Roast hedgehog: a dish they prepared earlier England

Submitted by coldrum on Wednesday, 19 September 2007 Page Views: 10970

Country: England Good old-fashioned British cooking, for most of us, means turkey at Christmas or perhaps fish and chips.

Nettle pudding, roast hedgehog and fish-gut sauce are less likely to feature on a list of traditional favourites.

Yet these are among the earliest delicacies our countrymen tucked into, according to researchers who traced Britain’s culinary history using evidence from recipe books to archaeological artefacts.

Britons were enjoying nettle pudding, the oldest recorded dish, more than 8,000 years ago, according to a team from the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff. Neolithic chefs blended the stinging leaves with barley flour, salt and water before adding them to stews as a form of dumpling.

These early Delias liked making life difficult, the findings of archeological digs suggest. When not eating nettles, cooks in 6,000BC would often rustle up a roasted hedgehog, despite having to tackle its spines.

Later recipes for the dish stipulate that the animal had to be killed and gutted, and perhaps seasoned, before being dried. The creature would then be encased in clay or wrapped in grasses before being placed in an open fire.

Other Neolithic cuisine included barley bread, from about 5000BC. A more flavoursome arrival, 3,000 years later, was smokey stew, a mixture of bacon, smoked fish, milk and cream. But it was the Romans, like countless arrivals since, who really managed to add variety to our native cuisine, according to Ruth Fairchild, the lead researcher. They introduced sweet ingredients to savoury dishes, and inspired the leisurely dinner party by eating meals in a series of courses, from hors d’oeuvres to stuffed dates.

Garum and liquamen, sauces made from fish – blood, guts and all – were the basis for a range of dishes from the first century AD. In Mitulis, the Roman equivalent of moules marinières, involved cooking the molluscs in liquamen, with chopped leek, cumin and a sweet wine sauce. Other dishes that are still popular today have their roots farther back than one might expect. “We were surprised how far back people’s favourite dishes go,” Dr Fairchild said. “Britons made versions of stews, soups and pancakes thousands of years ago.”

Meat pudding, which dates from 6,000BC, was a mixture of meat, mostly offal and fat, stuffed into intestine, and is the precursor to heart attack-inducing fare from sausages to haggis.

“Romans came along and threw bizarre spices into the mix,” Dr Fairchild added. “The Norman period was the heyday of the raisin, with their love of dried fruit. That is when you started to get fruit tarts, Welshcakes and so on.”

Modern links between foods and different parts of Britain can also be attributed to our ancestors. Leeks were used commonly in Wales from about 4,000BC, because they were easier to grow than onions in the poor soil. And while garum and liquamen may not be to everyone’s taste, Dr Fairchild believes that there was a sound basis to the diet.

“They were eating as much meat, leaves and berries as they could get their hands on, so it was more nutritious than much of what we eat today,” she said. “They did not overeat either, when it took so long to boil water or grind barley, so did not get the obesity problem we have.”

Roast hedgehog

Ingredients

One or more hedgehogs (failing that, any meat will do - eg a leg of lamb)

Long grass to wrap the meat in

Method

Season the meat. Wrap in the grass, lenghtways then crossways. Cook for about two hours for a 2kg joint in a pot on the barbecue. Once the meat has cooked, remove the grass covering and place the joint back on the barbecue to sear the outside. Once the meat has coloured, carve and serve

Source: celtnet.org

"Hedgehog should have its throat cut, be singed and gutted, trussed with a pullet, then pressed in a towel until very dry. The nroast it with cameline sauce, or in pastry with wild duck sauce. Note that if the hedghog refuses to unroll, put it in hot water, and then it will straighten itself."

Source: medievalcookery.com

Barley bread with beer

Ingredients

500g barley

500g stone ground wheat flour

1 tsp salt

250g butter

beer to mix

Method

Mix the barley and wheat flours together with the salt and rub in the butter. Add enough beer to make a soft dough and shape into small cakes. Cook on a hot stone (or griddle) until firm

Source: Prehistoric Cooking by Jacqui Wood

Dates Alexandrine

Ingredients

20 whole dates

20 blanched almonds

cinnammon

25g butter

honey

Method

Heat the butter until just molten then stone the dates. Dip the almonds in butter and roll in the cinnamon before stuffing one into each date.

Place in an overn-proof dish and coat each date in honey. Pour over the remaining butter and bake in a hot oven (200C, 392F) for 5-8 minutes before serving.

Source: celtnet.org

timesonline.

Contributor Bio for coldrum: Based in Milkyway, contributing since 2002. Favourite site: Avebury.

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