Food & Diet of 1630 Scotland
Glendora Andre
Introduction and Bylaws
Interpretive
Clothing
Scottish Culture
History
Music and Dance
Military Life
Language
Bibliography, Sources
and Library Materials
"A bad harvest and the hunger that followed it invariably made recruiting easier... poverty and hunger produced the most recruits...(who enlisted) in the hope of having enough to live on." During a famine in France in 1694, the enlistment premium was a little over 6 livres. Two years later, when food prices returned to normal, the enlistment payment had to increase to 41 livres to attract recruits.
Harvest failure was a real risk all through the end of the 16th and 17th centuries. There is evidence of an appalling famine in parts of southern Scotland in 1623. Famine was a continual threat, not only due to crop failure, but also seasonal and regional availability. Death came from starvation and the diseases related to poor nutrition.
The climate was not generally favorable to crops in much of Scotland. "Bear (barley) and small oats are the common produce of Skie, but the land is too wet to ripen them to perfection and the produce of the crops is very rarely in any degree proportioned to the wants of the inhabitants: the years of famine are 10 to 1." Substitute crops were neither available, nor affordable after a crop failure. For the crops that survived, at least 1/3 of the grain had to be saved for next year's planting.
Worse yet, much of the best agricultural land lay at the mercy of the English armies. Possibly union with England in 1707 contributed to a more stable food supply.
Even in good years, several circumstances limited to type a quality of food available. The agricultural system was below standard, even for the time. Crops were unfertilized, undrained, and choked with weeds. Ideas of proper planting dates were so arbitrary crops were often killed by frost before maturing. Land was farmed in unconnected patches with no crop rotation. Cows were so undernourished that they calved only every few years. Tenants also stayed on the land "at the pleasure of the lord of the soil,: a system which discouraged land improvements.
The distribution systems, or lack of them were an additional restriction. Roads were inadequate, or nonexistent, and limited by the firths which divided the landscape. In the Highlands, produce was transported in sacks on horseback, sledges, or woman-back. Carts with tumbrel wheels (solid wood) were not in general use until the 1760's. The food supply was therefore limited to what was locally produced and drastic scarcities could exist in small areas.
Certain crops, animals and seafood were available only seasonally. Many cattle were slaughtered before winter because there was not enough feed to maintain them through the colder months. Thus, with preservation methods limited, meat and dairy products were less available through the winter.
The discrepancies between castle, hall, cot and camp were very apparent. Food could be provided in quantities ranging from excess to meager, and in variety from little to none. "The feudal system was especially harmful to the poor (the majority). The rich lived on the fat of the land while the poor ate frugally - or sometimes not at all." Payments of rent, or debts were "in kind" (in produce rather than cash). Landlords, in their turn, made payments in kind to servants and retained, who generally fared better than independent poor people. Often over 10% of the grain went to the miller to whom peasants were bound to go by their lord.
Grains
"Oats, Bean, and barley grow..., do you or I or anyone know where oats, peas and barley grow?"
Such asks the nursery rhyme. Well in Scotland, at least in good years, and in the Lowlands various "corn,"(grains) grew to provide the primary part of the rural diet.
Barley was popular and one of the basic foods. A considerable portion would have been used in soup broths. It was made into bannocks which were baked on the iron, or stone "girdle," or griddle, one of the two cooking utensils in many households. Barley was used also for porridge and to some extent in the brewing of ale.
It was only from the 18th Century onwards that oats became the favored cereal food. Oats also provided a nutritional improvement over barley, giving 1 1/2 times as much protein, more iron, calcium and vitamin B1. "The common people live on oatmeal pottage twice a-day. Allocations per day for servants on some great estates was often one pound, or more." Minimum amounts are indicated by 1690's parish relief which would allot 3/4 of a peck of meal, or a peck of beans a week - survival and barely adequate rations.
(Note: Historical and current Scottish oatmeal is comparable to American steel-cut oats like cracked wheat, available in health food stores. American "oatmeal" is actually rolled oats. The whole oat grain is called oat groats.)
Porridge was referred to in the plural, and "they" was always eaten standing up, so a clansman would be ready for a possible call to arms. Porridge was served in a bowl made of hard wood with a horn spoon (that doesn't conduct heat) and each person would take a spoonful from this communal bowl, then dip it into his own bowl of milk, cream, or buttermilk.
