The oldest cuisine in the world
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If you go to the Yale University Library, you will find four clay tablets that are about 3,700 years old. They hold the oldest recorded recipes in history. Stews, breads, pies. They're from Mesopotamia, which makes up parts of present-day Iran, Iraq, Syria, and eastern Turkey. And they were likely written down by the Assyrians.

You probably know about the Assyrian Empire. They ruled way back before the Ottomans, the Romans, and the Greeks. They're known for their early libraries. But what you may not know is that there are still 3 to 5 million Assyrians living in diaspora around the world today.

This cuisine is amazing because it's so ancient. My family are Greeks and Armenians from eastern Turkey, right around this region. And I've always been obsessed with its food because this is the birthplace of so many things that we eat and drink all the time, of wine, beer, cheese, bread. It's the literal Fertile Crescent.

So when a cookbook came out this year called The Oldest Kitchen in the World, I couldn't wait to cook from it. Its writer, Matai Demaye, has collected the recipes of his mother, Smuny Taran, recipes that her ancestors have been passing down orally for centuries. Matai and Smuny are with me in the studio today, visiting from the Netherlands where they live. Hi to you both. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thanks for being here.

So I should say, Smuni doesn't speak English. She speaks Dutch and Aramaic and Turkish. So, Mattia, I'll ask you most of the questions and maybe you can translate as we go. Okay, so why don't we start this interview the same way that you probably start a lot of your interviews. Can you tell me a little bit about the Assyrian people, where they're from, what the backstory is? Yeah.

The Assyrians, they have several names. They're known for like Chaldeans or Syriacs. For example, in Germany, they talk about Arameans. But yeah, these people, they are indigenous to the Middle East and they've been prosecuted for a long, long time. That's the dark side of our history. But if you

go a little bit further in time you'll find that these people had a very comprehensive and rich culture both intellectual and cultural

cultural but also in terms of food culinary wise so agriculture was developed first in Mesopotamia and then especially specifically in the northern part which is called Assyria and the art of cooking is also developed or invented in

in this region. Isn't it crazy that agriculture, just as a word, was invented in this area? Yes, and cooking. Yeah, tell me the story about the oldest recipes in the world, about finding that out. Yeah, well, I was cooking with my mother and listening to her stories. I was thinking...

Let's deep dive a little bit more in our heritage and our culture. And then I found out that I think in 1927, there were four clay tablets found in cuneiforms. And on these clay tablets, once they were translated, they found out there were 35 recipes on these clay tablets.

What is cuneiform? Cuneiform is not the spoken language, but it was the written language. And the written language in the Assyrian Empire was not for the normal people, but more for the established. Right. Yeah. They could read that and write it. And so when the recipes were deciphered, they realized, or we found out, you know, thousands of years later...

That people were using ingredients like lamb and onion and beets and leeks and beer and even cumin. Cumin, yes. And coriander. Yes.

It's really wild that those existed and were being used. And I imagine you found a lot of direct lines from those ancient recipes to what your mother cooks. Yes, that was one of the things that I found out. And what I'm trying to visualize in this book or write in this book is to show the link between the recipes that were written there and

with the kitchen of my mom. What surprised you? What did you see that surprised you or interested you that was similar? What sorts of things? Well, for example, one of the recipes that my mom still makes is not my favorite recipe, but it is among the generation of my mom, is the stuffed intestines. Yes. Yeah. And

And basically, that is actually the first sausage in the world ever created. Right? Right. My mom, she still loves them. And she, yeah, she buys the incestines and they are like seven meters long. Right. From sheep. And then she stuffs them with minced meat and a lot of parsley and garlic. And then also some wheat, some burgo. Yeah, bulgur. Yeah. And then you got to...

basically beautiful mix and they stuff them and then they look like sausages, right? Right. And then she cuts them in pieces and then she boils them. I never thought of stuffed intestines as early sausages. Yeah. That's true. Yeah, that's true. It's his case saying, yeah, yeah. If you look at those recipes, they are not full recipes as we know recipes in cookbooks nowadays. The way they make it or how long they need to...

to be prepared, you won't find it in those recipes. Right. But that's interesting because like we've been, I mean, everyone who makes a meatball puts some sort of like a wheat or a bulgur or something into that filling or breadcrumbs to keep it with its shape. That's over, you know, 55,000 years old. Yeah. Wow. This must have been fun. Yeah. Because once you read it and then

You don't realize that it was already used at that time, right? Like the technique. Yeah. Yeah. You take all these things for granted. But then if you deep dive a little bit more in history, you think, wow, those people were inventing. Yeah. They were inventing even modern cuisine. Yes. Yeah.

