For over a decade, during the Independent Activities Period between semesters, MIT has offered a non-credit class on “old food’’ from the region around the Mediterranean Sea. The idea came from conversations history department chair Anne McCants, who teaches the class, had with a colleague about how little their students knew about daily life in the past,’’ she says. “Both of us liked to cook and I was especially interested as well in nutrition and health of past populations, as well as the productive capacity of agricultural societies. So all of that came together to suggest a fun, but informative IAP class using ancient and medieval recipes.’’