Porridge was made by sprinkling barley, or oatmeal into boiling water a handful at a time. On the other hand, "brose" was made by pouring water into oatmeal. "Sowens" was made by soaking the mealy husk off ground oats after milling in a tub of water for several days until fermentation had begun, then draining off the water and boiling with water and salt to produce a sour, viscous gel, or kind of thin porridge that was considered a delicacy. Both grains were made into thin oatcakes, or the thicker bannocks.
Less common grains provided some variety. Pease, or beans were ground into a meal which was mixed with barley to make a kind of flour. Peasemeal for making brose was in demand until WW II. Rye was grown from early times, but was never eaten to the same extent as in other Northern European countries.
Wheat was grown in the more fertile areas of the country, but did not grow as well in most of the Scottish climate. Thus, wheat bread was less common and was available according to class and wealth. Loaf bread also requires more complicated processes and possibly a community oven. Records of Elgin record that in 1556 a loaf of good wheat bread cost 4d. At this time a skilled craftsman such as a mason, or wright would earn 18 shillings a week, and an unskilled barrowman 9s a week. (Editor's note. Money: 12d, or pence = 1s, shilling. 20s = 1 pound sterling.)
In 1597, St. Andrews masters and regents received an allowance of wheat bread each day, while bursards (students on scholarships) and servants had oat bread instead of wheat. The Ochtertyre House Booke (1737-9) has frequent references to "barm" meaning a raised loaf. Yeast baking was largely done at home, although there were purchases of "loves, rolls, biskits and nackits." However, raised bread remained more of a rarity, since even in 1773 Johnson commented on the absence of yeast bread in the Highland and islands" "Their native bread is made of oats, or barley. Of oatmeal they spread very thin cakes, coarse and hard, to which unaccustomed palates are not easily reconciled." "Barley cakes are thicker and softer..." Again a traveler in the early 1700's, Capt. Burt says, "There are but few in this town that eat wheat-bread, besides the English and those that belong to them, and some of the principal inhabitants, but not their servants.
Dairy
Milk was the second mainstay of the diet in Scotland. There were times when milk was virtually the only available food. Then is was customary to beat it to a froth with a special stick in order to increase its bulk, even though it did not change the food value. Milk was either drunk on its own, or used with porridge and brose, or added to broths.
Sheep were kept more for the milk than for either mutton, or wool in the early centuries. Goats were probably numerous since the word gabhar (Gaelic for goat) appears often in the names of the hills. Goat's milk was used mostly for cheese and some of the whey resulting from cheese making, for drinking.
Custard made from milk and eggs was know since it was part of ancient Beltane customs when boys of the township would meet and "kindle a fire and dress a repast of milk and eggs in the consistence of a custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted at the embers against a stone."
Eggs and cream were made into deserts for the gentry called whim wham, Edinburgh fog, Scotch mist, floating islands, and were also used for thickening soups and sauces.
To preserve milk longer, animal skin bags filled with milk were hung in the heat of the sun until the milk coagulated by bacterial action (comparable to yogurt). Stomachs of lambs, pigs, hare, or deer were used.
Making cheese is another way of preserving milk. Sheep's milk, which is thicker, made a rich curd for cheeses and goats' milk was also used. Soft cream-type cheeses and crowdie were known since the time of the Viking, or Picts in the Highlands and Islands. In Shetland "hung milk," a type of cream cheese, was made by filling a linen bag with heated, curdled milk and hanging it until the whey had dripped out. Caboc, made in the Highlands since the 15th century, was a type of cream cheese shaped like a cork and rolled in oatmeal for the nutty taste and texture.
Orkney cheese, like a mild cheddar, was stored in tubs of oatmeal. Firmer types of cheese were made in the south where mustard seed, caraway seed, or oatmeal were added to flavor and to "break the curd."
Boswell comments (1773): "It is the custom all over the Highlands to have (cheese at breakfast); and it often smells very strong." In the Ochtertyre House Booke, cheese appears infrequently on the gentry's menus, but was a common item for the servants.
Butter was a relatively costly product since it took several hours to make and required four gallons of cream to produce only 6 pound of butter. It was also unsalted and therefore perishable. A small part was used in cooking. It was not used on bannocks. The primary use was non-food, at least for the makers. Rents were paid in butter, so there was plenty in manor and castle where it was used for cooking, or trade. Most, however, was mixed with tar and applied as an antiseptic and water repellent on the coats of livestock.