I want to get to the recipes in your cookbook soon. But before I do, I should say that, as you mentioned earlier, the modern day history of Assyrians is tragic for many of the same reasons that the Armenian history is tragic. Both of our cultures survived the persecution and genocide under the Ottoman Empire and Young Turks in 1915. Do you know much about how your family was able to survive? I know a part of it and then...

I thought I knew it completely, but while writing this book, talking to my mom, then I realized that her mother and her grandfather were the only survivors from my mother's side. I never realized that. The brothers and sisters of my grandma, the mother of my mother, were alive.

I never knew that my grandmother was Armenian. From my mother's side, yeah. Can I ask you to translate a question for your mother? I imagine food is important for you as a way to keep the culture alive. Is that true? I mean, how important is that for the culture?

For you, how important is that food, the traditional food? Yes, it is very important. Yes, my mom is saying...

The traditional food that she's making is key for her to have that connection with her roots. And to have that connection, it means to her that she feels better in her overall well-being. The food that she's making, she learned from her mother and her mother from her grandmother. And they were all passed down orally.

Yeah, she feels very responsible to pass that on. Yeah, yeah. Should we talk about some recipes? Yeah. Okay, so I would love to start with one that I know is very important to your family. It's on the cover of the book. It is called kutle. Kutle, yes. It's called kutle. It is similar to kibbeh, right? I think other cultures might call this dish kibbeh.

Yeah, they call it kibbeh, so it has a lot of similarities. The only difference that we have, which I like better, is that we batter them with butter. Oh, you batter them. Yeah, we batter them with butter, and then we fry them. Okay, all right. Okay, so what it is, just for listeners who don't know, is basically, it's almost like an ancient dumpling. It's a bulgur crust with meat inside.

It's almost like a meatball wrapped in bulgur, or you could think of it as a sort of... Wheat pouch. A wheat pouch, right, with bulgur inside. They're about, I don't know, the size of your hand or so. Yeah. And they're delicious. You cut it open and it steams out, and they're just like kind of packets of insanity. Other cultures' versions of it, the Turks and Armenians call it ishli kofte. The Greeks call it kupes. Oh, wow. Yeah. So can you tell me how to make it?

Yeah, so the filling consists of parsley, onion and garlic. And then we have a few other ingredients in there. It's mostly herbs. So you can put a little bit of mint in there. You can put a little bit of cumin if you want. And you need lean and nimble fingers. Right. Yeah, to make it.

So it sounds like the most sort of important part of this is really time and... Patience. Patience, time, and also experience, right? You really need to do that, sort of shape each of those balls right. Yeah, it's actually the signature dish of the Assyrians, right? Yeah. And we all love them. Everyone knows them. And it's also nice to do it together. Yeah. Because back in the days, my mom and also my grandma and the women come together and

And not only cooking together, but it's also the moment to share rumors that they've heard. Oh, right. Gossip. Yeah. Gossip. Yeah. And they make them in big quantities. Yeah. And it's a festive dish. Yeah. It's for social gatherings and festivities. This will be always on the menu. I love them. I remember with my six brothers and sisters, we would be on a table with a staple, for example, like 70 up to 100 of these.

Oh wow, a hundred of these, that must have taken all day. It does, yeah. Can I ask Monique, what is the secret? What should we know if we are making kutle? What is the secret of making kutle? Yes. It is very difficult for many people to make. First you have to cut well. And then...

You have to open it like this. That's very difficult. First you do all these rolls and then you have to open it with these two fingers. And then you fill in the cut and then you go...

She's using kind of two fingers. You're using two fingers to sort of show how you open the pouch. True, yeah. So there's a two-finger technique and keep your fingers wet. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So the best advice of my mom is start early. She was eight years old when she started because her mom warned her and reminded her all the time. If you don't learn this dish, you'll never find someone who wants to marry you. Oh, God. So start early. So start early. Learn how to do it right or you won't find your husband. Good. Yeah. Okay.

