fd-Norse-msg – 4/20/15

Norse and Viking food.

NOTE: See also the files: Norse-msg, fd-Normans-msg, names-Norse-msg, N-drink-ves-msg, Norse-food-art, Norse-crafts-bib, N-drink-trad-art.

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From: Maggie.Mulvaney at fp.co.nz (Maggie Mulvaney)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Viking Recipes
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 05:11:39 GMT

On 13 Apr 1997 19:18:53 -0400, gunnora at bga.COM (Gunnora Hallakarva) wrote:
>I am trying to locate Viking Age recipes and modern books discussing recipes
>of the Viking Age, the Anglo Saxons, and medieval Scandinavia.
>I would appreciate any information you may discover

Anglo-Saxon books publish Anne Hagen's two books on Anglo-Saxon food
and food production. 
I have not seen anything in English on medieval Scandinavia, but a
recently acquired bibliography gives the following two entries on food
in Denmark (o/ denotes the slashed o);

* Ko/kkenfunktioner, ko/kkener og ko/kkento/j i det senmiddelalderlige
Danmark (ca. 1400-1600) / Bi Skaarup. - Ho/jbjerg :
Middelalder-Arkaeologisk Nyhedsbrev, 1989.
* Mad og o/l i Danmarks middelalder / Erik Kjersgaard. - Kbh. :
Nationalmuseet, cop. 1978.

I have not got these two books myself (yet!), so if anyone knows more
I'd appreciate the info too.

/Muireann ingen Eoghain
**********************************************************
* MMY             *             Maggie.Mulvaney at fp.co.nz * 
* Maggie Mulvaney * http://www.nmia.com/~entropy/maggie/ *
**********************************************************


From: allilyn at juno.com (LYN M PARKINSON)
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 00:53:28 EDT
Subject: SC - Re: sca-cooks: viking's pies

On Tue, 15 Apr 1997 19:19:14 -0400 "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com>
writes:

>> Depending on where they happened to be, the viking cook could have
produced any or all of the following :
>> >> apple pie/tart
>> cherry pie/tart
>> gooseberry pie/tart

Adamantius answers:
>Taillevent has a recipe for Norse pies. Don't recall at the moment
>what's in them, or how truly Norse they may or may not be. Savory,
>rather than sweet, though. Similar to a bunch of such pies that 
>contain things like cooked egg yolks, ground meat and/or chunks of
>bird, bone marrow, cheese, etc.

Norse Pies, from the James Prescott translation

Take  cooked meat chopped very small, pine nut paste, currants, harvest
cheese crumbled very small, a bit of sugar and a little salt.

That's the entire recipe.  Is it Norse, you Vikings out there?

I usually use farmer's cheese when harvest cheese is called for, but I'm
now wondering if that's the wrong assumption.  Cheeses were made in late
Spring, after the  calves/kids/lambs/??? were weaned, and you had some
rennet from a calf stomach handy.  By Autumn, how much would such a
cheese ripen?  Enough to crumble?  I've also read somewhere that the
stomach pieces could be dried, and used later, whenever you wanted to
make more cheese.  The only cheese I've made was the one in Elinor
Fettisplace's Receipt Book, which is very good, by the way.  I don't have
the equiptment for cheese making or recipes for the various sorts.  
Would some of you cheese-makers tell us about it?

Allison


From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 23:06:49 -0400
Subject: SC - Period Viking Food = Norse Pies??? 

Unto the List, greetings from G. Tacitus Adamantius!

Sorry about this: I don't remember the specific title of this thread,
but someone had asked for a recipe for Norse pies, which I had said were
to found in the Viandier de Taillevent. Generally I'm a little leary of
taking up the bandwidth with recipes, especially since I tend to work
straight from the primary source and do the dish just a bit differently
each time. So, just for the benefit of those who may not have a copy of
the books involved, I'll post two recipes for Norse Pies.

The first from Taillevent, Scully translation:
	"Norse Pies. Take finely chopped, well-cooked meat, pine-nut paste,
currants, finely crumbled rich cheese, a little sugar and very little
salt."

	The recipe immediately following this in Taillevent instructs one on
how to use this same filling to make Lettuces -- small round fried
pasties that appear to be a form of chewets. A likely etymology for the
term "chewets" is that they are shaped like a cabbage, "chou" in French.

