Pottage is a term we use for a thick soup that has been made by boiling vegetables and some meat for long enough to make it tender. Pottage has been produced all over the world since ancient times. It was eaten in the Stone Age and is still eaten today, but we call it soup or other words.

The importance of pottage is that you can slow-cook (boil) any kind of tough food over an open fire and it will tenderise. This has been important because people in the past had to eat much coarser and tougher food than we might eat today. It also means that it can be made from any ingredients, and so can be made from anything that is to hand. The picture shows pottage being made in SE Asia today. The video shows the kind of pottage you might have expected to find in a medieval home in Europe.

Pottage is probably the most basic meal you can eat, but because so many ingredients go into it, and most are vegetables, it is also a very healthy and balanced food.

It used to be eaten using a slice of bread as a platter in Europe, and a palm leaf in Asia. It tends to be a bit tasteless as it is, so the wealthy often added spices. Today we still add spices.