Study of Ireland's historic consumption of dairy and cereals
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THE remarkably low consumption of meat and more particularly fish in historical dietary patterns in Ireland have been outlined in a recently published article in .
Professor Muiris O’Sullivan (University College Dublin), and Liam Downey, former Director of Teagasc and Adjunct Professor of Archaeology at UCD, traced the food consumption trends from the earliest times.
They noted that milk (butter and cheese) and cereals (bread and porridge) were the main food products consumed by the general population from prehistoric times, through the medieval period, and into recent centuries.
“From pre-history, cattle production was the prominent dimension of agriculture in Ireland. The vast bulk of the cattle population consisted of cows.
“The preoccupation with dairy cows is reflected in the prime importance of milk and dairy products in the general diet,” the article states.
The prominence of cereals as a mainstay of the general diet from pre-historic times is evident from the proliferation of upward of 1,000 quern-stones, according to the writers.
They also note that Ireland had a thriving arable economy for most of the early medieval period. The production of cereals appears to have increased in importance from the eighth century.
Meat in substantial amounts would have been produced from the cattle production systems commonly practised in Ireland in former times.
Fresh meat was a luxury mainly consumed by the nobility; salted meat was reserved for the highest grades of commoners.
At its core, the diet of peasants and commoners consisted mainly of prima facie cereals and dairy products. Meat was also a part, albeit minor, of their diet.
The article records that medieval Ireland had a rich and diverse range of fish species. Yet, the abundance of freshwater fish and sea fish appears not to have been matched by the consumption of fish.
Fruit and vegetables, both wild and cultivated species, were supplements to the general diet. Many varieties of fruit were eaten by peasants and commoners.
The increasing cultivation of the potato as a field crop from the 1600s/1700s onwards set the stage for a change in the common diet.
Little meat was consumed in general. Butter was eaten in some locations with bread and oatmeal, or it may have been sold at the market. Those living near the sea or rivers would have eaten fish to varying degrees.
While the emergence of the potato-dependent diet was well in train in the 1800s, it did not become dominant sooner than the late eighteenth century or even the nineteenth century.
Limited evolution of the general diet in earlier times was changed radically from the post-medieval period onwards by the countrywide adoption of the potato, combined with the growing exports of food products.
The potato became the keystone of the common diet, supplemented by milk, herrings, and oatmeal. Before the Famine, meat and fish were eaten only in tiny quantities.
Despite the limited range of food products commonly consumed, the article concludes that the historical dietary patterns could have supplied much of the main nutrient requirements of the general population, subject to perennial seasonal food shortages and, indeed periodic famines.
