Crab Claw Salad (Neolithic)

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This is a simple recipe. Cracking the crab claws can be tricky- so watch your fingers. You can tear up the salad leaves, rather than cut them if you prefer.

You could use cottage cheese or soft cheese instead of making your own.

The crab salad uses fresh, gathered ingredients. The preparation is simple using little equipment. Stones are used to break open the crab claws for example.
Pre-historic peoples seem to have hugged the coast where shellfish and other foods were plentiful.
Milk from goats or sheep was a relatively new addition to the diet. The cheese used in our podcast was made by leaving the milk to curdle and then straining it through a cloth. See our easy cheese recipe if you want to try this yourself.

The recipe given below reflects the methods and ingredients used in the podcast. To make this dish yourself follow the link to our modern recipe.

For images of the cooking process see our Crab Claw Salad Pictures.

With thanks to Steve and Jo Parish  of Past Alive for their help with this podcast.

• 4-6 cooked crab claws
• fresh goats cheese
• gathered salad, mint, watercress, parsley. The leaves you use will depend upon the season

• Bowl
• Spoon
• Flat stone and a rounded stone (for cracking the crab claws)
• Knife

1. Crack open the cooked crab claws on a flat stone, use a rounded stone to do this
2. Chop the watercress, parsley and mint roughly and place them, well mixed into a bowl
3. Spoon some cheese on top of the leaves
4. Pull some of the crab meat out of the shell of 1 or 2 claws and arrange on the top. Put the rest of the claws around the edge
5. Serve. People will help themselves from the main bowl. Provide some rounded stones so the rest of the crab meat can be got out of the claws