This post describes the health benefits of the ancestral technique of fermenting grains. It then explains that very few Scottish (and Welsh) traditional oat recipes included fermentation and yet the oat-eating communities enjoyed incredible health. It asks why this could … Read More
Making the Weston A Price principles accessible, simple, and approachable for everybody is what Anita is so good at. Anita is a wife and mother living in Colorado, USA, serving up delicious, nourishing meals every day. She has mastered the ancestral food principles, and she can teach you how to roast a whole chicken and make the gravy in just a few sentences!… Read More
Imperfection is so damn sexy!
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In food, I equate perfection with mass production: Industrialisation required us to not only make food ‘keepable’ (hello packaging and chemicals) but also the *same*each*time*. And I find that so boring!
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Imperfection shows that your food is REAL. It’s been made with hands, in an environment that changes everyday.
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Imperfection is how we learn what works and what doesn’t; what we like and what we don’t like; how each litte thing we do influences the end result.
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Imperfection is so interesting. Each time I make chocolate at home the eating part becomes an adventure – it’s always a different experience.
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We swim in a food system that teaches us to want the same thing, exactly that way, again and again. I encourage you to rebel by making some imperfect food with your own hands today!
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If you want to have a go at the bean-to-bar chocolate, I have a low-price course that’ll walk you through it! Click on the link in my profile and scroll down to the courses section, or go to my story today, I’ll put a clickable link there.
Oats have been used with meat and spices in sausages for many centuries. Here’s my first attempt at bringing them to life in my kitchen: oats, leek, pork, lard and lots of spices. After making them into sausage shapes I prepared them for steaming (the traditional way of cooking) by wrapping in parchment paper and then aluminium foil.
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Check my story today for pictures of in-progress sausages and the finished product!
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They were delicious and I want to try them again so have been researching sausage casings and way to stuff. I don’t have a machine that can sausage-stuff, so it’ll be by hand which I’m sure my 8-year old will love!
These are the show notes for a podcast episode recorded especially for patrons of my main show (Ancestral Kitchen Podcast). These patrons pay a monthly subscription to be part of the podcast community and in return receive monthly exclusive recordings … Read More
First go at sourdough spelt halušky – Slovakian pasta/noodles.
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I love being inspired by other cuisines and Naomi (@almostbananas) showed me (and all the other @ancestralkitchenpodcast patrons!) how to make these on camera from her Slovakian kitchen.
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They aren’t authentic – I didn’t use potato as my son can’t eat it, and I served them with an Italian twist: pancetta, kale and pecorino. But they were good and so much easier to make than sourdough pasta.
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We used a spaetzle-maker (I’ll put pictures in my story) and my son pushed the batter – which had been fermenting overnight – through the holes into boiling water.
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If you’re daunted by sourdough pasta, these might be worth a try in your kitchen.
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And do check out Ancestral Kitchen Podcast #49 where I talk with Naomi about traditional Slovakian Food; it’ll make your mouth water!
Up to 2 years ago, when I thought of beer, I thought ‘bitter’ and ‘it’s a man thing’.
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So when I started researching historical brewing I was floored to find out that, for most of history, in most of the world, women have been the brewers.
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Add to that the fact that the brews my ancestors in England would have made in their kitchens (yes, kitchens!) was sweet, not bitter and I realised that everything that I thought I knew about beer was wrong.
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If you’re curious, listen to today’s @ancestralkitchenpodcast. In it, I share much of what I’ve both learnt and experimented with the last two years.
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I’d love your feedback on this episode! Tell me what you knew, didn’t know, what surprised you the most and how you feel after hearing what @farmandhearth and I share 🙂
Did you know that women have been the predominant brewers of beer throughout history….up to just 400 years ago? How about that up till that same time period beer tasted completely different to the beer we are used to now? Join us in this episode to hear the real story of beer, how we messed it up and why Alison is passionate about bringing beer back where it belongs – the kitchen!… Read More
My new *free* sourdough course is all about your starter. 10 video tips that’ll help super-charge your starter whether you’re new to sourdough baking, have tried and failed at a starter or are experienced but would like some extra help.
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You can sign up for the course via the button ‘*Free* course: 10 Tips for Creating & Maintaining a Sourdough Starter’ in the courses section of my profile link.
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Do pass this on to any other sourdough bakers (or wanna be sourdough bakers) you know!
Have you ever lived without an oven?
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For several months I had no oven. I had to change how I cooked. That’s nothing on kitchens a few hundred (let alone a few thousand) years ago though; ovens are a really recent thing.
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Before ovens, in England, many dishes were steamed instead of being ovened.
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Here’s my most recent steamed oat pudding. These were common in the UK (where in many parts oats were the staple cereal) and were often as simple as oats, stock and a bit of onion. Here I’ve added pork, walnuts and orange too. I steamed this for two hours in a glass bowl resting raised off the bottom of a large saucepan that had two inches of simmering water at the bottom.
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It’s delicious and the recipe will be going in the book on oats I’m dreaming of writing!
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See my story today for more information (and details of how I messed up the first one of these!)