Jennifer’s Reviews > Dinner with King Tut: How Rogue Archaeologists Are Re-creating the Sights, Sounds, Smells, and Tastes of Lost Civilizations > Status Update

One thing the Chinese didn't invent and were mostly indifferent to was glass, which had profound implications chemistry in the region. Chemistry is so glassware-dependent that many university chemistry departments include at least one full-time glassblower to make specialized or even custom glassware for experiments. Less obviously, it also impacted biology, because the light microscope requires glass lenses.

"As long as every cranny was filled with oil to prevent bacterial growth, syrups of meat could last for years inside them in the arctic cold..." I wonder how they prevented botulism, caused by a strain that grows under anaerobic conditions and the reason I make infused vinegars bur not infused oils.

A recurring pet peeve - the phrase "AD 1000s" and others like it simply don't make sense. This is because "AD" stands for "anno domini" or "the year of the Lord" and there's no way a century or a millennium can be "in the year of" anything. I'm not even sure substituting "CE" would make it any better. Maybe "circa 1000" would be best.

"The monks at the priory shave tonsures into their hair to allow their God easy access to their souls." Not quite. The tonsure is symbolic - the baldness of slavery (to God) and the outer ring of hair of the crown of thorns. This is making me wonder about the rest of the fiction - unless this is thoroughly Ciaran's understanding of what the tonsure is and does.

"People in other parts of the world dined on mice, too. There's even a restaurant in China today that serves mouse steak, mouse bacon, and other cuts. Given how much time and precision it takes to butcher a mouse, it's expensive fare."

The idea of offal being more elite than muscle meat in the ancient Roman world is a strange one to me. Offal certainly doesn't seem elite now; I think of it as generally unattractive and what what poorer people might eat. Or, as a chef on a "Viewer's Choice" episode of "Chopped" said, "It's going to be offal, it's going to be awful."

"Rich [ancient Roman] households employed an ornitrix, a servant who specialized in hairdressing." Another awesome word.

"...ancient Rome's sewer system was superior to any other European city's before the 1700s."

"Clouds tend to drift fast over water and drag over land, so a traffic jam of clouds on the horizon could well mean land ho. Clouds can also dip downward toward land in certain conditions, as if draining into a funnel. Their colors can change subtly as well - gaining a green tint above lagoons or a pink hue above reefs."

"...shark flesh requires bleeding and soaking or it tastes of ammonia." This probably has to do with the fact that sharks use urea to maintain their osmotic balance against the ocean.