During the excavations, archaeologists found not only dishes, but also the remains of meals from 700 years ago. Who would have thought, but the largest accumulation of food in the ruins of the ancient city - or rather what was food seven centuries ago, archaeologists found on the ruins of a burnt down Christian temple.
These are the remnants of ready-made dishes and seeds. And some came as a real surprise - it was believed that these foreign plants began to be imported in much later centuries.
The city of the Golden Horde called Ukek, we recall, was located in the XIII-XIV centuries in the area of the modern village of Uvek, stood on one of the branches of the Silk Road, lived in crafts and trade. And the latter partly explains how food supplies, including imported southern wine, could end up in the abode of faith.
“It is known that merchants in medieval cities deposited their goods in the basements of churches,” said archaeologist Dmitry Kubankin. - And the fact that even ready-made food was found here - rice porridge and bread, suggests that they also cooked and ate somewhere nearby. Perhaps there was a room above the basement like a refectory, and after the fire and destruction, food fell down.
Not that the bread of 700 years ago strongly resembled modern bread, in the basement of the temple archaeologists found only two charred pieces of bread cakes with a thickness of one and a half centimeters. At the same time, the initial diameter of the products is 8-9 centimeters; now they do not sell anything similar in stores. But there is still something in common: it is customary to make notches on the rolls to this day.
“It is possible that earlier they were of a ritual nature and, of course, quite practical: the crust does not crack in bread, and it is much more convenient to break cakes,” said Dmitry Kubankin.
In total, during the excavations, fragments of three bread products of different composition were found. At the same time, researchers believe that the residents of the Christian quarter most often had rye bread on the table - it was considered more useful in the Middle Ages.
- For the poor population, to fill with volume, bran was added to the flour, and sometimes strongly steamed plant stems. And in rich houses, the dough could be flavored with butter, eggs and some spices were added, - the archaeologist explained.
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Imported spices were also found in the basement
Chickpeas, rice, figs, walnuts, grapes, barberry, coriander - grains, shells or seeds of all these cultures, the participants of the excavations found in the basement of the once majestic temple. With the exception of grapes and walnut, these plants were discovered in Russia for the first time, that is, there are no reports of their presence here before the XIV century. The same coriander, according to Dmitry Kubankin, has been mentioned in literary sources only since the 18th century, the more interesting the find in the Volga Ukek looks like.