My research goal this year
has been to find and make authentic recipes from each of my genealogical culture groups, focusing on the time period in which they show up on my family tree.
Here's the genealogical timeline I've been working with:
-
American: from the early 1600s (New England) to present (Midwest,
except me who's been in the Southeast for decades.)
- Native American: 1600s
- Irish: 1800s
- German: 1400s to 1700s (I learned this year about this one)
- English: 1200s to 1500s
- Norman: 1000s to 1100s
- Viking: 700s to 900s
- Saxon: 400s to 1000s
- Celtic: prior to the Roman and Saxon invasions, all the way back to who knows when. They aren't considered the original inhabitants of Britain, but that's as far back as I could go.
My research for this project focused on the regions of these peoples and the foods they ate. In planning the meals, I looked for traditional regional recipes. My goal was to use as many original ingredients and I could source, with an emphasis on ingredients that I can grow too. My cooking methods are modern slow-cooking ones.
Thanks to the internet, I've been able to find quite a few recipes from the time periods I'm looking at. When I couldn't, I had to settle for modern but regionally traditional recipes.
I tried to choose recipes that focus on ingredients that can also be grown in my part of the world. But for the sake of authentic flavor, I was willing to buy additional ingredients as well. Even so, there were some things that I couldn't find at my local grocery stores. For these, I made reasonable substitutions.
This project appealed to several of my interests: genealogy, cooking, cultural studies, and lifestyles that have a stronger relationship with nature than with technology. One happy lesson has been combining available foods in new-to-me ways, such as blueberries in stew and using cream in sauces and gravies.
Anyway, my plan is to publish one "Cuisine of My Ancestors" post every 3 or 4 days or so until around Christmas. I hope you enjoy them.
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