Ancestral Kitchen

Piper’s Farm was founded in 1989 by Peter Grieg and his wife, Henri. It’s just north of Exeter in Devon, Britain, and today it is run by their son Will and his partner, Abby, in a multi-generational partnership and succession achievement. Peter Grieg worked for his father’s farm and shop business and saw the factory farm model brought from the US to the UK, by his father, post-WWII; and he watched...

Oats are one of my ultimate comfort foods. Golden, creamy, filling, tasty - what is there not to love? It's been that way for me for a long time. Long before I realised that huge swathes of my English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish ancestors subsisted on oats, sometimes eating them three times a day for many generations. Today we'll focus on the oat, and fermenting oats. Finally Andrea let me out of m...

Before we read the books that our guest today, Chris Smaje, wrote, we knew we didn't want a world where fake food, food manufactured in factories was what we ate as a society. We didn’t believe that protein made in stainless steel vats could give our minds, bodies, souls and communities what they need to survive and thrive. But what we didn't know, is that manufactured protein, fake food or precis...

If you’re bringing raw milk into your home, whether it is through a herd share, shopping from a local raw dairy or co-op, or you have a cow on the back pasture, it is inevitable that we start wanting to value-add that milk; both adding nutritional value to it by culturing it in our homes, and adding monetary value by making raw milk into what would be higher priced items from the store. In this ep...

"I just can't afford to eat ancestrally" is something that we hear all the time. And we get that, the mainstream, shop-bought side of ancestral eating can sometimes be eye-wateringly expensive. Notwithstanding that we've both been eating this way on a very tight budget for over a decade each. We’re going to show you that it is possible! In this second part, we'll complete our list of 50 ways to sa...

"I would love to eat an ancestral diet but I can’t afford it, what can I do?" "I want to shop from small farms around me, how can I make this happen with a limited budget?" "Food costs are rising dramatically where I live and the budget that once worked for us isn’t cutting it anymore, help!" In a post-industrial world where globally imported subsidized factory food is perceived as the cheaper or...

Just like the Ancestral Diet is so different from the standard American diet, so the ways our ancestors birthed bears very little relation to how modern industrialised communities bring the next generation into the world. In this intimate episode, originally recorded for patrons of the podcast, Andrea and I share our birthing stories. We've got four births between us and we came to them with very...

Better Broths and Healing Tonics is a book that blew us away when we found it earlier this year. It is  so thorough, so accessible and so creative  – sharing many ways to make broths, and make them easy, plus incredible healing recipes for broth tonics, infusions, blends and meals. In this episode, Andrea interviews half of the pair that created the book, Jill Sheppard Davenport. They ta...

Every once in a while Rob comes out from behind the tangle of wires and sits down on the other side of the podcast microphone and records an epic episode with Alison. This is one of those episodes. It is awesome and their dry British humor is the best. What is luxury? Can you have luxuries? Can you live a luxurious life? Are luxuries part of our everyday? Does luxury have to be a $1200 clutch bag...

Putting food into jars: is it really hard? Is it complicated? Am I going to make my family sick? Does it taste better, am I going to save money, or both? What is the point? All this and a lot more is covered in this episode. Andrea talks with Angi Schneider, a patron of the podcast and the author of The Ultimate Guide to Preserving Vegetables, and Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond, two won...

Rebecca Holden looks after a large organic dairy herd in Wales in the United Kingdom and makes raw, cheddar-style cheese from their milk. Mainstream milk/cheese markets seem to be increasingly led by large, chemically-sustained dairies that subvert nature and force cows into unnatural production routines, resulting in inferior dairy products landing on grocery store shelves - and yet, Rebecca’s fa...

Today's episode is dedicated to covering the wide world of fermented drinks - all accessible to you, makeable in your own kitchen, right now. We talk about  over 20 different fermented drinks , including scoby ferments, whey ferments, grain ferments, wild ferments and we tell you how you can incorporate these super-health-giving, delicious foods into your life. So if you've ever asked the que...

