Meat and no veg on the menu, Teesdale Mercury

Meat and no veg on the menu

Oct 16, 2007

I SUPPOSE there must have been a time, back in the Old Stone Age, when people had to make do with raw meat and uncooked greens.

However, once people learned how to tame fire, cooking food before eating it became part of everyday life.

Archaeologists working in Teesdale have unearthed many remains of ‘prehistoric’ fires.

Some of these fires also contain the charred remains of our ancestors’ meals. From these we learn that the fires were used to ‘bake’ a form of bread.

Maybe they simply wrapped a bit of dough round a stick and held it over the fire. I expect many of you remember doing something similar in Scout or Guide camp.

What’s the betting that youngsters aren’t supposed to do this nowadays – health and safety ‘issues’ you know. An alternative was to wrap food in leaves or in a pot and place it in the embers of the fire. And hey presto we have the beginnings of an oven – a hot place separate from the flames.

Pots weren’t fireproof and couldn’t be used like pans. Once the Iron Age came along cooking became much easier because iron skewers didn’t burn and eventually, pans were made that could both hold water and could be suspended over a fire. Then pottage and stew were invented and food became more varied.

As houses became more substantial, fires were moved inside, although cooking still often took place outside – being safer.

Fires were built in the middle of a house, the smoke escaping naturally through the thatched roof. Big fires inside weren’t a good idea.

However, when big stone buildings began to be built – like those in Barnard Castle – chimneys were developed and with them came cooking indoors.

Admittedly, it took quite a few hundred years before ordinary houses had chimneys.

We know that they were in general use in the 17th century because hearths became subject to taxation, so many people must have had one, mustn’t they?

And indeed, in the tax returns for 1666, Barnard Castle has more than 285 houses with at least one hearth – and that included one house with nine hearths, three houses with six hearths and seven houses, with five hearths.

Even a small place like Hilton recorded 19 houses with hearths, including Henry Marley’s house, which had five hearths.

However, whether cooking took place inside or out, the sort of food eaten didn’t vary much.

Archaeologists investigating a well inside Barnard Castle found that its 14th Century inhabitants ate mainly meat – venison being a popular choice.

Two hundred years later, descriptions of the meals of the wealthy again show large quantities of different types of meat being eaten.

And what about ordinary people in Teesdale? It seems that they attempted to follow suit, except that bread was also a large part of their diet.

Meat was generally boiled in large pans and some of these have survived as jam pans. The pan- handle is at the top of the pan rather than at the side so it could be hung up over the fire.

Poultry and other birds were often skewered and were then turned over the fire so they were cooked – or burnt – more evenly. Children were often put in charge of turning the spit – presumably so named because the fat spat as the skewer was turned.

There’s not much sign of any great fondness for vegetables. Meat reigned supreme in the food stakes. And this diet was evidently the norm until well into the 20th century.

Fruit is often mentioned – brambles and apples and plums – but not vegetables, except as second best.

Once indoors, fires became commonplace, accompanied by a chimney and a hearth, fire furniture and ovens.

Otherwise, little had changed since we first learnt to use fire back in prehistoric times. In fact, the present generation is the first in which cooking has been separated from fires and I suspect we have lost something in the process.

The names of the ironmongery used to hang up the pans and turn the meat has nearly gone.

How many people in Teesdale now remember about reckins and reckin cruiks and the rannel borks or cross bar from which the reckins hung? And the rough crocks or pancheons in which the flour or meal was mixed to make bread, little changed for a thousand years, have now almost gone.

Hooks for hanging the salted quarters of pig have disappeared from our houses and the many dovecotes and pigeon duckets seen in the dale are now unused. And I would guess that there are only a few people left in the dale who can skin a rabbit or even plout a hen.

Maybe with all this global warming, we will have to re-learn the old skills one day soon and have to make do without electricity and gas.

Can you see us going back to cooking over a fire? You never know! Maybe also in the future we will have to eat nothing but locally grown food.

However, whatever the future holds I do think we should continue the relatively new practice of eating plenty of vegetables as well as meat.

Eating meat and bread and little else may have suited the more active lifestyle of our ancestors but I can’t see us returning to doing our ploughing and harvesting by hand – can you?

First published in the Mercury, October 10