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My beer’s ready!
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And I’ve learnt so much the last week.
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This is a 5,000-year-old recipe which has Egyptian roots. It uses barely-cooked bread to provide most of the fermentation power. I made mine with local spelt, which I malted (sprouted) myself.
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When you think of beer, you think of men, right?! Me too, until I listened to @rootkitchens talking on @missingwitches earlier this week. Until recently it was *women* who were the beer-makers. They took it to market, wearing pointy hats so they’d be noticed, carrying it in a cauldron. Sound familiar?! They did this until society starter a smear campaign against them, these women, these ‘witches’.
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I feel like I’ve opened a box and have so much more reading to do.
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And I feel heartened to know that I am stepping in the footprints of my English female ancestors as I bring this brew to life in my kitchen.

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This is a Yes But Hot Cross Bun.

Yes, a Hot Cross Bun.
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But…
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It’s sourdough.
It’s local spelt.
It uses flax egg, not a real egg.
It doesn’t have any sugar in.
It’s topped with lard!
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Toasted Hot Cross Buns where one of my favourite foods when I was younger. When I was younger, I ate a lot differently to how I do now. This year, spurred on by @ellys_everyday fabulous recipe, I wanted to bring them back and show my son how to make them.
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He doesn’t eat egg, so we used flax. I don’t eat sugar, so we left out all the sweeteners and halved the dried fruits.
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The smell was heavenly (don’t spices rock?!). The taste was wonderful. Amazing how, when you’re not used to sweet, you taste sweet so intensely.
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And the lard, I’d never have guessed, but boy, it works!
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I asked my two boys what they thought of my ‘modified’ tradition. The big one said, “I’m not complaining”, the small one said, “Mum, they are looovely!”
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Success.

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Ancestral chocolate recipes? Yes, please!
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It’s super-sunny today. The video’s a bit bright. But I couldn’t not share! I’m so excited (as you can probably tell).

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This sourdough bread was made with spent sprouted spelt I sieved from my beer. I am astounded by how good it is. The crumb is so soft and the flavour really deep.
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It feels incredibly good to have sprouted the spelt, made bread with it, made beer with the bread and now be making bread again with the big grains I sieved out. To watch the process come full circle in my hands has been a wonder.
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In addition to the big sprouted spelt berries used here, I also had another type of sieved ‘waste’ that was much finer, like soaked flour. This isn’t gong to waste either – I’ve got porridge plans for it.
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I’ve podcast news too – finally we are on iTunes! If you use iTunes, go ahead and look for us – Ancestral Kitchen – we’re real 🙂 Thank you to my hubby for helping me navigate the Apple world from a non-Apple device. I’m showing my gratitude to him by dedicating my first batch of spelt beer to him 🙂

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Spelt beer made to a 5,000-year-old process is coming to life! After 2 days of fermentation (in the inside of my slow cooker as it’s the biggest thing I had!), water, spelt sourdough starter, spelt under-cooked bread and sprouted spelt has become ‘beer’.
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Here are my 4 bottles, which I’m flavouring with interesting things and leaving for a day or so to carbonate.
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And the stuff in the bowl is the left over ‘mash’. I just can’t bring myself to let this out of my kitchen, so my next task, whilst the beer is maturing, is to make bread with it.
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It feels so whole to be seeing this through from grain to bread to beer and to bread again.
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Planning to put all the videos I couldn’t help taking in my story. I have a new highlight – Bread & Beer 🙂

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I spotted raw, organic, Italian Provolone in our local health food store last week. And I knew I just *had* to get some for our next sourdough pizza.
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Boy, it works 🙂
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Recipe for the pizza dough is in my profile.

