Category Archives: Blog

While some might call the translated passages “recipes,” working recipes they were not. Neither cooking times nor quantities of ingredients are given. Cooking procedures are either not instructional or not precise. To complicate matters further, many of the dishes call for ingredients that are either still completely unknown to us or, although identified, have passed from modern use. — Dr. Alice Slotsky

This week, I introduced my students to some “baby” Akkadian–and one of our first Akkadian words was “kabābu”–since we were discussing cooking in Mesopotamia. In a city where kebabs can be found on almost every corner, the connection between this ancient word, which means “burning,” and the Arabic word “kebab” was clear.

One of the most exciting moments in my doctoral studies was when my Akkadian professor, Dr. Alice Slotsky, cooked up “cuneiform cuisine” for over 100 people–using ancient recipes found on cuneiform tablets in the Yale Library.  Now, my students here in Beirut want to try cooking up our own version of “cuneiform cuisine.” If you would like how to learn how to cook “Meat Assyrian Style” (ashshuriâtum shirum) you can follow the recipe that she translated below. To read more about “Cuneiform Cuisine: Culinary History Reborn at Brown University,” please go here.

MEAT ASSYRIAN STYLE

Akkadian:
me-e shirim shi-rum iz-za-az me-e tu-ka-an li-pi-a-am ta-na-ad-di [break in tablet] karsum ha-za-nu-um te-te-er-ri me-eh-rum shuhut innu i-sha-ru-tum ash-shu-ri-a-tum shi-rum iz-za-az me-e tu-ka-an li-pi-a-am ta-na-di [break in tablet] ha-za-nu-um zu-ru-mu da-ma sha du-qa-tim tu-ma-la kar-shum ha-za-nu-um te-te-er-ri me-he-er na-ag-la-bi

English Translation:
Meat (cooked in) Water. Meat is used. Prepare water; add fat, [break in tablet], mashed leek and garlic, and a corresponding amount of raw shuhutinnû. Assyrian style. Meat is used. Prepare water; add fat [break in tablet], garlic and zurumu with [break in tablet], blood, and mashed leek and garlic. Carve and serve.

Working Recipe:
Chop/slice/dice: (many) onions, shallots, garlic, chives, leeks, scallions. Fry in oil until soft. Brown all sides of an eye round pot roast in this mixture, add salt to meat and onion mixture. Turn down heat, and simmer until done in a small amount of water to which a quarter to a half bottle of Guiness stout has been added, turning once or twice during cooking. Remove meat. Boil down onion-beer mixtures until it is reduced to a thick vegetable-rich gravy. Carve and serve.

In the house of mud and water,
my heart has fallen into ruin,
Enter this house, my love, or let me leave.

— Rumi

Because my research considers issues related to heritage in conflict and post-conflict zones, I’ve been following the state of antiquities in Syria very closely these past few years–from fighters hiding in ancient caves to mosques and shrines being caught in the crossfire. If you are also interested in the current condition of antiquities in Syria, you can keep up with the latest news on this website of the Syrian Antiquities Service…

As a linguist, I’m in love with translation–especially when it goes quite wrong…

Spotted this yesterday…

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings.
Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.

— Rumi

This Guy Fawkes image is spray painted all over Beirut…walked by this one this afternoon…

Today, when I was running off to a late lunch, I saw a young boy standing alone up the street. Like most of the children begging on that street, I assumed he was a Syrian refugee–and was expecting him to start begging for money as I passed by. But instead, as I approached him, he gently put his right hand over his heart, and bowed in my direction. If this sweet and unexpected gesture was meant to charm me, it worked.

Waiting for him to ask for money, I slowed my steps–but he just kept standing at attention with his hand over his heart. To me, he looked tired of begging–like he would rather be playing instead. So postponing my already late lunch (I was starving after a full day of teaching), I decided to stop and ask him his name and age–and where he’s from. When he said Syria, I wasn’t surprised.

Remembering that I had my ipad in my backpack, I got it out–and asked him if he wanted to go around and take photos with it. As he reached out his hands to receive the sleek black tablet, his eyes grew wide with excitement.

Instead of lining up a shot and hitting the click button, he was trigger happy–and kept pressing the button as many times as he could. Click, click, click. Maybe he was making up for all of the time he didn’t have a camera–or maybe he just liked the strange sound of the click. Soon, some of the other kids begging on the same street came over to see the photos he was making–and to join in the fun. Click, click, click.

When he handed me back the ipad, I didn’t think I would be as interested in the photographs as I had been in the fun. But as I flipped through the photos, I was shocked to see what great images he had captured. Since he sees the world at waist level, his photographs were taken from a perspective I never really see or consider. And the word on the wall in the photo below (“stalking”) is a perfect compliment to the view from his vantage point. Our impromptu photo shoot today on the streets of Beirut reminded that helping others doesn’t have to be about showing up to a volunteer job every week or making a yearly donation–sometimes, it feels more meaningful–and fun–to create small and spontaneous moments of joy between two hearts from very different worlds…

Passed by these treats today on the street in Beirut: large boiled beans, with lemon and cinnamon…

If you have a body, where is the spirit?
If you are spirit, what is the body?

This is not our problem to worry about.
Both are both. Corn is corn grain
and cornstalk. The divine butcher
cuts us a piece from the thigh
and a piece from the neck.

Invisible, visible, the world
does not work without both.

— Rumi

To help my students get to know one another in the beginning of the semester, I have them decode each other’s names in hieroglyphs.

It’s amazing how this introductory exercise in decipherment helps them to remember the names of their fellow students much more than if we just introduced ourselves by reading the attendance list aloud. Today, they were able to recall almost every name from memory–which was surprising since it’s not a small class…

You are a person fit for writing, though you have not yet known a woman. Your heart discerns, your fingers are skilled, your mouth is apt for reciting. Writing is more enjoyable than enjoying a basket of…and beans–more enjoyable than a mother’s giving birth, when her heart knows no distaste. She is constant in nursing her son; her breast is in his mouth every day. Happy is the heart [of] him who writes; he is young each day.

— Papyrus Lansing

Only dance, and your illusions will blow in the wind
Dance, and make joyous the love around you
Dance, and your veils which hide the Light
Shall swirl in a heap at your feet.

— Rumi

Little by little
God takes away human beauty…

Seek the spirit,
don’t set your heart on bones.

— Rumi

The designs on the ceiling of this sacred Syrian shrine aren’t really in the shape of stars–but when I look at this photo, that’s what I see…stars…

You come to us from another world
From beyond the stars and void of space.
Transcendent. Pure. Of unimaginable beauty.
Bringing with you the essence of Love.

— Rumi

Whether I’m digging up mummies in Egypt, or visiting Sufi shrines in Syria–I usually have the same thing on my mind–death. I’m surrounded by it, and I seek it out–just like I would any master teacher…

No need to wait until we die!
There’s more to want here than money,
and being famous and bites of roasted meat…

— Rumi