SC - Lindow Man's Last Meal

Mon May 18 06:17:35 PDT 1998

Hallo!
I am no longer recieving the list, but thought I'd pass this along anyway.
I have been working on an event menu from the time of Colum Cille (St.
Columba, or approx 500 AD) . Here are my bread choices thus far. I hope you
enjoy them. Send any comments directly to me in addition to the list, since
I cannot otherwise read them.

Aoife
_______

Oatcakes--sadly, like raised bread recipes, this one was undoubtedly the
'No Brainer' cooks felt no need to write down, particularly in Early Celtic
Society,  where no early cookbooks survive or were probably ever written.
In fact, the earliest published Scottish Cookbook (Mrs. McClintock's
Receipt Book for Cookery and Pastry Work, pub. 1736, and again by Aberdeen
University Press. 1986) contains an oat-recipe (oat-meal pudding) but no
oat-bread. In fact, the only bread recipe it contains is for French Bread!
Following the oatcakes recipe is the product of several experiments to
discover if the addition of rye and wheat flour improve the oatcake, making
something similar to Lindow Man's Last Meal.

Based on the recipe in Recipes from the Country Kitchen (see bibliography)

"One of the first people to hear about the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie
at the battle of Culloden, in 1746, was an old woman living in a nearby
cottage. Immediately she took a small table, her griddle, and a bag of
oatmeal down to the  road. There, lighting a wood fire, she  set about
baking oatcakes, which she handed out the the Young Pretender's
soldiers...."

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cooking time 20 minutes ((exactly as in the analysis of Lindow Man's last
meal))
Preheat oven to 190 degrees C (375 F) ((see  Lindow Man's meal  again))

Ingredients for 4 oatcakes ( or farls)

8 ozs. fine oatmeal
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tbsp melted butter or bacon fat (recommended)
1/4 pint boiling water

Mix all ingredients together, stirring very well to moisten. Turn out onto
a board dusted with rolled or whole oats, and lightly knead until it forms
a smooth ball (it will be hot!). Re-dust the board with oats as needed and
roll or pat thinly out into as neat a circle as can be made, mending breaks
as they occur. Cut this into 4 triangles (farls), or cut out rounds (cakes)
with a cutter. Transfer these to a baking sheet or stone. Bake in a
pre-heated oven 20 minutes or until pale fawn, or bake on a griddle or
bakestone, turning once when underside is speckled brown. Sprinkle
generously with salt while warm. Keep airtight if intended to be served
crisp.

Excerpts from The Life and Death of a Druid Prince, How the Discovery of
Lindow Man revealed the Secrets of a Lost Civilization, by Anne Ross and
Don Robbins.
"The remains of the cereal grain in Lindow Man's gut, recovered as bran and
some chaff, was shown to be a well-ground mixture of  some kind of
primitive wheat and rye with barley......
"Applying this technique to Lindow Man's last meal confirmed Gordon
Hillman's suspicions that the last meal had been a kind of bread. The
measured Temperature was close to 200 degrees Celsius, far too high for
cereal but consistent with baking. The team was able to go further than
that, however. They estimated that the heating time had been very short,
perhaps only a few minutes, and certainly not the hour or so that might be
necessary to cook porridge. ...
"....Thus the modern equivalent of the last meal would not be coarse whole
meal or even pumpernickel rye bread, but something much closer to the
traditional Scottish barley biscuit or oatcake. These can only be flat and
unleavened, for they are cooked, rather than baked, on a flat hot surface
for a short time, almost like a pancake with no appreciable gluten
content."

There is really no way of knowing if  the marsh man's bread, as analyzed,
was ceremonial or not in nature. As flatbread of mixed grains were quite
commonplace, I would suspect that this was not the case. The ritual aspect
of his last meal lay in the branding of the cake, in my opinion. The burned
patch signaled his "lot", which was to end in human sacrifice. We have no
such sinister plans for our cakes, however! Here is my version, which is
quite tasty. It utilizes oats instead of Barley, since I have no access to
Barley flour and attempts to homegrind it have proved destructive to my
equipment. As oat content has been found in other archaeological bog-find
victim's last meals, I felt quit justified in doing so (Tollund man,
Grauballe Man (Denmark)). Additionally, since the grains would have been
hand-ground in a quern during that period, I have chosen to use modern
stone-ground products when possible.

1/4 cup plain fine oatmeal (not rolled oats, as Lindow man's bread
contained flour). If necessary, process the oats in a food processor to
make then very fine).
1/4 cup stone ground whole wheat flour
1/2 cup stone ground rye flour
1/2 tsp. salt (optional)
3 tbsp bacon fat with crispy bits or butter, or combination of both
1/3 cup of boiling water, or more or less to mix.
Salt for sprinkling, if desired.

Mix together the flours and oatmeal, and the 1/2 tsp. salt if desired. Melt
the fats and mix with the boiling water. Pour most of this into the flour
mixture and mix well, adding more  as necessary to make a stiff and
somewhat crumbly dough. Knead the dough, which should become quite pliable,
using more of any of the above flours if desired (oats making a more
attractive exterior when cooked).

Pre-heat a dry griddle on medium flame. Pinch off a ball of dough the size
of a large walnut. Roll or press out on oat-covered board or between hands
to very thin pancake (alternately, shape as described in the oatcake
recipe, above). Repeat with 3 more balls to make 4 cakes. Place on the
griddle and cook 2-4 minutes per side. If griddle is too hot cakes will
begin to smoke. When cakes have large dark speckles, turn them and cook on
other side (2-4 minutes each side). When cooked and dry-looking, remove to
a plate and immediately sprinkle with salt if desired. These must stored in
an airtight container if  they are to be kept for any length of time.

This bread is perfect camp food, is extremely filling and tasty, and the
ingredients travel well and work well in combination with other dishes.

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