Bronze age man's lunch: a spoonful of nettle stew

Guardian (UK) ^ | 12-03-2011 | Dalya Alberge

[Renfield]

Six boats hollowed out of oak tree trunks are among hundreds of intact artefacts from 3,000 years ago that have been discovered in the Cambridgeshire fens, the Observer can reveal.

The scale, quality and condition of the objects, the largest bronze age collection ever found in one place in Britain, have astonished archaeologists – and barely a fraction of the site has been excavated.

Unique textile fragments, wicker baskets and wooden sword handles have survived. There are even containers of food, including a bowl with a wooden spoon still wedged into the contents, now analysed as nettle stew, which may have been a favourite dish in 1000BC. The boats – two of which bear unusual decoration – are in such good condition that the wood grain and colour can be seen clearly, as can signs of repairs by their owners...

[bert]

Here abouts it is known as Sting Weed

I never heard of eating it though.

[TigersEye]

Nettles are a diuretic. But so are hundreds of other plants. Nettles’ main benefit is that they are highly nutritious.

[RitchieAprile]

Nettles are supposed to relieve arthitis pain when
used topically.Maybe the nettle soup was medicinal?

[PapaBear3625]

I wonder about the first person to eat nettles? “Oh boy, this plant sure hurts when you touch it!! Let’s try eating it.”

When you are facing starvation, you will experiment with anything.

[TigersEye]

The sting in Nettles if from formic acid. The same thing that makes an ant bite sting. Heat destroys the formic acid.

[central_va]

I’ll bet they had bad teeth too.

[Jeff Chandler]

Those grow in profusion in the higher elevations of the San Bernardino, San Gorgonio, and San Jacinto Mountains in Southern California.

[stormer]

They’re very common in the Puget Sound lowlands.

[stormer]

They’re very common in the Puget Sound lowlands.

[djf]

I am hyper-hyper sensitive to nettles. Makes my skin crawl just thinking about them.

I could roll around naked all day in poison ivy or poison ok and not have a bit of a problem but nettles THE PLANT FROM HELL!!!!

So anybody out there who wants to eat them, PLEASE, CHOW DOWN!!

[SatinDoll]

Drink deep to Uncle Uglug!
That early heroic human.
The first to eat an oyster,
the first to marry a woman.

God’s curse on he who mumbles,
as the banquet waxes moister;
had only he eaten the woman,
had only he married the oyster.

(I can’t, unfortunately, remember who wrote that poem! Seems appropriate, though, when considering nettle stew.)

[Little Bill]

I seem to remember that one of the bog people in Denmark et some of this stuff before he was hung or had his throat cut.

[SunkenCiv]

It’s actually archaeological evidence for zombies — they craved nettle soup, that’s how their prehistoric neighbors identified them and buried them alive in the swamp.