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I’ve wanted to make an Ancestral Food podcast for some time. A year and a half ago, shut in a bedroom in our apartment in Florence, I tried recording myself. It sounded flat. I knew what I wanted to do, but I also knew I couldn’t do it alone. I needed an ‘other’ to bounce off, to converse with, to question and laugh with.
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And there was no-one. I’d only just decided on www.ancestralkitchen.com as a url. And, after over 2 years away from all social media, I didn’t have many contacts online.
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So despite a deep desire to move forward, I parked the idea.
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And I carried on slowly building what I wanted to see in the world.
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And then, last summer, I ‘met’ Andrea @farmandhearth. And we started exchanging comments, then messages, then photos, then project ideas. And I thought..maybe…just maybe she’d want to do a podcast with me.
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So, feeling more than a little nervous, I asked. And boy, did she jump 🙂
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We started talking about it in November. We tried our first recordings in December. My hubby recorded us a theme tune in January. We started leaning into it and having fun in February. And now, come March we’re ready to launch!
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The thing that I dreamt of 18 months ago has materialised 🙂
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Two things are important here:
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1 – If you have a creative idea but things don’t seem ‘right’ for it, don’t give up. Get on with sharing what you want to share and give life the opportunity to show you the possibilities that you don’t have right now.
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2 – If you’re at all into real food, regenerative agriculture, ancestral food, kitchen creativity, feeding kids, farming, fermentation, supporting local communities, eating better, living naturally…if you care about any of these things, listen in.
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Today, we’ve released our first 3 episodes. At the moment, there are a few ways to listen:

1/ Go to the link in my profile and stream or download the episodes from my website.
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2/ Check the RSS link in @ancestralkitchenpodcast bio – copy and put that into the URL field of your podcast app, or click on it and listen to it directly online.
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And then come back and tell us what you think 🙂

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Connection is one of the biggest motivators in my life. This simple lunch speaks of it. Heart from Flavio, at @valledelsasso. I walked, with my husband and son, to pick it up. Millet that’s from the Italian soil. Broccoli bought at our Thursday market here in Pontassieve @valdisieveintransizione.
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I love finding connection at my table.
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And I also love finding it here on Instagram. Being ‘out of the ordinary’ and moving many times over the last decade, has often left me feeling more isolated than I’ve wanted. Sharing my kitchen and table here has brought me so much beauty. Thank you for all the conversations.
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One lovely connection, with Andrea over at @farmandhearth, has developed into an Ancestral Food podcast. I’m so excited! Not only do I get to chat about something I really love with someone who gets it, but thanks to technology, we get to share it with others and hopefully build more and more connection, community and love.
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We’re launching on Tuesday. I’ll be posting then, but if you’re in, you can follow us at @ancestralkitchenpodcast

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This ‘bread’ isn’t for eating…it’s for making a 5,000 year old drink!
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I’ve decided to have a go at making ‘Bouza’ the ancient Egyptian fermented beer. I’m using Italian spelt grain (and that’s the only ingredient, other than water).
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First, I soaked the grain. Half of it is being sprouted. I then processed up the other half to make these small loaves. They’ve been ovened for just 15 minutes – they’ve a crust, but the inside is still raw and as such holds the yeasts and bacteria which will ferment the rest of the spelt.
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When the sprouts are ready, I’ll mix them, the water and some sourdough starter together, before breaking up this bread and mixing it in.
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Exciting!!
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I took a picture of the recipe, which is from #wildfermentation, I’ll pop it into my story in a bit.

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When I saw the jar of locally-collected rosehip powder I knew I had to get it. Up until this week, we’ve been sprinkling it on porridge. Then I saw the recipe by @rachellambertwildfoodforaging for rosehip crackers.
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Rachel collects her own rosehip around the coast of Cornwall, where we used to live. It’s somehow comforting to know that rose hips are shared across many miles.
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I altered her recipe, fermenting the oat and buckwheat dough overnight to make sourdough crackers. It took a lot of the sweetness out of the rosehip which gives the crackers a different flavour, I’m sure. Still, they were very good.
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And when I realised we could make moons with the cutters, I took the opportunity get my lunar-inspired, feminine side on.

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