Traditional British Foods
Peter Bradford
Peter Bradford was one of the early pioneers in the establishment of the natural foods supply chain in the British Isles. I met Peter when he was helping to convert the old victorian school building at 188 Old Street in London in the mid 1970's. The building was having a refit to accommodate the new East-West Centre. The project attracted a talented and eclectic collection of health practitioners and wholefood enthusiasts who were not afraid to get their hands dirty in the re-purposing of a solid but run-down building. Peter had helped to fit out the wholefood shop at the Centre. This side of the business was taken forward by Chris Dawson in the form of the successful Clearspring food company.
Peter was a co-founder of Sunwheel Foods in London after gaining experience working at Aveline Kushi's Erewhon wholefood store in Boston USA. In 60s and 70's Britain, wholefoods were wideley associated with "hippies" and "cranks". (In fact, the founders of one of Londons first wholefood restaurant (in Carnaby Street, 1961) named their business "Cranks").
Whereas companies such as Erewhon and Clearspring were concentratiing on imports from Japan, where retail wholefood quality was higher than that available in western countries, Peter became interested in food production closer to home. He did a lot of research into how our ancestors produced and prepared food which was necessarliy local and seasonal.
By the late 1970's, Peter had joined the teaching team at the East-West Centre. I got a Xerox copy of his research summary from him some years later. It is now published here with a small amount of tidying up after a the trials of making it digital.
Angus Soutar
Traditional British Foods
From Peter Bradford
Purpose of Study
- Encourage self reliance on local foods.
- To build up resource of traditional survival skills.
- Appreciation of environmental influences on diet and lifestyle.
Resources
- The Kitchen Garden, a historical guide to traditional crops by David C Stuart, Robert Hale Ltd, London 1984
- Medieval English Gardens by Teresa Maclean, Barrie & Jenkins London, l989
- Food in England by Dorothy Hartley, Macdonald, London 1954
- Food and Drink in Britain by C Anne Wilson, Penguin 1986.
Recipes - CAN BE DECEPTIVE!
Old Recipes can paint a misleading picture of the past. My view is that recipes were generally only recorded by the well-to-do and then only of their special meals and dishes. For example, seeing Tudor and Elizabethan recipes that use imported spices and sugar can easily make us believe that those foods were commonly used by society at that time. Whereas, in fact, their use was probably in fact restricted to a very small proportion of the population. I have found that historical gardening and farming records can give a far more accurate view of our traditional foods and diet than cookery books can. After all, what people traditionally grew and in the relative amounts (so precisely recorded in many instances) must be what they actually ate!
Cooking Fuels
Four basis fuels have been used,varying according to the resources of a region.
WOOD especially Southern & Central England. It takes I acre of wood to heat one person. Ash is optimum wood, dense and hard, tholding a lot of heat. Oak, Elm etc also good. Birch and Poplar: too soft (OK for matches). Pines, too sappy. When burned upright -fast and hot. When burned flat -slow and steady.
PEAT standard over large tracts of Britain. esp. SW, W and N.Slow, gentle heat. Peat fires rarely go out. Earthenware and heavy iron pots do well on peat.
BRUSHWOOD Reeds, Furze etc. Fast burning, Roasting not possible. (As in Norfolk).
COAL Actually used since ancient times. Open cast mining where seams came to the surface, Deep mining came much later, spurred on by tree clearing and poor management of woodlands. Coal led to the development of built-in boilers in cookers, and vertical roasting (not horizontal) spits (as with wood). Coal fires, unlike wood, need strong updrafts.
Cooking
BOILING Iron cauldron was a complete cooker and hot water system combined. One pot cooking. Separate earthenware pots and boiling bags (of oats or beans) inside. Cauldron offered stewing, fast or slow boiling, steaming, casserole style cooking all in one.
BAKING Originally on flat hearthstones, e.g. Oatcakes Earliest ovens were inverted earthenware or Cast Iron cauldrons inverted over a hearthstone, surrounded by logs, or covered by burning peat. Separate enclosed ovens came later.
ROASTING The roasting spit enabled grilling and roasting a wide range of foods. Not only Meats, Poultry and Fish, also fruits, vegetables and breads could be threaded onto the spit. e.g. cored apples with sweet batter poured gently on as they turned. Cooked until firm and brown on outside.
SMOKING, SALTING, PICKLING & DRYING
Were very common preparations and methods of preserving food that simply tapped into an existing resource, a hot smoky chimney! Peat smoking gave special flavour and quality to food. Simple smoking was also carried out in oak barrels with the bung hole allowing the smoke to escape. Women were never allowed to carry out salting during their periods. Animals were killed for curing and storing when moon is in the wane (light feeders would have more weight after the full moon.) Salting and Smoking together - the salt preserves, the smoke adds flavour. Smoking and Salting are characteristic of damp climates. (Northern and Western Europe). Drying (and Salting) characteristic of dry sunny climates. (Mediterranean etc. )
Storing of food
Remember - there was no fresh produce to buy around the corner each day as in towns. Also no fridges or freezers. Problem of how to store the years harvest. Most modern storage techniques had a traditional antecedent.
CANNlNG, BOTTLlNG etc - glass bottle stoppered with waxed cork and sterilised in the bread oven.
JAR COVERS -food boiled in jar and covered with waxed cloth. Cooling pulled in cloth and depression was filled with melted wax. (Later reused)
THERMOS Wooden hoggin used for keeping drinks cool for fieldworkers.
Curated by Angus Soutar with acknowledgement to support "Local Food - getting it together"
To be continued - Part 2 is here
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