Would you define your diet as mostly historically traditional, imported traditional, or modern????
NVintage
Posts: 1,463 Member
Fig. 2
figure2
Bars represent the quotient of percentage of energy derived through ‘modern vs. traditional ingredients’ with data from the FAO [36]. Points depict the prevalence of obesity in 2014 (i.e. BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2) [37]. Note. Cereals, starchy roots, pulses, vegetables and fruits were considered to be ‘traditional ingredients’ whereas sugar/sweeteners, meat/offal, and vegetable oils/animal fats were considered to be ‘modern ingredients’
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-7844-4
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Replies
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I think I eat mostly traditional foods from all over the world, maybe 80%, but I do like soda and some snacks with "modern ingredients." There was also a study done with Pima Indians that showed a huge difference in the rates of obesity/ diabetes depending on a traditional vs. modern diet...0
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i eat what i want.5
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So modern, I'm guessing, haha...0
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Blimey, have never considered if my diet is historically traditional, imported traditional or post acolypse modern.
What do those terms even mean?
what are 'modern ingredients'???
Cereals, starchy roots, pulses, vegetables and fruits were considered to be ‘traditional ingredients’ whereas sugar/sweeteners, meat/offal, and vegetable oils/animal fats were considered to be ‘modern ingredients’ doesnt make sense - humans have been eating meat and offal and vegetable oils and animal fats since the dawn of time - how are they modern??
I imagine they have been eating raw sugar since the dawn of time too - in areas of the world where wild sugar cane grew.13 -
There's a lot of talk about globalization and moving away from traditional diets.. but what exactly is a traditional diet? In that article they tried to define it vs. what is modern...
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I guess they would say I eat imported traditionally for the most part? I try to eat a Mediterranean diet even though I'm American and most of my ancestors are from England/Ireland. I read in an article that the typical British person ate a POUND of bread per day, 8oz potatoes, 2 beers, a couple T butter, 2T sugar, and some meat and vegetables in 1860!1
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paperpudding wrote: »Blimey, have never considered if my diet is historically traditional, imported traditional or post acolypse modern.
What do those terms even mean?
what are 'modern ingredients'???
Cereals, starchy roots, pulses, vegetables and fruits were considered to be ‘traditional ingredients’ whereas sugar/sweeteners, meat/offal, and vegetable oils/animal fats were considered to be ‘modern ingredients’ doesnt make sense - humans have been eating meat and offal and vegetable oils and animal fats since the dawn of time - how are they modern??
I imagine they have been eating raw sugar since the dawn of time too - in areas of the world where wild sugar cane grew.
This is also confusing me. My ancestors have likely been eating meat and animal fat (when they could get it, at least) for generations and generations, but I don't know how many of them would recognize an avocado or a pineapple.9 -
To clear this up, the body DOESN'T distinguish food from anywhere in the world. It digests meat in the US the same way it does meat from Asia. You know what the biggest difference is..............................portions being eaten.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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I guess they would say I eat imported traditionally for the most part? I try to eat a Mediterranean diet even though I'm American and most of my ancestors are from England/Ireland. I read in an article that the typical British person ate a POUND of bread per day, 8oz potatoes, 2 beers, a couple T butter, 2T sugar, and some meat and vegetables in 1860!
Britain is a varied place - in 1860 people in rural Ireland and people in London may have had quite different staple foods.
I highly doubt the average ( read, not well- off ) person ate the equivalent of 3/4 loaf of bread per day in 1860 (my own standard loaf weighs 650g in total)
Not sure how much beer they would of drunk - for a long time beer was a drink much watered down compared to modern beer.
a couple of spoons of butter and 2 spoons of sugar doesnt sound much and ' some meat and vegetables' means anything - 'some' being such a poorly defined amount.
Not sue what the article was meaning to imply.
