In medieval times banquets were organised and attended by aristocrats or royalty as only the rich could afford not only feeding but also entertaining a big group of people. There were, of course, smaller events, such as wedding celebrations, organised by the poor but these would not be as lavish as the banquets of the upper classes. It had been so both in the East and in the West what must be one of the few common features of both cultures.

In this post, the banquet traditions of both East and West are visualised using the medieval depictions of banquets.The first two images take us to the 16th and 17th century Iran.


Shah Tahmasp I (1514-1576) receiving the exiled Mughal Emperor Humayun (1508-1556) in 1543.
Image Muhammad Mahdi Karim
Shah Abbas II (1632-1666) holding a banquet for the Amir of Turkestan Nadir Mahammad Khan in 1640.
Image: Sorosh Tavakoli/ wikipedia.org
Let's view the food and banquet of Ottomans from around the same century:

Ottoman General Lala Mustafa Pasha holds a banquet for Jannissaries, 1578. Image: muslimheritage.com
Ottoman tables in later periods:

Sultan III Ahmed (1673 - 1736) and government officials. Image: muslimheritage.com
Images from the Caliphate:

Wedding celebrations, Maqamat Al-Hariri, 1225-1235, Caliphate
Wedding celebrations, Maqamat Al-Hariri, 1237, Irag, Caliphate
Let's now look at Western tables and celebrations:

Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Confessor (1003/1005 - 1066), Domesday Book, 1241. Image: nationalarchives.gov.uk

A Crusade play at the King of France Charles V's banquet. 1375-1380. Image: blogs.getty.edu
Richard II of England's (1367-1400) banquet, 1460-1500. Image: British Library
I believe the biggest difference in the pictures above is people's seating styles. It looks like in the East everyone, including hosts used to sit on the floor. In the West people sat behind the tables and on the chairs. 

Wedding banquet, 1483, Sandro Botticelli. 
As for cutlery, in the West in medieval times guests used to attend banquets with their own knifes and ate with these whereas in the East people would normally eat with their hands. One common feature on the pictures could perhaps be the way the guests are entertained. Both in the West and in the East musical instruments/ music are used to entertain guests. 
Recently I have become interested in depictions of pomegranates, particularly in those of before the Common era and have been collecting these. I find beautiful the fact that the shape and colour of pomegranates (and other fruit) from historical paintings have not changed whilst the people, clothes, lifestyles and other details depicted alongside these are long gone. In this post I am going to chronologically list paintings and artworks before the Common era in order to visualise and better understand the "pomegranate culture". I am hoping to update the list whenever I come across a pre-Common era pomegranate depiction. 

Ancient Egypt
Pomegranate paintings in Ancient Egyptian tombs are probably the oldest surviving depictions of pomegranates. There are, of course, more tomb paintings of pomegranates than what you will see here.

Pomegranates depicted on the red table in the basket next to the grapes and figs in front of Irukaptah who was a
butcher of the palace sometime during the Fifth Dynasty (2494 -2345 BC).  Image: osirisnet.net


Pomegranates in front of Merefnebef who was a vizier from the Sixth Dynasty during the
reigns of Userkare and Pepi I (2332 – 2287 BC). Image: osirisnet.net

Pomegranates brought to Paheri, who was a governor and a scribe under the reign of Thutmose III (1481-1425 BC);
Image: osirisnet.net
Egyptians had an interesting way of carrying a big amount of pomegranates. It could have been a special pomegranate-holder or just a stick around which pomegranates were tied.

General Djehuty (sitting on the right-hand side) was a general under the reign of Thutmose III (1481-1425 BC); on the left-hand side his grandson (the son of his daughter) Amenemopenakht, is holding pomegranates and fish (offerings);
From the tomb of General Djehuty (TT45) carved during the period of Amenhotep II (c. 1427 – 1400 BC).
Image: osirisnet.net

Pomegranates held by servants on the left-hand and right-hand sides
From the tomb (TT52) of Nakht who was a scribe and priest during the reign of Thutmose IV (1401 – 1391 BC )
Pomegranates amid other food items. Image: Horus3 (link) from flickr.com
From the tomb (TT69) of Menna who was a scribe during the reign of Thutmose IV (1401 – 1391 BC )




A pomegranate amid other food items in front of the sarcophagi . From the tomb of Ameneminet (TT277) who was a priest during the reign of pharaoh Amenhotep III (1391-1388 BC). Image: osirisnet.net

