The so-called “Full English Breakfast”, ie bacon, eggs, sausages, baked beans, toast etc. etc., is a relatively modern term.
What did our distant ancestors eat when their
fresh meat ran out, before they worked out a way of curing meat to make it last
longer? When did they discover that
curing it made it taste different? When did they realise that the eggs of
chickens, ducks, turtles etc. could be cooked and eaten by humans?
Inspired by the current television series called “Back in
Time for Tea”, as well as by a fascinating book called “A Million Years in a
Day” by Greg Jenner, I
Bacon: Pigs were
first reared as domestic animals in the Middle East some 9,000 years ago, and
became a staple food, even for poorer people, throughout Europe. Their popularity was principally because pigs
would eat anything, gain weight easily and produce large litters.
Furthermore, as has long been established,
every bit of the creature (except the squeak!) could be used. The ancient Egyptians had worked out how to
cure pig meat so it could be eaten all year round (possibly because they were
used to preserving bodies for the afterlife!), and we know that bacon and
sausages featured on Roman menus, though it sounds as though the sausages the
Romans ate bore little relation to those we eat today. Some cultures and religions banned the eating
of pig meat altogether, possibly since pigs were dirty (unclean) and eating it could cause diseases. Christians didn’t
go quite that far: they banned the eating of it on Fridays, holy days and the
whole of Lent. (In mediaeval times this
led to a grand fry-up the day before Lent began, when people would use up all
their leftover bacon and eggs - Greg Jenner suggests this was a forerunner of
the Full English Breakfast!)
Eggs: It seems the
ancient Egyptians were keen on eggs, and on keeping hens specifically for the
purpose of using their eggs, though the Chinese and Indians had already
discovered the benefits of domesticating fowl.
They learned to cook the eggs in several different ways, most of which are
the same as we use today: boiled, fried, poached or turned into soufflés or
custards. Omelettes were also a popular food
for the Romans.
Baked beans: As with
so much food, the problem for people through the ages was how to keep it fresh, or at least edible. During the Napoleonic wars armies on both
sides became used to having to eat food riddled with maggots by the end of their campaign. In 1810 a Frenchman partly solved this
problem by sealing food inside a glass jar and then boiling it. Unfortunately glass is fragile, so it wasn’t
ideal, and four years later in 1814 another Frenchman invented the tin can. This proved to be a great success, except for
one thing: getting into the tins to get at the contents. Hammer and chisels must have been vital
kitchen utensils at the time, because, astonishingly, the tin-opener wasn’t
invented until 48 years later!
However, once it was possible to store food in tin cans and
open them later, people felt they could preserve anything. Soon an old recipe dating back to the Aztecs for haricot beans baked in
tomato sauce and flavoured with sugar, pepper and other spices, became popular as the now
very familiar baked beans.
Cereal: In the late
19th century in the USA, a doctor called John Kellogg had some
strange ideas, but was fixated on the idea that a good diet (ideally, as far as
he was concerned, a vegetarian one) would cure man of his baser instincts. In the kitchen of his sanatorium he set his
brother, Will, to boil wheat to use as an alternative to bread. However, one day in 1894 Will became
distracted and let the wheat boil over, until it formed a gloopy mess. Unwilling to waste it, he put it through
large rollers, which flattened it and squeezed out some of the liquid. Much to his surprise, the resulting wheat
flakes were not only edible but fairly pleasant. The brothers fed these to their patients, who
reported that they liked them, and after a little experimentation with different
grains they invented cornflakes. The
Kellogg brothers then began marketing them to the health-conscious general
public, suggesting these were Health Foods, and they became extremely
popular.
Bread: According to Greg Jenner, “bread is one of the most
significant inventions in human history.”
Our ancestors were eating grains and cereal crops 30,000 years ago, but
during the Neolithic period they began grinding wheat and barley together, using
a stone quern, until they produced flour.
Then they mixed the flour with water and cooked the resulting “loaf” over
a fire until it turned into a satisfying food which could sustain life when
animals were in short supply. In the
Bronze Age farming became more intensive, so that fewer people were required to
produce more food, and by the time of the Roman invasion bread was a staple
part of the diet. Originally all bread
was brown, and it was only when “white” bread was invented, which involved
throwing away half the ingredients (the husks of the bran etc.) that this
became more expensive and thus more desirable among the rich. This discrepancy in price sometimes led to the
unscrupulous practice of adding white ingredients, such as chalk, or even plaster
of Paris, to the mixture to make it white so the baker could charge more for his
bread. In this instance the poor were luckier, since they continued to
eat the rough, brown bread and thus escaped the nastier side-effects of eating the adulterated white.
But marmalade? Where
did that come from?
I read once (and this may be entirely fictitious) that it
was invented in France when Mary, Queen of Scots was a little girl. When she was feeling ill, the cook would boil
up some oranges with sugar as a sort of jam to make her feel better, and called
it “Marie est malade”, which in time became shortened to marmalade. It may not be true, but it’s a nice story.
