Recreating 16th Century Beer with Susan Flavin & Marc Meltonville

The British Food History Podcast

Today Neil talks to Susan Flavin and Marc Meltonville about recreating as close as possible beer from the accounts of Dublin Castle right at the end of the 16th century. This investigation is part of a much larger project called Food Cult, which is, according to their website “a five-year project funded by the European Research Council. This project brings together history, archaeology, science and information technology to explore the diet and foodways of diverse communities in early modern Ireland. It will serve as a model for future comparative and interdisciplinary work in the field of historical food studies.”

In today’s episode we talk about the Food Cult project, the aims of the beer project, misconceptions about beer and beer drinking in the past, when beer becomes porridge, how to source 16th century ingredients and – of course – what the beer tasted like!

Follow Susan Flavin on Twitter @flavin_susan

Follow Marc on Instagram @marcmeltonville

Marc Meltonville’s website: www.meltonville.uk/

The FOOD CULT website: https://foodcult.eu/

Their journal article: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/article/understanding-early-modern-beer-an-interdisciplinary-casestudy/76C118F73B8D35FED9E5B69CB3E966FB

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Other bits:

Neil’s new blog post ‘Forgotten Foods #10: Porpoise’: http://britishfoodhistory.com/2023/06/25/forgotten-foods-10-porpoise/

Neil’s blogs:

‘BritishFood: a History’ http://britishfoodhistory.com

‘Neil Cooks Grigson’ http://neilcooksgrigson.com

Buy Before Mrs Beeton: Elizabeth Raffald, England’s Most Influential Housekeeper at your favourite bookshop, or from the publisher Pen & Sword History: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Before-Mrs-Beeton-Hardback/p/22437

Neil’s other book A Dark History of Sugar is available now from all bookshops as wellas from the publisher Pen & Sword: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/A-Dark-History-of-Sugar-Hardback/p/20481

Don’t forget there will be postbag episodes, so if you have any questions or queries about today’s episode, or indeed any episode, or have a question about the history of British food please email Neil at [e-mail], or find me on twitter @neilbuttery, or Instagram dr_neil_buttery my DMs are open. You can now find me at Mastodon too: @[e-mail].

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