A pomegranate on top of other fruit in front of Userhat, his mother Tausert and his wife Hatshepsut.
From the tomb of Userhat (TT51).  Userhat served in the cult temple of Tuthmosis I during the reigns
of Horemheb (1306 - 1292 BC) and Ramesses I (1292-1290). Image and information: osirisnet.net

Mentuherkhepeshef, the son of pharaoh Ramesses IX (1129-1111 BC) presents offerings to Qebehsenuef, the son of Horus in Egyptian mythology. From the tomb of Prince Mentuherkhepeshef (KV19) Image: osirisnet,net  


Hittites

Sumerian relief of the goddess Kubaba , holding a pomegranate in her right hand from Herald's wall, Carchemish (850-750 BC); Late Hittite style under Aramaean influence. Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Turkey. Image: wikipedia


Lycia (ancient Anatolia)


The second standing female is holding a pomegranate flower. The seated female on the right is holding a pomegranate. Lycian Harpy Tomb reliefs (480–470 BC). British Museum. Image: Carole Raddato on flickr.com

 Lucania (ancient Southern Italian lands)

There is a number of Lucanian  fresco tomb depictions of pomegranates from the IV-III centuries BC. The following five images are examples of Lucanian depictions of pomegranates.

Image: Carole Raddato / flickr.com

Image: Carole Raddato / flickr.com

Image: Carole Raddato / flickr.com

Image: Carole Raddato / flickr.com

Image: Carole Raddato / flickr.com

Ancient Rome

Detail of the garden mural from the triclinium in the House of Livia, Rome, circa 30-20 BC.
Image: Ian Scott/ flickr.com



Herodotus had lived in the fifth century BC. Little is known about him beyond his travels and books. His travels were extensive but not by modern standards. At the time, the inhabited world, what the Greek called oikoumene, was much smaller. On his travels he largely relied on secondary sources and informants who were not always accurate. There is a big number of scholars who accuse him in lying about his travels. Some even say that he did not travel at all.

Despite all the criticism, however, one thing that should definitely be noted about Herodotus is his skilful depiction of fascinating and terrible events. Although not all of them have a historical background, they are indeed excellent sources for understanding Herodotus' time and people. If you are interested, one such story is of Harpagus, Median general who having disobeyed the King Astyages was tricked into eating his own son. 

Herodotus describes Egyptian, Persian, Libyan, Babylonian and a few other food cultures. Although he does not specifically lay out recipes or dishes we can learn a lot from his writings. 

Book One 

Persia

133 And of all days their wont is to honour most that on which they were born, each one: on this they think it right to set out a feast more liberal than on other days; and in this feast the wealthier of them set upon the table an ox or a horse or a camel or an ass, roasted whole in an oven, and the poor among them set out small animals in the same way. They have few solid dishes, but many served up after as dessert, and these not in a single course; and for this reason the Persians say that the Hellenes leave off dinner hungry, because after dinner they have nothing worth mentioning served up as dessert, whereas if any good dessert were served up they would not stop eating so soon. To wine-drinking they are very much given, and it is not permitted for a man to vomit or to make water in presence of another...

Things we can learn from these sentences on 5th century BC food culture (if we deem Herodotus' account  trustworthy):

1. Persians were probably one of the first nations, if not first, to celebrate their birthdays. 
2. Persians ate oxen, horses, camels and asses whilst no mention of pigs was made (perhaps accidentally).
3. Greeks did not have as sophisticated dinner courses and elaborate desserts as Persians. 
4. Persians enjoyed drinking wine and made their wine most probably from grapes.
5. Persians had better "personal hygiene and table manners" than Greeks.

 Babylon

193. ... They use no oil of olives, but only that which they make of sesame seed; and they have date-palms growing over all the plain, most of them fruit-bearing, of which they make both solid food and wine and honey; and to these they attend in the same manner as to fig-trees, and in particular they take the fruit of those palms which the Hellenes call male-palms, and tie them upon the date-bearing palms, so that their gall-fly may enter into the date and ripen it and that the fruit of the palm may not fall off: for the male-palm produces gall-flies in its fruit just as the wild-fig does.

200. These customs then are established among the Babylonians: and there are of them three tribes which eat nothing but fish only: and when they have caught them and dried them in the sun they do thus,—they throw them into brine, and then pound them with pestles and strain them through muslin; and they have them for food either kneaded into a soft cake, or baked like bread, according to their liking. 

6. Babylonians used sesame oil instead of olive oil (no sunflower or vegetable oil is available yet). 
7. Babylonians ate dates and made wine and honey from the dates. 
8. Babylonians sun-dried fish, kept in brine, crushed and made cakes from it. 