The second, more involved recipe is from Le Menagier de Paris, Powers
translation:
	"Norwegian Pasties be made of cod's liver and sometimes with fish
minced therewith. And you must first parboil them for a little and then
mince them and set them in little pasties the size of a threepenny
piece, with fine powder thereon. And when the pastrycook brings them not
cooked in the oven, they be fried whole in oil and it is on a fish day;
and on a meat day they be made of beef marrow recooked, that is to wit
the marrow is put in a pierced spoon, and the pierced spoon with the
marrow therein is put in the broth of the pot of meat, and left there
for as long as you would leave an unplucked chicken in hot water to warm
it up; then set it in cold water, then cut up the marrow and round it
into big balls or little bullets, then carry them, to the pastrycook,
who puts them by fours or threes in a pasty with fine powder thereon.
And without putting them in the oven they be cooked in fat."

Now, the name of these dishes in late-fourteenth-century French is
something like Pastez Nourrois, and I'm willing to entertain the
possibility that the translation of the name into the expression "Norse
Pies" could be wrong. Also, Norwegian or not, they postdate the time of
Viking activity by at least 150 years or more, if I have my timeline
correct. So, technically, they are not especially Viking, unless they
are really from Norway and survived a couple of centuries virtually
unchanged, to be found alive and well in France. COULD be true, but...

Hot Cha Cha,
Adamantius


Date: Mon, 10 Nov 1997 06:31:28 +0100 (MET)
From: Par Leijonhufvud <pkl at absaroka.obgyn.ks.se>
Subject: Viking are cookery (was: SC - Irish period recipes??)

On Sat, 8 Nov 1997 Tyrca at aol.com wrote:
>>  There should have been seed (etc) analyses made at the digs in Dublin and 
>>  other places. 

> So, as you are there, and I am not, are there sources for Viking cookery?
>  Any cookbooks?

To the best of my knowledge there are no cookbooks from the Viking period
Scandinavia.

Apart from that there is only three ways we (AFAIK) have any knowledge of
that they ate: (1) pollen, seed and midden analysis, (2) actual finds of
foods (graves, postholes, etc), and (3) chemical analysis of food residues
on cooking and storage containers. 

The first is the classical one, and I know there are data from many finds
on this subject. It will tell you what was available (though it can in
some cases be questionable if it was a weed or a cultivated crop), but not
how it was used. Animal fodder? Luxury export? Boiled, fried or baked?

The second category has given us some data, but mainly on things whose
context is rather uncertain in many cases (e.g. was the barley porrige
found in the grave a ritul item, or regular fare? Was the breads found in
Birka graves ritual? Was this lump once a piece of unleavened bread or
porrige?). That apart there are some food items that we do know about, and
that has been reconstructed from archaelogical data. 

The third one is interesting, but it still will only indicate that a
certain item was eaten, we are excedingly unlikely to ever be able to
reconstruct a recipie from fatty acid residues in a earthen-ware cookpot. 

In addition there are mentions of food in the sagas and the Edda (e.g. 
Rigsthula, Lokesenna, Thrymskvida), but as these were written down much
later than the Viking era their value is questionable in many cases.

There is also the excavation of cookery implements that give us some idea
of what they had to play with. 

/UlfR
- --
Par Leijonhufvud                  par.leijonhufvud at labtek.ki.se


Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 18:21:37 -0700 (MST)
From: "Joseph M. Lane" <jlane at unm.edu>
Subject: Re: SC - Viking and early Irish foods

On Thu, 19 Mar 1998, Par Leijonhuvud wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Mar 1998, KKimes1066 wrote:
> > -- or that the native food was so unappetizing, that even the natives
> > couldn't stomach it all the time!!
>
> Whats wrong with whale and seal? Finnish style all-rye, sourdough bread
> with whole fishes baked in (not documentable, but nice anyway)? Herring?
> Mutton? Goat? Beef? Pork? Game? Honey? Pike? Perch? Salmon? Apples?
> Wheat, rye, barley, oats? Linseeds? Chickens? Skyr?  Cheese?
> Blueberries?  Lingonberries? Bunch of different root veggies?  Peas?
> Sloe?  Elderberries? Hazelnuts? Mustard?  Horseradish? Eggs? Plums?
> Several different herbs?

