A LIVING HISTORY BLOG.

18TH CENTURY LIVING HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA.

Friday 21 May 2010

Trail foods and survival foods. Sunflowers.


Sunflower seeds were being eaten by the woodland Indians at least 3000 years ago. The seeds were sometimes cooked whole, hulls included and added to other foods. Finding primary information on the preparation processes has not been easy, so I have had to turn to experimental archaeology. Modern information sais that it is not good to eat the hulls raw, because they can damage you insides.
We do know though that seeds were ground for making bread. I tried using my mortar and pestle to remove the hulls without damaging the seeds, and it worked!




After grinding the seeds in their hulls gently for a while, I tipped the contents into a bowl and added cold water. The hulls floated to the surface leaving the seeds at the bottom of the bowl. The hulls were easily removed from the surface of the water.




Three original grinding stones for grinding grains/seeds.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

thanks again keith,i like the old mortor stones..

Keith said...

Yes I like the mortar stones too Grimbo, there is something very precious about them. I have read that because they were heavy, they were often left at the camp site, but turned over so they just looked like rocks. Something to bear in mind when you are wandering the woods. There may not have been Indians in England, but it has a rich history of native cultures.