#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.

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What we talked about:

• What we ate
• A lovely review from a listener
• Why talk about a week of meals?
• An incredible download for supporters, contributed to by supporters!
• The beauty of the mundane
• Where our concept of mealtimes came from
• Alison's upper-class menu style
• Alison's notes on her menu: low histamine, gluten-free, and more
• Andrea's notes on her menu: winter fare, gluten-free, an outdoor week
• Our week in meals, alternating days
• The most common concerns listeners had about their menus
• Sharing samples from some listener menus
• Supporters can visit the private podcast, Kitchen Table Chats, to see the aftershow for this episode and hear more from the listener menus.

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If you love the show, leave us a 5* reviews on Apple Podcasts:

1. Open the Apple Podcast app and find Ancestral Kitchen Podcast in your library
2. Scroll down to 'ratings and reviews', click on 'write a review', give us 5*s and then tell us why you love listening

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Resources:

• Supporters can download A Treasury of Ancestral Menus, Volume I in the downloads section today!
• The Evolution of Mealtimes
• Why and How to Study Food History - hour long YouTube lecture
• The Little-Known Evolution of Lunch
• The Regency Town House: Mealtimes
• Megan's Ranch Seasoning
• Sending in a menu? Include how many adults/children (and the children's ages!), any special dietary needs, and roughly where you are in the world (country/state or major city if you like), and Firstname/Last initial. Any other details you feel are pertinent such as sourcing, what you grew, special processing info or food prep, is all delightful and adds to much color! Photographs and recipes or instructions are welcomed. We are most interested in the menu you actually ate, not the menu that was planned - it's what actually ends up happening that tells us our story! We cannot guarantee your menu will be used in a future volume, and we are honored to receive it regardless! Volumes may be available for sale in the future and submitting information implies you consent to your material being included. Menus can be sent to info@ancestralkitchen.com.

Do you have memories, documents, recipes or stories of those who cooked ancestrally? Visit our website here for how to share

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The podcast is mixed and the music created by Alison's husband, Rob. Find him here: Robert Michael Kay