Cheapo Meals: Tinned Tomatoes on Toast

March 14, 2023 Eleanor Scott

Half a can of tomatoes on toast, with seasoning (salt and black pepper) and a sprinkle of dried mixed herbs, that could cost as little as 20p - good news for students and fieldwork cooks

The 16th century acquisition of the versatile tomato from Mesoamerica influenced the culinary direction of travel in the Mediterranean world, wider Europe and Asia, once collectors and traders learned the full value this exotic plant. Tomatoes remain inexpensive and versatile - and tinned (canned) tomatoes on toast is a very cheap meal indeed. If you need or want to eat healthily for pennies not pounds, read on.

Cheapo Meals: Sardines on Toast

February 25, 2023 Eleanor Scott

If you eat fish, sardines on toast is probably the healthiest, cheapest meal to make. Bread and sardines may have been Roman peasant grub, but it was a necessary staple and kept the poor buggers fit enough to work the fields and the sea. Sardines powered empires.

Cheapo Meals: Eggs on Toast

February 6, 2023 Eleanor Scott

What will become of our adoration of the humble egg? The ancient and venerable egg. The valuable egg. The protein-packed, delicious egg. The versatile egg. The beautiful egg.

Humble Mushrooms - Are They Worth It?

December 8, 2022 Eleanor Scott

I’m having a look at the ‘things on toast’ genre. Basic though they may be, things on toast (or dietary alternatives) can be pretty cheap, flexible and easy to make. I’ve always got one eye on a key market - students, volunteers, and those having to cook during fieldwork trips on tight and diminishing budgets in challenging conditions.

Are 30p Meals Really Possible, Including Hidden Costs? No, Not Really

November 14, 2022 Eleanor Scott

Mmmmm. Assorted cheap ingredients that parliamentarians don’t eat. Students and fieldwork volunteers might though. I ate them so you don’t have to. Although you probably do have to, because we’re all broke now.

Food is political. ‘Lee’s 30p meals’ still occasionally trends on Twitter. Sometimes it’s ‘Lee’s 10p meals’. Lee Anderson - quite a big fella himself - is the daftie Conservative MP who decided that the British people could live on meals that cost just 30 pennies per person. Apparently he saw it done at a food bank kitchen - completely ignoring the facts of food donations, the massive aconomies of scale and the energy costs - and now he has visions of the impoverished doing the same. Student or budget setter, cook or parent, this is the new narrative of aspiration. Trouble is, ‘30p Lee’ is an idiot.

Pickled Vegetables and Coleslaw - Low carb & Healthy

July 14, 2018 Eleanor Scott

Whether preparing food on a dig, during other fieldwork activities, or at home, chopped and dressed vegetables are a flexible dish, simple to make, easy to store in tubs, and they tick all the boxes for all eating requirements - vegan, gluten-free and low-carb. Importantly, the acetic acid in the vinegar can help to avoid blood glucose 'spikes' in people with, for example, Type 2 diabetes; and the vegetables that are used are easy to store in boxes in the shade till needed by the fieldwork kitchen. Use as a side dish, as a replacement for something else (eg potatoes), a starter, or a snack.

Fieldwork Food and Diabetes

June 18, 2018 Eleanor Scott

Welcome to the 2018 season of posts about inclusive fieldwork food for volunteers, students and staff on archaeological digs and fieldwork projects.

I'll be writing a lot this season about the sorts of meals that are good for fieldwork volunteers, students and staff who need a low carb diet - people who have diabetes, pre-diabetes, iatrogenic high blood glucose (eg on some thyroid treatments) or otherwise needing to monitor blood glucose levels. It's not a rare issue; and, with the rapidly changing demographic and the fee-paying expectations of archaeology volunteers and students, it's not one that is going to go away. Plus, in my view, no-one should be dissuaded from participating in fieldwork because of having a diabetic condition.

