# Time Travellers' Potluck Party **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [March 16, 2022, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211 "2022-03-16T21:29:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/1 "2022-03-16T21:29:43Z")
Another food fantasy. Let’s all dust off our Tardises and bring a dish to pass from world history. It doesn’t have to be exotic or fancy, but it should be significant in some historical way. Here’s my offering: Roasted dormice stuffed with pork mince, with honey on the side for dipping, straight from ancient Rome. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/2 "2022-03-16T21:47:01Z")
Some cuts from this mammoth. [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1207663](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1207663) ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/3 "2022-03-16T22:06:31Z")
_Charoset_ on _matzah_, using genuine [2,000 year old ancient Judean dates](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/02/how-to-grow-a-date-tree-from-2000-year-old-seeds/606079/). ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2022, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/4 "2022-03-16T22:14:11Z")
A bowl of Ansault pears, please and thanks. I would’ve said auroch steak, but mammoth will do quite nicely too. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/5 "2022-03-17T00:10:09Z")
I’d be curious to try [silphium](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170907-the-mystery-of-the-lost-roman-herb), in whatever dishes showcase it best. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/6 "2022-03-17T01:59:01Z")
I know I’m passing up a great opportunity, but I’m bringing what I bring to all the super-serious Academic Potluck “Gatherings” . . . [. . . Circus Peanuts.](https://www.theodysseyonline.com/media-library/image.jpg?width=400&coordinates=0%2C137%2C0%2C137&height=763.9639639639639&quality=80&id=21640104) But I suppose I could go back in time and see if I can find fresh ones… although I suspect they’ve always had that “Centuries-Old Texture”. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/7 "2022-03-17T11:31:46Z")
Keeping with the OP’s mention of ancient Rome, I’d like to try [garum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garum), the condiment that was so popular in the ancient world, but the recipe has mostly been lost to time. Was it just a lot like Asian-style fish sauce, or different? I’d also be curious to try ancient wine, just because I heard somewhere that any cheap bottom-shelf bottle of modern wine is still miles better than anything they had in ancient times. I’d like to see how true that is. Oh, and asparagus. I’ve heard the ancient Romans loved their asparagus, so I’d be curious to see if hundreds of years of cultivation have changed it any in texture or flavor. > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Some cuts from this mammoth. > > [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1207663](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1207663) Thirding! Maybe a nice roast Dodo bird as well. Add passenger pigeon, and maybe make an extinct version of a turducken…mamdodigeon? ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/8 "2022-03-17T11:58:52Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Some cuts from this mammoth. Yeah, if it doesn’t have mammoth, don’t bother inviting me. I figure there’s got to be a reason we went out of our way to hunt those big bastards when much smaller moose, bison and deer were also abundant. My theory is, they tasted so good we all agreed it was worth the extra effort/risk. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/9 "2022-03-17T12:02:22Z")
I wouldn’t go so far back. I’ll be content going back to 1912 and the First Class menu on the Titanic: > **[Commemorate the 110th Anniversary of Titantic with Tribute Dinner: 1st Class...](https://downtonabbeycooks.com/planning-your-titantic-tribute-first-class-menu/)** > > Share Tweet Pin Mail SMS The 110th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic will be celebrated on April 14, 2022. Food lovers have ... Remember, these were Edwardian times, and people knew how to eat and enjoy themselves. The above cite contains a _ **ten-course** _ dinner menu, and most of those courses would be considered an ample meal in itself by modern standards. I’d be happy with just the Filet Mignon Lili from the fourth course: Unless I’m mixing it up with some other similar dish, it’s pan-seared filet mignon served with a sauce made with beef