Are insects the food of the future? The Nuragic people ate grasshoppers cooked in wine, which was nothing but the latest fashion.
THE nuragic they were farmers and ranchers, they followed a diet varied and rich, they consumed insectsthey cooked the spit-roasted pigsthey prepared sa “Imbecile rag” and they didn’t miss out mussels And oysters. And it’s not about theories, but about certainties scientifically proven. Let’s see how the men of the nuraghi fed themselves with the help ofarchaeologist Mauro Perra.
Over the years, since the first discoveries of Nuragic settlements, numerous theories on the Nuragic civilization have been formulated, but until the mid-1980s we had to stop at the theories. Subsequently, technological progress and in particular the possibility of analyzing the DNA of organic finds has allowed scholars to move from traditional archeology to archaeometry, i.e. the possibility of examining the finds scientifically. Thanks to’archaeometryand starting from the assumption that we are what we eat, that the diet of a civilization somehow defines its cultural identity and above all its level of evolution, the archaeologist Mauro Perra, director of the Su Mulinu museum in Villanovafranca, conducted a in-depth research on the diet of the nuraghi people, which he then published in a book entitled: “At the canteen of the nuragic people, eating and drinking in the time of the nuraghi” published by Delfino.
Taking into consideration a time span ranging from the 16th to the ninth century BC, Perra studied the findings related to food found in various sites, but in particular those from the excavations of the Nuraghe Arrubiu in Orroli. The Nuragic people plowed the land and plowshares, both made of stone and bronze, have been found to cultivate barley, soft wheat and durum wheat and, although in smaller quantities, also spelled. «unfortunately we are not able to exactly define the cultivars of the wheat, because the organic remains found are charred and it is not possible to reconstruct the DNA – explains the archaeologist – but we know that they ground it because they made bread and it is probable, but of this we are not certain that they added acorn flour to the wheat flour. Many acorns were found in the areas where meals were prepared, it is probable that they consumed them, but we do not know if they ground them.” The Nuragic people also cultivated legumes, in fact remains of field beans, lentils, peas and grass peas “su piseddu” in Sardinian have been found, a legume that was cultivated in Sardinia until the 1960s.
They fed mainly on wild fruits such as wild strawberries, blackberries and strawberry trees, they certainly also consumed figs. However, there is a discovery that says a lot about the level of evolution of our ancestors: melon seeds were found in Cabras. The melon does not grow spontaneously in Sardinia, it is not endemic, a sign that the Nuragic people cultivated it and that they must necessarily have exchanged it with people coming from other lands. Thanks to these studies, the hypothesis that it was the Phoenicians who brought wine to Sardinia was definitively refuted. The first remains of wine and grapes found in the nuraghi date back to an era certainly prior to the advent of the Phoenicians. Wine was also used for cooking. «In a vase found in the Arribiu nuraghe, but which certainly comes from Isili – says Perra – the remains of grasshoppers, crickets and cicadas cooked in wine were found and we can affirm that the cooking temperature reached 350 degrees».
The people of the nuraghi followed a varied diet, also rich in proteins, and raised cattle, pigs and sheep and goats. «the cattle were not raised for meat, but as work animals – explains the archaeologist – because skeletons of elderly specimens were found with the bones of the legs deformed by the effort they were subjected to in plowing the ground. It is likely that they only slaughtered them when they were no longer able to work. While we know that they ate suckling pigs and cooked them on a spit. In Barumini, a series of holes were found in a row in the ground which were used to keep the skewers vertical which were inserted into the holes.” Sheep were raised above all for the milk that was processed, in fact we know with certainty that the Nuragic people were able to produce different types of dairy products. The Nuragic people also practiced hunting and fishing, hunting deer and wild boars, pigeons and thrushes and the Sardinian prolago, a now extinct rodent similar to a hare without a tail.
Our ancestors did not even go without fish, large sea bream bones have been found and we know, from the valves found, that mussels and oysters were eaten in the nuraghi. And it can be deduced that they were particularly fond of them, given that they also consumed them in the internal areas of the island, evidently they picked them up on the coast. The use of oil for cooking has been demonstrated, remains of vegetable oils have been found, but it is not known whether it is wild olive, olive or lentisk. Perra explains the reason for this uncertainty: «we found a modest quantity of olive stones and we don’t know if this is due to the fact that they did not make extensive use of them or if, given that the stones are an excellent fuel, they used them all for turn on the fire”. Pork fat was also used as cooking fat, what in dialect is called “oll’e procu”.
And if we don’t have proof that they used salt to season foods, it is certain that they sweetened them instead. The wine was sweetened with blackthorn berries. And it is certain that in the nuraghi the use of honey and beeswax was known, which was used to waterproof the inside of the vases. Finally, a nod to conviviality: «often the meals went beyond the daily diet, to give rise to convivial meetings – concludes Perra -, in some huts we found remains that testify to meals in which up to 40 or 50 diners took part. It is likely that they were occasions reserved for the elite of people who held important roles in the social hierarchy.” If it is true that we are what we eat, we can safely say that the people who lived in the nuraghi were healthy, wise, creative, evolved and particularly greedy!
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