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To clear this up, the body DOESN'T distinguish food from anywhere in the world. It digests meat in the US the same way it does meat from Asia. You know what the biggest difference is..............................portions being eaten.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
This part. I eat from all over (including every country on that bar chart, with the possible exception of Brazilian dishes) and have both processed foods along with whole foods.
Note to self: stuff your face with something from Brazil6 -
To clear this up, the body DOESN'T distinguish food from anywhere in the world. It digests meat in the US the same way it does meat from Asia. You know what the biggest difference is..............................portions being eaten.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
This part. I eat from all over (including every country on that bar chart, with the possible exception of Brazilian dishes) and have both processed foods along with whole foods.
Note to self: stuff your face with something from Brazil
If you're looking to get into Brazilian food, feijoada is a great dish.6 -
I’m not sure what those terms mean, tbh.
Growing up I ate a lot of Persian food with some Italian or Mexican mixed in.
I eat a lot of ethnic food now too. My diet is a lot like the Mediterranean diet but I do eat “American food” now too.4 -
That's very true! I might should say the average" person of means". It was just a fun history article, and I can't find it now.. It was actually referencing a household management book that was advising what to buy per person for the week. I'm the one that divided it per day and said "some meat and veg"...the book said around 50 oz each of chicken and beef per week,( so 7.1428 oz chicken and 7.1248 oz beef per person day),but that if fish, puddings, and veg were bought that would decrease the amount of meat needed. It also said to buy 4.5 oz milk per week per person.
I just mentioned it because I assume that would be considered my traditional diet since about 80% of ancestors come from that area, but I could never eat that much bread!:)paperpudding wrote: »I guess they would say I eat imported traditionally for the most part? I try to eat a Mediterranean diet even though I'm American and most of my ancestors are from England/Ireland. I read in an article that the typical British person ate a POUND of bread per day, 8oz potatoes, 2 beers, a couple T butter, 2T sugar, and some meat and vegetables in 1860!
Britain is a varied place - in 1860 people in rural Ireland and people in London may have had quite different staple foods.
I highly doubt the average ( read, not well- off ) person ate the equivalent of 3/4 loaf of bread per day in 1860 (my own standard loaf weighs 650g in total)
Not sure how much beer they would of drunk - for a long time beer was a drink much watered down compared to modern beer.
a couple of spoons of butter and 2 spoons of sugar doesnt sound much and ' some meat and vegetables' means anything - 'some' being such a poorly defined amount.
Not sue what the article was meaning to imply.
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That's very true! I might should say the average" person of means". It was just a fun history article, and I can't find it now.. It was actually referencing a household management book that was advising what to buy per person for the week. I'm the one that divided it per day and said "some meat and veg"...the book said around 50 oz each of chicken and beef per week,( so 7.1428 oz chicken and 7.1248 oz beef per person day),but that if fish, puddings, and veg were bought that would decrease the amount of meat needed. It also said to buy 4.5 oz milk per week per person.
I just mentioned it because I assume that would be considered my traditional diet since about 80% of ancestors come from that area, but I could never eat that much bread!:)paperpudding wrote: »I guess they would say I eat imported traditionally for the most part? I try to eat a Mediterranean diet even though I'm American and most of my ancestors are from England/Ireland. I read in an article that the typical British person ate a POUND of bread per day, 8oz potatoes, 2 beers, a couple T butter, 2T sugar, and some meat and vegetables in 1860!
Britain is a varied place - in 1860 people in rural Ireland and people in London may have had quite different staple foods.
I highly doubt the average ( read, not well- off ) person ate the equivalent of 3/4 loaf of bread per day in 1860 (my own standard loaf weighs 650g in total)
Not sure how much beer they would of drunk - for a long time beer was a drink much watered down compared to modern beer.
a couple of spoons of butter and 2 spoons of sugar doesnt sound much and ' some meat and vegetables' means anything - 'some' being such a poorly defined amount.
Not sue what the article was meaning to imply.
Supersizers Go is a fun show, although I'd take it with a grain of salt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aKwYECKxVw&list=PLE6540D9DCB4A9949.
