Eating with
Your Ancestors
Have you ever thought about eating like your ancestors did? There’s been a recent shift toward cleaner eating, and many people find that by re-traditionalizing their diets, they feel better physically. In addition, there is spiritual benefit to eating the sorts of foods our ancestors would have. By eating the meals they might have made, we can connect to them across the centuries; after all, sharing a meal and breaking bread with someone was an act of hospitality and love, so what better way to make your people feel welcome than preparing a dish they might have traditionally eaten?
Although many of our kinfolk got their food by hunting, fishing, and harvesting, we may not need to do that today—although certainly, if you’ve got a place to grow a garden, you should go for it. What we can do is recreate the ancestral dishes by following a few simple principles when it comes to our food. Think about food in the cultural context appropriate to your ancestors and the time period and place they lived. What foods would have been available to them?
Ideally, ancestral food should be locally sourced and seasonal. It should be food that you can process at home, making dishes from scratch with your bare hands, instead of taken out of a box or can and stuck in the microwave. Think in terms of ingredients that can be taken from the water, the land, or the sky. Ancestral foods are the sorts of things that people enjoyed for hundreds of years, before electricity and refrigeration, and certainly before colonization. These ingredients don’t need a label—after all, there shouldn’t be any preservatives in a potato or a pork chop—and they don’t require a lot of excess packaging. Eating ancestrally allows us to treat food as sacred, in a way that honors the farm-to-table or field-to-table process. It permits us to understand the path that our food has taken to get to our plate, and when we prepare it in a way that respects our culture, we can thank the food itself, the person who planted and harvested it, the earth and land, and our bloodline.
When you sit down to eat an ancestral meal, one that honors the generations that came before you, it’s extremely helpful to begin with a prayer. If your family has a traditional meal blessing that they use on special occasions, you can certainly speak that one; if not, you can simply offer a prayer that honors the food you’re about to consume, while making your ancestors feel that they are welcome guests at your table.
Food anthropology shows us that not only what people ate around the world has varied over time, but also how they ate. If you lived in Medieval Europe, for instance, the majority of your neighbors would have consisted of peasants, not the wealthy. Peasants lived off the land and worked hard day in and day out to grow their own crops, raise their own livestock, or hunt and fish for wild meat. White bread, made from wheat flour, was considered a delicacy, because it was a crop that required a lot of manure to grow properly—often, only the local lord had enough resources to produce wheat. Instead, you and the people around you would bake your bread from rye and barley, which was much easier to grow. If the grain harvest was poor, you might have to grind up dried beans or peas into your bread just to stretch the supply a little further. You might make a pot of a filling, oat-based stew called pottage, which included legumes and root vegetables. You’d keep chickens for fresh eggs, as well as pigs and sheep for meat, even using their blood to make black pudding. You might get lucky enough to have the occasional fish or cheese, and you probably drank milk from your own cow and water from the nearby river; if you lived in a village, you probably had a neighbor who made ale.
If you lived in a nation or culture within Africa you would have farmed a variety of grains, depending on which area you lived in. Like barley, these grains could be baked into bread or turned into soups or porridges that were rich and filling. If you lived in Nigeria or Ghana, you might grow millet or yams; your cousins in Libya, Mauritania, or other parts of Northern Africa probably processed their millet into couscous, which formed the base of many meals. If you were enterprising and patient, you could turn your grain into beer. In Ethiopia and Eretria, near Africa’s Horn, teff was a staple; once harvested it was fermented before use in baking flatbread and thickening stews.
You and your neighbors probably had goats, sheep, and chickens for meat and eggs, and you fished in the rivers and streams. Fertile soil along the riverbanks made for good crop production, so vegetables were available for just about every meal—including yams in some areas, and new strains of rice. You’d indulge your sweet tooth with bananas and other fruits, and the starch-heavy plantain might be a staple of many of your meals. Best of all, you could grow coffee beans, which you’d chew for extra energy or dry and grind up to make a beverage.
