What Did Jesus Eat at His Last Supper? | Ancient Recipes With Sohla

Obviously, we changed a lot for this taste test. The Last Supper was immortalized by Leonardo da Vinci, but the masterpiece was more symbolic than historically accurate. The food and setting would have been much different than what's depicted in the painting. Hey there, I'm Sola El-Wayli, and this is Ancient Recipes with Sola. In each episode, we take a dish you may recognize and attempt to recreate one of the oldest versions of it to ever exist. So it's a little cooking, a little history, and a whole lot of me. What's not to love? Easter and Passover are right around the corner, and it got us thinking. There are few meals as iconic as The Last Supper, in part, thanks to Leonardo da Vinci's iconic painting. So in today's episode, we're going to make a meal that Jesus and his disciples would have had at The Last Supper. A bean stew, lamb, olives in hyssop sauce, and a fruit and nut paste called haroset. And we're going to have that alongside some traditional unleavened bread and some dates. This guess as to what they would have potentially been eating at The Last Supper was pieced together by Italian archaeologists using Bible verses, archaeological evidence, and Jewish food traditions from the first century. When you think of what would have been eaten at The Last Supper, the two things that come to mind are bread and wine, right? In the Bible, there's a lot written about those two things, but there's no other mention of what else they might have eaten. Italian archaeologists, Generoso Ertuali and Marta Baronio hypothesized that the time of The Last Supper and the inclusion of bread and wine in the meal indicates that it was a meal for Jewish Passover. That's why they include Passover staples at that time, haroset, bitter herbs, and lamb shank. They looked at two specific parts of the New Testament that talk about meals Jesus attended. First is the wedding at Cana, where Jesus famously performed the miracle that turned water into wine. The second was Herod's banquet. These two showed the Greek influence on food and the Jewish food traditions of the time. So in come the olives, lamb again, and a fish sauce similar to garum called tazir. We're going to start with the bean stew. The archaeologists told us that it was cooked low and slow, but the rest is kind of up for interpretation. So we're going to use ingredients they would have had at that time to make our stew. First, let's talk about the beans. We're going to go with dried fava beans today. You can find dried fava beans that are split like this. These are really nice because they cook up really quickly. But if all you can find are the ones with the skins, you're going to need to soak them overnight and then peel off the skins one by one. It's a labor of love. But we were able to find them skinless, so we did rinse and soak them overnight. And you can see they really plump up. So this is going to cook up really nice and quickly for us. Soaking also helps it cook evenly. If you've ever cooked beans and you're like, why is the skin tough or why is the center grainy? It probably just needed a soak. But first step, done. Now we're going to saute some aromatics. All right, so I'm going to add a little bit of olive oil and I'm going to cook down some chopped garlic and onion until it's like wilty and just lightly golden brown. Now whenever you're sauteing something down, it really helps to give it a big pinch of salt. The salt kind of helps everything break down and the moisture comes out and it'll just like cook down a little bit faster for you. I'm going to stir this occasionally. We're over like medium heat and we're just going to let this cook for about five minutes until we have like a little bit of golden color. My onions have these lightly browned edges that are really nice and some browning on the pan. So we've got good flavor. And now I'm going to add the beans and water. Now the last supper is probably in the conversation of, you know, most iconic meal of all time if people have that conversation. But what are some other like iconic historical meals you want to see us recreate? Drop it in the comments and let us know. I want to hear from you. Okay, so now I'm going to season this up with more salt and pepper. Beans can take a lot of salt and it's good to season it early so that the beans can like fully absorb the flavor. And then when they get almost done, we'll taste it again. And I'm going to add some freshly ground black pepper. Whoa, this is a fun pepper mill. Wow, I feel like I'm flying. Okay, that was probably more pepper, but I got excited. We're going to let this gently simmer until the beans get really nice and tender. And then we're going to finish it off with some parsley and honey. And while that cooks, I'm going to move on to prepping our lamb leg. Now it's time for the lamb. Once again, you know, no strong recipe here. We're just going with it. Lamb is always good with garlic. So we have a lot of garlic, nicely chopped. And I'm going to mix that up with olive oil, salt and pepper. And then my favorite part, anytime I get to roast a lamb leg, you get to stab it all over with a paring knife. And then shove garlic and salt and pepper into the gashes. Oh yeah, that's cooking. Actually, this is how my mom would do lamb. She would do whole cloves and like sometimes herbs too. And when I was a kid, it was my favorite. When else can you stab something? And it's cool. Now there is still a lot of debate as to whether they would have had lamb for Passover. If the apostles were preparing for Passover, they would have included a sacrifice at the