They eat as if they are in a particular time and place (and social class), usually London area. The one I linked is their Victorian one.
The first one I saw was the Restoration one, and at least in the (better off) class they were pretending to be, it seems like it was super insanely meat heavy. Apparently the Puritans were mocked for eating more vegetables, and at one point they went to a part of the country that was supposed to have more of them and got to eat a more veg-heavy meal and Sue (also from British Baking Show, and a comedian) said something like she actually appreciated the Puritans for the first time, since the amount of meat they'd been eating was making her feel pretty unwell.
The bread would be easier to eat if you were as active as you would have been living back then, perhaps. The insane grain servings (although servings are smaller than many imagine) from the old US pyramid I think was about getting sufficient cals cheaply.
From a slightly earlier period than 1860 (1720 or so), Benjamin Franklin wrote about the beer drinking in London, when he was working at a printing press there (not that people didn't drink heavily in America):
"At my first admission into this printinghouse I took to working at press, imagining I felt a want of the bodily exercise I had been used to in America, where presswork is mixed with composing. I drank only water; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were great guzzlers of beer. On occasion, I carried tip and down stairs a large form of types in each hand, when others carried but one in both hands. They wondered to see, from this and several instances, that the Water-American, as they called me, was stronger than themselves, who drank strong beer! We had an ale-house boy who attended always in the house to supply the workmen. My companion at the press drank every day a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon about six O'clock, and another when he had done his day's work. I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he supposed, to drink strong beer that he might be strong to labor. I endeavored to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread; and, therefore, if he would eat that with a pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer. He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor, an expense I was free from. And thus these poor devils kept themselves always under."9 -
I prefer to buy local food when possible for environmental and economic reasons, so I guess that would make me traditional. But I also have local groceries run by people from all over the world, so, I definitely take advantage of that too.
I like to adapt the nutritional advice to "eating food that *someone's* great grandmother would recognize as food." Doesn't necessarily have to be mine.
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To answer the question asked (vs talking about TV shows and Ben Franklin), I find the definitions somewhat confusing:
"Cereals, starchy roots, pulses, vegetables and fruits were considered to be ‘traditional ingredients’"
I eat some grains and pulses, some starchy roots, amount depending on how low carb I am eating. I eat lots of veg and some fruit daily.
"sugar/sweeteners, meat/offal, and vegetable oils/animal fats were considered to be ‘modern ingredients’"
I don't eat much added sugar or sweetener, but I do eat meat/offal (which comes along with animal fat), and olive oil and sometimes avocado oil regularly, and butter not often but occasionally. I also consume some animal fat with cheese, cottage cheese, and yogurt.
Nuts and seeds don't seem to be included, but I prioritize those (also fish, which I am assuming is "meat," of course).
Based on that, then, I eat a mix of traditional and modern ingredients.
As for imported or not, the US is such a mix of cuisines and none really native here, for the most part (at least, I don't eat a Native American diet), so I guess imported.
But I don't think most people would consider the "modern" foods I listed as especially "modern," although it would have depended on where you lived. I find the idea that including some fish, butter, yogurt, and olive oil in my diet makes it a modern diet kind of odd, historically.3 -
These definitions make pretty much no sense to me. In no way is meat, animal fat, and vegetable oils "modern"...neither is sugar really, though it used to be pretty much a rich person thing...but it started to be mass exported from the Americas to Europe in the early 1700s and became far more commonly used as an ingredient. Humans are omnivorous...we've been eating animals forever...we've been rendering animal fat forever. I suppose some vegetable oils are "modern"...but they've been pressing olive oil in the Mediterranean and middle east for thousands of years.
I think of "historically traditional" as something by region and food cultures of that region, not a particular ingredient list. Going back to animal fat...I'm from NM and historically traditional New Mexican food (which is awesome) has animal lard as a main ingredient in just about everything from tortillas to sopapillas to beans to you name it...definitely not a modern thing...traditional NM cooking goes back centuries.4 -
So I'm a historical reenactor, so for a weekend event we will eat more or less exactly what our counterparts in 1775 Northern New England ate.
