--- title: Author Crystal King's Blog - Tasting Life Twice | cooking description: cooking | Author Crystal King muses on life, history, writing and food. --- # Tasting Life Twice Author Crystal King muses on life, history, writing and food. Browse by All Blog Books italy ancient rome Italian History Recipe Writing When in Rome food Feast of Sorrow fun historical fiction Bartolomeo Scappi Viva Italia! The Chef's Secret reading history Apicius Italian Language Renaissance 52 books Boston Cinquecento Publishing italian recipes grub street renaissance recipe roman video Ancient Roman Food Colosseum Culinary Delights books set in italy renaissance italy Ancient history YouTube authors cooking fiction music 52 books in a year Author Book Christmas Language Learning Maine Poetry Pope Roman Forum Scappi The Renaissance Venice Writer Writers Resources fantasy learning Italian travel writers Anne Rice Art Book Clubs Christmas carol Christopher Castellani Circus Maximus Florence Gillian Flynn Greek Harry Potter Honey Italiano Italo Calvino Latin Literary agent Marcus Aurelius Marcus Gavius Apicius Muse and the Marketplace Pantheon Papal conclave Pope Benedict XVI Research Roman Empire Sardinia Sistine Chapel Turkey Ursula K- Le Guin Vestal Virgin Wine ancient recipes architecture baking beauty blogging book recommendation book review christmas gift cibo cookies crystal king gelato giveaway holiday ice cream interview italian cooking literary literature middle ages new year's resolution rejection renaissance Italian food recipe roma rome sci-fi shopping social media special event summer television xmas 100 favorite books 1950s 1960s 1970s 2016 2017 320 AD 3D Achilles Aelia Agostino Chigi Alice Alina Reyes All This Talk of Love Amanda Palmer Amaryah Orenstein Anais Nin Ancient Greece Ancient Roman architecture Andrea Bocelli Anita Shreve Anjali Mitter Duva Anne Carson Anne Rampling Antonio Latini Arch of Constantine Arts Artusi Astrology Augustus Author Life BBC BDSM Baldassare Peruzzi Baroque Bell-ringer Bells Benvenuto Cellini Black tea BlogHer Bloggers Bologna Boodles Byki Cake Catholic Church Cellini Charles Dicken Chuck Palahniuk Clark Frasier Colleen McCullough Cologne Colum McCann Concord Cook Cookbook Corsica Cosimo de Medici Critical & Creative Thinking Dante Dante Alighieri David Bowie David Wishart De Re Coquinaria Doge's Palace Dormouse Durham Cathedral E-L- James Earth Egypt Eleonora Galasso Emily Browning England English language Ernest Hemingway Erotic literature Etsy Faint Promise of Rain Fifty Shades of Grey Fight Club Flamingo tongue snail Forum Forvo France Francesa Michielin GO Literary George Orwell Germany Gone Girl Gone Girl (novel) Google Translate Got Milk Grasso Grub Grub Street Muse Gunter Grass Hairstyle Harvard Harvard University Henry David Thoreau Henry VII of England Hunger Games Independence Day International Space Station Isabella Dalla Ragione Italian American Italian food J-R-R- Tolkien James Wood Jane Austen Janet Fitch Julius III July Justin Rowe Karl Lagerfeld Katie Caldesi Kennebunkport Maine Kessler Twins Keurig Kindle Deal Kit Harington Kurt Vonnegut L'Amore Esiste La Cucina Leicester Leonardo Da Vinci Linguistics Livia Lucca ## Posts about cooking: ![Honey in Ancient Rome](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/apiary.jpg) [Recipe](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/recipe) [ancient recipes](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/ancient-recipes) [ancient rome](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/ancient-rome) [Apicius](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/apicius) [Blog](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/blog) [cooking](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/cooking) [food](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/food) [history](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/history) [Honey](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/honey) [honey cakes](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/honey-cakes) [honey water](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/honey-water) [Italian History](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/italian-history) [medicine](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/medicine) Back in 1987, archaeologists discovered a treasure trove in a floor drain of the Roman Forum. This "treasure" was 86 loose teeth, all intact but with cavities in various stages. Three decades later, [they've finally determined](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/05/21/roman-forum-stash-teeth-extracted-ancient-dentist/) that they were all extracted by a highly skilled dentist of the time.  