Ancestral Kitchen

As you know, if you’ve been cooking ancestrally for any length of time, the ancestral mindset does not stay in the kitchen! Some of us come to this as part of a health journey, already thinking about our life as a whole…others of us start with food and find the wisdom of our ancestors seeping into the rest of our lives. There are things we just can’t not see any more, things we feel are wrong; thi...

Leftovers again? Oh good, I can’t wait! I love it when half the work is already done. In this episode we talked about leftovers as well as scraps and items that are often discarded in home kitchens. Let’s maximize those precious food dollars and make the meal stretch as far as possible! We went a little bit crazy sharing about all the ways we love using the trash items in our kitchen - including s...

When life is overwhelming or busy, or I don’t know what to cook - What are a few simple meals I can have in my back pocket? As a person new to ancestral cooking, how do I know if my easy meal is ancestral or not? Can I still use my old cookbooks? In this episode, we will share four favorite easy, go-to meals that our families love. You will see how each of these meals evolve with the seasons for u...

Every month we record an entire extra podcast episode which goes up on our private podcast feed, Kitchen Table Chats, for our supporters to enjoy as a benefit of their financial support. In these episodes we chat about what is happening in our kitchens, big revelations or things we are studying or writing about, as well as answer questions sent in by our supporters. Today we are sharing with you a...

Today, we're bringing you an episode of the podcast that originally went out in 2022. It's about fermenting, but fermenting with a twist – fermenting your kitchen waste to make microbe-rich compost that, as we know from personal experience, will transform the plants you grow. This fermentation process, called bokashi, can be done in the house, it has no smell and neither does it attract flies. You...

What plant was allegedly first discovered in Ethiopia by a goat, boasts an almost 270billion USD market worldwide, has almost 10,000 shops dedicated to it in the UK and over 35,000 in the US, and you very likely may have partaken of some time already today? That’s right, the elixir of which Benjamin Franklin, the American statesman, author and inventor wrote, “Among the numerous luxuries of the ta...

Hands down the question we receive the most is: How do you have enough time to cook this way? Children, work, families, friends, community commitments, earning money, doing life's admin. It all adds up, and before we realise the time we need and want in the kitchen has just disappeared. If you have ever thought, I just don't have enough time to do this, the next 90 minutes will help you. Even thou...

Traveling and vacation is so much fun until you get the bill for all the meals you ate out, and you get a tummy ache for all those weird ingredients your body just didn’t like. If you have allergies and food sensitivities it’s even more difficult, finding somewhere safe to eat is just about impossible. We have both found that when we travel we just do better if we bring a lot of our own food with...

What pan should I use to bake my bread? Metal, ceramic, glass, dutch oven…there are so many out there. What are the differences? What about non-stick? What temperatures can I use for each one? How can I stop my dough from sticking? How can I work out how much dough my pan will take? And what about pizza? How can I make the best one at home? These questions, and many more, are answered in today’s e...

We have some exciting news! We are pleased to announce that we’ve left the Patreon platform behind and are now hosting our membership system on our website. None of the benefits or support that the community, that we’re now calling The Kitchen Table, provides are changing. All this move means is that, instead of us paying Patreon (and you potentially lining Apple’s pocket) all the money that you p...

George Orwell writes, “If you look up ‘tea’ in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points. This is curious, not only because tea is one of the mainstays of civilization … but because the best manner of making it is the subject of vi...

Bone broth, sauerkraut, milk kefir – fundamentals of an ancestral diet and foods that we know do us good. So what do you do if actually they're making you ill? Histamine is a word that most of us have heard of and, thanks to the proliferation of health news, were also probably aware of histamine intolerance. In this episode we will deal head-on with histamine and how it interacts with an ancestral...

It’s almost May, the month which the early medieval Anglo-Saxons called thrymilce , because according to the Venerable St Bede, “in that month cattle were milked three times a day.” We don’t know if you’re milking your cow three times a day, but ‘tis the season for lots of fresh and available milk. What to do with all that milk? - and if you don’t have a cow, what to do if you have access to raw m...

