Old Time Recipes

So, today we feasted on the Rosemary lamb cobbler I made late last night - it was delicious!! There was only one problem - I should have made two of them.

I have been searching around for old recipe ideas as well as trying to imagine what cooking would have been like a few hundred years ago - how we used to cook with just the basic raw ingredients. Nothing from a tin, a packet or ready made.

They seemed to have eaten a lot of things in pies, with crusts and otherwise wrapped in light pastry like dough. Perhaps this was to conceal poor quality meat or some other mishap, however it does make for a tasty meal! 

Back then there wasn't any sugar, self rising flour, or packets of jello to fluff out a recipe. There was only the pure real flavour of mostly fresh food. The marvelous thing is how great meals were prepared with seemingly limited ingredients - just goes to show how less is more when it comes to food.

There were other vegetables used as well - not the very few that we are accustomed to finding on the supermarket shelves these days - because that's what Big Supermarket has asked their farmers to grow and that is what we are getting.

No, back then there were purple and white carrots, sorrel, beets, celeriac, purslane, a huge variety of herbs everything local, fresh and real. These are some of the so-called 'forgotten' vegetables of today. Many of which have simply gone out of fashion but are no less nutritious and necessary in a balanced diet.

No one worried over GMO, pesticides... got off track there!! They didn't worry about these things, but they worried about others. Life was much the same, as it is now, without the running water and indoor plumbing. 

But what was different about other times and the foods they ate that might be of interest to us now (walking a spiritual path or not) is the wholesomeness. The ingenious combinations of things, the variety of foods used and because you could taste it.

Today I tasted the Rosemary Lamb Cobbler - lamb slow cooked in the oven with garlic, onions and herbs. Cups of carrot, sweet potato and parsnips and a light juice made from the drippings. This all went into a deep pie dish.

Once this was full to nearly over flowing -  I placed a simple dough over the top made from spelt flour, rosemary, baking soda, duck egg, salt and milk. This was dropped in spoonfuls over the meat until it covered the top.

Because everything was cooked before hand except for the crust - it only needed to be in the oven for about 30 minutes or so and then it was done. We all knew it was done because the aroma was divine! It was a full meal in one dish - and it looked like something you would serve in a castle.

Or hopefully a palace... LOL

April

Rosemary Lamb Cobbler