I just hosted bookclub dinner for Cleopatra by Stacy Shiffer....while the book let us down, the food

B

barbara-in-va

Well-known member
turned out great. I did a lot of Goggling and found that not a lot is known about what the ancient Egyptians ate but there is a lot of speculation as to what crops were available. My dishes were not quite authentic but for a weeknight, after work, dinner they were really enjoyed.

We have a Mediterranean Bakery (more of a grocery) nearby so I bought dried fruits, beautiful olives, a block of feta and nuts, that was our appetizer.

For dinner I warmed up a bunch of whole wheat flatbreads and served ful medamas and "Baked Eggplant to Make a Priest Faint" -- gotta love that name! Ful medamas is an Egyptian bean soup made with tiny favas. If you search the internet you will come up with a myraid of spellings and recipes. I used Joanne Weir's book From Tapas to Meze for both dishes. I am guessing that every Egyptian household has their own recipe for the beans. It is basically just soaked and cooked beans and then Joanne suggested all sorts of toppings so I put out an array of choices. The baked eggplant had allspice, cumin and currants in it which was a new way to season eggplant for me-and really delicious!

Dessert was an assortment of mini-sized Mediterranean pistachio pastries and date cookies from the store and then I made "Stuffed Walnuts from Cleopatra" I have no idea where these came from but clearly Cleopatra never had one! They were ground almonds and orange paste sandwiched by two walnut halves and then roll the whole thing in hot caramel. YUM!

Because the book was so difficult to read I think I learned more by researching and sharing dinner than I learned from the book. Too bad because we were all excited about reading it.

 
What a host you are!! sounds delicious!

and I'm sure your guests appreciated all your hard work.

What's next on your bookclub list? We just finished "Highest Tide" by Jim Lynch (thanks, Lizzy, for the title) and I can't say enough wonderful things about it!

 
Hi Deb, we went to see Anita Shreve speak the other day at a local library. We haven't

read any of her books so we picked one there so we could support the library. Can't remember which one, not The Pilot's Wife, A Change in Altitude maybe? We needed something easy after Cleo!

The previous book was Unbroken by local author Laura Hillenbrand (Seabiscuit)--it got raves, can't tell you how good this books is.

Thanks for the Jim Lynch suggestion, I will put it on the list for next selection.

Have a great day!

 
How exciting!

You should have mentioned your menu planning, I have some source materials for Egyptian menus, including Pharonic times. But your menu sounded wonderful. I love exploring a new cuisine and fashioning a menu like that. I did a Tibetan one a while back that people are still talking about and asking when we're having the next Tibetan dinner party.

But the book! You indicated it let you down, how so? I absolutely loved it and have been recommending to everyone I know. Couldn't put it down. It helped that I was sick in bed in January when I was reading it and couldn't sleep, so I was pretty much reading straight through it.

The description of Cleopatra's court moving to Upper Egypt to visit the temples of Thebes and perform her ritual state goddess duties blew me away, the description of the royal barge is so over the top, the fact that all the senses had to be engaged when she moved so that she underscored her life as a goddess on earth. And how incredibly smart and brilliant she was. So much new information in this book that debunks the Roman victors propaganda of her as a common 'ho.

But the research in that book was astounding! One of the most well researched and documented books I've read in a long time. I had the bibilograph and notes bookmarked and read them concurrently with the main body. The descriptions of the Ptolemaic Palace state dinners! The dining facilities when she was on tour. Awesome detail. Also the contrast of the grandeur of the world city of Alexandria with the dirty little backwater village of hovels that Rome was at the time was interesting to put things in their chronological context. Rome had not yet become the Rome that we all think of now.

The national tour of the Cleopatra exhibit is now at the Cincinnati Museum Center if anyone is interested. Not sure what the other stops across the US will be.

 
Unbroken is one of the best books I've read in a long time

Henrietta Lacks was good too!

 
Richard, I totally agree with everything you said about the book. I even read the descriptions of

royal barges to my husband. I did learn a tremendous amount (the fact that they knew the earth was round and understood longitude and latitude) but it was a hard study to say the least. But, I think even more than I learned, most of the book went over my head. It was a VERY difficult read for me. I had to read with a dictionary looking up a couple of words per page, I had to read and re-read many parts to try and figure out what was being said. I just wish she could have communicated all her remarkable research in a more understandable manner--for your average person. But, perhaps the book was not intended for the "average" person, but for people with a much more advanced understanding of that era.

There are only 4 of us in my bookclub and we all had the same reaction. A co-worker has 12 in her bookclub, including a professor from American University and my co-worker was the only one who finished the book. They all struggled with it too.

I am so glad to hear that you enjoyed it as much as you did! I wanted to enjoy it that much too.

 
PS Richard, have you seen the ancient Egypt series on the Planet Green channel...

I have seen bits and pieces of it, never having the time to sit and watch a complete show. The one about Cleopatra is extremely interesting in that it is believed that the bones of her sister have been found. It's called "Cleopatra: Portrait of a Killer". I think you would enjoy the whole series.

 
Thanks for the tip...

I haven't seen it and I'll take a look for it. I don't watch much telly so stuff like this usually is off my radar unless someone tells me about it. I totally understand this was a heavy book. My director is reading it now at my suggestion, he is a total history nut, and he was having a hard time getting into it. I think because he was approaching it in little bits and it would be hard to get continuity. As I mentioned, I pretty much read it in about 3 days because I was bored out of my mine confined to bed. Thanks for the perspective on it from you and your group. I read a lot of very dry history and literature (for example, after Cleopatra, I pulled Plutarch's "Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans" off the shelf to read the chapters on Marc Antony and Julius Caesar since he was referenced so much in the book as a historical contemporary). I should probably temper my recommendations with a little more evaluation of the potential readers preferences. But fabulous theme menu tied to the story. I really enjoy doing that sort of thing.

 
No Erin, the book is extremely well researched. Just not written in a way for your

"average" reader (based on the review of 16 people in two separate bookclubs! (a very small sampling)) to easily understand.

 
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