Rice and Mung Beans on an Early Maritime Route
ANCIENT MEALS · 077 / 100 Khao Sam Kaeo and Phu Khao Thong trading communities · Thai-Malay peninsula, southern Thailand · c. 400–100 BCE Evidence: archaeological reconstruction. The historical evidence and modern cooking choices are distinguished below. Jump to recipe Crops travelled with people A small green bean can be evidence of a very large connection. Archaeobotanical work at Khao Sam Kaeo and Phu Khao Thong found rice alongside pulses of South Asian origin, including mung bean and horsegram. The Antiquity study of these early maritime sites places the plants within Indian Ocean exchanges. It argues that preferred food crops could accompany traders and other mobile communities. A cargo story can therefore also be a kitchen story. Rice and mung beans in an assemblage do not prove they occupied one cooking vessel together. Our combined pot is explicitly reconstructed. It is not called the first khichdi, nor treated as evidence for an unchanged modern national dish. The interesti...