The second open day of Minoan cooking, once again was a huge success. Everyone was interested in not only being able to see the food being cooked but also to taste. Many of the tripod cooking pots which the Minoans would have used, my colleague at the study centre, Archaeologist Jerolyn Morrison had made replica’s for this experimental day.
While the open fire was being prepared within a circle of stones, and the beehive style oven had been made ready to use for cooking the bread, the meat and octopus was also being prepared. The pork was first sliced into small pieces and had to marinade for l hour. Then boiled with leek, olive oil, pomegranite syrup,tyme and seasalt. The bread was made using wheat, barley,fennel seeds,fresh fennel and sea salt. Once the mixture was made into something looking more like pastry, it was then rolled out and placed on top of the oven where the charcoal was burning inside and kept to a suitable temperature. Jerolyn now informed everyone that the food was ready to taste and began by first serving the pork.To everyone’s delight including myself, the experience of such tender and tasty meat was delicious. And because I love fennel which was an ingredient in the bread I also liked, even though a little chewy and flat, because of course, no yeast would have been used in order for the bread to rise in Minoan times. Because I do not like octopus to eat I did not taste so will not comment, but those who do eat Octopus, commented that too was very tasty and cooked to perfection. I took a picture of one of the cooking pots shown below indicating the food residue remaining at the bottom. This helps archaeologists to discover what the diet might have been in Minoan times, or in fact any other period of time.