I saw an interesting show on PBS detailing the Viking settlement in
Greenland and it's subsequent demise a few hundred years later.  the
The Geologists documented a slowly cooling climate with a shorter growing
season. Slightly moister too (ergot on the rye). Archaeologists documented
an increase in cattle bones in the middens (trash piles) indicating that
they were eating their breeding stock.  toward the end of the
Vikings' settlement period, dog bones appeared in the food midden.  The
Eskimo settlements on the islands indicated abundant seafood (seals,
whales, fish) for the same time period.  The Archaeologists concluded that
the Greenland Vikings were too dietary ethnocentric -- too ingrained in
their own culturally dictated menus to try the native foods.  This refusal
to switch to seafoods meant their extinction.  A very sad story.

> > Having grown up in north central Iowa, where the Nelsons outnumber
> > the Smith, Browns, and Joneses combined, I am firmly convinced that
> > I know the real reason the Norse went a viking.--- Lutefiske!---

A "Woodwright's Shop" episode narrated by Roy Underhill was devoted to a
visit to a medieval Danish manor -- to study the wood construction and
carving.  He made an interesting observation that after a week in this
manor he discovered that the small unheated upper rooms were cramped and
unheated and the main hall was cramped and had no chimney.  There smoke
diffused throught the hall and some escaped out a smoke hole in the roof.
He surmised that halfway through the winter many a Dane would take off in
the longboats rather than eat smoke and freeze for another three months.
This is also another interesting story.  Hopefully, it will be rerun.

Arian Aurelia


Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 22:43:04 +0000 (GMT)
From: Daria Anne Rakowski <dar3 at st-andrews.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: SC - Viking and early Irish foods-long

There has been some considerable discussion since I first composed this
and to save space (and time) I will append more to the bottom of this
response.

On Wed, 18 Mar 1998, Par Leijonhuvud wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Anne-Marie Rousseau wrote:
> > I know of no extant cookbooks from the Viking age or early Irish. BUT....
>
> Neither do I, and I don't think they existed in the case of the Viking
> era: not that kind of literacy. Also: no books!
 <snip>

  I would disagree with that statement. A professor of mine from times
past once told me that 'one cannot argue from silence' In this he meant
that not only can we not argue that 'silence' is meaningful in source
criticism but also that 'silence' may not have been the case at all!.
Skaldic poetry is generally considered to be the oldest and most reliable
remnants of Norse society and are preserved, it is thought, whole and
relatively uncorrupted in many textual forums that often date to some time
within the twelfth/early thirteenth centuries. Not completely Viking but
certainly not a sign of previous illeteracy surely.
<snip>
> Ditto on the praise for Anne Hagens books. Probably the best source
> available.

On this we are agreed!
<snip>

> There is some food mentioned in period literary sources (e.g. Edda
> Saemundar), but not enough to go on. A couple of years ago I thought I
> had been able to document pit-cooking based on a line in (IIRC)
> Thrymskvida, but it proved to be translational figment (it turned out
> Thor just tossed an oxen on the fire, not into a cooking-pit). Darn.

Again, agreed except that there are sketchy descriptions in some of the
sagas that give small but clever clues to food prep. For example in
Eyrbyggja Saga, chapter 39, there is specific reference to porridge being
consumed regularly as well as how and where and in what it was prepared.
The mention of the specific role of cook I also found interesting. I
haven't the time to hunt them up now but there are more brief, cryptic
comments like that one in many sagas.(Eiriks Saga Rauda, Groenlandinga
Saga, Orkneyinga Saga) As was mentioned, archaeology is an
invaluable resource for putting together a picture of Viking eating
habits. Anna Ritchie, amongst others, has done many excavations in Norse
settlement areas in the Northern and Western Isles. (Orkney, Hebrides
etc.) She has postulated that there were two ranges of fish size that were
consumed in these areas, a 'small' range where the fish were "normal"
sized, ie. 15cm or so. Then a larger range that got into the half-meter or
bigger category with a large hole of evidence in the middle. That says
little other than that in the Orkneys fish of two size ranges were
consumed but there is more to it but could take a mini-thesis to
explore/explain properly. Bones and carbonized remains as well as middens
are invaluable resources. If you have the patience to wade through the
reports! ANother place to look might be the brief report made by G.Biglow
in the 11th Viking Congress on Caithness, Orkney and Shetland. (All NOrse
settlement areas) He has turned up some interesting evidence about
potential butchering techniques and a peculiar and exclusively Norse
methode of marrow extraction. Very interesting.

