Re:The curse of the potato
by tgflynn on Saturday April 30, 2016 @11:12AM
(#11601978)
Do we have good information on what the crop distributions were in Ireland prior to 1492 (I assume that's how they define "pre-colonial") ? I wonder how this could really be determined anywhere. I wouldn't think there would be enough archaeological evidence to determine this with much accuracy and it seems unlikely written records from that period would have given sufficient detail either.
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They actually have a pretty good idea of what they ate. Interesting article on it here:
http://www.ravensgard.org/prdunham/irishfood.html
The TLDR of their diet is "mostly pottage and soups, heavy on meat and dairy. Some oats and barley were grown, but a lot of that ended up being made into alcoholic beverages."
Re:The curse of the potato
by danieltillett on Saturday April 30, 2016 @07:03PM
(#11604047)
Alcoholic beverages have the advantage of making contaminated water drinkable without losing much in the way of calories in the original grain. A really clever solution to a problem of how to avoid dysentery when your water supply is not safe to drink.