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Durrington Walls

CULINARY HABITS OF THE STONEHENGE BUILDERS

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tiompan T
tiompan Oct 15, 2015 18:33:59
Replying to moss

moss wrote:
spencer wrote:
I agree with you totally about the other foodstuffs - you mentioned sorrel, which I will be posting about in another context. Richard Mabey's now venerable but still excellent Food for Free, and also another excellent book that I've mentioned here before, Medicinal Plants in Folk Tradition - An Ethnobotany of Britain and Ireland, by Allen and Hatfield, are both based on ancient knowledge and usage. These two books also compliment each other, as some foodstuffs available to our forebears also have medicinal properties.. what was commonly consumed could be multifuntional. Both have excellent bibliographies for those who wish to study further.
Look forward to the post, Tiompan is of course right, there would probably have been cereals as well to some extent. Then of course did they dry food, did they collect pignuts/earthnuts with the help of their pigs? Flavouring; wild mints, thymes and ransomes in season and of course salt....
Moss ,what was interesting is that there was no evidence for cereals and their production at DW ,that's what the reviews missed out on and picked the wrong horse by suggesting there was no veg .
The move away from cereals and their production is evident in other areas in the period and some see this as a move away from farming after the earlier introduction .

Still got my first edition of the Mabey book , at much the same time there was also "the clandestine farm" ,which fitted into much the same feel .

T tjj
tjj Oct 15, 2015 19:58:15
Replying to tiompan

tiompan wrote:
.... what was interesting is that there was no evidence for cereals and their production at DW ,that's what the reviews missed out on and picked the wrong horse by suggesting there was no veg .
The move away from cereals and their production is evident in other areas in the period and some see this as a move away from farming after the earlier introduction .
Does the absence of grain indicate a move away from farming? If Durrington Walls was indeed a settlement for the builders of Stonehenge, would they involve themselves in farming? Probably not, they would be too knackered. If Durrington Walls had another purpose - such as a seasonal festive gathering, again grain based food probably wouldn't be on the menu.

T tiompan
tiompan Oct 17, 2015 20:01:23
Replying to tiompan

tiompan wrote:
moss wrote:
spencer wrote:
I agree with you totally about the other foodstuffs - you mentioned sorrel, which I will be posting about in another context. Richard Mabey's now venerable but still excellent Food for Free, and also another excellent book that I've mentioned here before, Medicinal Plants in Folk Tradition - An Ethnobotany of Britain and Ireland, by Allen and Hatfield, are both based on ancient knowledge and usage. These two books also compliment each other, as some foodstuffs available to our forebears also have medicinal properties.. what was commonly consumed could be multifuntional. Both have excellent bibliographies for those who wish to study further.
Look forward to the post, Tiompan is of course right, there would probably have been cereals as well to some extent. Then of course did they dry food, did they collect pignuts/earthnuts with the help of their pigs? Flavouring; wild mints, thymes and ransomes in season and of course salt....
Moss ,what was interesting is that there was no evidence for cereals and their production at DW ,that's what the reviews missed out on and picked the wrong horse by suggesting there was no veg .
The move away from cereals and their production is evident in other areas in the period and some see this as a move away from farming after the earlier introduction .

Still got my first edition of the Mabey book , at much the same time there was also "the clandestine farm" ,which fitted into much the same feel .

In todays review section .

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/16/how-plants-think-the-cabaret-of-plants-richard-mabey

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