 > One potential source that I haven't seen anything on is what was
> recorded regarding the customs of the Scandinavians while traveling and
> living in the east. Anyone know if this has been explored at all? It
> should be easier nowadays, when the "slavs and only slavs" doctrine is
> less prevalent over there.

I haven't heard of any but then it is a relatively under-developped field.
Again, I would think that archaeological reports (often only in
Russian/slavic language) are the best bet. Those are finally making their
way into the scholarly communities of the 'west' now. Would be a very
interesting line to approach.

Now, recently there was a mention of a lack of adaptation on the part of
the Norse inhabitants of Greeland. I am sorry to burst this particular
balloon but my dissertation is on the Greenland and Vinland settlements
and there is quite specific and detailed information on whaling and
sealing practices in both sagas (see above) THere is further
archaeological evidence that most assuredly puts paid to that nefarious
belief that the Greenlanders died horribly and crippled. The early reoprts
on some of the graves in the Eastern settlement were most definatly
skewed and the much of the scholarly community has now accepted that the
most likely result of the Greenlandish settlement was of slow
assimilation/quick death. Sorry about that rant but it is so near to my
heart that it bugs me when it is so horribly misrepresented.

I agree that we know very little about preparation methods but we do know
some. We have saga and verse refernces, we have archaeological evidence
and we have common cooking sense. We are looking at an a-ceramic culture
in many areas very dependant upon steatite use, which of course alters the
way they cooked. There is plenty more to be said but this is already
pretty darn long...

 Coll


Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 8:12:17 +1000
From: Robyn.Hodgkin at mailhost.dpie.gov.au
Subject: SC - Viking tucker

I did a bit of asking in the right places and have the following information
for anyone interested in Viking food:

The best general reference - with a section on food and drink (see p252ff)
is The Vikings, by Brondsted (with a slash through the o), published by
Penguin - may be out of print, but I'm sure amazon.com could find one.
Brondsted lists barley, wheat, herrings, hazelnuts, apples, elder- and
strawberries, hops, herrings, cabbage, onions, honey, wholemeal rye bread,
herrings, porridge, herrings, pork, veal, herrings, mutton, whale, herrings,
seal and bear (polar) meat - boiled for preference - beer and mead. And more
herrings.
The Vikings used milk, too, both fresh and in yoghurt. Their extensive
trading and other networks through the Mediterranean and especially into
Russia meant they came in contact with a wide variety of foods (King Harald,
for example, was commander of the Emperor's troops in Constantinople), but
homegrown stuff was pretty boring.
The sagas contain some references to food and drink: there's a description
of a feast in BEOWULF, but also try NJAL'S SAGA, KING HARALD'S SAGA,
LAXDAELA'S SAGA, The ELDERREDA (not sure of the spelling - my appetite for
sagas is very limited) and there would be references in the Icelandic sagas.

Kiriel


Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 08:33:03 -0400
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: Re: SC - FWD - Viking recipes

FWD from rec.org.sca:
Thorfinn (dreamland1 at airnet.net) wrote:
>    Anyone out there with knowlege of Norse(viking) food,

I have just added "Archaeological Finds of Ninth- and Tenth-Century Viking
Foods" to my website.  It's a compilation of finds of foodstuffs categorized
by site; within site, by food type.  It ain't much, but it's a start.  Would
somebody let the cooks list know about this, please?

The URL is:
        http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikfood.html
****************************************************************
Carolyn Priest-Dorman             Thora Sharptooth
capriest  at  cs.vassar.edu          Frostahlid, Austrrik
      http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikresource.html
****************************************************************


Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 10:36:23 -0700 (MST)
From: Mary Morman <memorman at oldcolo.com>
Subject: SC - food and hospitality

This talk of eating well and being heavy started me on another related
theme.  I've been reading Egil's Saga looking for food references and have
noted the typical Norse hospitality theme.

Boat sails into harbor.  Men get off the boat and go meet the local
householder.  Either (a) they all try to kill each other, or (b)
householder and boat captain talk, and householder invites captain to
bring as many men as he "thinks good" up to the house and they all eat and
drink for a week.

Alternate scenario has the householder inviting the captain and "as many
men as he thinks good" to spend the winter with him.

The "thinks good" part seems to be literally meant - the captain ussually
takes some but not all of his men, leaving some to guard the boat, sleep
on the boat, or winter with other households.  The captain is being
invited to share hospitality, but not to take undue advantage of it.

