I. Pickles

Pickling is one of the most ancient methods for preserving food. In the excavated Assyrian cuneiform tablets, we come across occasional references to pickled meat. They also made the fermented ‘siqqu’ sauce for kitchen and table use. They made it out of fish, shellfish, or locusts, so it was very similar to the oriental fish sauce. The ancients used to nibble on pickled locusts. Apparently the taste for such ‘delicacies’ continued up until the Middle Ages and possibly later. We know from al-Warraq’s tenth-century recipes that these creatures were consumed pickled and made into a condiment called sihnaat al-jarad. That was a clever way of using the swarms of locusts which used to attack the region periodically (see also ‘Locusts: Food Fit for Kings,’.