thought for ancient food

Fish prepared with oil and salt,
ginger, pepper, pomegranate peel,
with walnuts garnished, touched with saffron,
and served on a bed of cool, white rice:
the doer of this act of merit
is bound to go to paradise.

~ Ratnabhuti, only name of this Sanskrit poet is known

In this chilly winter time,
may your cooking pots be full
with paste of lotus stem and root,
bright and smooth as elephant tusk,
with fritters rich in pepper,
and pieces of the shakuni fowl.

~ Bhatta Vriddhi, again only name

Came across these in ‘Subhashitavali: An Anthology of Comic, Erotic and Other Verse’, translated from the Sanskrit Subhashitavali of Vallabhadeva (fifteenth-century CE, Kashmir ) by A. N. D. Haksar.

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2 Replies to “thought for ancient food”

  1. Yeah I read it. I found it interesting enough to look for other verses from the original and to look for more details on their writers. Found one at archive.org

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