Eating

We don’t eat quite like our ancestors, says Ligaya Mishan in The New York Times. Gone are the “roasted hedgehogs of Stone Age Britain” and the flamingo tongues of ancient Rome. But some dishes have endured. A 13th-century Syrian cookbook, with the sublime title Winning the Beloved’s Heart With Delectable Dishes and Perfumes, contains a recipe for hummus that still holds up after 800 years. You take dry chickpeas and boil them until their skins loosen and they reveal themselves, “tender little hulks with souls of butter”. Then you mash the chickpeas in a swirl of tahini, olive oil, vinegar, spices and herbs, and fold in a crush of nuts, seeds and preserved lemon, “sour-bright and tasting of aged sun”.

🤔🍲 While you’re doing all this, consider the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi’s parable of a chickpea that “rises from the pot’s seething depths to accuse the cook of torture”, only for the cook to reply calmly that this is the path to a higher destiny: to “become food and mingle with life”.

The townhouse

This sleek one-bedroom home in Hackney Downs, east London is inspired by traditional Japanese inns (known as Ryokans). Set in a quiet cul-de-sac, it has two courtyards, floor-to-ceiling windows, oak furnishings and a skylight above the freestanding bath. Hackney Downs Overground station is a five-minute walk. £600,000.