17th Century French Food (#foodiefriday)

by Stephanie Dray | Nov 25, 2011 | Food, Fun Stuff, Miscellany

Guest post by Shawn LambMention French food and automatically people think rich butter sauces, truffles and Julia Child making sense of French cuisine for the American palate.  However, during the 17th century, France was still a feudal country and regional cooking...

Beverages of Ancient Romanized North Africa: Recipes for Mint Tisane & Hibiscus Tea (#tastytuesday)

by Stephanie Dray | Nov 22, 2011 | Food, Fun Stuff, Miscellany

So, we all know about the wine. Falernian, Caecuban, etc. Ancients drank the stuff in copious quantities. But what else did they drink? This was a point of inquiry for me when writing Song of the Nile: A Novel of Cleopatra’s daughter who became the highly...

So-Called Barbaric Nomads & Troublemakers on the Edge of the Roman Empire

by Stephanie Dray | Nov 19, 2011 | Miscellany, My Works, Song of the Nile

To the ancient Romans, just about everyone was a barbarian. (Except the Greeks, who gave them the word in the first place, not to mention an inferiority complex to go with it.) Whether it was Blue Picts of Scotland or Gallic and Germanic hordes, the Romans generally...

Delicious Promotional Opportunities for Historical Writers

by Stephanie Dray | Nov 15, 2011 | Miscellany

Announcing Historical Foodie Fridays Epicureanism is a very old philosophy that extolled, among other things, the virtues of pleasure. Too often, history is viewed as a dry and painful intellectual exercise–and I’ve often argued that historical fiction...

Music in Antiquity: The Real Songs of the Nile

by Stephanie Dray | Nov 8, 2011 | Fun Stuff, Miscellany

When writing SONG OF THE NILE, I spent some time wondering just what that song might sound like. Today we take it for granted that our favorite song can be recorded. We don’t have to hire the band to come to our house; we can just play it on our mp3 players. But while...

How Rain, Grain & Cleopatra’s Daughter fed the Roman Empire

by Stephanie Dray | Nov 2, 2011 | Articles, Cleopatra Selene, Daughters of the Nile, For Readers, Heroines, Lily of the Nile, Miscellany, Research, Song of the Nile

For much of its history, Rome depended upon Egypt for grain. While the Romans considered themselves an agricultural nation, and paid great homage to farming in literature, poetry, and art, the simple truth was that they couldn’t feed themselves. By the time Cleopatra...