Register here - as a registered user you get more features and fewer ads.
ROAST hedgehog was once as popular a dish in Britain as roast beef is now, research by Welsh academics suggests today.
Researchers from Uwic have found that roasting hedgehogs was very common in Neolithic Britain (about 6,000BC).
Ruth Fairchild and her research team at Uwic spent two months scouring Britain’s culinary history to reveal what our forefathers ate and drank.
But she discovered that the oldest British recipe of all is probably nettle pudding, dating back more 8,000 years.
Researchers show that the sour-sounding pudding also dates back to about 6,000BC, closely followed in chronological order by smokey stew – a meal of bacon and fish – which was very common in Wales; meat pudding, the granddaddy of haggis; barley bread, and roast hedgehog.
Dr Ruth Fairchild, of Uwic, said, “Today’s findings are the culmination of a huge amount of intensive research.
“The team have pieced together evidence taken from a wide range of sources: archaeological evidence, social history texts, medieval records – even the work of experimental archaeologist Jacqui Wood – to bring together what we see as ‘the oldest recorded recipes in the UK’.
“Some of the recipes we found – for example, nettle pudding – dated as far back as 6,000 BC which is truly astonishing.
“We set out to find recorded ‘cooking directions’ that embodied the true elements of a recipe.
“The oldest recipe that fitted that description was the recipe for nettle pudding, which had been formulated by experimental archaeologists as recently as 2002.”
Researchers found the recipes for roasting hedgehog stipulated that the hedgehog should be killed and gutted, seasoned, pressed in a towel until dry, then either encased in clay or wrapped in grasses.
The meat should then be roasted and served with cameline sauce, or in pastry with wild duck sauce. But today’s chefs say it wouldn’t sell very well in restaurants these days.
Penny Lewis, who has prepared dinner parties for the Queen and runs the Culinary Cottage Cookery School, near Abergavenny, said, “Only the very rich would have had their own cattle, so most people would have eaten whatever they could catch.
“So roast hedgehog would have been the roast beef of ancient times.
“We have been cooking rabbit and pigeons at the school this week – but my daughter would be horrified if I cooked a hedgehog.”
Mrs Lewis said she would be happy to test the nettle pudding recipe, though. She said, “Getting hold of the sorrel will be the difficult thing [but] I cook with venison all the time and have just brought back a side of it from Scotland.”
Jacqui Lowdon, chief paediatric dietitian at the Children’s Hospital for Wales, Cardiff, said she didn’t want to dwell on the thought of eating a hedgehog either.
“This was a long time ago so people would have eaten many things that have since gone out of fashion.
“I don’t know how they would have cooked a hedgehog, or dealt with their spikes but I should imagine they would have been a source of protein.
“Nettles were probably popular in those times because they were believed to have healing properties.
“I have heard of people eating nettle soup these days, although I have never heard of nettle pudding and can’t imagine wanting to pick the stinging leaves.
“I would think that nettles have similar properties to other green, leafy vegetables and that are likely to be a rich source of iron and antioxidants.”
Other recipes which have disappeared from the British dining table include garum and liquamen, sauces made from fish guts and heads; smokey stew, a combination of bacon and smoked fish and meat pudding – a mix of offal, fat and herbs.
But other favourites like pottage – Cawl is the modern equivalent in Wales – and pancakes have survived changing tastes and fashions and still feature on menus today.
The research also found the popular stuffed dates and elderberry patina was a familiar feature of Roman mealtimes.
In addition, the Romans introduced beating eggs to make custards, cakes and fruit breads with the added flavour of sweet fruits and nuts.
The research was commissioned by UKTV Food to celebrate the start of new series The People’s Cookbook, which looks at how dishes, passed down through the generations, evolve into modern staples.
Paul Moreton, the channel head of UKTV Food, added, “Although British eating habits have obviously changed over the years, this study shows that home cooked dishes like pancakes and pottage have been passed down from generation to generation.”
Narrowly missing the top 10 were custards – invented by the Romans – mince pies and meat pies.
Top 10 oldest recorded recipes, according to Uwic’s research, are:
1 Nettle pudding
2 Smokey stew
3 Meat pudding
4 Barley bread
5 Roast hedgehog
6 Pancakes
7 Pottage (early form of Cawl)
8 Garum and liquamen (fish sauces)
9 In Mitulis (Roman sea mussels)
10 Pastries – stuffed date and elderberry patina
Some of the recipes our hungry ancestors ate Nettle pudding
Ingredients:
1 bunch of sorrel
1 bunch of watercress
1 bunch of dandelion leaves
2 bunches of young nettle leaves
Some chives
1 cup of barley flour
1 tsp salt
Method
Chop the herbs finely and mix in the barley flour and salt. Add enough water to bind it together and place in the centre of a linen or muslin cloth. Tie the cloth securely and add to a pot of simmering venison or wild boar (a pork joint will do just as well). Leave in the pot until the meat is cooked and serve with chunks of bread.
Smokey fish stew
Ingredients:
125g bacon
2 leeks
500g of any smoked fish
1 litre milk
1 cup cream
Some chives
1 tsp salt
Method
Fry the bacon until the fat comes away from it and add the chopped leeks. Cook until tender. Add the fillets of fish and cover with the milk. Slowly cook in a pot near the fire until the fish is cooked, about 30 minutes. Pour in the cream, along with the chopped chives and salt.
Meat Pudding
Ingredients:
1 sheep’s stomach or ox se*****, cleaned and thoroughly scalded, turned inside out and soaked overnight in cold salted water
heart and lungs of one lamb
450g/1lb beef or lamb trimmings, fat and lean
2 onions, finely chopped
225g/8oz oatmeal
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp ground dried coriander
1 tsp mace
1 tsp nutmeg
water, enough to cook the haggis
stock from lungs and trimmings
Method
Wash the lungs, heart and liver (if using). Place in large pan of cold water with the meat trimmings and bring to the boil. Cook for about two hours. When cooked, strain off the stock and set aside. Mince the lungs, heart and trimmings. Put the minced mixture in a bowl and add the finely chopped onions, oatmeal and seasoning. Mix well and add enough stock to moisten the mixture. It should have a soft crumbly consistency. Spoon the mixture into the sheep’s stomach, so it’s just over half full. Sew up the stomach with strong thread and prick a couple of times so it doesn’t explode while cooking. Put the haggis in a pan of boiling water (enough to cover it) and cook for three hours without a lid. Keep adding more water to keep it covered. To serve, cut open the haggis and spoon out the filling.
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/tm_headline=hedgehog-was-roast-beef-of-ancient-times&method=full&objectid=19787910&page=1&siteid=50082-name_page.html
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road