In the American colonies, things were a little different—the southern region was able to grow crops year-round, so if you lived in the Carolinas or Georgia, you’d have fresh vegetables any time you liked. Coastal areas had ready access to seafood, like cod and mackerel, tuna and trout, clams and lobsters and oysters. People in colonial America typically ate three meals a day, with breakfast being a simple affair—you might indulge yourself in some tea, a bit of warm bread, or some cornmeal mush. Your midday meal, which you would probably call dinner, was the largest meal of the day and consisted of soup or stew, a couple of different types of meats, and lots of vegetables. Once the evening rolled around and you were done with your day’s work, you’d have supper, which was lighter fare like cheese and bread, as well as leftover cold meat from your earlier meal. Refrigeration hadn’t been invented yet, and hunting could be a challenge in the winter, so you would have preserved your meat by salting, drying, or smoking it. You’d have pickled vegetables to store for later and made preserves and jams with your fruit crops. You likely hung up flavorful herbs to dry, like basil and sage and dill. Your beverage of choice might have been tea, but if you could afford it, chocolate drinks and chicory coffee were popular as well.
The sort of foods you prepare for your ancestors will be as uniquely personal as your altar is. A sample menu for an ancestral meal honoring my Scottish heritage might include the sort of self-sufficient foods my people ate two hundred years ago: root vegetables like potatoes and turnips, fresh meat and fish, cabbage and leeks and onions, and oats as a staple grain. When I work with my ancestors who lived in nineteenth-century America on the far edges of the western frontier, I might prepare venison or ham hocks, corn and collard greens, dairy products like cheese and fresh butter and eggs, beans and carrots and okra.
If your ancestors ate foods that don’t appeal to you at all, try finding a middle ground. After all, eating ancestrally is about honoring them, not satisfying your own craving for a frozen pizza. The recipes in this section are easy to prepare and use foods that might have existed when your great-something grandparents lived. Give them a try, make adjustments to meet your own family’s needs, and try serving up a meal for your kinfolk!
Traditional Broth Stew
Broth stew is a staple of cooking and menus all around the world, but particularly in the United Kingdom. Your people could make a basic broth from whatever vegetables happened to be in season; depending on where you lived, and the time of the year, these might include root veggies like carrots and turnips, but also cabbage, onions, and leeks. Meat is almost always added as well—lamb or mutton provides an especially rich flavor, but you can use beef if you prefer. In many places, barley, split peas, or lentils were added to make the stew even more filling. To make it really savory, add bones to the pot while it simmers. Be sure to peel and dice your vegetables into uniform sizes for more even cooking.
• 2 T butter or lard
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 pounds lamb shoulder or your favorite cut of beef
• ½ C barley
• ½ C dried beans, lentils, or split peas
• 2 t salt
• 8 C vegetable broth
• 2 large carrots, diced
• 1 each rutabaga, turnip, and parsnip, diced
• 2 bay leaves (discard before serving)
• 4 sprigs rosemary
• 1 T fresh thyme
• 1 C shredded cabbage
• 1 leek, chopped
Melt the butter in your soup pot, on low heat, and then add the onions and garlic. Cook for about five minutes until soft. Add the lamb, the barley, beans, salt, and broth to your pot, and bring it to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer for two to three hours, and then add the carrot, rutabaga, turnip, and parsnip. Add the herbs, and simmer for another hour. Pull the lamb out, shred or cube it, and then return it to the pot, along with the cabbage and leek. Give it another hour of simmering, and then serve it up as part of a meal for your ancestors.
Pepper Pot Stew
During the days of colonial America, pepper pot stew was a popular dish, especially around Philadelphia after George Washington ordered it served up to his frozen troops at Valley Forge. It was well known as a hearty, nourishing meal. It’s likely that Washington first became familiar with pepper pot stew during one of his visits to Barbados, where his brother Lawrence served him a local dish called Cohobblopot. Although colonial Americans discovered pepper pot by way of the West Indies, it has roots in African cuisine, and was brought to North America and the Caribbean through the transatlantic slave trade.
