I picked two articles today almost on the same subject but centuries away in real time.
The first is the archaeological dig at Must Farm in Cambridgeshire where a stilted little village of late Bronze Age people lived on the water. Then nine months later a catastrophic fire burnt their houses, so that the roofs of the houses fell "like a coffee plunger" and left behind their way of life for archaeologists to dig through and make their inspired guesses as to what life was like then. The shapes of bowls and cooking pots reflect the day to day purchases, or maybe they even made them, who knows.
They dined well on meat stews, dumplings and bread, chops of pork and lamb, and possibly honey basted venison. I am more interested in the fibres and materials, some of which must have survived. A capsule of time caught from the past. The approximate date given is 850 BC.
The other article is about bread and the sourdough loaf, that has appeared over the last few years. A quick non-judgmental reminder, I eat sourdough bread (bought from Lidl at £1.69 a loaf), and do not believe in class. But my daughter bought a M&S sourdough loaf this week for health reasons. How complicated life gets!
Lidl's loaf is perfectly bread like, the crusts not too difficult to crunch and I am perfectly happy with it, even eat sourdough crumpets as well. Now you might think the Must Farm families lived on stolid bread without the use of yeast, maybe but probably the natural yeast (caught from the air) was probably around in those days. And if you made the dough in the same dish or on a surface used for breadmaking you picked up yeast along the way.
Class is such a funny concept to come to mind when buying food, it is more to do with the pound in your purse what you buy in the way of food. We shall soon be referring to the 'intelligentsia' that occasionally dictators set about murdering because of their insights into truths.
Somehow I don't think there is a "Britain's Bitter Bread Battle" although it makes an alliterate statement, but the articles writes well on how bread is the essential staff of life.
Afterthought; Both articles are from the Guardian, which made me think, people will think I am one of those Guardian readers (with all your prejudices hold fire), but cannot afford a slew of online papers, neither have the time to read them either.
Bronze age objects from ‘Pompeii of the Fens’ to go on display | Cambridgeshire | The Guardian
This Cambridge dig was featured in other papers too, I read it in the Telegraph on-line. I found it fascinating how little change there had been in our diets.
ReplyDeleteMeat and two veg maybe not, potatoes did not come in till later. And I am not sure how they identified dumplings but grain was turned on the querns then, probably much coarser.
DeleteI by the Lidl's bread too. It is the only sourdough I actually like as well as being over a pound cheaper than most others. Not so many people are snobbish about Lidl these days, eh?
ReplyDeleteI think Lidl is interesting with all its different food and a good choice of vegetables and it is cheap. Todmorden has Lidl, Aldi and Morrisons, the first two cheaper, but Morrisons is the only one who delivers.
DeleteThanks for the item about the dig in the Fens. Found several videos. Fascinating!
ReplyDeleteGlad it was of some use.
DeleteSuch an exciting find. I too wish there were more information on the textile finds. Surely people had more than one change of clothing, though perhaps not. Table cloths, dish cloths? Sheets, bed spreads. Surely they found some textiles, even from 850 BCE.
ReplyDeleteThere are some videos on Youtube Joanne, but the materials are black, so that they can only analyse the materials used.
ReplyDelete