Meats
A considerable part of early history revolved around cattle - their abduction. From one glen to another, Lowlands or Highlands, north of England across the border. "It has been claimed, no doubt with truth, that for many of our ancestors cattle-reiving held well-nigh irresistible appeal, providing an outlet for their sense of adventure and seemingly unquenchable thirst for raids and forays."
The Highlands and Borders had long been a producer of beef. Meat in the diet, however, fell to a low point in medieval times and remained low until at least the mid-eighteenth century. For most people, meat was a luxury reserved principally for weddings and baptisms until the 19th century.
Records indicate dates when meat started to become commonly available and used by more people. In the latter half of the 18th century butcher meat was beginning to reach the weavers and the better paid workers in the lowlands. In 1750 a "little butcher's meat was consumed, and only gentleman farmers killed their fat cattle."
By 1791 it was notable that "a great deal of butcher's meat is consumed," 10 times as much as 20 years ago when it was entirely seasonal, with pork in winter, veal in spring, lamb early in summer, mutton mid-summer to Christmas, and beef Lammas to Candelmas at which time it almost totally disappeared for six months.
Animals butchered at Martinmas, November 11, were called "marts" and included fattened cattle, goats, sheep, deer and even seabirds. Much of the cattle stock was butchered this time of year because maintaining all the animals over the winter was not possible. That is until the introduction of the turnip in about 1700. This was an agricultural revolution because the turnip could be stored and provide cattle feed during the winter.
Until that time, having meat during the winter meant that marts be preserved by heavily salting. Crofters would club together, buy an animal, divide it up evenly and pickle it for strictly winter use. Even on great estates there were purchases of items for pickling meat: "brimston for the beefe," "lippies," "pecks," and "firlots" of salt.
Butchering day was a busy day. The head and feet were made into broths and potted hough. The stomach was stuffed for haggis, or eaten as tripe. Most of the meat was salted for later use. The liver was eaten the first day and the heart and lights (lungs) next, with some reserved for haggis. Suet was reserved for mealy puddings and for candles.. The hides made mats and coverings. Pigs' bristles were saved to make ropes to tether horses, or to collect birds' eggs on the cliffs.
Complete and thrifty use of animals was the norm. Thrift is well illustrated by haggis, often credited as the national dish. It was created from the ingenuity of a people determined not to waste a scrap of the food so often scarce to them. It also served its purpose nutritionally since it consists of liver, heart, suet and oatmeal.
Another thrifty and common practice was bleeding cattle. After it was drawn, the blood was boiled with oatmeal and onions, or made into black puddings. With this practice, nutrition was to be had without killing the cattle stock.
"Poor man's beef", or pork was eaten only occasionally. In general, it was "much abominated by the Scotch, nor is it yet(1814) a favorite food among them." Still, some raised pigs and marketed them in Lowland towns and border areas.
Two illustrations show what may have reduced their popularity. In 1690, one area had the rule that if pigs were kept they must be kept indoors. This is more likely to have meant in the house than in a barn. And secondly, a comment from the early 18th century Highlands was "I own I never saw any swine among the mountains, and there is good reason for it: these people have no offal wherewith to feed them; and were they to give them any other food, one single sow would devour all the provisions of a family."
Sheep were sometimes used for mutton, and mutton hams were made, One journal noted several sheep from the flock had frozen during the winter, and that the farmer undoubtedly made use of the carcasses.
In one year in the 1690's, export accounts from the Highlands list 100,000 goat skins instead of the usual 50,000 per year, indicating that the people were eating their last resort, the goat stock, in a famine.
Eating meat was likely to have been higher in the early days of sparse population when there were unlimited hunting opportunities. Venison remained available from red deer and roe deer. Its use is noted in the menus of the gentry and travelers found it served at inns. No other reference was found for it for use by the majority of the people, though it seems a possibility.
Rabbits and hares were popular for centuries. There were blue and mountain hares, and every burgh had its own rabbit warren.
