[Sca-cooks] Foods native to Britain before the Romans came
Robert Downie
rdownie at mts.net
Tue Oct 25 20:58:25 PDT 2005
kingstaste at mindspring.com wrote:
>Thank you, but I have a question:
>
>Faerisa wrote:
>-Pliny comments that although milk was known to the barbarians, they do
>do not know the blessing of cheeses
>
>
>Milk from what - cows? sheep? goats? I think I know, but don't want to
>assume.
>
>So far the indiginous foods list is pretty scarce but growing:
>
>Geese,
>hazelnuts, walnuts
>crabapples, raspberries, bilberries, blackberries, elderberries, wood
>strawberries
>wild chives
>milk (but not cheese, according to Pliny)
>
>Thanks to all for helping to compile the list!
>Christianna
>
Here is an excerpt from the Dairy chapter:
"Milk is produced by cows, sheep and goats. All these animals were
important both to the Romans and and to the Barbarian tribes. Strabo
commented that the Belgae had large quantities of food including milk
and all kinds of meat. Columella says that for nomadic tribes that have
no corn, sheep provide their diet; hence the Gaetae are called
'milk-drinkers'. For the Romans, sheep and goat's milk was more highly
regarded than cow's milk." also - Pliny maintained that the Barbarians
considered butter their choicest food. Cow's milk was most commonly
used, but sheep's milk gave a richer butter.
Here are some more tidbits from the same book:
The main wheat crop of early prehistoric Britain was einkorn ( triticum
monococcum), a spring sown wheat, but this was suplanted by emmer
(triticum dicoccum) in Iron Age Britain. Spelt was introduced into Iron
Age Britain by the Belgae. Rye appears to have become more common
undwer the Romans, but grains of rye found in the stomach of of the late
Iron Age man found in Lindow Moss, Wilmslow in Cheshire indicate it was
pre-Roman. Oatshad also been grown in Iron Age Britain originally as a
wild crop, but soon cultivated).
In Iron Age Britain, the main cattle are believed to have been Bos
Longifrons, akin to Highland cattle, and Bos Taurus, a short horned
variety. Kerry cattle in Ireland and Welsh black cattle would be the
nearest modern equivalent to the latter. The nearest equivalent to Iron
age sheep are Hebridean breds and Soay sheep. Domesticated goats were
less common in the Iron Age, and this continued to be the case in the
Roman period. On some late Iron Age sites in the South-East, the pig
bones found reached 50% of the bones of the three main animal species.
There is some evidence that horses were eaten in Britain, pre-Roman.
Certain types of fungi were native to Britain. Puffballs were part of
the vegetation at Vindolanda in the 1st C. AD. Nettles occur with
frequency in Britain. The Britons probably collected the leaves of wild
plants such as mallow, plantain, docks, black bindweed, dandelion, and
Good King Henry. The native Britons had cultivated certain crops such
as the Celtic bean, a smaller versiion of the broad bean, vetch, used
for both human and animal consumption, and fat hen, whose ground up
seeds can be used in bread making. This plant, grown since the
neolithic period, tastes like spinach when cooked.
Honey had been collected in prehistoric Britain (cheifly for use in mead)
Now it's bed time ;-)
Faerisa
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