Try a Roman inspired recipe this weekend! #saturdaykitchen

Celebrity chef John Crouch cooked us some Roman inspired food for our free online course Hadrian’s Wall: Life on the Roman Frontier which starts on Monday.

John very kindly said we could share his recipes. Why not try cooking one of them this weekend?

Visualising a Roman banquet at Arbeia.
Visualising a Roman banquet

ROMAN  CABBAGE  SALAD
(KRAMBE)

1 white cabbage
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons clear honey
a bunch of fresh coriander leaves
a sprig of fresh rue
1 teaspoon asafoetida powder
salt (optional)

Thinly slice the cabbage as for a coleslaw and arrange in a salad bowl. Combine the vinegar with the honey in a cup. Finely chop the coriander and rue and add to the honeyed vinegar. Season with salt if you wish, although the dressing is strong enough not to need it. Stir the asafoetida into the dressing and pour over the cabbage. Toss before
serving.

HARE  SERVED  IN  ITS  OWN  GRAVY

1½kg (3lb) hare

seasoning
1 tablespoon olive oil
250ml (½pt) chicken stock
65ml (1/8pt) reduced chicken stock
2 teaspoons chives
1 teaspoon coriander
pinch of aniseed

sauce
¼ teaspoon ground pepper
1 teaspoon celery or lovage seed
½ teaspoon cumin
pinch of fennel
1 teaspoon mint
pinch of rosemary
1 small onion, chopped
2 teaspoons honey
125ml (¼pt) stewing pan juices
125ml (¼pt) boiled red wine
1 teaspoon white wine or cider vinegar
flour
pepper

In a stewing pot, put the olive oil, stock, chives, coriander, and aniseed. Cut up the hare into pieces and add to the pot. Cover, bring to a boil, and cook the hare for about 1 hour over low heat.
For the sauce, in a mortar grind the pepper, celery or lovage seed, cumin, coriander seeds, fennel, mint, and a pinch of rosemary. Add the onion, and combine with the honey, liquid from the hare pan, boiled wine, and vinegar.
Uncover the hare, add the sauce to the stewing pan, and cook for a further 30 minutes. Thicken the sauce with flour, and serve the meat drenched in sauce. Sprinkle with pepper at the table.

NETTLE  QUICHE

200g (8oz) nettles
butter
100g (4oz) fresh mushrooms, sliced
200g (8oz) cheese, grated
1 medium onion, sliced in rings
100g (4oz) flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon fish-pickle
3 eggs
350ml (12floz) cream
1 teaspoon coriander
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Pick a basket of young spring nettles and steam in a covered pan for 30 minutes. Take 200g (8oz) of nettles, drain and chop. Arrange in a buttered quiche dish. Cover with layers of mushrooms, cheese, and onion. Now blend the flour, salt, fish-pickle, well beaten eggs, cream, coriander, and pepper. Pour the mixture over the dry ingredients in the quiche dish. Bake in a 200°C (400°F/Gas Mark 4) oven for 35 to 40 minutes, and serve hot with a sprinkling of pepper. Alternatively, chill and serve cold.

We’ll share some more recipes with you as we get nearer to the visualisation of a Roman banquet at Arbeia Roman Fort, South Shields.

Have a great weekend.

Altars, mud and cake

We were extremely grateful to the Senhouse Roman Museum for their hospitality and patience as they hosted a visit from us last week.

The Museum has a great location, with fine views over the Solway Firth – it holds examples of altars, monuments and sculptures most of which come from the Roman fort and settlement at Maryport.  (A bonus in the summer months the modest entrance fee includes a tour of the excavations).

Our mission was to interview the site director Tony Wilmott, capture pictures and record students at work in the Roman Temple Project Excavation.  Our crack Digital Media Team:  Kevin, Stephen and Helen got to work identifying good filming locations and setting up equipment.

Sound
Sound

Lunch time gave a chance to meet some of the team of archaeologists, many of whom are Newcastle University students.  We noted considerable trade in cake from the Museum shop.  Clearly cake is as important as sunscreen on site!

Then, a short walk from the museum to the site, to a crafty viewpoint on top of the excavation mound to view the activity at work.  Ian  skilfully summaried the work to camera before the team were let loose with hand held cameras to film students close up.

onthemound

ian wiht sky

 

You’ll be able to spot the footage in Hadrian’s Wall: Life on the Roman Frontier when it starts on 22 September.  Look out for it when we consider frontier communities, ritual and religion.

Frontiers old and new

A lot awful lot of work has been going on behind the scenes following the University’s announcement of our partnership with FutureLearn to deliver free online courses, starting with our first course on Hadrian’s Wall.
teamhw3

We have  a great team in place for this, our first venture into MOOCs and we were really pleased to get “Team Hadrian” together for the first time on Friday.

You don’t have to be around Prof Ian Haynes and Dr Rob Collins for very long to appreciate their enthusiasm for Hadrian’s Wall and what it tells us of the rich picture of life on this Roman Frontier.  Our Digital Media Team (Stephen, Kevin, Helen and Dave) will be adding creative juices to bring relics and places to life; and Mike and Suzanne are on hand to pull it all together and offer advice on structure, narrative and engagement.

The day’s agenda covered a close look at the FutureLearn platform; discussion of filming practicalities; and a chance to further refine ideas on content to fit our goals and objectives.  As is fitting with a project involving new and ancient frontiers the team moved seamlessly between YouTube, GoogleDocs, BaseCamp and Post-it notes.

postitsmall2

Visual Representation – proportional sizes

Sometimes it is more effective to represent figures in graphical form. One form of representation that is tricky to get right is proportional sizes of shape (square or circle) to illustrate the difference in size. For example, if you want to show one figure is twice the size of another, it is easy to create a circle that has a diameter twice as long as another, but this will be more than twice the volume, thus misrepresenting the difference.

The form at this link from think outside the box helps determine the correct relative size for shapes. You can then produce proportional shapes with an art package or PowerPoint to create your graphic.

This is one example showing the sizes of legions, cohorts and Centuries within the Roman army