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trad diets
I thought this could be a thread about ancestral diets. Not worldwide, your own, or someone you love. I will begin.
I was reading about the diet of the Acadians in early Canada. The book I read was based on a survey of 400 and seems to have been done in 1979 and most of the people were over 50. This diet began as 1600's French Peasant fare and was modified to fit what worked. It is said that people did live to be old on this diet! (book: "A Taste of Acadie" )
Very few vegetables. Onions, cabbage, scallions, turnips . Beans were big. Some wild greens were used. Salting of vegetables was done to preserve, but it appears the saltiness was reduced before use and the vegs were still cooked.
Apples. Jams were important from Strawberries, Cranberries, blackberries and others.
There is only one "strictly egg" recipe-- for a 4 egg omelet. Egg and dairy do appear in recipes though but they just don't seem to be the heart of the diet. It appears that women were allowed to sell extra eggs for their own personal money to use as they wished, separate from the household. (Don't eat those eggs! Mama needs a new pair of shoes!) 🙂
There is only one cheese mentioned in the book (and it is made with buttermilk which is lowfat) (and it is used in desserts), Butter is used as a condiment. You know what I'm betting? I'm betting the grand majority of their milk was skimmed and made into butter and the skim used to fatten pigs. They are all about PIGS.
The main meat is pork and most dishes contain rendered salt pork as fat/flavor. They didn't like mutton and cared more about wool. Chickens and Cattle were raised up and not eaten until the ends of their lives. Bone broths are huge: it's almost like "what isn't a soup here?"
Beef suet was used for deep frying. Lard was used for baking.
The main carb is wheat. Bread. Pancakes, dumplings -- they had white flour . Buckwheat, barley, oats
They had a sweet tooth. Molasses, maple--sometimes main courses had molasses on them. Cakes, pies, even candy, donuts, cookies...
Cod is a major staple, as were lots of different kinds of fish and seafoods. Yes they ate cod liver! (Baked in a cod stomach).
That is the only liver recipe I see, they did make blood sausage and used lungs, heart, intestines, head, etc. Blood sausage seems important to them and mentioned as a breakfast food along with beans which were served with molasses on the side.
I don't see nuts mentioned.
Potatoes became big, but didn't start big. Same with Rice.
The food isn't spicy, but there were some, some easy to grow herbs and wild herbs. Herbal tea and faux coffee were made--the real thing was prob very rare. Some "middle age" spices (like clove) were traditional in both savory and sweets things when they could be gotten.
Fermented drinks were made. Beer, hops, including spruce. Wines, including dandelion.
Great idea starting a thread on traditional diets. There is another thread on ancient healing diets that is interesting.
Thanks Rachel. I think we can learn a lot about what we UNIQUELY need from studying the diets of our particular ancestors... If you think about it, ancestors in your genetic lines already suffered to figure out this information, and may be turning in their graves to see us forgetting...
here is a pointer to the post where I talked about my German (immigrant) ancestor's diet.
https://ggenereux.blog/discussion/topic/lil-chicks-log/?part=3
RANT ON:
I've been at this a long time. Almost 40 years.
Name your favorite fanciful conspiracy theory. "Area 51 aliens" or "Life is like the Truman Show" etc...
I think the very worst "conspiracy" out there is this: That you need some sort of "food way" that is somehow different than the way YOUR PARTICULAR ancestors ate.
Believe it or not, this "conspiracy" will eventually take away your health. (Unlike the more "ephemeral" conspiracies like Flat Earth)
How did we end up so lost? Lots of ways. Number one might be: Because it put money into someone's pocket. (Sure, there are other reasons too) Probably number two is: We aren't aware that we NEED to hang onto our ways. It isn't on the radar.
We think we know so much. We read studies and use big words and get tests run. If you ask me, we know LESS about our own specific PERSONAL nutritional NEEDS than our ancestors knew! Because...hard-earned knowledge! (cue voice over: "IN A WORLD ...WITHOUT HOSPITALS, DENTISTS OR SURGEONS...")
