Translated from french with Deepl (please notify us of errors) In the West, cheese is a must. Switzerland, France and Italy, for example, have several hundred varieties. The importance of this food has a long history. Historians generally agree that the mastery of cheese-making techniques dates back to the ancient Neolithic period, more than 5,000 […]
The Gallic rooster, a tough cookie
Translated from french with Deepl (please notify us of errors) Roosters are not usually cooked. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, apart from its reproductive function, the animal is useless. It is therefore rare in the poultry yard: one rooster, many hens. Finally, when it is replaced by a younger, more hardy specimen, the […]
A Richly Littered Floor
Translated from French with ChatGPT (please notify us of errors) Upon the mosaic floor, one can discern a fish, of which only the head and bones remain, a half-eaten bunch of grapes, crustacean shells, an opened nut being nibbled by a mouse, and dozens of other food remnants. The artist’s meticulous depiction, with subtle plays […]
A Knife More Roman than Swiss
Translated from French with ChatGPT (please notify us of errors) A question for sharp minds: who invented the “Swiss Army knife”? Counterintuitively, the answer is not in the question, and Swiss expertise in this area was preceded. By Roman predecessors, no less. But let’s first define what we’re talking about. What makes the so-called “Swiss” […]
Silphium: The First Victim of Overexploitation
Translated from french with claude.ai (please notify us of errors) The Libyan tribes discovered it, the Greeks made it legendary, the Romans drove it to extinction. According to Pliny the Elder, it was “a precious gift of nature”[1]. Here, in three acts, is the story of an extraordinary plant that vanished 2,000 years ago, but […]