Driving down the road south from the city of Urfa in Turkey, once known as Edessa, towards the nearby Syrian border, we approach the ancient town of Harran. The landscape is flat, a vast and dry plain, with light brown being the predominant color, apart from the bright blue sky from which a scorching sun... Continue Reading →
I've been preparing a historic dinner from Ancient Rome, based on recipes from Apicius' cookbook De re coquinaria, with lots of good and organic ingredients from our own soil. Starting with conditum paradoxum, a sweet, wine-based aperitif, some Roman bread baked with bay leaves, moretum - a herb and garlic cream cheese, eggs in ovis... Continue Reading →
I am happy to announce the publication of my book "Die Spur des Emirs", featuring a quest for old manuscripts, believed to be lost, in Apulia, together with lots of details about traditional life and a forgotten chapter of Southern Italian history. The book is currently being translated into Italian and will be soon published... Continue Reading →
Archery is a pleasant and relaxing sport. It has been practised forever, or so it seems. When did humans really start using bow and arrow? And how did all the different types of bows develop: recurve bow, flatbow, longbow (that's what I use), self bow, or the composite bow? Bow and arrow have been used by... Continue Reading →
The yurt is a portable round tent used by the nomads of the Central Asian steppes, nowadays notably in Mongolia where it is called a ger. It consists of an assembly of wooden or bamboo structures with elaborately carved and painted doors, which are covered with felt or skin, leaving a round opening in the... Continue Reading →
A medieval dinner featuring Apulian ingredients: A meat and mushroom pie, crepes with chicken cooked in spiced wine with apples, vegetables, fire roasted onions with verjuice and olive oil, cheese, pears poached in red wine, and bread baked from home grown wheat. Not to forget the wine, of course.
Already in ancient Rome a kind of Halloween - Mundus Patet - was celebrated. Three times a year, end of August, beginning of October and beginning of November, the festival of the dead took place. The name Mundus Patet can be translated as "the earth is open", meaning that the the boundaries between the world of... Continue Reading →
Who actually made the first wine? And where? Several Middle Eastern and Caucasus countries have been competing for the oldest traces of winemaking, even China is among the top five. But let's start from the beginning: Answering the question of the cradle of winemaking depends on how you define wine. A 9,000 year old residue... Continue Reading →
The domes of many trulli are painted with different symbols of mostly apotropaic (= defense against evil) nature. Some of these symbols go back to antiquity but most used today are of Christian religious nature. According to Notarnicola (G. Notarnicola, I Trulli di Alberobello dalla Preistoria al Presente, Roma 1940.), the symbols can be divided... Continue Reading →