Since that time, pepper pot has evolved so that there are a few famous variants. The Philadelphia version, according to legend, was made with tripe; meanwhile, the Carolina stew often contained seafood such as crabs or oysters. In Norfolk, this soup was made with a pork loin and the addition of beans; as was typical in historical food preparation, each area used regional ingredients that were available to cooks at the time. The recipe included here, containing beef, is inspired by the Caribbean version.
• 1 T cooking oil
• 1½ pounds stew beef
• 4 quarts water or vegetable stock
• 1 pound spinach, mustard, or collard greens, chopped
• 4 potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 medium African yam or taro root, peeled and diced
• 2 plantains, peeled and diced
• 1 ham hock or 1/2 pound sliced salted pork
• 2 long red peppers, chopped—use the hottest pepper you can stand; Scotch Bonnet is traditional with this stew
• 1 T freshly ground allspice
• 1 t fresh thyme, chopped
• 1 bay leaf (discard before serving)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Cooked rice
Heat the oil and fry the beef in a large soup pot, and then add the water. Add the greens, potatoes, yam, plantains, ham hock, and the red peppers. Stir in the allspice, thyme, and bay leaf. Bring it to a boil, and then reduce heat, allowing it to simmer for 2 to 3 hours. Remove the ham hock, and serve in a bowl over rice, seasoned with salt and pepper. In some areas, small dumplings, shredded crab meat, or even bits of lobster are added in the last half hour of cooking. What do you think your ancestors would prefer?
Roots a la Creme
In the eighteenth century, root vegetables were a popular ingredient in many dishes because not only did they grow just about everywhere, they were easy to store and save for the cold winter months. Your ancestors could eat root vegetable meals nearly any time of the year. By blending them with a crème and herb reduction, simple carrots and parsnips were turned into a delectable dish. Variants of this recipe have been found in cuisine all around the world, and it appears in a French cookbook dating as far back as 1745.
• 4 large carrots, washed, peeled, and sliced
• 4 parsnips, washed, peeled, and chopped
• 1 stick of unsalted butter (don’t use margarine)
• 4 small scallions, peeled and chopped
• 1 small onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, mashed
• ½ t basil
• ½ t thyme
• 1 T corn starch
• 1 C vegetable stock
• ½ t salt
• ½ t ground black pepper
• 3 large egg yolks
• 1 C heavy cream
Boil the carrots and parsnips for half an hour, until they’re soft enough to jab with a fork. Drain and add to a large sauté pan with the butter, scallions, onion, garlic, and herbs. Stir well and allow to cook on medium heat for fifteen minutes. Add the corn starch and stock to thicken your dish, and then add salt and pepper. Reduce heat to simmer. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks and blend in the cream. Pour over the vegetable mix and stir it in until smooth; be sure to remove it from the heat before it scorches!
Baked Spaghetti Squash
Squash is a versatile vegetable, and the spaghetti squash variety serves as a perfect substitute for pasta; it also seems to taste much richer. Native to central America, it made its way to China via trade routes, where it became a popular food in the nineteenth century. Now, it’s found nearly everywhere, but it didn’t seem to gain traction in the United States until World War II, when it became a staple of the suburban victory garden.
• 1 spaghetti squash
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 4 cloves garlic
• ¼ C freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 T basil
• 1 t oregano
• Pinch of salt and pepper to taste
Preheat your oven to 350° F. Cut the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Cut the stick of butter in half lengthwise, and place one half in each half of the squash. Lay the two squash halves side by side in a baking dish. Top evenly with garlic, Parmesan cheese, basil, oregano, salt, and pepper. Bake for one hour, and then remove your squash from the oven to cool. Scoop out the spaghetti-like strands and enjoy it as a side dish or top it with your ancestors’ favorite sauce as part of your main course.
