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Holiday Series: The Cuisine of My Ancestors

Monday, November 24, 2025 0:01

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I had a lot of fun doing last year’s Christmas series, Christmas Songs of My Ancestors. One of my hobbies is genealogy, and exploring my family tree from a cultural point of view is really interesting. Earlier this year, I found this book at the public library . . .

Uhtred’s Feast: Inside the World of the Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell. If you haven’t seen The Last Kingdom TV series but like historical adventure, I definitely recommend it. It was based on the book series, which I’ve also read and enjoyed. (If you like historical fiction, anything by Bernard Cornwell is highly recommended.) When I saw this book on the library shelf, I immediately picked it up. It contains short stories and recipes from the time period of The Last Kingdom, the Saxon era of England. It interested me because I have Saxon ancestors. The idea for a cultural cuisine research project grew from there.

My research goal this year has been to find and make authentic recipes from each of my genealogical culture groups, focusing on the time period in which they show up on my family tree.

Here’s the genealogical timeline I’ve been working with:

American: from the early 1600s (New England) to present (Midwest, except me who’s been in the Southeast for decades.)
Native American: 1600s
Irish: 1800s
German: 1400s to 1700s (I learned this year about this one)
English: 1200s to 1500s
Norman: 1000s to 1100s
Viking: 700s to 900s
Saxon: 400s to 1000s
Celtic: prior to the Roman and Saxon invasions, all the way back to who knows when. They aren’t considered the original inhabitants of Britain, but that’s as far back as I could go.

My research for this project focused on the regions of these peoples and the foods they ate. In planning the meals, I looked for traditional regional recipes. My goal was to use as many original ingredients and I could source, with an emphasis on ingredients that I can grow too. My cooking methods are modern slow-cooking ones.

Thanks to the internet, I’ve been able to find quite a few recipes from the time periods I’m looking at. When I couldn’t, I had to settle for modern but regionally traditional recipes.

I tried to choose recipes that focus on ingredients that can also be grown in my part of the world. But for the sake of authentic flavor, I was willing to buy additional ingredients as well. Even so, there were some things that I couldn’t find at my local grocery stores. For these, I made reasonable substitutions.

This project appealed to several of my interests: genealogy, cooking, cultural studies, and lifestyles that have a stronger relationship with nature than with technology. One happy lesson has been combining available foods in new-to-me ways, such as blueberries in stew and using cream in sauces and gravies.

Anyway, my plan is to publish one “Cuisine of My Ancestors” post every 3 or 4 days or so until around Christmas. I hope you enjoy them.

Holiday Series: The Cuisine of My Ancestors

Source: https://www.5acresandadream.com/2025/11/holiday-series-cuisine-of-my-ancestors.html

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