Food

Welcome to Day 26 of my blog posts about the writing of Before Beltane.

Today's topic is about food and about how tricky it can be to avoid repetition when writing about it. Food eaten in Before Beltane can be as repetitive as describing a roundhouse that either Lorcan or Nara visits, or lives in. They were unlikely to find any dwellings that looked different inside, or foods that were different. 

Unlike the possibilities when describing varied interior decor today, the roundhouses of 2000 years ago were likely to have been fairly similar, though not exactly the same. Tiny details I've added in my Celtic Fervour Series about the construction of curtained-off, or partially-separated sleeping areas in a larger roundhouse - to afford some privacy - are an embellishment. Unfortunately, the archaeology I've managed to study regarding this isn't clear enough to be sure that it was indeed privacy, as we conceive it today, that made those Iron Age settlers choose to separate the areas. Nevertheless, archaeological interpretation gives me an idea to work with, and I try to represent something feasible, though being historically correct is difficult to prove. 

A crannog fire pit. 

It's similar when I describe food eaten in Before Beltane, and indeed in the other books in the series. The archaeological study of human faeces in a waste/midden area, and soil studies, can provide me with information that at a given site, oats and barley were a staple diet of the people who inhabited it during the era of the late 1st century AD. What those studies can't tell me is exactly how the food was cooked. 

Since the central fire pit in a roundhouse provided heat, cooking and a certain degree of light, the cooking facilities were pretty basic. A suspended pot or cauldron was used to produce a thick porridge from flaked or hulled oats mixed with water, occasionally made slightly different by the addition of stored nuts - particularly hazelnuts - which would have been easily collected and stored. There were plenty of hazel and other nut-bearing trees growing in the geographical areas of southern Scotland (Nara) and north England (Lorcan). Fresh fruits in season might also have been added e.g. tiny wild strawberries, bilberries or other locally-sourced edible berries. Berries could be dried and stored to provide a longer season for their use. Honey may also have been collected, and as well as being used to produce a mead-type drink, some honey might have enlivened porridge if the honey stores needed to be used up. Honey also has beneficial healing properties so, again, it could have been added for more than just giving the food a better taste. 

A thin, or thick, brose could have been made from the barley with added water. And as with porridge, nuts and fruits might have perked it up.

Soups (broth) of some sort could have been made in the cauldron with added herbs, stock from fowl,  boiled meats, or other vegetable additions. The vegetables eaten in northern Britannia would have been limited to what could be picked in season, or seeded and grown on the strip farms and harvested. Storage of vegetables would have been less likely than today. From soil samples and midden/ faeces studies it's thought that a plant we now consider to be a weed named fat hen was eaten, as was wild garlic and some indigenous brassicas (cabbage type plants). Some vegetables we think of as being very traditional in Britain like onions were introduced by the Roman invaders, but it would probably have taken some time (even many decades?) for those to have been grown and eaten by local Brigantes or Selgovae tribespeople. Roman soldiers at the fort of Trimontium (Newstead/ Melrose in the Scottish borders) cultivated their own fields- there are plenty of findings of farming tools to prove this - but whether they introduced vegetable crops to the area is something for me to investigate again, since I can't remember any details.  

Both oats and barley could be used to make breads and long lasting biscuits like oatcakes, though without the salt content found in them today. The flat stones around the central fire pit would have been hot enough to slow bake flatbread and bannocks. Results might have varied depending on additions like milk, or eggs, or herbs, fruits and nuts. 

Evidence points to domestic fowl having been at roundhouse dwellings, giving eggs and possibly meat when past their laying-age. Other domestic animals are likely to have been the small form of goats found in the north which might have provided milk as well as meat. Sheep breeds of the era were more like the small Soay variety that can still be found on Scottish islands. These sheep would have provided wool, milk, and also meat. Pigs were possibly less common, but evidence of them has been found in domestic settings. Horses were revered as an indication of wealth and status, but if a horse got to the end of its natural life, or died from some other cause, it's hard to believe that the meat would not have been used for human consumption. The hides of all of the animals provided materials for clothing and other coverings, and for leather scabbards, pouches and wraps. 

Meats obtained from wild animals would have included wild boar; wild goats; deer; and smaller animals like hare and squirrels. However, there are some folk tales handed down orally through the centuries which indicate that for some tribes the consumption of hares was unlikely, if they were thought to be an embodiment of a local god or goddess. Similarly, some believed that in particular areas the human consumption of fish was rare, as they were thought to have had spiritual qualities. Bones of smaller fish do not survive well in the archaeological record, so whether or not they were eaten is a matter of debate. If fish was easily sourced and little else was available, it's difficult to believe (for me) that they would not have been regularly eaten. In coastal areas, there's evidence for consumption of shellfish and molluscs. Meats would have been boiled in a large pot, or roasted on spits over the central fire, the choicest meats given to guests, or to the upper levels of the tribal hierarchy first.

Wild birds would have been killed with spear or sling shot, and eggs harvested when available. 

The above may sound like there is plenty to write about when it comes to food for my Lorcan and Nara -  the trick, for me, is to remember all that I've just outlined! 

Happy Reading.

Slàinte!