Team Food

We chose to examine the food culture of the Anglo-Saxon period, specifically bread and mead, as these two food items were consumed by nearly everyone at nearly every meal. We baked a loaf of wheat bread and created non-alcoholic mead to give visitors a taste of the period. We made the bread as simple as possible with only 4 ingredients: wheat flour, salt, yeast and water, as this is likely how most bread would have been made during the period. We made the mead with period-accurate ingredients as well, just without the fermentation time. Food culture is an incredibly important aspect of any society as it is how people sustain themselves, so looking at how a society places value on food is important for gaining an insight on how societies and people functioned. For instance, wheat bread was considered to be only for the nobility whilst barley bread was considered as bad as starvation, fit only for the peasantry. It is hypothesized that this is because barley was easier to grow in England’s northern climate, as it grew grew during the warmest time of the year. Wheat additionally required more moist soil to grow. Improper drainage systems could cause wheat production to drown other plants in the area, and causing the soil to be less fertile over time (Banham). many poor farmers were likely to lack the tools and experience required to create the more complex drainage systems required to grow wheat. Thus, wheat bread was a huge commodity and was seen as so valuable that it was used by peasants able to grow it as a tribute to local kings and nobles. The social differences between various breads was so great that  there was no single word for bread. Wheat and barley breads as well as breads used for religious ceremony or feeding animals were entirely separate concepts to the Anglo-Saxons. The differences between the two types of bread have not only provides great insight into agricultural practices of the time period, but also into the social values present within Anglo-Saxon society.

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