A Week of Fieldwork Recipes - Vegan, Gluten-Free And Type2-Friendly

October 24, 2017 Eleanor Scott

This blog piece is part of a series that explores the relationship between food, well-being and inclusion in the field. It focuses on 7 actual main meals that can be cooked in basic field conditions, as well as sides dishes and desserts. The key thing about these meals is that they are all vegan and gluten-free and Type2-friendly, and can be cooked in challenging conditions such as on a Dig. In other words, the Dig Cook doesn't have to be cooking lots of separate meals. It's a broad brush overview of what can be achieved, on a budget, to make sure that something that every participant in fieldwork has to do several times a day - eat - is not only physically sustaining them but also supporting their sense of well-being and belonging. It's also about making a rainbow of inclusive food that looks like you want to eat it and will be satisfied by it in a fieldwork setting.

Dig Food Series: It's Vegan, Gluten-free & Type2-friendly - Prep & Store Cupboard

October 9, 2017 Eleanor Scott

**Gram flour loaf with black olives, toasted with tomatoes, mushrooms, vegan cheese - olive oil and parsley optional**

So the pre-Dig registration questionnaires are back. Someone in the supervisory team is collating the 'dietary needs' section. They've gone quiet; finally they mutter, 'So we've got thirty meats, five vegetarians, four vegans, three gluten-frees, someone's diabetic, and Alice on Small Finds says if we ever feed her beetroot again she won't be responsible for her actions'. The Dig Cook's thinking 'We're gonna need a bigger kitchen'. The Director's thinking, 'We just can't cater for that range of needs'. The bigger kitchen is rarely possible; and the latter is really sad, and it really happens.

But it is actually possible to perform a neat trick and to make decent meals on a dig or in a fieldwork setting that are vegetarian and vegan and gluten-free and compatible with eating plans recommended for people with Type 2 diabetes. And I think it is increasingly worth knowing how do this, as an inclusive response to that pre-Dig gathering of information through the registration process. In fact, it's food that everyone can enjoy and benefit from.

Archaeological Dig Food - Vegan Special

August 16, 2017 Eleanor Scott

I've never yet been on a dig where there wasn't at least one vegetarian or vegan. And there's always been a tedious ass-hat trying to wind them up - and that really needs to bite the dust. Volunteers and staff members on excavations are increasingly requesting vegetarian food, or vegan food, or - for medical reasons - food that is gluten-free, or lactose-free, or low in sugar. And good on them. People who choose to try to care for the planet in this way and look after their own health should be welcomed in my book, not excluded or derided.

Please Feed the Archaeologists (Recipes 4 All)

August 2, 2017 Eleanor Scott

Dig food is dig fuel - never underestimate its importance for powering an excavation. If you're gesticulating at a massive Iron Age bank that you want to be quickly sectioned, and your workers aren't getting fed properly because they're supposedly 'fussy eaters' (e.g. vegetarian), that's not a dig - it's a shambles.

Of course conditions for cooking on digs can be difficult and cramped, with limited facilities and storage space - but it can be done, and done well. Everything pictured here was cooked in basic conditions, without food processing gadgets and measuring scales - and if you like the look of anything in a photo, the recipes are at the end of the page or they'll appear in my next blog post next week.

Excavation Challenges - Food, Fieldwork and Difference

July 20, 2017 Eleanor Scott

**Hazel Riley, professional archaeologist - and the best dig cook I ever knew. Castell Henllys, Pembrokeshire, early 1980s. Big dig, small kitchen.**

Food is essential, food is emotional and food is political. I think that the dig director who doesn’t ‘get’ this is seriously missing a trick. It’s especially puzzling to me that there are archaeologists who can’t apparently see the connection between food, bodily autonomy and corporeality once they’re directing a dig. Food and cooking, and sharing in that process and caring about the results, are things that can bring people together – and very often a difficult fieldwork day can be made bearable through eating well and being in good company. It can be a therapeutic process. Food preparation can and should be about inclusion and not about ‘difficulty’. If well managed, food and cooking on digs can help to strip away the inaccessibility of the world (and attitudes) for many potential participants. It really isn’t that hard to do.

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