stock, shallots, tomato paste, cognac, Madeira, and red wine, topped with a quick-seared medallion of foie gras and sliced black truffle, and surrounded by oven-browned piped Potatoes Duchess. Also on the menu: Oysters a la Russe, Consommé Olga, Poached Salmon with Mousseline Sauce, Chicken Lyonnaise, Lamb with mint sauce, Glazed Duckling with apple sauce, Sirloin of Beef with château potatoes, Roast Squab and cress, cold Asparagus Vinaigrette salad, Pâté de Foie Gras, Waldorf Pudding, Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly, and much else, followed by assorted fruit and cheeses, and coffee and cigars. You guys enjoy your Roman orgies. I’ll just have a ten-course Edwardian dinner! 😀 ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/10 "2022-03-17T13:13:34Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Also on the menu: Oysters a la Russe, Consommé Olga, Poached Salmon with Mousseline Sauce, Chicken Lyonnaise, Lamb with mint sauce, Glazed Duckling with apple sauce, Sirloin of Beef with château potatoes, Roast Squab and cress, cold Asparagus Vinaigrette salad, Pâté de Foie Gras, Waldorf Pudding, Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly, and much else, followed by assorted fruit and cheeses, and coffee and cigars. Don’t forget to bring plover eggs for a garnish. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/11 "2022-03-17T13:22:48Z")
If we’re gonna do a full menu, I’d love to have Mark Twain’s fantasy menu - all the (in his opinion) quintessentially American foods he missed while traveling abroad. "It has now been many months, at the present writing, since I have had a nourishing meal, but I shall soon have one—a modest, private affair, all to myself. I have selected a few dishes, and made out a little bill of fare, which will go home in the steamer that precedes me, and be hot when I arrive—as follows: > **Summary** > > Radishes. Baked apples, with cream > Fried oysters; stewed oysters. Frogs. > American coffee, with real cream. > American butter. > Fried chicken, Southern style. > Porter-house steak. > Saratoga potatoes. > Broiled chicken, American style. > Hot biscuits, Southern style. > Hot wheat-bread, Southern style. > Hot buckwheat cakes. > American toast. Clear maple syrup. > Virginia bacon, broiled. > Blue points, on the half shell. > Cherry-stone clams. > San Francisco mussels, steamed. > Oyster soup. Clam Soup. > Philadelphia Terapin soup. > Oysters roasted in shell-Northern style. > Soft-shell crabs. Connecticut shad. > Baltimore perch. > Brook trout, from Sierra Nevadas. > Lake trout, from Tahoe. > Sheep-head and croakers, from New Orleans. > Black bass from the Mississippi. > American roast beef. > Roast turkey, Thanksgiving style. > Cranberry sauce. Celery. > Roast wild turkey. Woodcock. > Canvas-back-duck, from Baltimore. > Prairie liens, from Illinois. > Missouri partridges, broiled. > 'Possum. Coon. > Boston bacon and beans. > Bacon and greens, Southern style. > Hominy. Boiled onions. Turnips. > Pumpkin. Squash. Asparagus. > Butter beans. Sweet potatoes. > Lettuce. Succotash. String beans. > Mashed potatoes. Catsup. > Boiled potatoes, in their skins. > New potatoes, minus the skins. > Early rose potatoes, roasted in the ashes, Southern style, served hot. > Sliced tomatoes, with sugar or vinegar. Stewed tomatoes. > Green corn, cut from the ear and served with butter and pepper. > Green corn, on the ear. > Hot corn-pone, with chitlings, Southern style. > Hot hoe-cake, Southern style. > Hot egg-bread, Southern style. > Hot light-bread, Southern style. > Buttermilk. Iced sweet milk. > Apple dumplings, with real cream. > Apple pie. Apple fritters. > Apple puffs, Southern style. > Peach cobbler, Southern style > Peach pie. American mince pie. > Pumpkin pie. Squash pie. > All sorts of American pastry. > Fresh American fruits of all sorts, including strawberries which are not to be doled out as if they were jewelry, but in a more liberal way. > Ice-water—not prepared in the ineffectual goblet, but in the sincere and capable refrigerator.” ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/12 "2022-03-17T13:32:43Z")
