Lentil cook book
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Citation
Lorna Hawtin. (31/12/1979). Lentil cook book. Aleppo, Syrian Arab Republic: International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).
Abstract
Lentils were probably one of the first pulse crops to be domesticated and originated in the fertile crescent of the Near East. They date back to the beginnings of agriculture itself. The earliest carbonized remains (10,000 years old) were unearthed at Tel Mureybit on
the banks of the River Euphrates in Northern Syria. The cultivation of lentils spread with Neolithic agriculture to Greece and Southern Bulgaria and reached Crete by B.C. 6,000. By the Bronze Age, they were known in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, Germany, and even France.
Lentils were highly esteemed in Pharaonic Egypt; a paste of lentils was found in the twelfth dynasty tombs at Thebes (2,400 B. C.-2,200 B. C.) and the preparation of lentil soup is shown in a fresco
from the time of Ramses II (1, 200 B. C.). A ship carrying an Egyptian obelisk to Rome in the reign of Emperor Caligula is said to have carried lentils as packing!
They were well-known in ancient Greece as a poor man's food. A popular saying applied to the nouveau riche at the time was, "he doesn't like lentils anymore". Lentils are mentioned in the Bible. The most famous reference is in Genesis Chapter 25 when Esau sold his birthright for bread and
a "mess of pottage" made of red lentils. This dish is popularly held to be the same as the famous Near Eastern 'mujaddarah'. Lentils were cultivated by the Assyrians. There are references
to them being grown in Merodach-Baladan's garden in Babylon in the eighth century B.C.
The crop spread eastwards into India and China at a very early stage. The earliest finds in India have recently been discovered at the Neolithic site at Chirand in Bihar State dated between 1,800 and
2,500 B. C.
The introduction of lentils into the New World was made by the Spanish and Portuguese. probably at the beginning of the sixteenth century but they were not introduced into the USA until the First World War.
The medicinal properties of lentils have been mentioned in several old herbals. The sixteenth-century writer Dondonaeus recommended lentils as part of the diet in monasteries as he believed that they dampened sexual appetites; Nicholas Culpeper. the seventeenth-century
astrolonger ‘physician. wrote that lentils were governed by the planet
Venus. He went on to say that when eaten whole with the skin. lentils
"bind the body and stop looseness. but the liquid they are boiled in
loosens the belly". Other old herbals report that lentils "thicken the
blood" which may relate to their high iron content.
In parts of modern-day Europe. lentils are ground and mixed with barley flour and salt and marketed as an invalid or infant food (e.g. 'Ervatenta and 'Revalanta) and eaten as porridge.
Lentils are one of the staple food products of the Near East and India (where it is an important source of protein for many vegetarians). In America, they are generally used in soups as in Europe and the Near East where they are also used in stews, salads, and with other food Lentil salad often forms part of the French hors d'oeuvre table, and In Germany, pureed lentils may replace potatoes as an accompaniment for pork and other meats. There are many other variations as this hook shows.
The recipes have been compiled and adapted from a wide variety of sources (see bibliography ).
