We hold viking feasts fairly regularly and pootage, baked fish and wine in pears seems to be the general faves 
Energy Foods of the Long Ago Past..What did explorers and Vikings and Romans eat?
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Wasn't saying their own cattle, what I read was that travellers in the highlands were allowed to take some blood from the cattle from herds as they passed through someone else's land. An extension of the rule of hospitality that the Campbells killed off in Glencoe ;-)
Up until quite recently (turn of the last century) farm labourers and many manual workers in general used to have huge quantities of butter as part of the daily diet. Bread and butter was a real staple part of a workers diet but you would also get blobs of butter put in almost everything.
Dairy stuff in general such as milk and cheese were all heavily consumed too.
Dairy stuff in general such as milk and cheese were all heavily consumed too.
Vikings, Scots and Scraelings by Myrtle Simpson is a terrific book about a crossing of Greenland and a stay with Eskimos. One passage relates the stirring in of a slab of butter into their reconstituted stew or Hooch (Hoosh?), a necessity on the ice while sledge hauling.
In the early to mid 1600s there were a substantial number of Scottish soldiers (as many as fifty thousand) fighting in the lands we now know as Germany and Central Europe. I remember reading a letter where a Swedish general commented on the need to keep the Scottish troops well fed, he listed a weekly ration of several pounds of butter and a great deal of beef and mutton (half a cow a week) as being important to ensure that Scots performed at their best.
That is brilliant...
please don't leave us Scotland, s'all I'm saying.
Also, thanks to The Ratcatcher, I'm getting me a copy of that book.
Elen Sentier
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Been reading Richard Lees article on "Forgotten Foods" in latest BSS mag - the sort of things our real long-time-ago ancestors ate regularly, before farming. Very interesting when you see all the goodness available to them.
Scots_Charles_River
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Aye, but raw - fresh blood in porridge. The thought's horrible to me, but I suppose it'd be a good quick nourishing meal.
Hi Monk,
You may want to have a wee read here: - http://www.currentmiddleages.org/tents/cooking.htm
Lots of food info and recipies from different places and timelines, I enjoy cooking a fair few.
Cheers,
GB.
You may want to have a wee read here: - http://www.currentmiddleages.org/tents/cooking.htm
Lots of food info and recipies from different places and timelines, I enjoy cooking a fair few.
Cheers,
GB.
Scots_Charles_River
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
You must have sucked a cut finger or something before ? Doesn't taste that bad, not that I'm a Vampire........
Aye, bit different noshing down on a bowl of the stuff though. I'm a medium/well done steak kinda guy too....
but don't the maasai bleed their cattle all the time and regually drink the blood ? so there must be some good in it ? me myself i like fried pigs blood with the sunday fry up numnumnum ! lol
Scots_Charles_River
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
I remember seeing a boy who had reached puberty, being told to drink the neck blood of a cattle. They burst the vein using an arrow.
