Before Ms Wood could write her paper though she had to do extensive experiments to see just how this method worked in practice.

"All you have to do to try this method of cooking is wrap some meat or fish to be cooked in grass, yes grass! The sort you have on your lawns. Then tie it tightly with some string. (The string the ancients used was made of strips of bark or string producing plants). Then all you have to do is find some silty clay, the sort you might find on a river bank or in your garden. Not the type you make pots with", she stated. "Then you just cover the grass covered meat or fish with the silt and place it gently by the side of an open fire, or a charcoal barbeque. Then as the clay dries slowly cover it with wood or charcoal and leave it for about an hour, depending on the size of the meat or fish to cook. The exciting bit is breaking away the clay and untying the string, when you find the most succulent and delicious tasting fish or meat for your dinner." Ms Wood went on to say "If lamb is cooked in this way it somehow has its flavour enhanced by the grass. After all the lamb eats grass all its life, so why should it not flavour it when you cook it in it?!"

Clay baked trout ready to eat!

Cliff Dreamers (Podcast)
http://www.myspace.com/cliffdreamers
A magical stoneage adventure novel written and presented by archaeologist/author Jacqui Wood. Full of mysticism, adventure, coming of age and humour. Set 6000 years ago in northern Europe.
www.archaeologyonline.org