The hospitality seems mainly to involve lots of eating and drinking.
Sometimes no ale is offered, as sign of poverty or deliberate insult, and
in those cases the guests are offered bowls of curds and expected to drink
the whey.  This is fine unless the guests find out that other food is
available but not being served to them - in which case obviously the guest
needs to kill the householder and all his men.

When I began looking for food references, I was mainly looking for "what"
not "how" - but I found much more "how" they ate information and very
little "what they ate" information.  Curds and whey.  Ale.  Bread.
Porridge.  And lots of references to "good food" and "as good a feast as
ever they had eaten".

Anyone have more information, and or comments, on this?

Elaina


Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1999 11:31:06 -0500
From: Wade Hutchison <whutchis at bucknell.edu>
Subject: Re: SC - viking cookery

>I am hoping to do a viking themed feast at a camping event this summer
>and was wondering if anyone could recommend books or websites with
>information and recipes on Scandinavian cookery.
>
>Madeleine

Well, Thora Sharptooth has some great viking-age resources on her
web page at:
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikresource.html
Including an article on what foodstuffs were eaten in the 9th
and 10th century (no recipes, just a list of food items)

        -----wade/Gille


Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:08:34 +0200
From: "ana l. valdes" <agora at algonet.se>
Subject: Re: SC - Fish soup/stew

The vegetables and roots used here in Scandinavia at that time (viking
time) were Swedes or Swedes turnips. Selleri too. And a lot of beer on
the stew, a dark ale or stout. Carrots, leeks, dill, cabbage, peas,
onions, black and white peppar, horseradish. You can also use butter or
milk or heavy cream to thicken it. You can use dark bread in crumbles
too.
Since there is not a cookbook with recipes from the period, its
difficult to know. The most of the recipes and the descriptions of food
are taken from the Eddas, the Nordic countries collection of tales and
legends, "sagor".

Ana


Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 01:42:07 -0000
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
Subject: Re: SC - Fish soup/stew

Ana wrote:
>The vegetables and roots used here in Scandinavia at that time (viking
>time) were Swedes or Swedes turnips. Selleri too.

But the celery was wild celery, rather different from the cultivated variety
we now know, much stronger in flavor and also more fibrous and tough - I´ve
seen some speculation that it wasn´t used as food at all, but perhaps only
as a flavoring and medicine herb. And swedes (rutabagas) certainly didn´t
exist in Viking times. Turnips were certainly grown, and parsnips, but
swedes came much later.

 And a lot of beer on
>the stew, a dark ale or stout. Carrots, leeks, dill, cabbage, peas,
>onions, black and white peppar, horseradish. You can also use butter or
>milk or heavy cream ti thicken it. You can use dark bread in crumbles
>too.

This is probably correct for the rest of Scandinavia but not for Iceland,
because so few vegetables will grow here. And we would have used whey rather
than ale for a fish soup.

I can´t actually offhand remember a reference in Norse literature or period
sources to the kind of soup Boudicca is looking for; a soup was a thin broth
rather than a hearthy stew.

Nanna


Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 07:15:03 +0200
From: "ana l. valdes" <agora at algonet.se>
Subject: Re: SC - Fish soup/stew

Sorry it I did a misstranslation with Swedes (rutabagas). In the online
dictionary Swedish-English I normally use it was the same aception, the
Swedish word is kålrot, and the translation was Swede, Turnips, as a
synonim.
Yours
Ana
PS: don´t forget a big part of the Vikings were tradepeople, with high
developed commercial relationships with Byzantium and Russia. Historical
sources says the cities of Moskva and Kiev were founded by the Vikings,
in their way to Byzantium. They had a lot of spices and vegetables they
got from Byzantium. Many graves discovered in Sweden are witness of it.
Byzantium coins were well spread in Sweden and Danmark. I don’t know if
it was the case of Norway and Iceland.


Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1999 16:41:30 -0500
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: Northern Foods was Re: SV: SC - Introducing Myself

> I also wondered why on earth these people, who obviously had a fire burning
> on the hearth every day of the winter, went to such extremes to bake all
> their bread at once in the fall and subsist on staler and staler bread as
> the year passed by.  The growing season is short and all the grain won't be
> all ripe when harvest time comes.  Bread stores better than green grain,
> hence, massive amounts of baking the fall and flat, wheel shaped loaves with
> holes in the middle so the piles of loaves can be stored up in the rafters
> hanging on a pole.
>
> Bonne

The growning season is short, but the days are long.  Between May and
October, the days will be effectively 15 to 20 hours long.  The grain will
ripen.

