SC - Celtic Feast

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Marisa Herzog wrote:

> ]Well, if you're talking about the early Celtic peoples of ]Britian, they
> didn't eat rabbit because rabbits didn't exist in ]England much before the
> Normans.  I believe they were a Norman ]import  (again, working from memory, I
> believe the source is Ann ]Wilson's Food and Drink in Britian)
> 
> no- this was a reference (Ceasar again I think) to the continental Celts, in
> the same breath/sentence with "they don't eat fowl"
> 
> "Hares, fowl and geese they do not think it lawful to eat... do not grow corn
> [generic term for grain] but live on milk and meat..."

One possible source of confusion here is that Caesar seems to have
lumped together virtually all the races found in Europe, with the
possible exception of Greeks and Italians, as Keltoi or Gauls. I do know
that the Anglo-Saxons had a reverence for the hare, regarding it an
incarnation of some goddess or other, and that this prohibition was
probably carried over from what is now Germany and the Low Countries.
The German "Gauls" were ethnically, linguistically, and presumably
otherwise different from the Goidelic and whatchamacallit Celts (can't
think of the word) of Scotland, Ireland, South Britain, Armorica or
Bretagne, Galatea, etc. In fact they appear to have been a different
race altogether, and they may not have shared this habit universally. 
 
> I can't find the shellfish reference right off the bat, but this is from "The
> Celts" by Frank Delaney

Shellfish is definitely a biggie. When Roman colonists came to Britain
they found artificial oyster beds that had been built by the previous
occupants. They then decided that British oysters were the finest in the
world, and began shipping them to Rome.

Again, it would be really helpful if we had a time frame...

Adamantius