Pity the chef. With only rudimentary cooking implements, including a hot rock, some scraps of animal skin, and stones for pounding, cutting, and grinding, their hands must have been a mess. According to research published this week, they had access to a smrgsbord of ingredients.
Neanderthals are no longer stereotyped of tearing into raw tuber or gnawing on a leg of roasted animal meat. The first real indication of food culture among Neanderthals has been provided by the analysis of ancient food scraps found in a cave in Iraq.
How easy was it to cook a Neanderthal meal? I found out on a rainy day in Bristol.
According to Dr Ceren Kabukcu, who carried out the analysis, a typical dish would probably have contained a pounded pulp of pulse, nuts and grass seeds bound together with water and flavoured with bitter tannins from the seed coats of pulse.
It must have been a long process. Prof Chris Hunt said that the Neanderthals would have gathered whatever they came across and cooked with it.
I have access to several health food shops and a Turkish mini-mart within a short distance of my house. Commercial raw pistachios and puy lentils were acceptable replacements for terebinth.
A half-empty packet of fava beans was tucked away at the back of the house.
Combining dried beans or peas with an ancient whole grain such as spelt or wheat berries would be a good idea. Neanderthals used wild almonds and mustard seeds in their cooking.
Hunt counseled against salt. The Neanderthals didn't have easy access to salt in the region and had to cross the mountains to get it. They may have gotten their salt from eating the flesh of animals.
The beans, lentils and grains all need to be soaked in. Hunt said to use a leather pouch. A leather pouch is owned by an archeologist. I thought about using an old shoe and a piece of artificial leather. I was reassured that Neolithic wooden bowls might have been a thing.
My mind went to pounding as my ingredients were soaked and softened. The researchers used local limestone to pound and grind their ingredients at their excavation site in Iraq. The results were rather tough.
I wanted to make sure the integrity of my teeth. It took a great deal of effort to grind the ingredients together.
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I used a mixture of beige-brown and water to make a coarse sludge, which I carried outside to my fire pit and shaped into thin patties on top of a large rock.
Sheltering under an umbrella while regretting not having access to a cave, I cooked my patties until they were golden brown and I was convinced the insides were heated through. There are toxins in some beans that need to be destroyed through cooking.
The result was nutty, with a bit of bitterness, but also a lot of flavours from the pulse, with a dash of mustard seeds in the mix. It could have been better if there had been some salt and a fried egg on top, but it was still good enough for me to finish the entire patty.
I don't know what the Neanderthals drank.
A bunch of dried fava beans, along with similar amounts of puy lentils and wheat berries, are soaked overnight. After rinsing in clean water, pound these ingredients into a rough puree. Each of the almonds and pistachios have their skins on, so add a generous amount. Add enough water to bind these ingredients into a paste that can be shaped into patties with your hands.
If you want to cook the patties close to a fire, put them on any flat surface. Use a hot flat stone in a fire for a more authentic experience. An alternative is a frying pan. The patties should not stick to the nuts. It's Neanderthals!
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