What I can tell you is that it's pretty healthy and delicious in the hands of a decent cook. Stuff like oatmeal, eggs, bread, cheese, vegetables and fruit, stew...a lot of stew. Beer. Coffee and tea. A cookie or two, maybe some apple pie. It's all based on historical recipes, and it's delicious.
Of course, we've also been active. Even if not playing soldier in the field, the kids are playing, the non-military are walking, doing camp chores, sometimes a game of rounders (proto-baseball). Most of us eat more than we would at home and/or work.
What I can tell you is if I do a week long event I eat a lot, but still tend to lose weight in the process.7 -
kenyonhaff wrote: »So I'm a historical reenactor, so for a weekend event we will eat more or less exactly what our counterparts in 1775 Northern New England ate.
What I can tell you is that it's pretty healthy and delicious in the hands of a decent cook. Stuff like oatmeal, eggs, bread, cheese, vegetables and fruit, stew...a lot of stew. Beer. Coffee and tea. A cookie or two, maybe some apple pie. It's all based on historical recipes, and it's delicious.
Of course, we've also been active. Even if not playing soldier in the field, the kids are playing, the non-military are walking, doing camp chores, sometimes a game of rounders (proto-baseball). Most of us eat more than we would at home and/or work.
What I can tell you is if I do a week long event I eat a lot, but still tend to lose weight in the process.
That sounds kinda fun...4 -
I feel like this is one of those "studies" that sets up an analytic framework that's at best arbitrary, at worst biased, then analyzes data or events through that off-kilter framework. The results of that kind of exercise tend to be mostly nonsense.
Others' critique of the framework itself seems right, to me, though I'm not expert.
Of the things I eat, probably 80%+ arrive at my house as individual foods, at most 20% food "products" that are processed in ways that I wouldn't/couldn't do at home. (I don't generally count a food product as "highly processed" if a manufacturer combines ingredients I'd use at home, generally using straightforward methods I'd use at home, but don't, because I'm basically lazy.) The percentages are slapdash, because I don't know whether I'm supposed to estimate based on food weight or food calories in this scenario, but close enough either way.
Loosely speaking, I do consider it useful to think about whether foods are things humans have been eating (somewhere) for centuries and millennia while thriving long enough to breed, because they're sort of natural-selection validated. That doesn't mean I never eat things that are new.
If "modern-ness" of foods matters at a population level in health and bodyweight, I think the factors that matter are the tendency for more more food products (and even a few so-called "traditional foods") to be more calorie-dense, less nutrient-dense, and less sating, so it's easier to over-eat them, compared to longer-term historical food choices. Changes (reductions) in daily life movement even just since my childhood (1950s-1960s) are dramatic, and are also a factor in population average health and body weight. (I'd consider changes in average eating habits since then quite significant, too; but the difference in that time span as not as dramatic IMO as the movement changes.)5 -
This is my new favorite show, thanks!!!That's very true! I might should say the average" person of means". It was just a fun history article, and I can't find it now.. It was actually referencing a household management book that was advising what to buy per person for the week. I'm the one that divided it per day and said "some meat and veg"...the book said around 50 oz each of chicken and beef per week,( so 7.1428 oz chicken and 7.1248 oz beef per person day),but that if fish, puddings, and veg were bought that would decrease the amount of meat needed. It also said to buy 4.5 oz milk per week per person.
I just mentioned it because I assume that would be considered my traditional diet since about 80% of ancestors come from that area, but I could never eat that much bread!:)paperpudding wrote: »I guess they would say I eat imported traditionally for the most part? I try to eat a Mediterranean diet even though I'm American and most of my ancestors are from England/Ireland. I read in an article that the typical British person ate a POUND of bread per day, 8oz potatoes, 2 beers, a couple T butter, 2T sugar, and some meat and vegetables in 1860!