Herbal Butter Blends
The history of butter goes back almost as far as that of domesticating livestock. Several thousand years ago, people figured out they could take milk from their animals and turn it into a tasty spread. It has been used in religious ceremonies, burned for lamp fuel, and even smeared on the skin to protect against chafing from the chilly wind. Some societies, like the Greeks, saw butter as a divine gift that protected against evil. It’s also been used as medicine, as both a poultice to treat burns, and massaged into the hair to make it healthy. You can make your own butter easily and add a bit of herbal goodness to it for extra flavoring. Serve it up on freshly baked bread when you’re making an offering to your kinfolk, wherever they might be from.
• 1 quart heavy cream
• A pinch of salt
Let the cream sit overnight so that it will reach room temperature but—safety tip: don’t leave it out more than 24 hours or it will spoil. Pour it into a large glass jar, about two-thirds full, add the salt, and then tighten the lid. Shake the jar for 20 to 30 minutes. Check it periodically; if the contents are getting too thick to shake, open the jar and stir the cream with a fork. Eventually, it will start to form yellow clumps. These clumps are butter, which means you’re almost done! Drain any excess liquid out in a strainer; the liquid can be used in recipes calling for buttermilk.
Blend your butter with a combination of herbs, like:
• Dill Butter: Blend in 1 C fresh chopped dill.
• Savory Mustard Butter: Combine 2 T dry mustard with 1 C freshly chopped chives or onions.
• French Herb Butter: Mix together 2 T each tarragon, oregano, sage, and basil.
• Lemon Garlic Butter: Combine 2 T grated lemon zest with 1 T finely chopped parsley, ½ t ground black pepper, and 2 cloves of garlic, minced.
Keep your butter in the fridge; use it within a week.
Chicken and Couscous
Couscous is a grain that’s been popular in African, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean cooking as far back as the seventh century. Made from different types of local grains—everything from semolina to millet to farina—it’s become a staple food in many areas, and because it’s so versatile, you can use it as a base in just about any dish. One of the most popular ways to serve couscous is by topping it with a savory, rich blend of chicken, vegetables, and herbs. Would your ancestors appreciate a meal that’s reminiscent of this part of the world?
• 1 C couscous, prepared
• 2 T olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 t ground black pepper
• ½ t ground red pepper
• 1 t ground turmeric
• ½ t cinnamon
• 1 t ground cloves
• 1 t paprika
• 1 bay leaf (discard before serving)
• 4 large chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
• 16 ounces chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 2 large tomatoes, chopped
• 1 zucchini, chopped
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 2 C chicken broth
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, over medium heat, and add the onion, cooking until it’s translucent. Mix in the black and red pepper, turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, paprika, and bay leaf. Add the chicken and cook until evenly browned. Add the chickpeas, vegetables, and chicken broth, and simmer on low heat for 45 minutes, or until the veggies are tender and the sauce has thickened. Salt to taste and serve over a bed of warm couscous.
Seasonal Greens
Although salad is something we often think of as a food we only eat when we’re watching our calories, fresh greens and raw nuts, seeds, and other produce have been part of the human diet for hundreds of generations. Members of the cabbage family—which includes many dark greens—have been consumed the world over, although many didn’t reach North America until the seventeenth century. A staple in many cultures, greens are full of rich nutrients and are delicious, to boot!
• ¼ C olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ C red onion, diced
• ½ C red pepper, diced
• 2 pounds collard, mustard, or spinach greens, washed and dried
• ½ C pine nuts, lightly toasted
• ½ C lemon juice
• Kosher salt and ground black pepper to taste
Heat the oil over medium heat in a large skillet, and add the garlic, onions, and red pepper. Sauté until soft and beginning to brown, and then add the greens. Allow them to cook down until they’re wilted, turning and tossing them so they’re evenly coated with the oil, about ten minutes. Remove from heat, and stir in the pine nuts, lemon juice, kosher salt and black pepper. Serve as a side or main dish.
Baked Apples
Apples are believed to have been around for most of recorded history. With dozens of different varieties, apples grow all over the world, but they seem to have originated around the Caucasus mountain region and traveled around the globe as our ancestors began to migrate. By the early eighteenth century, hundreds of new varieties had developed, thanks to Americans’ love of propagating hybrid species in their orchards. This recipe is based in part on a traditional German Christmas dish that’s been served in many forms for centuries, the Bratapfel, an apple stuffed with nuts, honey, and plums. It’s a delicious dessert that you can make any time of year, especially if you think your ancestors might be fans of sweet treats.