Considering this is the extreme northern latitudes, I would expect more rye
than wheat.  An uncut dense rye bread takes a long time to go stale.  Wheat
on the other hand goes stale very quickly, unless double baked.  So any
bread meant for long storage was probably rye.

I'm not knowledgeable about Scandinavian baking practices, but if they baked
large wheels of bread, it was probably because the oven was housed in
separate building.  A cold northern winter likely would steal the heat from
the oven before it could bake the bread.  I've baked in -25 F weather in
cast iron and it takes a good hot bed of coals replenished from a constantly
burning fire.  I wonder whether you could get a mass heat oven to
temperature in truly inclement weather.

I believe northern steadings were commonly inhabited by extended families.
At an average 2 pounds of bread per person per day, I doubt enough bread
could be effectively baked in the hearth to feed them.  In my opinion, bread
would have been baked in the hearth, but it would have been small loaves of
wheat or oats meant as a change from a steady diet of rye.

And now that I have developed a set of opinions I need to find out if the
facts will support them or whether I need a new set of speculations.  Thanks
for the interesting problem.

Bear


Date: Wed, 04 Aug 1999 01:53:56 +0200
From: "Ana L. =?iso-8859-1?Q?Vald=E9s?=" <agora at algonet.se>
Subject: Re: Northern Foods was Re: SV: SC - Introducing Myself

About the bread, remember, in Sweden the bread was baked with rye and not with
wheat. Rye don´t become stale. The "knäckebröd", the flat bread with holes in
the mitten, was hanged from the roof to avoid being eaten by rodents or insects.

I have myself stored this kind of bread for almost a year and the bread is still
good to eat.

ana


Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 11:40:16 -0000
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
Subject: Re: Northern Foods was Re: SV: SC - Introducing Myself

Bonne wrote:
>Yes, me too!  Since I hadn't said it the first time, I thought it was
>important to get it out there.  Unfortunatly, it's the only one of the
>available (to me) cook books that even makes an attempt to give any history.
>  The others just rave on about "tradition".

In a book on Norwegian food history (mostly post-1500) by Fredrik Grøn that
I have here it says that "The first Nordic writer to mention the baking of
flat breads and even has an illustration of them in his work is the Swedish
archbishop Olaus Magnus, around 1550. He is the first to tell the often
repeated tales about flatbread that keeps so long that it can be baked at
the birth of a child and served at its engagement party. He also says that
women in Norway "at the ocean coast", but also women in many Swedish
communities, will come together on bright spring days to help each other
with the baking. That was a group activity. They use "thin metal plates", he
says, no longer flat stones. The dough is made of flour, beans and peas, and
this is also correct for Norway. Then he describes how the flatbread is kept
in high piles, and says it will keep for 16-20 years. Olaus Magnus doesn´t
use the term "flatbrød". He also mentions other types of bread baked in
Sweden, "julebröd" (Christmas bread), "krydred bröd" (spiced bread), bread
that will go stone hard in the air, "skorpor" and lastly "a fine bread for
delicate Nordic gentlewomen". The dough for that consists of wheat flour,
eggs and sugar, with added rose water and "malvasir" (don´t know what that
is)."

Petter Dass, in the 17th century, talks about flatbread that is baked in
large amounts just after Christmas, for the seamen that were going north to
the Lofoten to fish - they took chests filled with three months worth of
food with them.

Ludvig Holberg, in 1729, says that the reason Norwegians bake flatbread that
keeps for many years is that they have so many bad harvesting years; as so
little rye is grown in Norway and the barley is not too good, the flour is
best used for flatbread, and will taste much better than when used in
thicker breads.

I´ve seen speculation that the original flatbread of Viking times probably
wasn´t hard and stiff, but rather soft, as the Icelandic flatbread still is,
and was used to wrap around food, or butter. But the bread mentioned in the
Sagas is mostly loaves, probably thick pieces of unleavened dough baked in
the embers.