Prairie liens from Illinois? Did they use to dine on court records back then? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/13 "2022-03-17T13:48:45Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](#): > > Prairie liens from Illinois? That’s a 19th Century term for these things: > **[Greater prairie chicken](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_prairie_chicken)** > > T. c. attwateri > T. c. pinnatus > T. c. cupido† > Tetrao cupido Linnaeus, 1758 > The greater prairie chicken or pinnated grouse (Tympanuchus cupido), sometimes called a boomer, is a large bird in the grouse family. This North American species was once abundant, but has become extremely rare and extirpated over much of its range due to habitat loss. Conservation measures are underway to ensure the sustainability of existing small populations. One of the most famous aspects of these creatures is the m... ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/14 "2022-03-17T13:59:58Z")
As implied above, this was most likely a misreading of “prairie hen” or more generally, “prairie chicken”. More about the connection to Twain here: > **[The "Prairie Hens" of Illinois](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/the-prairie-hens-of-illinois/)** > > Toward the end of a long 1878 European tour, Mark Twain wrote a fantasy menu consisting of all his favorite American foods. Along with predictable fare such as southern-style fried chicken and hot corn bread, the menu included the arrestingly... ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/15 "2022-03-17T14:03:03Z")
It isn’t. It’s a typo for prairie hens. This is actually super interesting (to me). There are very few hits for “prairie liens” on Google, and almost all of them are quoting the Twain passage. [But one of the hits brings up this page.](https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/data/batches/mimtptc_alpena_ver01/data/sn83016620/00202197991/1836090701/0049.pdf)(pdf warning) The google result _thinks_ it says prairie liens, but if you find it on the page (top left, second paragraph) it clearly says “Prairie Hens.” The OCR has scanned it as “liens.” Which means all those quoted passages might very well be sourced back, by copy/pasting from other websites, to a single erroneous scan of the passage. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/16 "2022-03-17T14:33:07Z")
Curiosity led me to look up an old P.G. Wodehouse short story (_The Awful Gladness of the Mater_) in which that Twain menu is cited. And indeed, in the Wodehouse version, it’s “prairie hens”. It’s easy to see how an “h” could OCR scan as “li”. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/17 "2022-03-17T14:51:28Z")
Want to make it a party? Get some of the original Coca-Cola from before the turn of the 20th century. And the OP did say _world_ history, not just human history. In which case, I’d like to try some Trilobyte. Do you think it goes best with melted butter, cocktail sauce, or tartar sauce? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/18 "2022-03-17T15:03:12Z")
I’d imagine like horseshoe crab, there’s so little meat you’d have to use it in a salad or something. They’re basically cockroaches of the ocean. Oh hey, look what I found. > [@Would trilobite taste like crab ?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-trilobite-taste-like-crab/732618): > > And would dinosaur taste like chicken ? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/19 "2022-03-17T15:45:18Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Yeah, if it doesn’t have mammoth, don’t bother inviting me. I figure there’s got to be a reason we went out of our way to hunt those big bastards when much smaller moose, bison and deer were also abundant. My theory is, they tasted so good we all agreed it was worth the extra effort/risk. The idea of active hunting may be somewhat exaggerated. > **[Ancient Clovis hunters may not have wiped out mammoths after all | Science News](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/clovis-hunter-stone-points-mammoth-kill-north-america)** > > Early Americans’ stone points were best suited to butchering the huge beasts’ carcasses, scientists contend. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2022, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211/20 "2022-03-17T16:27:48Z")
I’ll counter that with a bunch of lions killing an elephant. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/PziDIb5_Qys/maxresdefault.jpg "Lions Attack Elephant | Planet Earth | BBC Earth") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PziDIb5_Qys) You don’t have to penetrate all the way to a vital organ in order to kill an elephant. There’s no way a lion fang or claw penetrates that deep. But attack the legs to immobilize it, and get it bleeding, and it’s done for. When it’s enough food for the whole tribe for a week, you can wait an hour or two for it to die on its own. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-potluck-party/961211.md?page=2)