Back to the Intro Page
Iron Age people grew barley, wheat, oats and rye, peas, beans, lentils and onions. They made porridge, stew and bread. The people also ate pigs, cattle and fish. Meat would be cooked in a cauldron hung over an open fire or on a turning spit. However in those days the turning was done by hand. Standing next to an open fire made this hot work. It might have been a job for the older children. Sheep and cattle provided milk while hens and geese gave eggs. Bees were kept for honey to make things sweeter. Again I think it is clever that people found this out. It was very rare to hunt for meat now. Grain was stored in underground walled chambers called earth houses, which kept things cool and dry. These earth houses were really tunnels with stone walls which kept the grain both dry and cold. Because people lived in bigger communities, feasts were now an important part of life. The feast would be held to celebrate one of the many festivals or a family event like a birth, marriage or even a death. During the feast there was an order in which people could eat. The most favoured and wealthiest would eat first with the best and hottest cuts of meat while the poorest would eat last and end up with colder slices of meat. Pig was most popular and you could end up with the cold shoulder of the pig, hence the phrase we still use today about being given “the cold shoulder”.
Back to the Bronze Age Hoots - FoodForward to Nearly All Roman Hoots - Food