Poultry
Chickens and geese were always kept, inhabiting the house, but not often appearing in the kettles, or on the tables of the cottars. Poultry was included in rents in kind, so sometimes it was illegal for them to be eaten by the common folk. In the manor house however, chickens were abundant and use in cock-a-leekie soup of chicken, leeks, onion, rice and prunes. They were also used in Lorraine soup:(named after the country of the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots) chicken stock, white meat of chicken, rabbit, or veal, blanched almonds and hard boiled egg yolks.
Hens eggs were important enough to be mentioned in a Privy Council report of 1615. A similar class pattern of use showed up for eggs as for poultry. They are seldom mentioned in the menus of the rural workers and were probably only occasional foods. Sure-footed "egglers" carried them in creels on the backs to the town markets. There they were used by the more prosperous families. The Ochtertyre House Booke records buying as much as 60 dozen eggs at an average of 2 dozen a day.
Wild eggs may have been more important for the common people. They were gathered from the cliffs in the islands and around the coasts. These would have included peewits' (lapwings) eggs and the sea birds: gulls, guillemots and fulmars.
Wild birds were also caught where they roosted on the cliffs. Martin on a visit in 1695 noted a particular wildfowler known as the Climber of the Bass(rock) who snared 1,118 birds from the cliffs in one year which were sold for 79. 3s 10d For this dangerous occupation (said to have killed at least one climber a year) he was paid only 11. 12s 2d
On St. Kilda a vital part of the basic diet, as well as the economy was based on puffins and fulmars. Men, women and children would often be up all night plucking the birds and preparing the feathers for sale and squeezing out up to a ½ pint of vile-smelling oil for export. The the bird was split ilength-wise down the back and cleaned. Some was cooked immediately, but most were filled with salt, packed in barrels and stored fro winter use.
Evidence differs on the palatableness of these birds. In Orkney, guillemot was considered a delicacy. Young cormorants were edible but it was necessary to bury them for 24 hours to tenderize them. A traveler in 1618 ate solon goose (gannet) from the Bass Rock in the East Lothian area, but commented “after it is eaten, it must be well liquored…”, not exactly a recommendation. Smoked solon goose was a delicacy of the breakfast table.
Game birds were regularly served at the tables of the gentry. Black grouse, blackcock, wood grouse, or capercaillie (a large turkey-sized bird), white grouse, or ptarmigan were in the hills. Red grouse, which eats young heather shoots and berries and so has a delicate and fruity flavor, thrives nowhere else.
These birds would rarely be tasted by ordinary people. Almost unbelievably, reports state that “plentiful game birds of moore and moutnains were often spurned by country folk in the poorest homes who seemed happy to exist on a mainly vegetarian diet”. “Grouse and pleasant were only used to augment the stock pot in the absence of anything better”.
Fish and Seafood
“Wha’ll buy my caller herrin’? They’re bonnie fish and halesome farin’ Wha’ll buy my caller herrin’? New caught frae the Forth… There’s nae br’ot here without brave darin’, wives and mithers maist despairin’, call them lives o’ men, caller herrin’”
- words of a fish seller’s song
Fishermen had a life of almost equal risk and danger as soldiers. But, they provided what was probably a greater part of their countrymen’s diet than even meat or poultry.
Fish were numerous and varied. The coastal areas had haddock, cod and plaice. Northern isles and the Hebrides had coal-fish and sillocks that were caught from the rocks with circular nets, or at times with blankets. The west coast had herring. Lough Tay teemed with pike, perch, eels, salmon and trout. Streams had burn, or brown trout. Salmon was plentiful. Whiting, turbot, sprats, smelt, cockles, mussels, oysters, lobsters and scallops were found in the Orkneys. Parton (crabs) were used for the long famous parton bree soup. And more…
Thus, fish were an important part of the diet. East coast towns always had plentiful supplies and the availability of fish extended inland from the coast about 20 miles. There were delivered by fishwives who carried them in a creel strapped on their backs around the shoulders and upper arms. A 19th century photo shows such a basket almost half the woman’s height.
Fish, like meats, were preserved for winter use or for trading purposes. Furthermore, herring typically arrived periodically in great shoals on the west coast, so there was a necessity for preserving the surplus. It was done by splitting, salting and drying th efish on shingly beaches. Each cottage would have it’s own barrel of salt herring, or Scots kipper, although the earlier term probably referred to salmon not herring.
