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Did Ancient Scots Nibble on Roasted Rodents?


Claire.

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Rodents may have been on the menu in ancient Scotland.

Ancient villagers on the U.K. archipelago of Orkney likely dined on food items we’d consider luxuries today: venison, oysters, crab, mussels, cod, and … voles? A group of researchers says it’s possible that these resourceful Neolithic people did not turn up their noses when roasted rodent was on the menu. Their finding—based on pits full of singed vole carcasses in the ancient village of Skara Brae (above) unearthed in the late 1970s—would make this the first evidence for rodent-eating in Neolithic Europe, scientists report this week in Royal Society Open Science.

Read more: Science

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Food is food and if that is what was available, in those days, they would have eaten it. Not too surprising, meat is meat and if they encountered death from certain plants in that region, then a rodent would have seemed like a safer option.

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11 minutes ago, Cat_From_Hell said:

Indeed they may have, Anything was preferable to a deep fried Mars Bar, Even back then.

I had to google that.  Well i suppose them eating rats is very plausible back in those days, if after time this is what they come up with:

 

A deep-fried Mars bar is an ordinary Mars bar normally fried in a type of batter commonly used for deep-frying fish, sausages, and other battered products. 
 
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To be fair I expect a lot of us ate rodents back then or anything with a bit of meat on it, I wouldn't have been fussy I can imagine, "What's for tea tonight, mum"  " Rats in a tomato and basil sauce with some lovely penne" "yum, Any garlic bread?"

Edited by Cat_From_Hell
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1 hour ago, Cat_From_Hell said:

To be fair I expect a lot of us ate rodents back then or anything with a bit of meat on it, I wouldn't have been fussy I can imagine, "What's for tea tonight, mum"  " Rats in a tomato and basil sauce with some lovely penne" "yum, Any garlic bread?"

I am not sure about this CFH, i would much prefer the pasta shells.

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This is one of those research things that an expert would triumphantly claim to have confirmed and all I could do would be to nod politely and think that it was really something I would have assumed without a great deal of support being required.

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There is still a sect in India who,to this day, subsist mainly on roasted rats.  

Sorry, I've forgotten their name.

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4 minutes ago, aquatus1 said:

This is one of those research things that an expert would triumphantly claim to have confirmed and all I could do would be to nod politely and think that it was really something I would have assumed without a great deal of support being required.

Yep...i reckon we all agree on that one, so because of that, we have moved on to pasta.

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6 minutes ago, Cat_From_Hell said:

Of course they had pasta shells but they were fossilized.

Fossilized pasta shells.....hmm, deep fried? maybe this is where the mars bar thing came about.

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We had fossilized deep-fried pasta shells in the Navy.  Hot dogs too.  Heck, we had deep-fried ravioli.

If you could fit it in an industrial deep-fryer, we had it.

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Id imagine the ancients would have eaten ANYTHING when hungry.... whats the surprise about that?

I mean here in the UK.....we even eat doner kebabs after the pubs  :lol:

 

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Greenland's Inuit eat fermented birds called auks. This delicacy is kiviak. You catch as many auks as possible, sew them in seal skin and bury the seal skin for 7 months. After 7 months, you dig up the seal skin and eat the fermented auks as a winter time snack.

If given a choice between kiviak or roasted rodents, I'll eat the roasted rodent.

Edited by Charles2
I didn't define the word kiviak.
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Why not? Ancient and modern Andeans dine on guinea pig.

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One eats what is available. Supposedly all mammals may be eaten when cooked, with the exception of Polar Bear liver which is so high in vitamin A it is is toxic. Rodents are eaten in many parts of the world, I've known people that eat squirrel, but I've not had the, er, privilege. 

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i am sure rat was on the menu of all ancient people and still is on the menu of some groups today.

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On 10/21/2016 at 10:27 AM, aquatus1 said:

This is one of those research things that an expert would triumphantly claim to have confirmed and all I could do would be to nod politely and think that it was really something I would have assumed without a great deal of support being required.

you have to get your research funds for doing something.

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The ancient everyone ate whatever they could get their hands on. Its not like they could hop on over to the local grocery store and buy food.

What is depressing is that humans today are still as atavistic as ever. Go to the meat, seafood departments it's utterly disgusting.

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1 hour ago, Nzo said:

The ancient everyone ate whatever they could get their hands on. Its not like they could hop on over to the local grocery store and buy food.

What is depressing is that humans today are still as atavistic as ever. Go to the meat, seafood departments it's utterly disgusting.

You don't like meat?

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On 10/21/2016 at 11:27 AM, aquatus1 said:

This is one of those research things that an expert would triumphantly claim to have confirmed and all I could do would be to nod politely and think that it was really something I would have assumed without a great deal of support being required.

I agree.   I need to find the funding so I can prove that ancient Scots drank water from creeks.

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Eat whatever is available? Doesn't surprise me a bit. I'm sure there were no 'Eck!' factor when it came to hunger.

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Rabbits and Squirrels are part of the rodent family. Tasty when baked with BBQ sauce.

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