Upcoming Class – Junk Foods: Archeological Dumpster Diving

At the upcoming Atlantian (SCA) Virtual University in February, I will be teaching a class called Junk Foods: Archeological Dumpster Diving.

I intend this class to be a basic overview of looking at archeological finds (middens, cesspits, human remains, in particular). I’m approaching this as someone who is not formally trained in any way in archeology but how we can use the research that is published by those who are to further our knowledge of the diets of people living in the medieval and early modern time periods. And how we can apply this creatively to our SCA re-creations.

My plan is to do some basic archeology terminology review, some of the interesting testing of remains and what they can tell us. And then have a few specific examples of journals published on archeological finds and how we can use those to expand our knowledge. When it comes to food research we aren’t limited by the written recipe texts but can learn a lot from what these people left behind in their trash, in their latrines, and in their bones.

I’ll also give an example of how I have used historic and archeological records creatively in the SCA context for creating a bread recipe, which my husband has lovingly dubbed “Roman Poop Bread,” which thankfully tastes better than it has been named.

If you are interested, this class will be held virtually on Google Meet. You don’t have to be a member of the SCA to attend; however, they do require that folks register online before they provide the links/login info for the classes.

There are also tons of other very interesting classes being offered at this February 2021 session!

Here is the link to the course catalog: https://university.atlantia.sca.org/catalog.php