Celts and Saxons at the table
The Celts based their cuisine around meat and potatoes. They cooked and served them in a variety of ways: boiled, poached, baked and stewed. It also includes many spicy and aromatic dishes that utilize gourmet cheeses, bacon and lamb.
As to the Anglo-Saxons, most of them were mainly vegetarian. Rich Saxons ate red meat that they grew or hunted. Both liked pork, beef and mutton.
Poor Saxons ate chicken, bacon and pork sausage, they got protein from chicken, duck and goose eggs, butter, cheese and fish, some imported from Norway
Barley was in common both in British and Saxon diets; later they grew wheat. They used them to make bread and beer. Celtic loaves were round and flat; the Saxons made small and round loaves, the cakes that King Alfred loved .
The main vegetable that Saxons ate was the leek, but they also liked onions, garlic, cabbages, turnips, beetroot, parsnips, white carrots, peas and beans.
As these vegetables were not very tasty, rich Saxons used to savour them with pepper, coriander and ginger. The other herbs were used in medicine.
There was no sugar, so they used honey as a sweetener. Salt came from the salt mines in Worcestershire.
Fruit, of course, was always popular: apples, pears, plums, cherries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and grapes.
As only water from springs was safe to drink, so most people, including children, drank beer.; some people drank milk from cows and sheep. Celts liked cider.
Probably rich Saxons imported wine from Rome
NOTES
meat: carne
potatoes: patate
poached: stufate
stewed: stufato
spicy. speziato
gourmet: da buongustaio
bacon: pancetta
lamb: agnello
grew: da grow, crescere. allevare
hunted: da hunt, cacciare
pork: maiale (cotto)
beef: manzo
mutton: montone
chicken: pollo
duck: anatra
goose: oca
barley: orzo
wheat: grano
loaves (loaf, sing.): pagnotta
pepper: pepe
coriander: coriandolo
ginger: zenzero
honey: miele
sweetener: dolcificante
cider: sidro
army : esercito
