Classic school lunch Salisbury steak from the 80s and 90s, served with brown gravy

Simple roast pork skewer with seasoned barley meal, as served to Odysseus by the swineherd Eumaeus

Spherical stuffed cabbage with mace and clove, especially delicious with lingonberry jam

Slow-cooked beef in a sweet and sour sauce with a depth of flavor that easily makes it one of my top three Ancient Roman dishes

Before bouillon cubes, people made made this concentrated dried broth to take on journeys

Simple and delicious pan-fried beef and onion dumplings, as they were enjoyed by Nikolai Romanov, the last tsar of Russia

Delicious lamb stew with leeks and mint, thickened with emmer flour

Tender beef and onions with the medieval flavor profile of spices and vinegar

An extremely bland homogenous mixture of hardtack (clack clack), salt pork, and vegetables

Simple, delicious minced roast beef (in a shepherd’s pie? Scandalous!) filling topped with creamy mashed potatoes

Pork ribs roasted with a simple and delicious honey and blackberry sauce

Hearty, simple soup that’s reminiscent of spinach

A simple gumbo recipe with okra, beef, ham hock, shrimp, and crab that’s packed with flavor

Braised kangaroo with cloves and black pepper from an WWII Australian rationing cookbook

Boiled pork loin with a delicious, slightly sweet rye bread crumb and cinnamon crust

A thick vegetable and meat stew with suet dumplings

An early version of boeuf bourguignon: A wonderful red wine sauce served with stewed beef

Farro and pork cooked with a wine sauce as it might have been eaten by a Roman centurion stationed at Rome’s northernmost fort in Britain

A US army recipe from 1946 made with corned beef and just a hint of spices

Crispy and tender pork belly marinated in dill seeds, cumin, lovage, asafoetida, and garum with some optional gilding