Posted on 04/17/2019 11:17:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The Italian peninsula seems to shimmer and shine with history and art, from graceful, full bodied nymphs set against make-believe cypresses and oaks, to crumbling mounds of marble on which lie the almost breathable, almost visible words of lives, songs, and politics past. But before all the art, before the reawakening, before the soldiers cloaked in scarlet and gold, and the senators in their Senate hall...before the reign of emperors and tyrants was a race of peoples whose culture lived on in the greatest empire the world has ever known.
They were the Etruscans, a mysterious tribe that scattered throughout northeastern and southern Italy, and brought civilization and urbanization in their wake... Their origins are still disputed; early accounts from the Greek historian Herodotus claimed that they were migrants from Asia Minor. Dionysius, another Greek historian, wrote that the Etruscans were native to Italy...
The Etruscans planted cereals such as barley, millet, panic grass (grass used for fodder) and rye, from which they extracted "puls," the precursor of today's bread. They cultivated olives, grapes, garlic, onions, ceci beans, black eyed peas, fava beans, and lupins. Fruit groves throughout the city states were heavy with pomegranates, figs, blackberries, strawberries, and egg-sized apples and melons. In the barns and yards roamed cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, goats, and sheep. The forests were replete with game, which included hare, deer, and wild boar. From the sea came fresh fish, tuna, and tortoise eggs. In the house, rolling pins rolled out dough, and cutting wheels turned to make fresh pasta. Cellars and cabinets were filled with olive oil and wine.
The Etruscans, in other words, were the rock on which gourmet Italian cooking would be built.
(Excerpt) Read more at isaaa.org ...
Interesting article and great reading list. Thanks, SunkenCiv!
Now, if I read that correctly, I am going to need to do more research on cheese made from pig’s milk.
Their cuisine sounds really yummy. And no mention of garum!
Oinker milk... not that you mention it, I don't believe I've ever seen any. :^) Cheese was a brilliant, and probably quite early, method of food preservation; keeping pigs domestically has probably been dated, I'll have to look into that...
Fermented fish sauce was developed by maritime peoples, perhaps they did have it, good catch! Get it, catch...
LOL!
The longest Etruscan inscription is in Zagreb, Croatia--the Zagreb mummy wrapping, or liber linteus, more than 1000 words long. They have in a special climate-controlled room.
I’m a little surprised we don’t have a topic on it, I was actually sure we did — perhaps it was in one of those “old school” topics that eventually got purged ten years ago, after having been disabled for comments a little while before I started posting here. Its discovery is a good reason to use a non-invasive scanning technology on all known mummies.
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/liberlinteus/index
LOL!
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