A guide to dining in hell?

[The Persian Cataphract]

I'll tag this thread so I may return to it sometimes later and provide an abstraction on the Iranian philosophy of handling of supplies, and what kind of supplies these would usually entail; We'll talk about what can be made out of these, and we'll talk about what the most common staples would have been. There are some vast differences between the Achaemenids, who always retained a very elaborate baggage, early Parthians, who were almost entirely nomadic in the classical Scythian fashion, the later Parthians and early Sassanians who would significantly increase the ratio of heavily armed and armoured cavalry and transition to the pronounced presence of infantry. We'll talk about the later Sassanians as well, and in particular delve into the peculiarities that surrounds the "dîhqân"-reforms of emperor Chosroës I, because there is a lot to talk about.

On cuisine itself, we don't have the plethora of Roman or Greek dishes; Nothing that inclusive, but we have a general framework for the military aspect, including means of preservation, and as always when we speak of the Greater Iran, we almost certainly stumble upon the spectrum of fruits, vegetables and nuts (We usually associate the geography of Iran, by stereotype, as arid, mountaineous, and steppen, which of course forms a part of the vegetation, but we seldom recognize the historically outstanding agricultural flexibility of the area), not to mention spices and other commodities. To make up for the lack of textual evidences, we will have to rely on archaeological means to unveil the domestication of sheep, goats, hogs and bovine cattle, and the first known fermentation of corn, barley, ephedra (Haomâg), and grapes. We will have to argue per cause of tradition and from there make an abstraction of what may have been suitable, for the common soldier on foot, for wealthier horsemen, the knightly caste and finally the general's cadre. What little there is, one must be thankful, because the sources do indeed with utmost fortune discuss these aspects (Beyond the array of ingridients contained in treatises such as "De Re Coquinaria" of Apicius, or the more in-the-depth "Agricultura").

My assessment is that the Iranian perspective, which by the nature of similarity would also largely dictate the traditions of the Armenian logistical model, but also influence the Indo-Scythians and the Kushan empire, is quite comparable to the machinery of the Graeco-Romans in the basics, but would past the aforementioned dîhqân-reforms turn the Sassanid military machine into newer heights of discipline (Trivia: Remarkably enough to the degree where we find Islamic sources speaking of the early Islamic invasions, where the muslims considered the Persians to have superior discipline in battle than the Romans, which undoubtedly must have been part of the popular impact of the victories scored by Shâhîn and Shahrvarâz). I am not going to say "equal" because we'd equate the strengths and weaknesses of other comparable candidates, which would deviate from reality and the available variables.

What may come as a surprise to some of you may be the discussion of how the ancient Iranians used the banquet as a military tool. This was not some random anomaly, but must always have been a part of the regal intrigues, only applied to foreign adversaries.