What did people in Ireland eat 5,000 to 6,000 years ago? From time to time archaeologists have staged demonstrations of culinary arts of the past, and last year in this space mention was made of great finds at Belesta in southern France, around the area of the old borders of France and Aragon. Not only was a system of burial caves discovered, but also a collection of pottery, the whole indicating a highly organised, settle society that went back to Neolithic times, with agriculture well developed and clothing something more than merely a covering for the body: there were strings of pearls for women and men could wear pendants made of workable stones. The range of foods available to them was indicated by a well-researched and studied book.
This year, a further step was taken in knowledge. What did these people eat, day to day? At a meeting of archaeologists and experts in ceramics, the first item on the first day, Friday May 1st, was a Neolithic meal. The table d'hote was set out in an advance publication. The meal began with a nibble at a salad consisting of Lamb's lettude (mache in French), carrots and fennel (very common in southern France in the ditches and wastelands too). This was followed by a soup of vegetables with bacon. Next came salmon, presumably roasted, and wrapped in the Neolithic equivalent of today's cooking tinfoil. Would it be leaves, or mud, or as a cook suggests, salt? For the description in French is Saumon en sarcophage.
Anyway, then there was more bacon, this time on a spit, followed by what must have been sheep's cheese. Then came a palate-cleansing fruit salad, or rather, as the menu describes it, a scattering of red fruits over a bed of apples and honey. And at all times during the meal there were biscuits, and mead and beer to drink. There is a fashion note at the end of the prospectus saying that guests who came dressed in prehistoric style would receive an adornment or decoration.
Interesting to think how much of that menu would apply to the people of the early Boyne colonising. Salmon, yes. You can take it on from there yourselves. Remember these French Neolithics lived in what was presumably a much milder climate than our people did. Y