3,000-Year-Old Cooking Mistake Revealed

Archaeologists in Denmark have found evidence of a 3,000 year-old cooking mistake that casts some light into the everyday life of Scandinavian Bronze Age people.

Clear evidence for one of the most common mistakes in the kitchen – burning food -- lay in a clay pot that was excavated in central Jutland, Denmark.

The clay vessel was found, upturned and in near mint condition, at the bottom of what was once a waste pit.

"The pot is typical for cooking vessels in this region of Denmark. It was accompanied by several other objects fitting the dating," archaeologist Kaj F. Rasmussen from Museum Silkeborg, Denmark, told Discovery News.

He noted the discovery itself is a lucky breakthrough, since a vessel capable of surviving intact over the last 3,000 years is indeed a unique finding.

"Ordinarily clay pots will have been reduced to shards before deposition, or have been crushed by pressure from the covering earth," Rasmussen said.

Most intriguingly, the pot showed a white-yellow crust onto the inside. Rasmussen admitted they had never seen such burnt substance. Food remains in pots are usually black, charred deposits from corn or seeds.

"We analyzed three samples via gas chromatography at the laboratories of the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen. It emerged the fats were probably bovine," Rasmussen said.

He speculates the bovine fat represents the failed result of cheese making.

"The fat could be a part of the last traces of curds used during the original production of traditional hard cheese. The whey is boiled down, and it contains a lot of sugars, which in this way can be preserved and stored for the winter," Rasmussen told Science Nordic.


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