Forage, Feast & Famine

A panoramic geological, archaeological and nutritional history of the Cumbrian landscape; the natural dietary rescources that landscape yielded and mankind’s reponse and the lengths he has gone to secure food from it. From the first neolithic hunter-gatherers chasing reindeer and elk in the receding ice age whilst foraging from the bounteous cornucopia of native nuts and seeds, and on through the earliest technological revolutions and advances in animal domestication that spurred the eventual taming and cultivation of the land into permanent dwelling places for entire communities of agrarian societies.

Detailed historial and archaelogical evidence records the impact of swathes of migrants, invaders and conquering peoples on the land – Celtic, Roman, Norse and Norman – and their ultimate influence on the procuring of provisions for the table. Also featured are a variety of ostentatious recipes from Roman ‘dinner parties’, ‘never since equalled in sensual overindulgence and tireless gluttony’; and Norman and medieval sources.