Book Two

Egypt

37. ... They [priests] enjoy also good things not a few, for they do not consume or spend anything of their own substance, but there is sacred bread baked for them and they have each great quantity of flesh of oxen and geese coming in to them each day, and also wine of grapes is given to them; but it is not permitted to them to taste of fish: beans moreover the Egyptians do not at all sow in their land, and those which grow they neither eat raw nor boil for food; nay the priests do not endure even to look upon them, thinking this to be an unclean kind of pulse...

9. Egyptians did not eat beans as these were believed to be unclean. 

47. The pig is accounted by the Egyptians an abominable animal; and first, if any of them in passing by touch a pig, he goes into the river and dips himself forthwith in the water together with his garments;

10. Egyptians did not eat or touch pigs. 

77. ...and as to their diet, it is as follows:—they eat bread, making loaves of maize, which they call kyllestis, and they use habitually a wine made out of barley, for vines they have not in their land. Of their fish some they dry in the sun and then eat them without cooking, others they eat cured in brine. Of birds they eat quails and ducks and small birds without cooking, after first curing them; and everything else which they have belonging to the class of birds or fishes, except such as have been set apart by them as sacred, they eat roasted or boiled. 

Note: I have taken these extracts from G. C. Macaulay's translation of Herodotus' books. Unless it had been employed in another sense, maize is native to Americas and could not have been used by Egyptians in the V century BC. I believe kyllestis was made from the emmer wheat that had a special place in Ancient Egypt. 

Ancient Egyptians cleaning poultry
From the tomb (TT52) of Nakht who was a scribe and
priest during the reign of Thutmose IV (1401 – 1391 BC )


11. Egyptian diet included grains such as emmer and barley. 
12. Egyptians made loaves of bread and beer from grains. 
13. Egyptians sun-dried or cured fish. 
14. Egyptians cured certain birds and ate them without cooking. 

92. All these are customs practised by the Egyptians who dwell above the fens: and those who are settled in the fen-land have the same customs for the most part as the other Egyptians, both in other matters and also in that they live each with one wife only, as do the Hellenes; but for economy in respect of food they have invented these things besides:—when the river has become full and the plains have been flooded, there grow in the water great numbers of lilies, which the Egyptians call lotos; these they cut with a sickle and dry in the sun, and then they pound that which grows in the middle of the lotos and which is like the head of a poppy, and they make of it loaves baked with fire. The root also of this lotos is edible and has a rather sweet taste: it is round in shape and about the size of an apple. There are other lilies too, in flower resembling roses, which also grow in the river, and from them the fruit is produced in a separate vessel springing from the root by the side of the plant itself, and very nearly resembles a wasp's comb: in this there grow edible seeds in great numbers of the size of an olive-stone, and they are eaten either fresh or dried. Besides this they pull up from the fens the papyrus which grows every year, and the upper parts of it they cut off and turn to other uses, but that which is left below for about a cubit in length they eat or sell: and those who desire to have the papyrus at its very best bake it in an oven heated red-hot, and then eat it. Some too of these people live on fish alone, which they dry in the sun after having caught them and taken out the entrails, and then when they are dry, they use them for food.  

Note: Lotus is rather a mysterious plant that ancient Greeks believed to cause "forgetfulness" (narcotic effect).   

15. Some Egyptians made bread from lotus fruits in addition to eating lotus flowers, seeds and roots. 
16. Some Egyptians baked and ate papyrus.

Book Three 

India
98. ...Now there are many tribes of Indians, and they do not agree with one another in language; and some of them are pastoral and others not so, and some dwell in the swamps of the river and feed upon raw fish, which they catch by fishing from boats made of cane; and each boat is made of one joint of cane. These Indians of which I speak wear clothing made of rushes: they gather and cut the rushes from the river and then weave them together into a kind of mat and put it on like a corslet. 

17. Some Indians who wore clothing made of river rushes ate raw fish. 

99. Others of the Indians, dwelling to the East of these, are pastoral and eat raw flesh: these are called Padaians, and they practise the following customs:—whenever any of their tribe falls ill, whether it be a woman or a man, if a man then the men who are his nearest associates put him to death, saying that he is wasting away with the disease and his flesh is being spoilt for them: and meanwhile he denies stoutly and says that he is not ill, but they do not agree with him; and after they have killed him they feast upon his flesh: but if it be a woman who falls ill, the women who are her greatest intimates do to her in the same manner as the men do in the other case. For in fact even if a man has come to old age they slay him and feast upon him; but very few of them come to be reckoned as old, for they kill every one who falls into sickness, before he reaches old age.