In general, there was a dislike of fish without scales, thought shellfish and sand-eels may have been eaten. “But when they were prevented by rough weather from going to sea, or when as sometimes happened, the fish appeared to have left the coast, they had recourse to shellfish such as limpets, mussels, and periwinkles, which were but an indifferent substitute… Nevertheless, shellfish boiled in milk was a great stand-by in those days”.
At the sites of the shielings 9summer grazing camps) in the upper hills some miles fomr the sea, great heaps of shells were found. One traveler tells of “the finest and strongest family of young men ever known at poolewe” who were reared largely on maorach a’ chladaich (shellfish of the shore), or limpets and white whelks.
Vegetables
“Eat your vegetables” was a phrase Scottish children missed. Practically no vegetables were cultivated, and their role in diet was negligible. (This is not to say that vegetable matter was not consumed. We are speaking here of cultivated plants. Certainly, people ate wild growing fruits, or vegetables, to supplement their diet. Next month’s article will discuss wild plant foods). From the 1400’s one is mentioned - kale. It was a rich source of vitamins and minerals and a marginal safeguard against the constant threat of scurvy from a deficiency of vitamin C. It was usually prepared with barley in both, sometimes boiled along with oatmeal, or on its own with butter and milk when available.
Many modern vegetables we take for granted were not yet discovered, including the well-known neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes). The potato was introduced to England from Virginia in the 1600’s. It was introduced to Scotland about 1754. Acceptance was slow because of the reluctance to eat a food that was a member of the poisonous nightshade family. Further, it was thought to provoke incontinence. Then, for some years it was only cultivated in the gardens of the “better” classes. Only by the 1770s or ‘80s had it spread southwest to northeast and reached all of the country.
The turnip was introduced about the turn of the 1700s. It was first used as a storable winter feed for cattle, which would then not have to be slaughtered or spend the first two months of summer recuperating from semi-starvation. Used as a vegetable, it too was grown and accepted first in the gardens of the wealthy.
Cabbage was introduced by Cromwell’s troops and was the only other vegetable that ordinary rural people had until the 1700s. “Colliflower” appeared on the menu of an Edinburgh Corporation dinner as early as 1703. Rhubarb seeds were sent in 1770 to the Duke of Atholl.
By the 1750s at least there is a record of a wide variety for the upper classes - broccoli, asparagus, artichokes, French beans, celery, spinach, mushrooms and salads. An earlier journal of 1618 by John Taylor that talks of the abundance in the kitchen, says nto a word of vegetables. This may be because they were too insignificant to mention, or may be because they were not included at all.
Fruit was also virtually absent from the ordinary Scot’s diet until at least the mid-1700s. For the upper class, fruit was available. Oranges or lemons had been imported since the 15th century. Dried fruit was imported as early as the reign of Mary Queen of Scots. A beginning of cultivated fruit is mentioned in 1616, after a treaty that encouraged chiefs to settle down to fixed residences and invest in them. McLeod of McLeod started an orchard at Dunvegan.
Wild Foods
Wild foods are mentioned less often in historical records. There was no need to include them in account books. Although it is harder to know the extent of their use, they must have been counted upon and collected to round out the diet. They would have provided an important nutritional supplement and some variety.
Young nettles in the highlands would have been a source of vitamin C that continued into the present century. Wild spinach, garlic, carrots and silverweed (potentilla anserina, or in Gaelic, brisgean) could have been eaten. Sorrel leaves, an early spring, very sour, but nutritious leaf, was, and still is, used.
Several varieties of seaweed were harvested in coastal districts. A “pennyworth of dulce and tangle” (an edible marine algae, esp. Rhodymenia plamata, with large, red, wedge-shaped fronds) appeared occasionally in the Ochtertyre House Booke. Seaweed, in particular carrageenan, is still popular. A creeping plant grows on the shingle, machair, whose roots were used in times of scarcity. It was dried and ground into a meal for porridge and a kind of bread, and was frequently of use before the potato was introduced. The Statistical Account of Clunie, Perthshire, also lists watercresses, sloes, hawthorns, hipthorns, wild raspberries, hazelnuts, and crab apples.
Fruits in season included brambles (blackberries), blaeberries, cloudberries, and raspberries. Elderberries and cranberries were available, but their use is less known. Raspberries, strawberries and gooseberries are native plants. Bog bilberry, or huckleberry, grew in mountain bogs and moist copses.
