More fun with Panspermia from the Hellenic_recons list. This recipe comes from Mano...
For those who are interested in more traditional Panspermia recipes, I would recommend looking into its modern form which is still used as the 'Food of the Dead' in Orthodox countries. It's modern name is 'Koliva' and its history may be noted from this link (
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Koliva)
and the only probable difference between the ancient and modern recipes is the modern substitution of sugar for honey.
Here in Hellas, everyone's Koliva is slightly different to others in that
different people will add a different mixture of things (such as more seeds, or more nuts, or more fruits, etc) but here is a simple recipe I found as a sample for you so you could get the idea of what type of wheat is used and how it is prepared.
Just please be careful when preparing Koliva because it must be prepared properly, kept refrigerated and eaten fresh because of the dangers involved with the fermentation of wheat.
Koliva
Ingredients:
1 kg 'clean' wheat or hulled wheat that is called 'Sitari' in Greek and
often called 'wheat berries' too (not to be confused with barley)
500g Ground almonds (roast lightly)
250g Whole blanched almonds
1kg Sesame seeds (roast lightly)
500g Sultanas/ raisins
2 Cups fresh Pomegranate (optional)
2-3 Tbsp ground Cinnamon
1 kg Icing sugar
1 Cup bread crumbs
Method:
1. Soak the wheat until soft. Rinse and drain the wheat. Cook it as you
would rice, for about 1 hour. Do not overcook so that the grains explode.
Since there is more water in the cooking than there would be for rice, check the wheat as it is cooking for doneness.
2. Pour the hot wheat into a large or two smaller colanders.
3. When drained, put the wheat into a large bowl. Cover the wheat with very cold water to stop the cooking.
4. Once wheat has cooled, drain and spread on a sheet to dry. When dry transfer to large bowl where the lightly roasted ground almonds, whole blanched almonds, lightly roasted sesame seeds, sultanas/raisins, pomegranate (optional) and cinnamon are added and mixed together.
5. Transfer the mixture to a decorative plate or bowl.
3. Place a piece of waxed paper on top of the mixture and press the wheat firmly into the bowl. Form a small mound. This signifies a grave.
4. Sprinkle the bread crumbs evenly over the wheat mixture. This keeps the moisture from the powdered icing sugar layer.
5. Sift the powdered icing sugar on top of the breadcrumb layer. You can leave the surface rough looking or you can use another piece of wax paper and press the icing sugar to have a smooth finish, depending on your choice of decoration.
6. Almonds, sultanas and/or silver sugar beads can be added to further decorate the Koliva.
Koliva sounds a little more involved than I personally am planning on getting for my own Panspermia, but I thought it might be of interest to this forum.
On a completely separate note, it occurred to me today that the Hellenic community could really use a modern guide to celebrating the Athenian ritual calendar. It could include festival themes and overviews, recipes, modern hymns, and modern ritual ideas. If some prominent writer on Hellenism *cough* Tim *cough* wanted to do something like that I'd love to help.