#pottage

This week was St Patrick's Day, an Irish holiday - and so I decided to make some medieval Irish beef stew to celebrate. Ireland, being a huge producer of beef and dairy products, relied on these foodstuffs in antiquity to modernity. This recipe is an adaptation from a reconstruction made by Maeve L'Estrange - a culinary archaeologist from UCD!

In any case, let's now take a look at the world that was! Follow along with my YouTube video above!

Ingredients

500g lean beef 1 onion parsley cloves salt pepper 2 tbsp butter wine vinegar (or just regular vinegar) 50g breadcrumbs thick slice of bread

Method

1 - Chop Ingredients

To begin with, we need to prepare our onions. Halve and mince a whole onion. Toss a few pads of butter into a large pot. Place this over a medium-high heat until it melts. Toss your chopped onions into this, and let them cook away for a few minutes.

Also roughly chop some parsley by rolling it into a ball, and mincing it. You can leave the leaves whole, but I prefer chopping them so they have a better texture in the final dish.

2 - Cook Beef

While your onions cook, go cut your meat into small cubes. Cattle was a sign of wealth in early medieval Ireland (and still is). So this is definitely a recipe suited for richer palettes (at least in antiquity). In any case, toss your beef cubes into your pot with the onions when the onions are translucent. Let your beef sear for a couple of minutes per side, until you can no longer see red meat. At this point, pour in 500ml of water on top of everything, so the water just about covers the meat.

Bring this to a rolling boil over a high heat. When it hits a boil, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer away for about an hour. Foam might form on the surface of the soup, this is still edible! You can ladle this off if you want to pretty it up, which I didn't do.

3 - Add Seasonings

After an hour, add your salt, pepper, and cloves to the pot, and give it a stir. Also toss in your head of parsley. Leave this to simmer for about 10 minutes, while you combine your breadcrumbs and vinegar in a small bowl. Depending on your tastes, you can add more or less vinegar than I did - I used about two tablespoons here.

Toss your vinegar-soaked breadcrumbs back into the pot, and stir it around. The pottage should take on a lighter colouration - but this is fine! Let this simmer away until the meat is tender, and the breadcrumbs absorb water and makes it act like porridge.

Serve up over a chunk of bread - preferably stale, hard bread - and dig in warm!

Food science, gastronomic appreciation, cookery shows, culinary experimentation, etc., all seem modern concepts, which make us wonder how things were in the past. In fact, history tells us that an environment of food culture existed even in ancient times. Food was an important aspect of the culture of the great civilizations of the past.

The cuisine of ancient civilizations was amazingly diverse. One of the reasons for that were the conquests they embarked on. As civilizations conquered and explored other towns, villages and kingdoms, they absorbed the cuisine and culinary traits of those people. So a successful kingdom had a wide palette to choose from.

Rome’s Rich Culinary Ideas

Take Rome, for example. Rome’s culinary ideas largely came from the kingdoms it was exposed to through its trade routes, explorations and conquests at the height of its glory. The staple food of Rome consisted of sausage, cheese, olive oil and bread with honey. Many herbs and vegetables were used, such as thyme, rosemary, basil, bay leaf, shallots, garlic, onions, cabbage, radishes, turnips, etc. Many of these were imported from Africa and Asia where they were grown. Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) also contributed to the Roman palette with beets, cucumbers, mustard, cumin, marjoram, and fennel.  

The Romans also had a sauce that had fish and salt as its main ingredients. It was called “garum”. Dormice were quite common in the Roman, Gaul and Etruscan civilizations. They were consumed, stuffed and roasted – dormice stuffed with minced pork and pine nuts, pepper and herbs, and cooked in an oven could be considered an example of how experimentation prevailed even in those days.            

The Pottage Tradition

Pottage was a staple food even from Biblical times, and was made not just from fish and vegetables, but also meat. It was part of the staple food, particularly in Britain. Supper in Britain included mutton and wild game along with bread. The Romans had a kind of porridge for breakfast that was consumed with honey, dates and pancakes.

Wide Choice of Meat

Quail and other such small birds were eaten by the Romans after they were decorated with herbs, eggs and asparagus. Wild birds were also part of the diet of Egyptians. They consumed quail, pigeon, heron, duck and goose. The Egyptians were also the first to domesticate cattle and wild pigs. The meat was reportedly consumed by the elite.  

The Aztecs are also known to have consumed beans, avocados, pepper, squash and corn maize. One of their prominent dishes was atole, a maize porridge containing tortillas, tamales, chillies and other vegetables.  Meat was also part of their diet, and included wild game, turkeys, dogs and ducks.  

Desserts and Chocolate

Desserts were well known too back then. Apricots, apples, grapes, cherries, dates, melons, pomegranates, plums, pears and figs were among those consumed as dessert in Rome, Egypt, Greece, China and Mesopotamia. Chocolate was consumed by the Aztecs, but it was reserved for the nobility and warrior classes.

Rice and Noodles

In China, rice was the staple food along with which they consumed cabbage, beans, peas, wheat and millet. Of course, the one dish that comes to mind when you think of the Chinese is rice noodles. The Chinese consumed these with fish, poultry, eggs, vegetable and pickles.    

As you’ve just seen, the ancient civilizations had plenty of stuff to munch on. Many cooking methods and techniques evolved over the centuries. By the turn of the 19th century, the celebrity chef concept started gaining popularity and the centuries of tradition was enriched by new innovations.

About Peter Theodorou

Soups 2016-2017

1. Pumpkin Pottage Soup Accompanied By Salami & Cream Cheese Crackers - November 2016

2. Campbell’s Tomato Soup, Ritz & Red Wine - December 2016