Babylonian Dinner (Meals Of Antiquity Series) 3/1/15 [Sold Out]

**This event is sold out. No tickets will be sold at the door. We are gauging interest in a possible March 8th seating; please comment here or email mealsofantiquity@gmail.com if interested** A meal like you've never eaten before. That's a challenging promise, as there are many dedicated foodies who travel all over the world to sample obscure cuisines in remote locations. But none of them have ever had what we're serving on March 1st in Philadelphia, and here's your chance to try it. The debut event in our "Meals of Antiquity" series offers an entire Babylonian menu from the First Dynasty period, nearly four thousand years ago. This sumptuous winter-time dinner that might have been enjoyed by Hammurabi himself was extensively researched and exhaustively tested by Designing Cook Colin Barth. It consists of four courses (Soup & Bread, Salad, Entree, Dessert) and vegan options are available for each course. As you might imagine, pomegranate and barley are featured in several dishes, but you will also discover Ninda, the first form of leavened bread, and Emmer, the original domesticated wheat species eaten in the ancient fertile crescent. Duck and lamb are among the entree choices, while dessert features fruit and nut confections as well as spiced emmer cakes with honey. Our menu can be found here: http://dancingferret.com/babylon/babylonianmenu.pdf This meal will be served on Sunday, March 1st at Lucha Cartel in Philadelphia. We are seating roughly half the number of people seated at our sold-out Uyghur Dinner several years ago, so we strongly recommend buying tickets right now. The restaurant also has more wait-staff on hand to ensure that you receive your meal choices quickly. Please note that this rare dining experience is intended for adults and mature children; no booster seats are available and there will not be room for strollers. Two important notes: 1) Lucha Cartel will open for seating at 6:30pm and the meal service will begin at 7pm 2) You will be emailed prior to the event with a request to make your menu selections in advance. More details are below; this information can also be found on our website at dancingferret.com/babylon -------------------------- About Our Event Our Meals of Antiquity project seeks to re-create culinary experiences that have been lost to time. In some cases, our meals will represent cultures that are effectively extinct in the modern world, while in other cases, we will examine cooking techniques, styles and flavors that have been lost or abandoned over time. Babylonian food is unquestionably the best cuisine for us to begin with, as there is sufficient documentation of the period and the culture to find recipes, as well as to assemble possible recipes using actual ingredients available to Babylonians at the time, while carefully avoiding ingredients that may have been used in cooking elsewhere, but not actually available to or used by Babylonians at the time. Thus, you will find no black pepper (not yet imported from India) nor parsley (possibly used only for medicinal reasons) in our recipes, for example. Our menu could have been eaten by the elite of Babylonian society, but some ingredients and preparation techniques would have been beyond the reach of the common citizen. This particular menu is designed as a seasonal winter menu. We have sourced a particular brew that has much in common with Babylonian beer recipes. For those who prefer a glass of wine, something that Babylonians would not likely have had access to, we have made a well-educated guess at flavor (most likely, these would have been sweet) and will have suggested wine pairings available. The usual Lucha Cartel alcohol and beverage menu is also available. Please note that beverages are not included in the ticket price. Our event takes place on Sunday, March 1st, 2015. Lucha Cartel will open at 6:30pm to begin seating. We will begin serving the meal at 7pm. Lucha Cartel Restaurant 207 Chestnut Street • Philadelphia, PA 19106 Located in the heart of the Olde City district in Center City Philadelphia, Lucha Cartel is convenient to a number of historical attractions, upscale bars, night clubs, and numerous public transportation options. Recently renovated, Lucha Cartel normally offers a Tex-Mex menu, complemented by an extensive array of choice tequila and other fine liquor. Lucha Cartel will be closed to the public during our event. Who We Are Special Events & Concerts • January 1995 - Present Dancing Ferret Concerts has been promoting concerts and special events in Philadelphia for over twenty years. From intimate club spaces to the Kimmel Center, we've worked with local, national and international performers. We staged two sold-out Uyghur dinner events in 2012 and look forward to returning to the culinary world with this event. The People Creative Minds • Behind The Scenes The President of Dancing Ferret Concerts, Patrick Rodgers, conceived the Meals of Antiquity series as a means of encouraging people to explore other cultures, not only as they exist in the present day but also as they existed in the past. Designing Cook Colin Barth had to do extensive research to prepare and test this menu. His favorite moment in designing the menu was determining that an ingredient mistranslated by scholars as "pounded yogurt" actually contained "pounded locusts," something that made the recipe in question much more logical - and sadly, too exotic for our purposes. Lucha Cartel Owner Paul Brown has been a fixture of the Philadelphia hospitality industry for decades, having worked as a bartender and nightclub manager before moving into the restaurant business. Tickets Tickets are required for this event. The price of a ticket is $45 and includes your choice of soup and bread, salad, entree and dessert. Taxes and ticket service charges are included; alcohol and server gratuity are not. Please Note: To ensure smooth service for all patrons, you will be asked to make your menu selections in advance of the event. Our Menu Our menu features four courses. The Soup & Bread course offers two choices, the Salad Course three choices, the Entree course three choices, and the Dessert course two choices. Each course offers a Vegan option. Our menu can be easily downloaded below. Please note that you will be asked to make your menu selections in advance of the event. We begin serving the meal at 7pm; Lucha Cartel will open at 6:30pm to begin seating.