HOW PEOPLE ATE in Moray during the Bronze Age will feature in a talk at the Elgin Museum next week, organised as part of the Castle to Cathedral to Cashmere project.
The talk by Mary Shand will focus on food, cooking and tastes and how they changed in Moray from the Bronze Age until the Victorian Era when mushrooms, brambles and fruit were considered to be ‘fast food’ rather than the burgers and fried chicken of modern times.
Mary will use four Elgin Museum exhibits as time points for her free of charge talk, the Roseisle Man for Bronze Age, Birnie finds for Iron Age and Roman time, and the Medieval cases and Victoria Display for their respective eras.
During her talk she will look at the kinds of food and drink available to people in Moray during these periods and how people prepared their food.
The Elgin-based retired primary school teacher said: “Food would have been seasonal and fresh with mushrooms, brambles and fruits abundant when in season but winters would have been lean with few means of preserving fresh food.
“Some cooking utensils and methods would be familiar to us today while others would seem outlandish.
“Food and drink are the basics of life whichever era you look at – what our ancestors ate, how they prepared their food and the customs surrounding eating and drinking are of huge interest and can teach us about modern day consumption into the bargain.”
Mary’s talk will take place at 2.30pm on Friday, January 29 in the Elgin Museum.