Once our ancestors learned to hunt large animals,
they had access to many parts that would not have
been available when our ancestors scavenged from
other predators' kills.......stomachs, intestines, skins,
etc......and when our ancestors learned to preserve
some of these things....they had stomachs to use
as bags(goat stomachs were used to make those
funny shaped leathery wine "bottles"....once upon a time)
a bag made of hide can be hung over a fire to heat
liquids as long as the fire is kept below the level of
the liquid in the bag......so our ancestors could have
been "cooking" almost as long as they had the
controlled use of fire.......burying tubers in the
coals, roasting bits of meat and veggie on sticks...
(we call these shishkabobs now), wrapping
fish or birds in clay and baking them in the fire,
then cracking away the clay and it takes scales
and feathers with it (I've never heard of this
being done with small furry animals....wonder
if it would work?).......but HG's today singe
the hair off small animals and roast them on
sticks over the fire............once our ancestors
learned to cook something in a leather bag,
it wouldn't be too long before they added
every sort of thing they had gathered that day
to the pot.....grass seedheads, leaves, herbs,
nuts, fruit, bits of meat or chunks of rabbit
or squirrel, birds, tubers, snails.....the whole
range of things they ate.......clam shells and
turtle shells make adequate bowls.....and
every woman who cooks for a bunch of
people will tell you that you satisfy the hunger
of more people from a pot of stew than you
could if they each just ate whatever they had
gathered that day.......a bunch of greens from
this one, a handful of onions from that one,
a rabbit from the other one, a few tubers from
someone else, maybe the kids had gathered
and cracked nuts................so mix it all
together and everyone eats....pretty well too.
Our tendency to get together at the end of
the day and share a meal goes way back...
And, parts of a beast that are too tough for
human teeth to chew can be made edible by
boiling in water for awhile...........
As for rendering fat to make pemmican, I know
many of you put it in the oven ......but our ancestors
didn't have access to metal pans or the ovens you
use......and someone else was right when they said
that skewering a chunk of fat and holding it over
the coals meant that a lot of the fat was going into
the fire..........but I've "rendered" fat by putting the
chunks in a pot and boiling it in water for awhile....
let the water cool, and you lift off nice clean sheets
of fat........so why couldn't our ancestors have use
the hide pots the same way? and the water left
over becomes the basic stock for another stew.
And if you clean out the intestine, stuff it with bits
of meat, fat, greens, herbs, nuts, and anything else
you can lay hands on.....then slowly roast the whole
thing over a fire......you have a nice "container" to
cook many small items in, and a tasty "sausage"
to enjoy.............
After supper, just before the clan settles to sleep
for the night, someone puts a skinpot full of
grass seedheads to soak overnight.......by morning
these have become a somewhat glutinous mass....
drop in some berries, nuts, bits of beast, greens,
and whatever, and you have a nourishing "breakfast"
........but if in the morning you become so busy with
some other chore that you forget it, you will come
back later and find it has begun to ferment.....now,
do you waste food and just throw it away on the
midden heap, or do you try to salvage something
from it......this may have been the beginning of
beer.....and yeasty breads.....
No, there is no archaeological record of such
use of hide bags that I know of.......but then,
hide would fall victim to small rodents very quickly
and the archaeologists have only rarely found
such organic artifacts preserved......
[log in to unmask]
Walk The Path With Practical Feet!
________________________________________________________________
GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO!
Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less!
Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
|
