{"id":102393,"date":"2026-10-22T02:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T06:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=102393"},"modified":"2026-05-09T20:37:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T00:37:20","slug":"the-oldest-recipe-in-history-hammurabis-kanasu-stew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/the-oldest-recipe-in-history-hammurabis-kanasu-stew\/","title":{"rendered":"The Oldest Recipe in History &#8211; Hammurabi&#8217;s <em>Kanasu<\/em> Stew"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4a-nf2T04Hs?si=BvqR5vLPX8hlORj9\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Tasting History with Max Miller<\/strong><br \/>\nPublished 28 Apr 2026 <\/p>\n<p>Lamb stew garnished with fresh leek and mint<\/p>\n<p><em>City\/Region<\/em>: Babylon<br \/>\n<em>Time Period<\/em>: c. 1740 B.C.E.<\/p>\n<p>Since this recipe is one of the oldest in the world, it&#8217;s bound to have some parts that are a little unclear. For starters, what does &#8220;prepare water&#8221; mean? Did they have to purify it? Add salt or something else to it? Was it maybe a more complicated process that was commonplace back then, but a mystery to us now? No one knows. Also, the ingredients <em>kanasu<\/em>, <em>sam\u00eddu<\/em>, and <em>\u0161uhutinnu<\/em> haven&#8217;t been definitively translated, so for this recipe, I&#8217;m going with what most scholars agree on, and also what I think will taste best.<\/p>\n<p>With recipes this old, I think it&#8217;s important to not take it too seriously. It&#8217;s impossible to get it 100% right because we just don&#8217;t know enough about the language and the exact cooking processes they used. So for me, it&#8217;s less important that this dish is exactly what they&#8217;d be eating in Hammurabi&#8217;s time, and more important that it&#8217;s delicious. The meat is super tender, the flavors are well balanced, and the fresh leek gives it a nice crunch. Make this dish into a thinner broth-like soup, a thick stew, or thickened even further so that it&#8217;s like meat with a sauce. Any way is as accurate (or not!) as the next.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><strong>Kanasu Stew<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Leg of mutton is used. Prepare water, add fat. <strong>Sam\u00eddu<\/strong>; coriander; cumin; and <strong>kanasu<\/strong>. Assemble all the ingredients in the cooking vessel, and sprinkle with crushed garlic. Then blend into the pot <strong>\u0161uhutinnu<\/strong> and mint.<\/em><br \/>\n\u2014 <strong>Yale Babylonian Tablets<\/strong>, c. 1740 B.C.E.<\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ingredients<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>2 teaspoons coriander seeds, plus a little more for garnish if you&#8217;d like<br \/>\n1 teaspoon cumin seeds<br \/>\n3 tablespoons (45 g) fat*<br \/>\n1 1\/2 lbs (680 g) lamb meat**, cut into bite-sized pieces<br \/>\n1 large shallot, minced<br \/>\n1 quart (1 L) water<br \/>\n1\/4 cup (30 g) emmer flour<br \/>\n2-3 cloves garlic, crushed<br \/>\n1 small leek<br \/>\nA handful fresh mint<br \/>\n1 tablespoon salt<br \/>\n*A popular fat at the time would have been from fat-tailed sheep, so if you can get it, use it. I used ghee, but you could also use basically any other fat. Tallow, butter, lard, sesame oil, and olive oil are all period-accurate options.<br \/>\n**I cut the meat off of two shanks, but you could use any cut you like. Pre-cut stew meat would work well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Instructions<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>In a mortar, grind the coriander seeds and cumin seeds into a powder.<\/li>\n<li>In a large pot, heat about 1 tablespoon of the fat over high heat, then once it&#8217;s hot, add the meat. Let it cook for a couple of minutes, then move it around and continue to cook until it has browned a little. Remove the meat from the pot and set it aside.<\/li>\n<li>Add about another 1 tablespoon of fat to the pot. Reduce the heat to medium and add the shallots and a pinch of the salt. Stir to coat the shallots in the fat, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 4 minutes, or until they&#8217;re nice and fragrant.<\/li>\n<li>Add about 2 cups (500 ml) of the water and scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Bring it to a simmer, then stir in the remaining fat, letting it melt if it&#8217;s a solid. Once it&#8217;s melted, stir in the ground coriander and cumin along with the rest of the salt. Stir in the rest of the water and the emmer flour. A whisk is helpful to incorporate the flour without leaving too many lumps. Bring the stew up to a boil and stir in garlic and meat.<\/li>\n<li>Reduce the heat to medium-low and let it come back to a simmer, then cover it and let it cook for about 30 minutes. Check on it every once in a while and add more water if you want a thinner soup-like consistency.<\/li>\n<li>While the stew cooks, chop the mint and the white and light green parts of the leek. I like to wash leeks before and after chopping them to be sure to get rid of any bits of dirt or sand stuck between the layers.<\/li>\n<li>After the stew has cooked for 30 minutes, remove the lid and stir in about half of the leek and most of the mint. You want to save a little of the mint for garnish. Let the stew cook without the lid for about 10 minutes, or until it has thickened however much you like.<\/li>\n<li>Stir in the rest of the leeks, then serve it forth with a little mint and whole coriander seeds for garnish.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tasting History with Max Miller Published 28 Apr 2026 Lamb stew garnished with fresh leek and mint City\/Region: Babylon Time Period: c. 1740 B.C.E. Since this recipe is one of the oldest in the world, it&#8217;s bound to have some parts that are a little unclear. For starters, what does &#8220;prepare water&#8221; mean? Did they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[74,7,9,370],"tags":[1276,400,1337,1388,1442],"class_list":["post-102393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-history","category-law","category-middle-east","tag-cooking","tag-language","tag-mesopotamia","tag-recipes","tag-tastinghistory"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-qDv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102394,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102393\/revisions\/102394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}