[Sca-cooks] Foods native to Britain before the Romans came
Robert Downie
rdownie at mts.net
Tue Oct 25 08:58:30 PDT 2005
kingstaste at mindspring.com wrote:
>Dear Cooks,
> I am putting together one of my last two classes for my Roman Britain
>class. This week we are talking about Samhain, and next week is the Roman
>Banquet. One of the homework assignments is for them to select a food to
>bring. I have a list of foods introduced to Britain by the Romans, but I
>don't have a good list of what was native before they arrived. My Hagen
>books have not made it home yet, so I need some help here.
> Here are the lists I have:
>
> Foods introduced to Britain by the Romans
> Pheasants, peacocks, guinea fowl, fallow deer
> Apples, grape vines, fig, walnut, medlar, mulberry, damsons, pears, plums,
>cultivated cherries, sweet chestnut
> Parsley, borage, dill, fennel, mint, thyme, garlic, leek, onion, shallot,
>rosemary, sage, savory, sweet marjoram, radish, thyme
> Turnips, cabbages, lettuce, endive, peas, lentils, carrots, artichokes,
>cucumber, asparagus, parsnip, celery
>
> Imported Commodities
> Dates, almonds, olives, wine, olive oil, pine nuts,
> fish sauce (liquamen or garum), pepper, ginger, cinnamon
>
> Foods native to Britain before the Romans
> Hazelnuts,
>
>and now I'm stuck.
>Help?
>
I'm just going to throw out a few quick references before dashing off to
work:
According to Joan Alcock's "Food in Roman Britain"
-Fruits indigenous to Britain include: raspberries, billberries,
blackberries, ederberries, wood strawberries and crab apples
-walnuts and hazelnuts are indigenous to Britain
-Caesar said the Britons reared fowls and geese (there was a taboo
against eating them, but archaological butchery marks suggest otherwise)
-wild chives are native to Britain
got to catch my bus :-)
Faerisa
-Pliny comments that although milk was known to the barbarians, they do
do not know the blessing of cheeses
-
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