We have a special bonus for today! Alison reads the article she recently had published in the Weston A. Price journal Wise Traditions: So Much More Than Porridge: The Rich Culinary History of British Oats Recipe for Traditional Scottish Oatcakes here Recipe for Naturally-Fermented Staffordshire Oatcakes here If you'd like to have a go at creating the Scottish Sowans (easy-to-digest porridge) and S...

Have you ever thought the GAPS protocol might be for you? Are you considering trying it, or you’ve just heard about it and wonder how it fits into a healing journey? Are you struggling to bring grains into your diet without digestive issues, or wondering what you can do to replenish a gut system damaged by antibiotics? This is the episode for you. We've had conversations with so many of you about...

Hilary Boynton is the creator of the School of Lunch, a week long academy held a few times a year that teaches attendees from around the world how to put together incredible nourishing ancestral traditional food programs that they can use in whatever application they need – in running a school lunch program which is what Hilary does in California, in a business, for retreats or wellness spaces, at...

In this episode, Alison talks to Carwyn Graves, author of  Welsh Food Stories , a beautiful chronicle of the ancestral food of Wales. They talk about food born from landscape, sustainability, women as the holders of ancestral heritage, fermentation, bread and much much more… Get a 5% discount (and free shipping in the US) on grass-fed supplements, including liver capsules by visiting: https:/...

You asked for it, and we did it. We finally did it! Alison and I have written our first Ancestral Kitchen Podcast cookbook, called Meals at the Ancestral Hearth. It's available now at https://ancestralkitchenpodcast.com/shop/books/meals-at-the-ancestral-hearth/ . This is an eCookbook you can download and start reading immediately, and you'll receive the link to two versions - one is formatted for...

Making the Weston A Price principles accessible, simple, and approachable for everybody  is what Anita is so good at. Anita is a wife and mother living in Colorado, USA, serving up delicious, nourishing meals every day. She has mastered the ancestral food principles, and she can teach you how to roast a whole chicken and make the gravy in just a few sentences! She shares these recipes generou...

Did you know that women have been the predominant brewers of beer throughout history....up to just 400 years ago? How about that up till that same time period beer tasted completely different to the beer we are used to now? Join us in this episode to hear the  real  story of beer, how we messed it up and why Alison is passionate about bringing beer back where it belongs - the kitchen! *...

Have you wondered if raw milk is truly safe? Why did we start pasteurizing it in the first place? Have our ancestors always drunk milk? What is the fermentation all about, and is it really necessary? In this episode, we will share some of what we have learned about raw milk over the past ten years. We will share some of the shocking history of the industrialization of milk, and we will also share...

Imagine buying bare land in Alaska and  building your own farm from the ground up . Imagine raising cows and chickens there and growing virtually all your own food. Imagine doing this whilst  also being a mum to three youngsters (two of whom are baby twins) and having a partner who works a job away from home . Today, Andrea talks to Amanda Callahan, the lady who is doing just that. Hear...

You are about to listen to one of the podcast's most popular episodes. Since it was released in February 2023, this episode has been downloaded thousands and thousands of times. That's just how popular sourdough bread is. And is testament to how many people are confused and have questions about it. That's what we aim to help with in this episode! We'll cover all manner of listener sourdough questi...

Do you want to know how to transition your kitchen and your eating to ancestral methods?  Maybe you've tried before or stopped and started multiple times? Perhaps you have the Nourishing Traditions cookbook, but feel so overwhelmed that you don't know where to go next? In this episode, we will make it easy for you! Listen in for our  road map of twenty steps that will take you from a sta...

Naomi Huzovicova is a passionate and talented ancestral cook, a food story discoverer and an amazing photographer.  She has lived and cooked up Slovakian food culture for 17 years  and we're grateful to her for sharing so much of its uniqueness with us. In this episode we open up the rich world that is Slovakian food. Naomi explains what it is, and importantly why it is like that. You'll...

We know you want to know about fermentation! And who better to ask than the  author of five fermentation books and co-founder of The Fermentation School, Kirsten Shockey . With over 20 years of experience in fermentation Kirsten has so much to share that'll inform, enlighten and, frankly, change the way you eat. Check out Kirsten's course, Your 30 Day Fermentation Challenge, and get a special...