Okay, the second thing I want to ask you both about is yogurt. I know that Smoony makes homemade yogurt. Cateero, is that how you say it? Cateero. Cateero. Cateero, yeah. Cateero. Yogurt is one of the oldest dairy products used.

in the world. It originates, it won't surprise listeners to know, from this region, from Mesopotamia. The Armenians like to claim that they brought it to America in the 1920s. But something I think that a lot of Americans and Brits don't know is that you can easily make yogurt at home. A lot of Assyrian families and Armenian and Greek families make

make it at home and there's always some yogurt starter in the fridge. And my grandmother used to, like is in this recipe, sort of cover the yogurt as it was being made in blankets or in sweaters to keep it warm as the bacteria fermented. Tell me about yogurt. How do you make this yogurt? Oh, the yogurt is very exciting to make because as a child, my mom, she would have a pan filled up with

milk that she just bought from the farmer. And she would cover it with a blanket and then we would go to bed. And in the early morning, we would wake up to go to school. And then suddenly this liquid turned into yogurt. It's just magic, right? And then the taste, I mean, this is one of the products that the taste is so much different than what you buy in the

grocery store and yeah I love this recipe so yeah basically you don't need that much

You go to a farmer, you buy the milk, right? Good milk. Don't just get bad supermarket milk. No, no, no. You buy it from the farmer. You need it as fresh as possible. So I know from the place that I grew up on the eastern part of the Netherlands, we go to our farmer and the cows produce two times a day milk. And...

Literally, just a few seconds after they gave the milk, you buy a can, you go home, and then you boil it. You boil, boil, boil until a certain heat. And I explain that in the book as well, how you know when it's hot enough. And then once you reach that level...

you put a scope of yogurt in there. This can be any yogurt, yogurt from the supermarket. But if you make yogurt that often, you can use the yogurt that you've got at home

The old yogurt from the last batch, basically. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. And then you keep on cooking. And then, yeah, once it's boiled again, you let it cool down and then you cover it with a blanket. Yeah. Right. And then you put it somewhere in a dark corner. It's so funny. You just have this kind of living thing in the corner covered in a blanket. Can you tell her that my grandmother used to cover her yogurt?

Lila just said that her grandmother also makes this yogurt in exactly the same way, also with such a blanket. Yes? Oh, how good! Yes, definitely!

Yes, it's good. Yes, it's good. I love it, yes. Can you, and then I just wanted to ask as one follow-up, you said that it tastes different than what you can buy at the supermarket. What's different about it? How would you explain the difference? It is better. I think we'll know what the difference is between the taste of the supermarket and our own yogurt. Yes, a lot more. And why? Why? Yes, the taste. Our yogurt is thick.

And then you feel the taste in your mouth. Look, if you buy from a store, you're a little sleepy. It doesn't taste like our yogurt.

She looks disgusted by the idea. Because she says the taste from the supermarket is not as rich and the structure is not as silky as the yogurt that we have. It is a little tangier too, I think. It's a little stronger, the taste. I like it better. Maybe a little bit sour. Yeah. It's beautiful. Yeah. You can take that yogurt and then make a number of things, right? You could make a yogurt sort of drink. You can make...

La banilla? Yeah. Yeah, which is a very... Yeah, that's what you're saying. Yes. The drink. Yes, yes. Which is a very ancient... There's the yogurt with whole wheat in it. Yes, yes. The breakfast food. Yeah, all of that. Good.

Sometimes we dip it just with bread. Oh, really? Just dip the bread in the yogurt and eat it. Sometimes I had it as a dish as well. The fresh yogurt and then the warm bread that my mom makes. And it's an excellent combination. We have also really nice dips with dill, cucumber. Right. Yeah. Like tzatziki. Like tzatziki, yeah. And it's good that you mentioned it. Because often in all these books, I mean, you see...

or overlap, right, between the Greek and the Turkish and the Lebanese cuisine. There's slightly differences. But the only thing that I never found in these cookbooks was calling these recipes by the name that we have. Right. And that's what I found difficult often in these books, that they are not called in Assyrian, the names that we grew up with. That's what I've tried to do in this book, give them the names that I...

was raised with for these recipes. And yeah, finally, I see now recipes with the names that are familiar to me and to many others of our people. And it's nice. And my dream would be that one of these recipes with these names are also on a menu in a restaurant. ♪

As we wrap up, I have a few kind of bigger picture questions for both of you. One is, you say at the beginning of the cookbook, you have this beautiful quote, which is, you say, my mother is essentially the author of this cookbook. However, there's one small problem. My mother grew up in a place and time when girls didn't learn to read or write. Therefore, I am writing it on her behalf. I guess I'm wondering sort of,

Where are you thinking, where are those recipes have been held in your mother? Like in her hands, in her head, they must be so instinctual as she's passed them down. And I'm wondering if you can reflect on that a little. Yeah, I've been always surprised by the number of all these recipes just being in one someone's head. Right? Yeah. How is that possible?

without going to internet or reading, you know, a recipe in a newspaper. They're just in all the heads of all these women. Isn't that interesting? It's amazing. I read an article about people who are not able to read nor write. They seem to be excellent in memory, keeping memories of, for example, recipes. But they're also great storytellers. Mm-hmm.