• 6 of your favorite kind of apples—Fuji or Granny Smith are best
• ½ C apple cider
• ½ C brown sugar
• ½ C chopped walnuts or pecans
• ¼ C golden raisins
• ¼ C honey
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1 T allspice
• 3 T unsalted butter, sliced into six equal parts
• 1 T pure vanilla extract
• 2 C heavy cream
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 T brown sugar
• 1 t corn starch
Preheat your oven to 375° F. Remove the core from the apples and hollow them out, leaving the bottom half-inch or so of the apple intact; start with an apple corer to remove most of the center and then use a sharp paring knife to widen the hollow. Make the hollow as wide as possible; 1 to 2 inches wide will work best. After you’ve hollowed out your apples, place them in a baking dish with the apple cider in the bottom.
For the filling, combine the brown sugar, chopped nuts, raisins, honey, cinnamon, and allspice together in a bowl. Mix well, and then spoon it evenly into the hollow of each apple. Top each one with a slice of butter. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes so the apples are tender but not mushy. Remove from the oven and baste them with the cider from the bottom of the baking dish. Allow to cool for ten minutes before serving.
Top with a simple vanilla sauce, by warming the vanilla and heavy cream on low heat in a saucepan. In another pan, heat the egg yolk, brown sugar, and corn starch, whisking until smooth. Pour the cream mixture into the egg blend and continue stirring on low heat for ten minutes or until it thickens. Drizzle the sauce over your warm, freshly baked apples.
Soul Cakes
In many parts of the world, special breads or cakes are made as a gift for the spirits of the dead. You can use these in a silent supper, or simply put them together as an offering on your ancestor altar. After all, well fed ancestors tend to be very responsive to petitions and prayers. These cakes take many different names and shapes—in Europe, they’re simply called soul cakes. In some areas, they were made as an unpretentious shortbread, and in others they were baked as tarts filled with chopped fruit, dates, or nuts. Still other regions made them of rice flour. Some styles of African cooking feature grains like amaranth, barley, or millet—what breads can you bake from these? In Mexico, pan de Muertos is traditional, and in the Netherlands, ontbijtkoek is a popular cakelike bread stuffed with nutmeg, honey, and pepper. Historically, a soul cake was made with whatever staple grain a particular community had available.
The true history of the soul cake and the practice of giving them away has been lost to the centuries. Some people say that they go back as far as the Druids; cakes were baked around the Samhain bonfire season. In other tales, soul cakes are used as an offering to placate any grumpy ghosts that might be loitering nearby. One thing is certain, which is that by around the eighth century, soul cakes became popular with the Christian church. Cakes were blessed and consecrated, so they could be given to poor travelers who approached the local monastery for sustenance.
Here’s a recipe for a simple shortbread-style soul cake.
• 1 stick butter, softened
• ¼ C granulated sugar
• 1¼ C flour
Preheat oven to 350º F. Cream together the butter and sugar. Use a flour sifter to add the flour to the bowl and mix until smooth. Shape the dough into a flat circle about half an inch thick. Place on an ungreased baking sheet or baking stone, and poke lines with the tines of a fork to make eight separate wedges. Bake for 25 minutes or until the shortbread is light brown.
For something a little fancier, you can make a fruit-filled tart style soul cake. Make your favorite pie crust recipe, roll it out, and cut it into small circles using the top rim of a drinking glass, lightly dusted in flour. Use the circles to line a tray of muffin cups. Blend together two tablespoons melted butter, two tablespoons local honey, and 1 cup of mixed dried fruit. Scoop the fruit mixture into your muffin-sized pie crusts, and then bake for 15 minutes at 375° F.
Whatever type of cake you decide to make, place it as an offering on your altar as a gift for your ancestors to show you how much you appreciate them.