Last week, I accidentally challenged myself to bake Mesopotamian ‘bread-cakes’.
In the epic of
Gilagamesh, tablet 11, the story goes like this:
ina še-er ku-uk-ki
ina li-la-a-ti ú-šá-az-na-nak-ku-nu-ši šá-mu-ut ki-ba-a-ti
In the morning (it will rain down on you) bread-cakes,
in the evening, a torrent of wheat.
Of course, these raining bread-cakes (kukki) intrigued me (who does not like it when it rains cakes?!*), and I decided to investigate what they were. Were they bread? Were they cakes? Who ate them? What were they made of? The Dutch translation I own (de Feyter 2001) even translated kukki as ‘koekjes’, which in English means ‘biscuits’.
*Actually, translation note: the Akkadian word for ‘bread-cakes’ sounds similar to the word for ‘darkness’; the word for ‘wheat’ sounds similar to ‘heavy’. So a lovely shower of abundance can at the same time be a terribly ominous and destructive event (death by cakes).It turns out, this was not the easiest of investigations. Googling ‘bread-cakes’ proved entirely unhelpful. In the end I found lists of ingredients by looking for the Akkadian key-word kukku (nominative form), but especially also the Sumerian GUG2.
GUG2/kukku were considered cakes by the ancients, but personally I would classify it as bread. They were a type of sweet fruit bread made with flour, fats and, most commonly, dates. Obviously you could have more and less luxurious versions (high quality flour, the use of butter instead of sesame oil, the best possible dates), but generally they were meant for the higher classes and usually as a sacrifice to the gods (Brunke 2011: 173). The texts seem to suggest that poor farmers did not get to have kukki.
I would like to argue against this: all you need to make bread is flour and water, if you want to make special bread you add oil, more special honey, more special raisins, and so forth. As long as you were a farmer who was able to obtain flour, I am quite certain you could make your own variation of kukki. (That is, ignoring that this was made for religious occasions; it may have been insulting to just make kukki for yourself, I do not know.) I spent roughly 5 quid on all my ingredients, and that is because Sainsbury’s dates are expensive, and I decided to invest in new honey. This will make me bread-cakes for the entire Easter break.
So what are the ingredients? Lets’ take a look at all the seven available Ur III (21st-20th century BCE) texts that describe them (from Brunke 2008: 132).
Mihira 32, VS ii’ 1-4
1.0.0.0 zi3-KAL gur // 0.0.5.0 zu2-lum // 45 sa gi // inda3 gug2 gal-še3
BM 103421, RS 5-8
0.0.5.5 sila3 zi3-KAL // 0.0.0.5 sila3 zu2-lum // 10 gig4 i3 geš // 10 sa gi gug2-še3
AUAM 73.1420, VS ii 15-18 & 21-24 & RS i 10-13
0.0.5.5 sila3 zi3 z3-KAL // 0.0.0.5 sila3 zu2-lum // 10 gig4 i3-geš gug3-še3
FLP 841, RS 6-8
0.0.5.5 sila3 zi3-KAL // 0.0.0.5 sila3 zu2-lum // 10 gig4 i3-geš gug2-še3
YBC 1165, VS 1-5
0.2.0.0 sila3 zi3-KAL // 0.2.4.6 sila3 dabin // 0.0.3.0 zu2-lum // 0.0.0.1 sila3 i3-geš // gug2 še3
Um. 3513, VS iii 17-23
[n.n.n.n] ? saga10 // 0.0.2.0 [zi3] gu2 nida // 0.0.0.3 sila3 i3-nun // 0.0.0.3 sila3 ga-[ara3 muru13] // 0.0.0.3 sila3 geštin [had2] // 0.0.2.0 zu2-l[um] // inda3 gug2 gu-l[a]
Um. 3513, VS iii 24-26I have translated the nice BM one to give you an idea of what all this means. (I do not have time to calculate all the sexagesimal volumes for all seven of them.)
1.0.0.0 zi3-KAL [gur] // 0.0.5.0 zu2-[lum] // inda3 gug2 [...]
BM 103421, RS 5-81 sila = 1 litre
0.0.5.5 sila3 zi3-KAL // 0.0.0.5 sila3 zu2-lum // 10 gig4 (šiqlu) i3 geš // 10 sa gi gug2-še3
55 l of good flour // 5 l of dates // 1.5 litres of oil // this makes 10 cakes
1 šiqlu = 1 shekel = 1/6 sila or 0.16 litres
A cup of wholemeal flourThis makes 10-15 biscuit-sized ‘bread-cakes’.
½ a cup of dates
¼ cup of raisins or currants
One tablespoon butter
Two tablespoons mascarpone
Two tablespoons honey
Add together all the dry ingredients, and then add the fats and liquids. Knead into a ball, adding flour if the dough is too soft. None of the texts really bother describing how to shape the kukki or how to bake them, so I went with small unimaginative lumps which I baked for about 10-15 minutes at 180-200 degrees (all depends on the enthusiasm of your oven and the size of your ‘bread-cakes’). Since the Babylonians used ovens and were skilled metal workers, I assume that this temperature is not unrealistic. Bake until golden-brown. The bread is will be quite soft due to the fats, and when made in the size of a biscuit. These can serve as filling, sweet, snacks. It definitely benefits from cheating a little though, and adding some salt.
My kitchen is filled with the smell of lovely, sweet dates.
Damqiš aklā!
And check out Pass the Garum.
Bibliography
Brunke, H. (2011). Feasts for the Living, the Dead, and the Gods. In The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brunke, H. (2008). Essen in Sumer: Metrologie, Herstellung und Terminologie nach Zeugnis der Ur III-zeitlichen Wirtschaftsurkunden. München: Herbert Utz Verlag.
de Feyter, Th. (2001). Het Gilgamesj-Epos. Amsterdam: Ambo.
With further thanks to Alex A., Julian B. Chris S. and Martin W.