Combining gluten-free eating with ancestral eating need not be daunting. Today I talk with Rebecca Zipp, a beloved podcast guest and supporter. She's been gluten-free for the last 16 years – bringing her husband and her children along with her. In addition, for most of last year I ate gluten-free. Between the two of us we've a lot to talk about! In this episode, we cover: Why Rebecca went gluten-f...

What are some traditional foods we can eat for breakfast, and do we have examples of ancestral breakfasts in history? In this episode Alison and I got together to talk about what we eat to start the day. We included a variety of “types” of breakfasts. First, we start out with fast breakfasts, things you can make very quickly. Whether you’re going to school, you have kids going to school, or you ho...

Download the free, 30-page guide Baking with Ancient Grains here Alison has just released a free 30-page guide to baking with ancient grains and this companion podcast episode will give you everything you need to know to bring the world of ancient grain baking into your own kitchen. We'll define an ancient grain, we'll talk about why they're different to modern wheat and how that change happened,...

The cost of eating an ancestral, nourishing diet, vs the cost of eating a conventional, supermarket diet: people are already stretched to the limit on their grocery budgets, so how can we ask them to spend even more on buying more nutritious or local food? Even if it’s important to them, what if the dollars literally do not exist? How are we to eat? These were the questions burning in my mind when...

How, when you’ve got limited money, no spare time and family who are used to eating what they eat… How when you can’t find alternatives, don’t have the room to grow it yourself and don’t have the headspace… How do you get out of supermarkets? In this, our Guide to Getting Out of Supermarkets episode, we’ll give you a stack of practical ideas (from us and from our supporters) that'll change things...

How does one prepare for times of illness? Having supplies on hand, such as home remedies, some handy rubrics and rules of thumb in your back pocket, and healing foods prepared and set aside for such a time, are steps the wise person takes to avoid being caught off guard and unprepared. In this episode, Alison and Andrea will talk about some favorite tools and remedies they keep on hand, as well a...

What is ancestral eating? After three years of recording podcast episodes, we thought it was about time we tackled this topic head-on. Because, although the word ancestral has become much more mainstream since we started, there is still much confusion about eating and living this way. In this episode you will first hear us talk about what ancestral eating isn’t (including how it is different from...

Ask us anything, we said! Grill us like a cheese sandwich! And you did! Our podcast supporters sent in questions for Alison and I to answer for this final episode of 2024 and we had a lot of fun answering them. Some of them were crazy! Some would take an entire podcast episode to answer thoroughly, and they were all really fun - like, "What are some non-ancestral things you do, or ancestral things...

Do you dislike all the fuss, packaging and stress that a mainstream Christmas involves? So do we! Both of us have spent many years cultivating Christmases that are low-key, close to zero-waste and calm. And they are beautiful. Listen in as we share our tips for experiencing a green and peaceful Christmas. Our 2024 Christmas Hamper is now available for all companionship or above supporters of the p...

In this wonderful episode, I got to sit down with Christine Muldoon, who is a friend, the creator of NourishtheLittles.com, a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, a mother and wife, and also a follower of the Weston A Price principles of food. She is also the co-host of the podcast Modern Ancestral Mamas with her amazing co-host, Corey Dunn. I wanted to tap into Christine's incredible knowledge base...

How do you eat ancestrally and seasonally even during winter, when the produce stands maybe are shut down and your garden may be covered over with snow for the season and your body needs a different kind of support than it does during the busy, active days of summer? In this episode Alison and Kathie, who is a longtime listener, supporter and friend of the podcast, got to talk about all of these t...

What is a Christmas pudding and how did it develop into the U.K.'s favourite festive dessert? What's inside one and, importantly, how can you make one in your kitchen? In this episode we'll talk about the fascinating history of Christmas pudding and then dive into the  practicalities of making your very own festive pudding. What are the ingredients? How can you combine them? What's the cookin...