Bilberry, or blaeberry (blueberry) is there, “much esteemed by the inhabitants, who eat them with their milk”, and nuts, raspberries and strawberries in the woods, “but those woods are so rare, that few of the Highlanders are near enough to partake of their benefit” was recorded in 1754.
Rose hips grew wild, and country children have always tended to nibble them for their tart taste. A rose hip a day would have prevented scurvy.
Edible nuts were available in autumn such as earthnuts, hazel and beechnuts. Ale was made from nettles or heather. Elderberries were used for homemade wine.
Honey was first fund in the wild, and heather makes delicious honey. An inventory of 1709 included bee skips, indicating some were raised at least that early. Sweets, so prominent in the diet today, were less available. Sugar was imported as early as the 14th century, but went to apothecaries’ shops to be used in medicines, or to the houses of the wealthy. It became cheaper in the 17th century after the East India Company began importing it. Beet sugar was not available until the 18th century.
Drinks
Drinks and beverages are perhaps thought of as a most important popular concern, custom and ritual in Scotland. Burns writes several times of drinking culture, including the song:
O Williw brew's a peck o' maut
And Rab and Allan Camm' to pree..
Wha first shall rise to gang awa',
A cuckold, coward loon is he;
Wha last beside his chair shall fa',
He is king amang us three.
Refrain:
We are na fou, we're nae that fou,
But just a wee drap in our e'e;
The cock may craw, the day may daw,
But aye we'll taste the barley bree...
Around 1630, most people drank milk, spring water, and ale. The Highlander drank burn (stream) water, fresh milk, buttermilk, and whey (the by-product of cheese). The Lowlander had more ale. "The drink is water, or whey commonly...(they) brew ale but rarely, using the juice of nettleroots with barley-meal dough", reported M. Martin on St. Kilda, in 1695. Another source states that ale had been made on every farm, manse and mansion. Heather ale was made in some areas, including Islay.
Wine was imported since mediaeval times for the upper classes. Claret remained the preferred choice until at least the 18th century. (Ed.: It might be fun to bring more period-style wines to events such as claret, or port, to share and try.) Homemade wines were produced from elderberries for centuries. An early native variety was made from the liquid from birch trees.
Whisky appeared in the 15th century. It, being distilled, is a much more complex process to make. It was not a common drink until 1725, when an English Malt Tax was placed on every bushel of malt. (Ed.: A familiar theme? Something becomes popular and the government taxes it!) This gave rise to an increase in the price of "twopenny" ale. It was a very unpopular tax, (you can well imagine!), and led to a preference for substitution of whisky. So whisky drinking, instead of more wholesome ale, was greatly increased, possibly bringing greater social problems. A note on customs from an etiquette book of 1720 indicated that passing a common glass from person to person at that time was still not only acceptable, but conventional.
Tea was introduced in the 18th century, and became fashionable about 1720.
Dietary Health
When food was available at all, how did the limited variety available to the majority of people affect their health?
The Statistical Account of 1790 reports that the physique of rural people was generally of a high standard. Visitors to Scotland commented on the vigor and endurance of agricultural laborers who were able to sustain a working day beginning at 4 or 5 a.m. and continue as late as 7 or 8 p.m.. It also records a long-lived population. Many lived as long as age 80 to 90; some 90 to 100 years.
Conversely, a mid-18th century demographer noted a life expectancy of 28 years, with no evidence to indicate a major change from the mid 17th century.
With stone-ground oat meal, it is unlikely that anyone would have gone short of protein, calcium, iron, or fat-soluble vitamins if food was available at all. The grains provide a diet high in fiber and with plenty of B vitamins. However, Highlanders would always show signs of being short of vitamin C. Scurvy, although not yet identified as a deficiency disease, "was the dread specter which hung over the people of Scotland for centuries" and most likely left them susceptible to other disease as well. Kale was a rich source of vitamins ands minerals and a thin line of defense against the constant threat of scurvy. Rose hips, sorrel, and fruit among the wild food would have provided Vitamin C.
Fat intakes for common people were considerably lower than ours today. Oats would fill out the diet in Vitamins A and D. A shortage of calcium and possibly iron would be indicated without dairy foods. So, with milk, butter, and kale, the diet might be adequate for an adult. It is likely this was not adequate for children, whose growth might be limited.