Britain is a varied place - in 1860 people in rural Ireland and people in London may have had quite different staple foods.
I highly doubt the average ( read, not well- off ) person ate the equivalent of 3/4 loaf of bread per day in 1860 (my own standard loaf weighs 650g in total)
Not sure how much beer they would of drunk - for a long time beer was a drink much watered down compared to modern beer.
a couple of spoons of butter and 2 spoons of sugar doesnt sound much and ' some meat and vegetables' means anything - 'some' being such a poorly defined amount.
Not sue what the article was meaning to imply.
Supersizers Go is a fun show, although I'd take it with a grain of salt:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aKwYECKxVw&list=PLE6540D9DCB4A9949.
They eat as if they are in a particular time and place (and social class), usually London area. The one I linked is their Victorian one.
The first one I saw was the Restoration one, and at least in the (better off) class they were pretending to be, it seems like it was super insanely meat heavy. Apparently the Puritans were mocked for eating more vegetables, and at one point they went to a part of the country that was supposed to have more of them and got to eat a more veg-heavy meal and Sue (also from British Baking Show, and a comedian) said something like she actually appreciated the Puritans for the first time, since the amount of meat they'd been eating was making her feel pretty unwell.
The bread would be easier to eat if you were as active as you would have been living back then, perhaps. The insane grain servings (although servings are smaller than many imagine) from the old US pyramid I think was about getting sufficient cals cheaply.
From a slightly earlier period than 1860 (1720 or so), Benjamin Franklin wrote about the beer drinking in London, when he was working at a printing press there (not that people didn't drink heavily in America):
"At my first admission into this printinghouse I took to working at press, imagining I felt a want of the bodily exercise I had been used to in America, where presswork is mixed with composing. I drank only water; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were great guzzlers of beer. On occasion, I carried tip and down stairs a large form of types in each hand, when others carried but one in both hands. They wondered to see, from this and several instances, that the Water-American, as they called me, was stronger than themselves, who drank strong beer! We had an ale-house boy who attended always in the house to supply the workmen. My companion at the press drank every day a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon about six O'clock, and another when he had done his day's work. I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he supposed, to drink strong beer that he might be strong to labor. I endeavored to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread; and, therefore, if he would eat that with a pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer. He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor, an expense I was free from. And thus these poor devils kept themselves always under."
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That sounds like so much fun! I'd like to volunteer for museums, and do something like that if I ever retire .I usually do a week or two of Indigenous eating in November, eating only foods native to N.America, as part of the Decolonizing Diet project that was started a decade or so ago. I always lose a few pounds, probably because of cutting out dairy, eating mostly bison, fish, beans, squash, and corn.. and maple syrup.
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2017/11/eating-great-lakes-decolonizing-diet/kenyonhaff wrote: »So I'm a historical reenactor, so for a weekend event we will eat more or less exactly what our counterparts in 1775 Northern New England ate.
What I can tell you is that it's pretty healthy and delicious in the hands of a decent cook. Stuff like oatmeal, eggs, bread, cheese, vegetables and fruit, stew...a lot of stew. Beer. Coffee and tea. A cookie or two, maybe some apple pie. It's all based on historical recipes, and it's delicious.
Of course, we've also been active. Even if not playing soldier in the field, the kids are playing, the non-military are walking, doing camp chores, sometimes a game of rounders (proto-baseball). Most of us eat more than we would at home and/or work.
What I can tell you is if I do a week long event I eat a lot, but still tend to lose weight in the process.
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I'm on a traditional pleistocene diet. Fruits, green leaves, and the occasional termite i fish out of a mound with a stick. 🦍8
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That sounds like so much fun! I'd like to volunteer for museums, and do something like that if I ever retire .I usually do a week or two of Indigenous eating in November, eating only foods native to N.America, as part of the Decolonizing Diet project that was started a decade or so ago. I always lose a few pounds, probably because of cutting out dairy, eating mostly bison, fish, beans, squash, and corn.. and maple syrup.