18. Indians who were called Padaians practiced cannibalism.

100. Other Indians have on the contrary a manner of life as follows:—they neither kill any living thing nor do they sow any crops nor is it their custom to possess houses; but they feed on herbs, and they have a grain of the size of millet, in a sheath, which grows of itself from the ground; this they gather and boil with the sheath, and make it their food: and whenever any of them falls into sickness, he goes to the desert country and lies there, and none of them pay any attention either to one who is dead or to one who is sick.

19. Some Indians who did not own houses or sow any crops lived on grains the size of millet, in a sheath.

Book Four

Libya

186. I have said that from Egypt as far as the lake Tritonis Libyans dwell who are nomads, eating flesh and drinking milk; and these do not taste at all of the flesh of cows, for the same reason as the Egyptians also abstain from it, nor do they keep swine. Moreover the women of the Kyrenians too think it not right to eat cows' flesh, because of the Egyptian Isis, and they even keep fasts and celebrate festivals for her; and the women of Barca, in addition from cows' flesh, do not taste of swine either.  

20. Egyptians did not eat the flesh of cows for religious reasons. 
21. Libyans who were nomads did not eat the flesh of cows and swine for religious reasons but ate the flesh of other animals and drunk milk. 

Summary

Among the cuisines described by Herodotus the most sophisticated and luxurious cuisine is that of Persians. Indeed, Persian cuisine was the haute cuisine of the 5th century BC. The most of known world was not as refined or cultivated and led an "uncomplicated" life. There was no Roman Empire yet, Assyrian Empire was in ruins, Egypt was a satrapy (province) of the Persian Empire and according to Herodotus himself, the Greek lifestyle was not as sumptuous as Persian.

The fact that Herodotus specifically mentions birthday feasts and certain manners of Persians suggests that the Greeks and other nations known to them, such as Egyptians, did not in fact give importance to birthdays and did not regard lavatorial activities as a private matter. Persians continued to have a splendid  lifestyle and cuisine for many more centuries. The nations that had managed to conquer them had also adopted their luxurious way of life. 

That said, being among the oldest cuisines of the world Babylonian and Egyptian cuisines should be noted for their food traditions and riches. Herodotus' reference to Babylonian alternative of making oil from sesame seeds rather than olives, and wine and honey from dates give us a hint of the opulent cuisine of their once prominent empire. Ibn Battuta who visited what is now Iraq in 1326-1327 also noted the date-palms and the importance of dates in local populace's diet. He personally enjoyed the honey (elsewhere) made from dates which he called sayalan (Waines, 2010). 

Interestingly, today the oldest surviving "cookbook" which consists of three cuneiform tablets is Babylonian (they are referred to as Yale Culinary tablets and kept at the Yale University in the US). On the whole, Ancient Mesopotamia was well-known for its sophisticated cooking techniques and cuisine. Their use of garlic, onion, dates, pistachios, sesame seeds, fish and many other victuals were documented and preserved on a number of ancient clay tablets. One such tablet written around 1700 BC, which was actually a letter by a lady Huzalatum to her sister Beltani, mentions the following foodstuff (Bottéro, 2004):

In the last caravan I was brought 100 liters of barley semolina, 50 liters of dates and 1.5 liters of oil; and they have just delivered 10 liters of sesame seeds, and 10 liters of dates. In return, I am sending you 20 liters of coarse flour, 35 liters of bean flour, two combs, a liter of siqqu-brine...There isn't any ziqtu-fish here. Send some to me, so that I can make you some of that brine and can have it brought to you...

As for the Ancient Egyptian cuisine, certain grains such as emmer and barley played an important role in the lives of both poor and wealthy Egyptians. The kyllestis bread mentioned by Herodotus and the beer made from grains were staples of all Egyptians. Interestingly, they did not eat or touch pigs whilst animals such as cows and crocodiles were deemed sacred and were not eaten at all. The Nile provided their fish which they would prepare and eat in a variety of ways whereas some of their fowl Egyptians would only cure. 

Indeed, Herodotus provides an interesting insight into the food culture of his time. I recommend his book as an excellent guide for time-travelling to the V century. It would be amazing to taste a Egyptian kyllestis bread, and date wine and honey, if these are still made. 

Bibliography 

Bottéro, J. (2004). The Oldest Cuisine in the World: Cooking in Mesopotamia. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 

Herodotus (2008). The history of Herodotus — Volume 1 &2. Trans. Macaulay, G. C. (George Campbell). The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History Of Herodotus

Waines, D. (2010) The Odyssey of Ibn Battuta: : Uncommon tales of a medieval adventurer. London: I.B. Tauris.