?
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Victorian smoking bishop
In need of a little booze to wash all this down? I’d recommend a smoking bishop. Made with port, roasted oranges and/or lemons, sugar and spices, this is an easy-to- make historical take on mulled wine that was associated with Christmas in the Victorian period. It also features in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. When the old miser Scrooge has his pivotal change of heart, he tells his clerk: “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year!... we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob!”
The recipe to the left is based on English food writer Eliza Acton’s 1845 version. The drink is probably described as ‘smoking’ because of the steam that rises from it.
A whole host of drinks made with wine were known as ‘ecclesiastics’, and were named after orders within the Catholic church – perhaps because of the mitre-like shape of the glass in which they were served, though in truth we don’t know for sure why this name stuck.
Replace the port with claret wine and you’ve got a smoking archbishop; use champagne to make a smoking cardinal; or use Hungarian white Tokaji wine for a smoking pope. Happy feasting!
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Eleanor Barnett is a food historian at Cardiff University and @Historyeats on Instagram. Her book, Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation (Head of Zeus), is out in 2024
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