For me, my new diet guru is my Grandmother (RIP). It's not Grant (although I think he deserves a medal!).
In this vein, yesterday I began to administer small amounts of BEANS to myself (because beans were part of my ancestral diet). Somewhere I'd become quite sure that I don't tolerate them. I'm going to start with a few beans every other day. It's scary, LOL. But I'm sure my gut will adapt.
Listen to me now, hear me later: If I ever buy a supplement again it will be too soon.
My advice: While you recover from vitamin A overload: Find out what your ancestral food way was. Find the closest foods you can in real life. Re-adapt to it. And hang onto it for dear life.
RANT OFF!
I love it when you ramble like that. I agree that we have lost touch with our roots. It's all because of education, marketing and globalisation.
I need to sit down with my grand mother who is still quite in shape at 83 years young and learn as much as I can from her. Unfortunately, traditions have been pushed aside by media and its information overload.
I’m currently reading this out of print book and thought some of y’all might enjoy it too.
Quote from lil chick on July 25, 2019, 10:01 amRANT ON:
I've been at this a long time. Almost 40 years.
Name your favorite fanciful conspiracy theory. "Area 51 aliens" or "Life is like the Truman Show" etc...
I think the very worst "conspiracy" out there is this: That you need some sort of "food way" that is somehow different than the way YOUR PARTICULAR ancestors ate.
Believe it or not, this "conspiracy" will eventually take away your health. (Unlike the more "ephemeral" conspiracies like Flat Earth)
How did we end up so lost? Lots of ways. Number one might be: Because it put money into someone's pocket. (Sure, there are other reasons too) Probably number two is: We aren't aware that we NEED to hang onto our ways. It isn't on the radar.
We think we know so much. We read studies and use big words and get tests run. If you ask me, we know LESS about our own specific PERSONAL nutritional NEEDS than our ancestors knew! Because...hard-earned knowledge! (cue voice over: "IN A WORLD ...WITHOUT HOSPITALS, DENTISTS OR SURGEONS...")
For me, my new diet guru is my Grandmother (RIP). It's not Grant (although I think he deserves a medal!).
In this vein, yesterday I began to administer small amounts of BEANS to myself (because beans were part of my ancestral diet). Somewhere I'd become quite sure that I don't tolerate them. I'm going to start with a few beans every other day. It's scary, LOL. But I'm sure my gut will adapt.
Listen to me now, hear me later: If I ever buy a supplement again it will be too soon.
My advice: While you recover from vitamin A overload: Find out what your ancestral food way was. Find the closest foods you can in real life. Re-adapt to it. And hang onto it for dear life.
RANT OFF!
Do you soak your beans? If not, that may be why you didn't tolerate them well. I soak mine overnight with vinegar and salt. Sprouting might help too.
My recent ancestors (probably 100 years or so) lived mostly on pork belly, cornbread, tomatoes, and beans. I wouldn't say it was good for them, but it was what they had.
Judy, I wonder if the corn meal was nixtamalized. And I wonder if any vitamin A is taken away by that process. Pelegra has some parallells with vit A overload, if you think about it. I've always loved corn bread!
Pigs were so big when it came to food back then. HUGE. Pigs were survival.
Tomatoes (as well as corn) are new world crops, so I suppose your ancestor's European genes could have been a bit confused by them! I've read the first Europeans thought tomatoes were poisonous, and tomatoes do have poisonous cousins.
With the amount of times they've made me sick, I might agree! 🙂 I've spent years avoiding tomatoes...Conversely I've also spent loads of time growing and processing them into "american" faves such as sauce and salsa... Italians seem to get along with them better than me....
I'm sure they made hominy out of at least some of the corn. I remember my grandmother having a huge, block iron pot in the backyard that was used for making it. It would certainly have lowered the vit. A because it removed the outer coating of the corn, which is the yellow part. White corn and corn flour don't have any A so it must all be in the skin.
Most of my ancestors were of European descent, I think, but there was reputed to be some Native American blood in there too. (I grew up in Arkansas.)