Capt. Burt, in the 1720's noted the poverty of the Highland people for the north of Scotland, yet observed their health was generally good in view of their frugality. The diet was mostly milk and oatmeal. Health problems he did find were more related to the cold damp climate.
The landlord classes had an abundance of butter paid in rents and much more meat in their diet. Gout and other signs of excess might be health problems appearing in this class. Most would have shown no signs of deficiency of vitamins, since their diet would have been the most varied. Again in the early 18th century: "Milk-meats and oatmeal, several ways prepared, and kail and roots dresed (sic) in several manners, is the constant diet of the poor people for roast meat is seldom to be had but on gaudy days. (and yet it visible that they maintain a)... better state of health than their southern neighbors, fare higher."
Menus
For an everyday diet, choices and variety, class differences show up strongly in the journals. There were very marked disparities. The following extracts from diaries indicate the contrasts.
An 1887 journal relates a menu doubtless characteristic for centuries: the "diet of the lower classes was very poor, consisting generally of brose, or porridge to breakfast, of cabbage boiled with a mixture of oatmeal for dinner, and bere (barley) bread and brochan (water gruel) for supper. Butcher meat, with the exception of a little pork, rarely appeared at table. Sowens, when it was to be had, was a favorite dish for breakfast, dinner, or supper. Another favorite was "bursten", which was prepared by a portion of oats and bere being hastily dried in a pot over the fire, and then ground ...when taken with milk, formed a very palatable dish... The inhabitants along the seacoast, when fish was to be had, got on pretty well; but when they were prevented by rough weather from going to sea, or when, as sometimes happened, the fish appeared to have left the coast, they had recourse to shellfish, such as limpets, mussels, and periwinkles, which were but an indifferent substitute... good home brewed ale."
About the 1720's, when new foods not available in 1630 became available, a typical cottar family's menu was likely to be: a bowl of oatmeal brose, or porridge, or brochan, with milk, or ale, with oat, or barley bannocks. Noon meal consisted of whole potatoes with butter, or in some kind of broth, with bannocks, and milk, or ale. Sowens as an alternative, or porridge, or kale might appear. Supper: kale, turnips, or cabbage, possibly with the juice along with meal in a kind of brose, or barley broth, with oat, or barley cakes, and milk, or ale. Possibly cheese as well at breakfast.
Typical of a more "in-between" class were the St. Andrews masters and regents, who in 1597 received an allowance of wheat bread each day along with beef, mutton, fish, eggs and ale, while bursards (students with scholarships) and servants had oat bread instead of wheat.
The gentry, on the other hand, lived well and sumptuously. Not surprisingly, more information is available about this group. In 1618, the English poet John Taylor wrote: "I always bee lodgd in his lodging, the kitchen being always on the side of the bank, many kettles and pots boyling, and many spits turning and twisting, with great variety of cheeres; as venison baked, sodden, rost and stu'de beef, mutton goates, kids, hares, fresh salmon, pidgeons, hens, capons, chickens, partridge, moore-coots, heathcocks, caperkellies and tarmagants; good ale, sacke, white and claret, tent and most potent aquavitae."
"Gentlemen's establishments", or manor houses, were primarily self-supporting. An example is described in the Memoirs of a Highland Lady, 1797-1827. This self-containment must have been more characteristic in earlier years. "At this time in the highlands we were so remote from markets we had to depend very much on our own produce for most of the necessaries of life. Our flocks and herds supplied is not only with the chief part of our food, but with fleeces to be wove into clothing, blanketing and carpets, horn for spoons, leather to be dressed at home for various purposes, hair for the masons. We brewed our own beer, made our bread, made our candles; nothing was brought from afar but wine, groceries and flour, wheat not ripening well so high above the sea. Yet we lived in luxury, game was so plentiful, red deer, roe, hares, grouse, ptarmigan, and partridge; the river provided trout and salmon, the different lochs pike and char; the garden abounded in common fruit and common vegetables; cranberries and raspberries ran over the country, and the poultry-yard was ever well furnished.
Sources:
Anderson, M.S. War & Society in Europe of the Old Regime, 1618-1789.
Steven, Maisie. The Good Scot's Diet.
Mitchison, Rosalind. Life in Scotland.