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2017/11/eating-great-lakes-decolonizing-diet/kenyonhaff wrote: »So I'm a historical reenactor, so for a weekend event we will eat more or less exactly what our counterparts in 1775 Northern New England ate.
What I can tell you is that it's pretty healthy and delicious in the hands of a decent cook. Stuff like oatmeal, eggs, bread, cheese, vegetables and fruit, stew...a lot of stew. Beer. Coffee and tea. A cookie or two, maybe some apple pie. It's all based on historical recipes, and it's delicious.
Of course, we've also been active. Even if not playing soldier in the field, the kids are playing, the non-military are walking, doing camp chores, sometimes a game of rounders (proto-baseball). Most of us eat more than we would at home and/or work.
What I can tell you is if I do a week long event I eat a lot, but still tend to lose weight in the process.
That's neat. I've always thought it would be fun to do a Thanksgiving with only foods that would have actually been eaten at the so-called first Thanksgiving, and was so happy when Top Chef once did a challenge on that theme. I did manage to do a modified (but extra small) version of it this year, since it ended up just being my sister and me.
When they did Colonial House (and all those other House shows, but that one was the most intriguing in theory), I wished I could do something similar for a week (but not televised, of course). It was frustrating to watch since the people actually selected mostly seemed to have no interest in actually trying to get into the parts. I didn't know people actually did historical reenacting outside of being employed at some location like Williamsburg (or CW stuff, of course). Interesting!1 -
That sounds like so much fun! I'd like to volunteer for museums, and do something like that if I ever retire .I usually do a week or two of Indigenous eating in November, eating only foods native to N.America, as part of the Decolonizing Diet project that was started a decade or so ago. I always lose a few pounds, probably because of cutting out dairy, eating mostly bison, fish, beans, squash, and corn.. and maple syrup.
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2017/11/eating-great-lakes-decolonizing-diet/kenyonhaff wrote: »So I'm a historical reenactor, so for a weekend event we will eat more or less exactly what our counterparts in 1775 Northern New England ate.
What I can tell you is that it's pretty healthy and delicious in the hands of a decent cook. Stuff like oatmeal, eggs, bread, cheese, vegetables and fruit, stew...a lot of stew. Beer. Coffee and tea. A cookie or two, maybe some apple pie. It's all based on historical recipes, and it's delicious.
Of course, we've also been active. Even if not playing soldier in the field, the kids are playing, the non-military are walking, doing camp chores, sometimes a game of rounders (proto-baseball). Most of us eat more than we would at home and/or work.
What I can tell you is if I do a week long event I eat a lot, but still tend to lose weight in the process.
That's neat. I've always thought it would be fun to do a Thanksgiving with only foods that would have actually been eaten at the so-called first Thanksgiving, and was so happy when Top Chef once did a challenge on that theme. I did manage to do a modified (but extra small) version of it this year, since it ended up just being my sister and me.
When they did Colonial House (and all those other House shows, but that one was the most intriguing in theory), I wished I could do something similar for a week (but not televised, of course). It was frustrating to watch since the people actually selected mostly seemed to have no interest in actually trying to get into the parts. I didn't know people actually did historical reenacting outside of being employed at some location like Williamsburg (or CW stuff, of course). Interesting!
Oh that's simple: historical reenactors wouldn't provide enough drama.
In these "put a modern person into a historical situation" shows, they want the people to have conflict, drama, and to a degree hate the situation. It makes for good TV in a mainstream sense. People like to watch drama.
Having a bunch of competent, trained individuals come in and do the same thing just doesn't yield the required moments of conflict, drama, etc.
It's too bad because I really do like watching shows where people demonstrate how to do things properly, how to get along with other people and work together as a team, and adapt to situation, and so on.
