The Daily Grind (Grain)
A story of how experimental archeology can get way out of hand
First, a bit of background. One of Peter's particular areas of interest in researching life in the Middle Ages and medieval education is cooking. For the later Middle Ages recreating historically accurate dishes is a little easier because we start to see cook books emerging, such as "A Forme of Cury", the cookbook of the chefs of Richard II of England. For the early Middle Ages it's more difficult to uncover evidence of what people ate, and how it was cooked.
Peter has a particular interest in 11th century England, especially Saxon England. One of the documents he was using for his research had a drawing of a Saxon cobb oven, and he decided that it would be a Good Thing (tm) to build one in his backyard so he could bake Sazon breads and other foods. This is where it all started to go horribly right. In the world of Living Historians/Experimental Archeologists we have this thing called "ground up" projects, where you attempt to research and recreate every stage of a process. So, rather than make a medieval bread recipe and cook it in a gas oven one grows the grain, processes the grain, builds the oven and bakes the bread in the oven.
So, he figured it would be good to grind the grain using a rotary quern. Now, you can't just walk out and buy one of these things. You have to make it yourself. Of course, if you're going to make one, you may as well make it using the medieval tools and methods, right? So, querns were made. A hand quern and a rotary quern, with a mortar and pestle procured for comparative purposes. A stone chisel was hand forged so the right tool would be used to make the quern. Many hours have been spent chipping away, with many more to come. Modern tools were used to make a couple of "quick and dirty" examples, but the eventual aim is to bake a loaf of bread from grain that has been grown in the backyard using medieval agricultural techniques, including hand making the tools used, the grain ground in a handmade quern, and the bread baked in the (as yet incomplete) cobb oven. Medieval education for Days of Knights isn't just about educating others. oft-times it means we have to educate ourselves first, and the heuristic (hands-on) nature of our learning allows us to better communicate that learning to others.
Ideally the plan is to establish the relative efficiency of the different ways of getting to the finished process by measuring how many kilojoules of energy is expended to get a given amount of energy in the form of bread (kilojoules needed to produce 1000 kilojoules of bread). This would help establish a number of things. How important was it to release someone from food production in order to produce a tool or system that would save energy in the long term (a rotary quern, a windmill, harnesses for plough horses and the like)? What quantifiable benefit would be gained in terms of the ability for people to specialise because of technological improvements? How much land of a given yield would it take to support a family? At what point does technology enable farmers to produce sufficient surplus to bring in enough money so they could then buy other goods and services rather than provide them for themselves?
Thus far the project has proved immensely fascinating, and has attracted the attention of others. The Australian Early Medieval Association got word of it, and invited Days of Knights to present a 90 minute session at their 2006 annual conference held at Melbourne University. University academics (including Chairs of Departments) essentially followed the same program we offer vacation care programs and primary schools as they learned how to thresh the stalks, grind the grain, make and finally eat wheaten cakes they had created from the grain. We also were invited to appear at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival 2007's "International Flour Day" held at Federation Square. Thousands saw our stall, and hundreds of festival goers tried their hands at grinding wheat, barley and oats using our querns. The feedback we got from the crowd was absolutely humbling. The sense of satisfaction as you hear the comments and see the looks on the faces of people trying something they never imagined they would have the opportunity to attempt is utterly gratifying.
This is truly on ongoing project that may takes a few years to complete (and there are other projects to work on too!). Medieval education is a never ending process of exploration, discovery andfun.
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Last updated on 21 September, 2007
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