been re-listening to one of my favourite audiobook courses on daily life in the ancient world across various ancient cultures (persian, greek, egyptian, roman, etc) trying to capture what it might have actually been like to experience life as a poor person in ancient rome or a dying person in classical greece or what it was like being jewish in alexandrian egypt vs in persia during the babylonian exile period or what the experience of food was for people across these time periods and i love this kind of thing so much because it always gets me in a mindset where i look at and experience everything with fresh eyes and imagine what it would be like to share some part of my life with someone from back then. for example i just ate a really good portuguese custard tart and imagined offering one to an ancient greek woman and how she might look at it with suspicion because she doesn't recognize it and we don't share a language but i would take a bite to make her feel safe enough to try it and it lead me to consider how it might taste to her and what about the flavour and texture might be interesting to her or different from what she was used to and how it might taste to someone not used to eating something with this much sugar in it and i got so emotional eating that tart i almost cried