SC - outdoor cookery

[Debra Hense]

Melissa Martines wrote:

>      1)  Can anyone confirm for certain that the Celts did not eat fowl?
>      Birds have been conspicuously absent on the lists of foods I have been
>      finding, and several people have told me that Celts didn't eat them
>      for religious reasons.

This is a toughie. It is true that Julius Caesar claims in The Gallic
Wars that the Britons keep chickens for amusement and cockfighting
rather than for meat. On the other hand, we have reason to believe that
they ate eggs, although we're not certain what birds they would have
been from. Also, there is at least one well-known dish found in
Scotland, based on chicken, which almost certainly has close period
ancestors: cock-a-leekie. 
 
>      2)  If they didn't eat birds, any suggestions on the second meat to
>      serve?  I'm already planning on beef and don't want to do another red
>      meat.  Fish doesn't generally go over real well in Meridies (too many
>      people are either allergic and just don't like it.)

Veal doesn't seem like a liklihood, and there seems to have been a
definite aversion to pork among the Celts in Ireland and Scotland in
early period. However, Pliny claimed that the best hams came from Gaul,
so this may have been geospecific. It's likely that the Irish and Scots
appreciation for bacon and ham may well have been introduced by the
Vikings, and it's possible that chicken consumption became wider as of
that time (8th - 12th centuries) as well. The aversion to chicken may or
may not have included other birds, such as duck and goose. 

I suppose much of this depends on specifically when you are talking
about. Evidently not 15th century ;  ). Are we talking about the Bronze
Age, or the Age of Migration, or what? 
 
>      3)  I was told to look for feast descriptions in the Mabinogion.  So
>      far, I've read three of the stories (which were fun) but all they
>      mention is "they sat down to feast."

You  might check C. Anne Wilson's "Food and Drink In Britain", which has
a bit about some of these issues.

Adamantius