2016 IRON AGE KITCHEN WEEKEND
13-14 May 2016
The weather looked doubtful for this cooking weekend, but the wind dropped and the sun came out! We planned a group cooking event away from the public on land in beautiful North Yorkshire. With tents set up and plenty of firewood cut (thanks for prepping John!) we got to work. I had brought several kilogrammes of clay with me and we stuffed and coated two wood pigeons and four lamb’s hearts, leaving them to dry by the fire. While they dried we then built a tripod frame for the drying and smoking of beef jerky. They frame sat over smoky embers, and Jamie ensured that plenty of green wood went onto them to create plenty of smoke.
The firepits were long and each one cut at varying levels, a design based on a roundhouse hearth found at Battlesbury Camp hill-fort in Wiltshire. This meant that several activities, several people could use the fire at the same time. At one, for example, the smoking rack sat over a deep area filled with embers, at the other were glowing embers into which our clay baked food had been deposited. In the middle a fire roared, it fed the other two areas with embers, and we used it for heat and the boiling of water. In this way the multi-use firepits resembled the old Victorian cooking range. |
The book, called FOOD AND FARMING IN PREHISTORIC BRITAIN, was completed and published by Fonthill in early 2016. Find it on Amazon!
From spit roasting pig to hanging cream cheese from the rafters, from baking roast pork under the ground in pits to cooking trout on wicker frames over an open fire, cooking techniques in prehistoric Britain are ingenious and revealing. There were no ovens and many vegetables and breeds of animal familiar to us today had not yet arrived. In reconstructing some of these techniques and recipes, the author has discovered a different world, with a completely different approach to food. This is native cuisine, cooked in a manner that persisted through the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages. This book first tells the story of prehistoric settlement, and moves on to explore the hunting and foraging techniques of the Mesolithic. After discussing the way in which the Britons farmed, and what they grew, the book moves into the roundhouse and the tools and utensils available. The final half of the book examines the varied techniques used, from covering fish in clay, to baking meat underground, spit roasting, brewing mead, boiling water with hot stones and so on. All the techniques have been carried out by the author.
From spit roasting pig to hanging cream cheese from the rafters, from baking roast pork under the ground in pits to cooking trout on wicker frames over an open fire, cooking techniques in prehistoric Britain are ingenious and revealing. There were no ovens and many vegetables and breeds of animal familiar to us today had not yet arrived. In reconstructing some of these techniques and recipes, the author has discovered a different world, with a completely different approach to food. This is native cuisine, cooked in a manner that persisted through the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages. This book first tells the story of prehistoric settlement, and moves on to explore the hunting and foraging techniques of the Mesolithic. After discussing the way in which the Britons farmed, and what they grew, the book moves into the roundhouse and the tools and utensils available. The final half of the book examines the varied techniques used, from covering fish in clay, to baking meat underground, spit roasting, brewing mead, boiling water with hot stones and so on. All the techniques have been carried out by the author.