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Zut alors! Archaeologists uncover ‘Heston Blumenthal-style’ feast at 8,000-year-old dig site that proves Brits were the first to eat frogs’ legs - not the French
Discovery close to Stonehenge means that the French - far from being the inventors of the amphibious delicacy - may have stolen it from British cuisine
JOHN HALL Author Biography WEDNESDAY 16 OCTOBER 2013
Francophiles and foodies may want to look away now, for it appears a staple of France’s oft-celebrated cuisine may in fact have been stolen from that perennial punch line of the snooty gastronome - the United Kingdom.
Archaeologists digging at the Mesolithic Blick Mead site, close to Stonehenge in Wiltshire, were shocked to discover the cooked leg of a frog among the charred remains of a fish and beef feast that is believed to have been prepared around 7,000 BC, at the tail end of the last ice age.
The discovery means that the French - far from being the inventors of the amphibious delicacy - are likely to have stolen it from British cuisine at some point in the 8,000 or so years between the Blick Mead banquet and the 12th Century AD - when church records first refer to frogs’ legs being eaten in France.
In fact, far from the primitive diet many would assume Britain’s Mesolithic and women endured, experts have actually compared dining at Blick Mead to a “Heston Blumenthal-style menuâ€.
Among the other delicacies believed to have been consumed at the site were trout, salmon, wild boar, red deer with hazelnuts, steaks of aurochs [the ancestor of domestic cattle], and a dish of fresh blackberries for pudding.
David Jacques, Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology at the University of Buckingham and the leader of the Blick Mead dig, said: “This is significant for our understanding of the way people were living around 5,000 years before the building of Stonehenge and it begs the question - where are the frogs now?â€
Discovery close to Stonehenge means that the French - far from being the inventors of the amphibious delicacy - may have stolen it from British cuisine
JOHN HALL Author Biography WEDNESDAY 16 OCTOBER 2013
Francophiles and foodies may want to look away now, for it appears a staple of France’s oft-celebrated cuisine may in fact have been stolen from that perennial punch line of the snooty gastronome - the United Kingdom.
Archaeologists digging at the Mesolithic Blick Mead site, close to Stonehenge in Wiltshire, were shocked to discover the cooked leg of a frog among the charred remains of a fish and beef feast that is believed to have been prepared around 7,000 BC, at the tail end of the last ice age.
The discovery means that the French - far from being the inventors of the amphibious delicacy - are likely to have stolen it from British cuisine at some point in the 8,000 or so years between the Blick Mead banquet and the 12th Century AD - when church records first refer to frogs’ legs being eaten in France.
In fact, far from the primitive diet many would assume Britain’s Mesolithic and women endured, experts have actually compared dining at Blick Mead to a “Heston Blumenthal-style menuâ€.
Among the other delicacies believed to have been consumed at the site were trout, salmon, wild boar, red deer with hazelnuts, steaks of aurochs [the ancestor of domestic cattle], and a dish of fresh blackberries for pudding.
David Jacques, Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology at the University of Buckingham and the leader of the Blick Mead dig, said: “This is significant for our understanding of the way people were living around 5,000 years before the building of Stonehenge and it begs the question - where are the frogs now?â€
Independent
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