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After our first experiment went so well, we were at it again to try out new Hellenisitc recipes. This time on the menu: salt-meat stew and cabbage in the Athenian way.

Contrary to last time, we did not freely interpret our own recipes, but went with complete recipes from the following book:

• The classical cookbook by Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger, Getty Publications

Salt-Meat Stew

Salting meat was an easy method to preserve meat in antiquity. In ancient Greece, the butchering of household animals was closely connected to religious sacrifice , requiring a special butcher, the so-called mageiros. Consequently butchering an animal did not happen often, and when it did, you tried to preserve as much of the animal as possible for future use.

After spending the first five years of Living-History events in a tiny tent, and the next five years in a tent that was a bit larger, but still very small, last year I finally had enough of tripping over all my stuff, when going to bed at night. So I decided to order a larger tent, which I am going to show off at some point in the future, when the weather is nice enough to pitch it in the garden. Now I have enough room in the tent for furniture.

Taking furniture on Living-History events can only be a compromise. We know from ancient sources that furniture existed within tents in military camps, e.g. on Alexander's campaign. However, I think it is safe to assume that this luxury could only be afforded by the higher officers. When we are talking about travelling civilians, I think we can safely say that bringing furniture or even a tent along can be considered unusual.

The new year has come and I am slowly waking up from my Living-History hiatus. This year I aim to achieve a number of cool things in my hobby, one of which is to try out more Hellenistic food on our events. For that I started researching the Hellenistic cuisine a bit.

Unfortunately there are very few books dealing solely with ancient Greek or Hellenistic cuisine. Most authors are just focus on the Roman cuisine, which has much better sources. While the Romans have complete recipe-collections, surviving recipes of Hellenistic dishes are very scarce. So the only thing left to do is to experiment with the available ingredients, to recreate some of the ancient dishes. The problem with that approach is that you can't really say if you came close to the original or not, but I think that you can at least come close to the ancient sensation of taste, when you take the Roman cuisine as a starting point. And that is undoubtedly already better than simply using modern food.

During our annual event at the Heuneburg (more about this here), we had a special celebration: the 10^th anniversary of our re-enactment group.

We took this opportunity and celebrated our jubilee with a symposium, inviting all participating re-enactment groups of the event. On this evening we reflected on the past ten years and the development of our group, and with a rich buffet and cold drinks celebrated in anticipation of the next decade of Hetairoi.

We have been especially honoured with the presence of Mrs. Sabine Hagmann, one of our most important early supporters, who played a crucial role in the establishment of our group.

On the 1. and 2. of August, our group was again at the interactive museum Heuneburg in Herbertingen-Hundersingen in Baden Württemberg (Germany).

During numerous civil and military displays, the public was presented with a living impression of one of the most important contact point between the Hellenistic and Celtic world of the antiquity.
The event was again a very special experience as in past years, and we are already looking forward to return in the next year.

Pictures of the event are already in our gallery: