Food, Glorious Food

Food, Glorious Food

For most of us, supermarkets, and even eating out, has softened our understanding of where our food comes from and how our eating habits have evolved. To discover how and why it is that we eat the way we do today, we need to delve deep into the past and unveil the fascinating and sometimes gruesome history of our food.

Stone Age food was heavy on meat – wild boar and red deer were readily available and were wrapped in straw ahead of roasting to make them easier to handle and also to avoid the flavour of ash as the meat was cooked on hot stones. Fish, hazelnuts and blackberries were also eaten and evidence suggests that some people from this period indulged in cannibalism, too.

Gough’s Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, one of the most spectacular caves in Britain, was inhabited at the end of the last Ice Age some 14,700 years ago, and remains discovered here suggest that human skulls may have been used as drinking cups. Meanwhile, Stonehenge in Wiltshire was a focal point for communal feasts where thousands of animals were killed to mark the winter solstice before being eaten.

The Celts were farmers, whose livestock included cows, sheep and hens, but they were also very keen huntsmen. The deer that ate their crops provided meat, as did the wild boar, and the skins provided clothing and containers for milk and cheese.

When the Romans came to Britain in AD 43 they brought new fruit and vegetables such as grapes, apples, cherries, garlic, onions, cabbage, peas and nettles (used for self-thrashing to keep themselves warm in the winter). The Romans also introduced rabbit, hare, chicken, pheasant and snails, as well as spices, which they had discovered on their worldwide travels.