That reminded me of my mom because she's really good in both storytelling and listening and also her memory is very strong. And I think for my mom, like going through step by step through a recipe, which was not common for her.

Because it all goes automatically. And then, you know, she comes up with all these amazing dishes within 10 minutes. Right. And just for me to write down one recipe took a few hours. And I was asking all these questions, why and how and what's the measurement? Pushed her also to think about it. And then I was like, what's the story behind this recipe? When would you eat it? What time of the day? It reminded her also of her childhood. And she was sharing recipes.

her losses and happiness is during these stories. What was it like for you to learn these stories through this cooking process together?

They were for me very, very important, but I realized it only when I was writing the book. Before, I heard a lot of stories from my parents or from my mother. And in my childhood, I was a little bit reluctant. I was like, mom, stop telling all these stories. I don't know what to do with it. I don't understand them. Don't bother me with these stories. But during this book...

They were so important for me because they, yeah, everything came together. All the recipes, they have an introduction and I write the history. And then you understand how rich and comprehensive our culture is. And that tells a lot about myself, even about my identity, which I was not always aware of. And now I'm just embracing. Yeah.

What made your mother laugh is that you guys weren't interested in her cooking until you became adults. Yeah, true. She's got seven children and we all until a few years ago. And that's also on behalf of a lot of other kids from my generation, right? Yeah. Like the feedback that I get, they're all so happy that everything is written down, that they can cook the food their mothers make as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

What do you think about the fact that your children didn't care about your cooking and now they all want to know it and write it down? What do you think about the fact that everyone wants to make your dishes and that everything is written down and nothing before it? I am proud and happy that we have become known in the media about our book.

Yeah, she's very, very thankful, grateful and happy that not only her children know, but also everyone, for example, in the Netherlands know about us. Because often if you see a list with minorities, it's always in this chapter other where we are. And now, you know, with all the press that we received online,

We are mentioned by our names. Yes. And it's good that people know that we are there. Yeah. And become also aware of our history. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's very beautiful. I find this very moving that it is all written down. Yeah. Smuni, I want to ask you what it's like to think about the journey you made from rural Turkey to...

Sitting in the studio in New York with your recipes published in English. With your son, what is it like for you? What are you thinking on this trip? I'm so happy. I'm proud. Never thought. Never thought. Yes, very nice. In New York, in the studio.

Yeah. Smutty just blew me a kiss. Yeah, you can hear in her voice, she's still very emotional about it. Growing up in a time without any electricity and running water, without chairs, without a table. And now, you know, just walking and signing this Monday on Fifth Avenue. Who could have ever imagined?

But it is possible. Yeah. And all these ladies have beautiful stories to tell. And I'm really, really happy that I could be one of the persons to give them a voice in this book. Yeah.

I think there are many moving things to me about this book, but the most is that part of what's hard about this region or so emotional about this region is that it's a region that's hard for a lot of people who are from there to go back to. When they go back, the culture that was there is not the same. Much of it is lost. So...

I think a lot of our cultures have that in common is that there are all these ways that we're trying to keep it alive. And this book does that so beautifully. And so it's such an honor to have both of you on the show. Thank you for being here. You're welcome. Thanks. That's the show. Thank you for listening to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I've included more information on the oldest cookbook in the world in the show notes. Also in the show notes are ways to send me your predictions.

You can email me at lilarap.ft.com, message me on Instagram at lilarap. I can't wait to read them. I'm Lila at Raptopolis, and here's our wonderful team. Katya Kumkova is our senior producer. Lulu Smith is our producer. Our sound engineers are Joe Salcedo, Sam Jovinko, and Breen Turner, with original music by Metaphor Music. Topher Forges is our executive producer, and our global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Have a beautiful week, and we'll find each other again on Friday.

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