temple before preparing a Passover lamb. But making a lamb leg of this size for this many people would have been expensive for the time. So there is a possibility that they had gefilte fish instead because they were fishermen. Now we get to stab. Lamb is expensive now. So I can only imagine, was it more expensive then? We're going to turn it. Just keep going. I really love lamb leg, lamb shank. This is like a luxury cut. One of my favorite things to treat yourself when it's cold out, maybe in November, December, a little braised lamb shank, a little risotto. Yeah, I know it's kind of like, it's not a cool dish. It's kind of like an old man's dish. But I think it's, I think it's tasty. All right, so I'm going to end up roasting this with the fat side up. So I'm going to start rubbing down the bottom. So when we flip it over, we're good. Just get in there. This is going to cook low and slow. We're not going to go for like a specific temperature. You know, like when you make a lamb roast for an English breakfast, you go for like a medium rare so you can get nice slices. I doubt they would have cooked meat to temperatures back then. They didn't even have thermometers. So we're going for like a brazy, low and slow, really tender kind of vibe. Archaeologists concluded that Jewish diners like Jesus and his apostles would have used Roman inspired terracotta and clay pots to cook and serve their meals. In biblical times, food would have been parboiled in cauldrons, cooked over an open fire in a clay pot, fried in a clay pan or baked in an oven. This isn't just garlic, right? We got our salt and pepper in here. This is going to season our whole lamb up. Rub the rest of this on here. Boom. No garlic or salt and pepper left behind. So now I'm going to add a little bit of water and we're going to cover this and cook it until it gets nice and tender and brazy. And in the meantime, I'm going to make a fruit and nut paste called haroset. Okay, a lot's going on. My beans are still simmering away in the back. We've got the lamb in the oven and now I'm going to make haroset, a fruit and nut paste that we're going to like spread on top of matzah, have with the lamb. It's going to be great. It's pretty simple. Here I have some dates and raisins and we're just going to ploop them in. The dates have been pitted and chopped and we did a little combo of like golden raisins and brown. Are these brown? Do you remember those little raisin guys? The California raisins? Yeah, I was a big fan. Okay, now I'm going to add some red wine. Now I'm going to add some water and we're going to let this gently simmer down until all the dried fruit kind of plump and turns into a paste. It's going to be a little bit like a dried fruit compote. This is included as a part of a traditional Passover seder to remind the participants of the mortar between the bricks of the buildings the enslaved Israelites built for their Egyptian captors. One thing Leonardo da Vinci did get right about the Last Supper was the seating arrangement. The position of the guests followed a precise rule. The most important people were seated to the immediate right and left of the main guest. Verses from the Gospel of John indicate that Judas was very close to Jesus and probably seated to his immediate left. Our haroset has cooked down into this nice paste. It's thickened, but like you can still see all the distinct pieces of raisins, which is what we want. And now to finish it up, I'm going to spread it on this plate and we're going to sprinkle on some walnuts. The fruit with the walnuts, it almost feels like an ancient Lara bar. Whoa. I think this is going to be really nice with the lamb. Lamb is really tasty with like sweet fruit kind of situations, you know? Like my mom always braises her lamb with prune. I love it with date. I did like a date. I did a lamb with chili rub, slow roasted with dates for tacos. That was really good. Okay, we're going to spread this out. Smells jammy. We're going to sprinkle it with some walnuts. Now my beans are nice and tender, so I'm going to bring them up here and we're going to finish those off. So the beans are nice and tender. What's great with fava is they like, if you soak them and you get those peeled ones, they cook up really quickly. And I'm going to taste this. So I did season it while it was cooking and when the onions were wilting. But like I said, with beans, you want to taste it again. And see if you want to add any more salt and pepper. More pepper. I feel good about the salt. I also just want to use the pepper mill again. And we're going to finish it off with some finely chopped parsley and honey. And then I guess we're going to get to taste our last supper. So now we are going to taste the last supper. But before we do, we're going to do a little rearranging so you can see what it would have actually looked like. Obviously, we changed a lot for this taste test. The last supper was immortalized by Leonardo da Vinci, but the masterpiece was more symbolic than historically accurate. The food and setting would have been much different than what's depicted in the painting. Instead of all the disciples sitting on one large table, they would have been much more likely sitting on low couches, eating food set in platters on the floor. So we have finished our roasted lamb and it looks really amazing. It smells really amazing. The garlic got really caramelized and sweet and I can't wait to get into that. We've got our bean stew over here. It's gotten really nice and thick and creamy and the beans are nice and soft. And here we have our haroset, which I think is going to give us a nice sweet and crunchy contrast