Nanna


Subject: Viking Food
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 19:20:54 -0400
From: rmhowe <magnusm at ncsu.edu>
Organization: Windmaster's Hill, Atlantia, and the GDH
To: stefan at texas.net, RSVE60 at email.sps.mot.com

From the Norsefolk list digest number 20:

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 23:16:05 EDT
From: Zemetrius at aol.com
Subject: Viking food

Probably the most important area of the Viking house was the fire, and, as
there were no chimneys, the smoke had to escape through the roof. The lazy
could tell tall tales and get under the feet of the women, who would be
preparing the twice-daily meals, morning and evening.
The Viking diet was based on fish, dairy produce, and wild and domesticated
animals. Vegetables were grown, including onions, peas and cabbages.
Cherries, plums, sloes and other wild fruits were gathered.

Production of bread was a daily task, as it became inedible if not consumed
the same day, and could then only be used to thicken stews. The women had to
grind grain into flour with a hand quern made of stone, which often crumbled
into the flour, doing no favours to their teeth. Dried peas and pine bark
were also used to make bread, but these were a poor man's substitute for
grain.

Domestic animals such as sheep, cows, pigs and horses were bred for a variety
of uses. As well as being meat they provided hides, wool, and dairy products,
and were used for riding and pulling farm implements. In addition, many
others like elk, deer, wild boar and bear were hunted. Meat was sometimes
eaten raw, but was usually cooked in a cauldron hung over the fire or roasted
on a spit. Another method was to place the meat in a hole in the ground,
surrounded with hot stones and covered with earth. Fish played a large part
in feeding the growing Viking population, and in the north reindeer,
whales and seals were hunted.

Milk was drunk and also used to make butter and cheese, with the separated
whey being used in pickling. Liquid dairy products were stored in vats and
their contents ladled out when needed. Cheese and butter were made from
unskimmed milk. Sometimes the butter was heavily salted so that it could be
stored for a long time. Meat and fish were preserved for winter and as
provisions for the boats by salting and pickling. Some would be wind-dried or
hung indoors, and it can be assumed that fish-drying sheds, documented
in the 13th century, existed earlier.

Certain foods were traded, both locally and over long distances. A find of
rye possibly came from Russia, and the walnut found at Oseberg must have come
from farther south. In fact, the royal lady buried at Oseberg was extrememly
well provided for, with oxen, wheat, hazelnuts, cummin, mustard and
horseradish. She also had an entire kitchen, and an old servant to do the
dirty work.

Although no Viking recipe books exist, the sagas and archaeological evidence
tell us what they ate, and it is clear that wealth dictated the quality and
variety of food. For many, life was a constant battle against starvation.


Subject: Viking Flat Bread from Norselist
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 19:36:16 -0400
From: rmhowe <magnusm at ncsu.edu>
Organization: Windmaster's Hill, Atlantia, and the GDH
To: stefan at texas.net, RSVE60 at email.sps.mot.com

10 Sep 1999 08:47:23 -0500
From: "TheMorrigan" <themorrigan at softhome.net>
Subject: Re: Viking food

Here is the Viking flat bread rec.

* the proportions came from a rec. I found on "The Viking Network". After
playing with that recipie this is what I came up with for more reasonable variations and cooking methods based on archaeology.

Here is the recipe, a bunch of cooking notes follow it.

7 cups (give or take) of graham flour (this is whole grain rough ground wheat)
3 cups of buttermilk, whey, or goatmilk.
1 egg.

Mix all ingredients ( I usually add the last few cups of flour one at a time
until the consistency is right). This will be the consistency of CONCRETE as you do the final mix.

Before you press into either clay or tin pans dust the pan with a bit of
the dry flour to prevent sticking.

Press small handfulls of the dough into your pans, flatten until less
than 1/2 inch thick.

These can be baked on a hearth near the fire, a grill (charcoal or propane with woodchips) set at 350, or a regular oven at 350. They take about 10 minutes per side, as they begin to get a hollow sound flip the bread over and finish on the other side, when they have a slight brown and they sound hollow they are done.

These are best served right when done, can be served that day, slight
reheating helps the taste and consistency. A day old and cold they could
be used as an offensive weapon.

* Variations:
You could add proportions of the flour as whole wheat bread flour, or use
all whole wheat bread flour, this gives a more pita bread style but it becomes rather bland.

Adding ground walnuts and a few spoons of honey to the all graham flour
recipie is very good!

We have tried baking these on our gas grill at 350 with wood chips and the
bread on clay pans (for the clay pans we used the red clay saucers sold to go with clay pots for houseplants) These worked very well, but the end product really did not taste different than those baked in the oven.

