But a note on the mention of hedgehog: I recently saw an Irish program where hedgehog was on the menu, but here hedgehog actually referred to a mushroom of the same name (Hydnum repandum). Just thought I'd throw that out there!
I suppose that *would* make a bit of difference in provisioning...
It''s something that is done the Mediterranean area with wheat. They call it bulgur. Is there any evidence that this was used in Northern Europe?
.... I can't recall a specific reference, but it seems hard to believe something like that wouldn't have done at least occasionally. Wheat berries store and carry better than raw flour, so they would have been around. And pre-cooking part of a pottage does make some logistic sense.
I do recall one interesting note from the transition into the high medieval period: a noble was complaining that the local peasantry was getting all full of themselves and
regularly eating *bread* for goodness sakes, rather than proper pottage as decent peasants should!
For context - you lose a bit of material (and of course working hours) in grinding raw wheat berries down to flour for bread, so in a very poor economy bread rather than a pottage of boiled wheat berries could be seen as conspicuous consumption.
Anyhow - all that comes to mean that wheat berries in some form makes a lot of sense as a trail ration for Eriador: raw and whole for longer journeys, cracked and boiled then dried or perhaps parched for shorter?
I need to do some proper experimentation: I don't know how much of what we know of 18th c. corn ration practices also apply to wheatberries or groats.
Persona: Aerlinneth, Dúnedain of Amon Lendel c. TA 3010.