to our rich lamb. But before I dig in, I'm going to make a little olives and hyssop sauce to have alongside. So here we've got some hyssop. It is like a, it's like a spicy licorice. It really punches you in the face. And here we've already blanched some and pounded it. The blanching is just to mellow out the flavor because it's really intense. And I'm going to mix it with a little bit of olive oil and we're going to make a little sauce for our olives. I kind of feel like I'm camping a little bit low on the ground like this. All that's missing is a fire pit. I always want to sit around a fire. I don't think that makes sense for this meal, but it makes sense in my mind. Okay, so we've got like a kind of a pesto situation with our hyssop and olive oil. And I'm just going to dollop this on top of our olives. And we're going to have this alongside everything else. Kind of like a marinated olive kind of thing. I bet you could do this in advance and just have it hang out. Okay, cool. So I think I want to try the olives first because a little bit like it feels like a first course to me. I'm going to make sure I get an olive with a little bit of the sauce. The hyssop is really, really intense. Really, my whole mouth is filled with this licorice and like spearminty kind of vibe. I think this is like a really good in between bites palate cleanser because of the richness of the lamb. Oh, let's see how tender this came out. I'm going to get in here. It looks really good. It looks like it's going to be super tender. Oh yeah, really juicy. I love how caramelized the outside is. That for me is like, oof, that's what I want. Whoa. Shred it up a little bit. I'm going to make sure it kind of has a chance to like, you know, pick up some of those drippings at the bottom of the pan. Now some of our haroset. And let me serve myself up some bean stew. All right, I'm going to taste, dig into each one of these guys. So the beans, really nice and creamy. I didn't taste it after we added the honey and it's like a really nice surprising kick of sweetness with all the like savory black pepper and garlic and onion. And I'm really into that. The lamb, I mean it's delicious. Lamb with lots of garlic, always good. That's amazing when you get that kind of caramelization and the garlic got really nice and sweet and everything is just like really nice and tender. And now the haroset. I'm going to get a little like club grape with that date paste, a little walnut. Sweet, but then you get a little of that like whiny tartness that balances it out. And this is a really kind of all about texture. So you get the rich, creamy, soft date with the crunchy nuts. But I think all these things really want to be together. Some of this lamb with this beans, it kind of gives me barbecue brisket with baked beans vibes because the beans have a hint of sweetness from the honey. Totally. And then a little of the lamb with the date takes me to like, I feel more like Mediterranean with this sweet nutty lamb thing. I feel like you could just like hang out and nibble on all of this, especially something about sitting so low to the ground. I just want to chill and eat for a few hours. Like that's what I feel like a meal like this is all about. Here are some bitter herbs that they would have served alongside this meal. We have some endive, horseradish, a little bit of parsley. And I think I want to like, you know, try it with some of the herbs. I'm going to grate some horseradish. I love horseradish on my, any kind of like roasted meat with horseradish. That's great. We actually always keep fresh horseradish in the fridge. Can't get enough. Anytime we have any kind of roasty meat thing, just shave it on top. It like has like a wasabi kind of peppery hit. This grater is becoming like my co-star. Am I going to fail at grating again? Maybe ancient grating wasn't hard. Maybe we just have like, maybe our ancient grater is dull. We have some horseradish. We did it. Okay. A little endive. I love endive. Crunchy and bitter. A little parsley. I mean, this really makes sense because the beans are like really starchy and in their own way, a little bit heavy. So it's a lamb, really rich. And this is like sticky and like heavy in its sweetness. So a bite of like endive really breaks it all up. My palate is now ready to eat more lamb. A little parsley. I feel like if you do this thing, if you do this thing of like lamb, harosa, beans, break it up with olive, bitter herbs, you can eat forever because it kind of like helps your palate reset. And then let me, of course, we have to try the traditional unleavened bread, matzo. Land on its own, but really it wants to be eaten with something else. This situation, I feel good about this. Oh, should we put some lamb on here? Well, it's like you're making your own tapas. It's like a little party. What I like about this big spread and like pretty much any big spread, is that you kind of can mix and match. Every bite can be like a new adventure. Even though this is technically an ancient meal, I would totally have this again and again. Now, because it's really well balanced. All of these things really go well together. You've got this richness, you have it balanced by the bitter. It's just a really tasty meal altogether. I think this should be like what we all have for Easter. Why not? All of this stuff is easy to find now. You can do this tomorrow. Get all of your friends, sit on the floor, and eat some lamb. It's a good time. If you like this episode, be sure to like and subscribe. And if there's an ancient or vintage recipe you want to see me try out, let us know in the comments and I'll see you next time.