Bowl of red-tinged lamb stew with beetroot and herbs on rustic wooden table, based on ancient Sumerian recipe

Old Babylonian · Iraq

Sumerian Lamb Stew (Tuh'u)

Name: Sumerian Lamb Stew (Tuh'u)
Total time: 130 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Iraq
Ingredients: 800g lamb shoulder, cubed; 3 tbsp lamb fat or ghee; 2 beetroots, peeled and diced; 3 leeks, sliced; 6 cloves garlic; 3 shallots; 1 tbsp cumin seeds; 1 tbsp coriander seeds; 1 tsp salt; 1L water; Handful fresh coriander

From Yale Culinary Tablets (YBC 4644) · Anonymous scribe · 1750 BC

Verified from original source

A red-tinged lamb stew with beetroot, coriander and leeks — reconstructed from a 3700-year-old cuneiform tablet.

Historical note: One of only 40 recipes surviving from ancient Mesopotamia, on cuneiform tablets ~1750 BC. Ingredient interpretations follow the Bottéro/Jean scholarly reconstruction.

History

Tuh'u appears on Yale Babylonian Collection tablet YBC 4644, one of three Akkadian cuneiform tablets from ancient Mesopotamia (circa 1750 BCE) containing the world's oldest known written recipes. These tablets, likely from southern Mesopotamia, describe elite cuisine prepared in temple or palace kitchens. The lamb stew recipes call for meat cooked with water, fat, salt, and ingredients like leeks, garlic, onions, and sometimes blood. They reflect sophisticated culinary techniques including browning meat and layering flavours. French Assyriologist Jean Bottéro translated these tablets in the 1980s, revealing complex gastronomy that influenced later Near Eastern cooking traditions.

Sources

Bottéro, Jean. 'The Culinary Tablets at Yale.' Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1985
Bottéro, Jean. The Oldest Cuisine in the World: Cooking in Mesopotamia, 2004
Nasrallah, Nawal. Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens: Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq's Tenth-Century Baghdadi Cookbook, 2007
Albala, Ken, editor. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Food Issues, 2015
Yale Babylonian Collection tablet YBC 4644, Yale University

Serves

Prep

20m

Cook

110m

Difficulty

Medium

Ingredients

· 800g lamb shoulder, cubed
· 3 tbsp lamb fat or ghee
· 2 beetroots, peeled and diced
· 3 leeks, sliced
· 6 cloves garlic
· 3 shallots
· 1 tbsp cumin seeds
· 1 tbsp coriander seeds
· 1 tsp salt
· 1L water
· Handful fresh coriander

Method

1
Toast whole spices, then grind.
2
Brown lamb in fat. Add leeks, garlic, shallots — cook 5 min.
3
Add beetroot and spices. Cover with water.
4
Simmer 90 minutes till lamb tender and broth deeply red.
5
Season with salt. Finish with fresh coriander.
6
Serve with flatbread — the ancient way.