And...it's a lot more fun camping and working with people that work hard to reduce drama, to plan ahead of time when possible, work as a team, and generally be awesome.5 -
That sounds like so much fun! I'd like to volunteer for museums, and do something like that if I ever retire .I usually do a week or two of Indigenous eating in November, eating only foods native to N.America, as part of the Decolonizing Diet project that was started a decade or so ago. I always lose a few pounds, probably because of cutting out dairy, eating mostly bison, fish, beans, squash, and corn.. and maple syrup.
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2017/11/eating-great-lakes-decolonizing-diet/kenyonhaff wrote: »So I'm a historical reenactor, so for a weekend event we will eat more or less exactly what our counterparts in 1775 Northern New England ate.
What I can tell you is that it's pretty healthy and delicious in the hands of a decent cook. Stuff like oatmeal, eggs, bread, cheese, vegetables and fruit, stew...a lot of stew. Beer. Coffee and tea. A cookie or two, maybe some apple pie. It's all based on historical recipes, and it's delicious.
Of course, we've also been active. Even if not playing soldier in the field, the kids are playing, the non-military are walking, doing camp chores, sometimes a game of rounders (proto-baseball). Most of us eat more than we would at home and/or work.
What I can tell you is if I do a week long event I eat a lot, but still tend to lose weight in the process.
That's neat. I've always thought it would be fun to do a Thanksgiving with only foods that would have actually been eaten at the so-called first Thanksgiving, and was so happy when Top Chef once did a challenge on that theme. I did manage to do a modified (but extra small) version of it this year, since it ended up just being my sister and me.
When they did Colonial House (and all those other House shows, but that one was the most intriguing in theory), I wished I could do something similar for a week (but not televised, of course). It was frustrating to watch since the people actually selected mostly seemed to have no interest in actually trying to get into the parts. I didn't know people actually did historical reenacting outside of being employed at some location like Williamsburg (or CW stuff, of course). Interesting!
I was thinking of the first Thanksgiving too, and more specifically, cranberries, which I consider inedible without sugar. Here's a reference to them being prepared with sugar in the 1600s:In the 1672 book New England Rarities Discovered author John Josselyn described cranberries, writing:
Sauce for the Pilgrims, cranberry or bearberry, is a small trayling [sic] plant that grows in salt marshes that are overgrown with moss. The berries are of a pale yellow color, afterwards red, as big as a cherry, some perfectly round, others oval, all of them hollow with sower [sic] astringent taste; they are ripe in August and September. They are excellent against the Scurvy. They are also good to allay the fervor of hoof diseases. The Indians and English use them mush, boyling [sic] them with sugar for sauce to eat with their meat; and it is a delicate sauce, especially with roasted mutton. Some make tarts with them as with gooseberries.2 -
Our main protein was venison and I did do a cranberry sauce with it, which ended up not being too tart because I used meat stock, onion, sage, and butter (a cheat) with it. I was going to add maple syrup if needed, but it wasn't -- the savoriness cut the tartness enough, as well as being eaten with the venison.
We weren't particularly strict about the rules, and I made a succotash that included modern corn which would have been quite different from what they had.5 -
I usually have turkey, succotash with hominy, a few other veggies, a wild rice cornbread stuffing, and some cobblers and pecan pie. I do cheat by using chicken eggs and drinking coffee. I haven't eaten venison since I was a kid. After trying it my uncle said, " You just ate Bambi!" haha... I would love to try it again one year at Thanksgiving, though!1
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Our main protein was venison and I did do a cranberry sauce with it, which ended up not being too tart because I used meat stock, onion, sage, and butter (a cheat) with it. I was going to add maple syrup if needed, but it wasn't -- the savoriness cut the tartness enough, as well as being eaten with the venison.
We weren't particularly strict about the rules, and I made a succotash that included modern corn which would have been quite different from what they had.
SOUNDS AMAZING!
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I’d say my diet is eclectic. I’ve been at this for a long time. Someday I’ll get it right. For now I’ll just keep hanging in there like a hair in a biscuit.2
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