#132 - A Week of Ancestral Meals: what we really ate

What was the last thing you ate? This is the question we always begin our podcast episodes with. The reason is because we always want to know what the other is fixing and cooking! What’s going on in your kitchen these days? What’s fresh and good? One of our earliest episodes recounts everything in our refrigerators at the moment! That was a lot of fun to record.Part of what drives this interest in what we are eating is developing the ideas and understanding of what a day in the life of ancestral food looks like in a world where you may be the only person you know who is eating anything like an ancestral or ancestrally inspired diet. A world where once upon a time it would have been the norm to eat this way, but now you are trying to create a life, habits, rolling tasks, completely on your own, and without the benefit of examples from your childhood or the people around you or expert cooks who live nearby and can give suggestions and show you a good way to use up chicken carcasses or how to feed a lot of small children filling food day after day. And another reason why is - there is something intangible we learn when we travel to a place, stay in a home and break bread with someone. It is an intimate communion that tells us something about that person.For this episode, we decided to track our meals for an entire week so you could see the shape of them - where some were more interesting, some were new and exciting, and others were leftovers, scraps, things we were just trying to use up. An ancestral diet is often made up of the mundane and simple, but exquisite foods. Pure in their sourcing, flavour, freshness but simple in their preparation and humble in their serving.To create a supporter bonus, I reached out to our supporter community and asked if they were willing to contribute a week of their meals as well, to be published as an accompanying booklet to the episode. The incredible booklet for podcast supporters that accompanies this episode includes at last count 50 pages with about 20 delicious menus, real menus made by families eating ancestral and home prepared meals ranging in size from empty nesters to 7 children in the home, including a special weekend with 12 children to be fed!There is also an aftershow - we wanted to go over some details from these contributed menus and we were really pushing the limit on podcast length so we continued recording some of those discussions as an aftershow which supporters can find in the podcast feed. Now without further ado, let’s find out what is on the menu in ancestral homes today.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Sign up to the pod's newsletter here.Get a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient GrainsRead our Guide to Milling Your Own FlourGet all three of the podcast cookbooksWear our beautiful, sustainable merchandiseAlison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The BasicsAlison's Sowans oat fermentation courseVisit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop: US here and UK here.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Come join the podcast community! You can select from a variety of levels with benefits including monthly live calls, a private podcast feed stuffed with bonus content, and a Discord discussion group Find out more here!* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *What we talked about:What we ateA lovely review from a listenerWhy talk about a week of meals?An incredible download for supporters, contributed to by supporters!The beauty of the mundaneWhere our concept of mealtimes came fromAlison's upper-class menu styleAlison's notes on her menu: low histamine, gluten-free, and moreAndrea's notes on her menu: winter fare, gluten-free, an outdoor week