Also of interest, up in England, [researchers have pinpointed](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/05/13/rotten-romano-british-baby-teeth-blamed-on-honey/) the advanced stages of dental decay in a young Roman toddler, to excessive consumption of honey. Medicine was quite advanced in Ancient Greece and  Rome. Surgeons regularly practiced lobotomies, Caesarean sections (didn't you ever wonder where that name came from?) and amputations, and were the inventors of tools such as forceps, catheters, scalpels and bone drills. Along with all of this fancy "technology" the Romans also relied heavily on herbs and the beneficial properties of food. Pliny writes (in addition to telling us how bees manage their colonies) that honey is good for afflictions of the mouth, pneumonia, pleurisy and snake bites. ![Mustard Beets](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/DSCF3282.jpg) [Recipe](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/recipe) [ancient rome](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/ancient-rome) [Apicius](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/apicius) [italy](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/italy) [roman](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/roman) [beets](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/beets) [Blog](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/blog) [cooking](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/cooking) [Culinary Delights](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/culinary-delights) [food](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/food) [When in Rome](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/when-in-rome) This is a very good and easy ancient recipe, included in [Apicius](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apicius)' cookbook. We make this often as a side dish. It goes particularly well with the recipe for[ Parthian Chicken](https://blog.crystalking.com/crystal-king/blog/2013/02/11/parthian-chicken-delish)! You may have been making [beets](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beet) this way and not even known that the recipe was at least 2,000 years old! The original recipe: ![Glykinai - Sweet Wine Cakes (Crackers)](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/spring-08-004.jpg) [Recipe](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/recipe) [ancient rome](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/ancient-rome) [italy](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/italy) [roman](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/roman) [athaeneus](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/athaeneus) [Blog](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/blog) [cooking](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/cooking) [crackers](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/crackers) [Culinary Delights](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/culinary-delights) [food](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/food) [glykinai](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/glykinai) [When in Rome](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/when-in-rome) [Wine](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/wine) This is an ancient cracker recipe from [Athenaeus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenaeus), a rhetorician and grammarian who lived in Rome in the 3rd century AD. This recipe is a delightful, snacky interpretation of a cracker that was most likely served at taverns in ancient Greece and Rome. The original recipe doesn't give us much direction, but they were likely somewhat similar to the recipe below. *Glykinai*: "The cakes from Crete made with sweet wine and olive oil.”  - Athenaeus in The [Deipnosophistae](http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Athenaeus/home.html) ![Learning More About Renaissance Chef Bartolomeo Scappi](https://blog.crystalking.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/bartolomeo.jpg) [Recipe](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/recipe) [italian](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/italian) [Bartolomeo Scappi](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/bartolomeo-scappi) [BBC](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/bbc) [Blog](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/blog) [Cinquecento](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/cinquecento) [cooking](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/cooking) [food](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/food) [italian cooking](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/italian-cooking) [Pope](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/pope) [Renaissance](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/renaissance) [risotto](https://blog.crystalking.com/tag/risotto) As readers of this blog already know, the novel I'm currently writing is about yet another cook, [Bartolomeo Scappi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolomeo_Scappi), who was a Renaissance chef to several cardinals and Popes. The [BBC](http://www.bbc.co.uk/) has a great special called Carluccio & The Renaissance Cookbook which aired a few years back. You can check it out here though. Fascinating! Looks like I'll have to go to Dumenza at some point to check out the Scappi menu at that restaurant! In the meantime, I'll definitely be trying that risotto and the mushroom tart! ![](https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=1481231558851356&ev=PageView&noscript=1)