If you use my reaductions or reprint these please give credit.

Lady Morganna McGlachlen
Shadewes Company
mka: Nancy Foust


Date: Sat, 04 Dec 1999 01:19:11 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Viking Recipies

Duncan Granter wrote:
> Does anyone have any Viking recipies, or any Viking recipie web sites that
> they could share with me?
>
> I'm co-autocrating a fairly large event and would like to find as many
> recipies as possible.

That's going to be a fairly tall order, it seems. I'm not aware of any
Viking-Age Scandinavian recipes from period. We have some archaeological
dig findings and a bit of info from sagas and such, but few or no
written recipes, as far as I know.

You might look at Mistress Thora Sharptooth's web pages, especially the
ones at:
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikfood.html

and
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikbagels.html

Adamantius


From Norselist at egroups.com
Date:17 Oct 2000 23:23:01 -0400
From: Carolyn Priest-Dorman <capriest at cs.vassar.edu>
Subject: Re: Period foods

Ragnar wrote:
>Can anyone give me a reference for a Scandinavian Medieval cookbook
>(obviously later than the Viking period)?

Some of the household records for the Bishop of Linkoping (circa 1520's)
are on line; it doesn't have a cookbook but it has lists of basic menus.
There's a recipe called "Hazel Hens" (listed in the bishop's New Year's Day
menu) in the 14th century _Ein Buch von Guter Spise_ (which is in
Cariadoc's collection).
 http://www.bahnhof.se/~chimbis/tocb/recipes/menus/brask/index.html

Here also are some sources I culled from the Rialto, courtesy of Mistress
Tangwystyl and Lady Brighid ni Chiarain.  I have not examined any of
them.

Skaarup, Bi.  "Sources of Medieval Cuisine in Denmark," _Du manuscrit a la
table_, ed. Carole Lambert (Les Presses de L'Universite de Montreal, 1992).

Hildebrand, Hans, ed., "Matordningen i bishop Hans Brasks hus," Kongl.
Vitterhets Historie och Antiquitets Akademiens Maanadsblad, no. 157 and no.
159 (1885), pp. 1-21 and pp. 141-142.   More about that Bishop of
Linkoping.

"Aeldste Danske Koge Bog -- Prentet i Kiobenhaffn 1616."  (Arhus:
Fotografisk Genoptryk Wormianum, 1966).  Facsimile of 1616 Danish
cookbook.

Veirup, Hans.  "Til taffel hos Kong Valdemar: Europas aeldste kogebog
(efter to middelalderhandskrifter fra 1300 tallet)."  (Viborg: Forlaget
Systime a/s, 1993).  14th century Danish cookbook, trans. into modern
Danish. 

Carolyn Priest-Dorman              Þóra Sharptooth
capriest  at  cs. vassar. edu         Frostahlid, Austmork
      http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/thora.html


Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 12:27:35 -0800
From: Ron and Laurene Wells <tinyzoo at home.com>
Subject: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #2924

>Laurene wrote:
> > I have a wonderful book, EYEWITNESS Viking that has several pages with
> > photographs of artifacts found in a dig, and fresh food (from modern
> > tables) that would have resembled the food which Vikings ate.  Apparently
> > archeologists found a site with such detail that the food residue was still
> > identifiable, so now we know what they ate!!  Pretty cool.
> > Other DK books, and especially the Eyewitness books series, have similar
> > information about food, and customs.  They are my favorite!!!
>
>So, give!  What do they say they found on the Viking table, and what kind of
>fresh menus did these fellow re-creators serve?
>
>EYEWITNESS Viking, sounds like a news show on the History Channel maybe.
>"Dateline, Jorvik..."
>
>Selene

The title of the book is Eyewitness Books VIKING, author is Susan M. 
Margeson. You might be able to find a copy at your local library, our 
library has many (though not all) of the Eyewitness Books.  I think I own 
more copies than our local library has now, thanks to DKFL (sigh... I wish 
they had not closed that door of opportunity!) Half the information in DK 
books are depicted in pictures.  I tried to find it on DK.com where they 
sometimes have the pages of the book available for viewing online, but I 
could not find it.  So, you'll have to suffer through my text-only summary 
until you can find a copy to browse for yourselves!  Any spelling or 
grammatical errors are my own, as I had to type this by hand.

The pages talking about mealtime are 34, 35.  Obviously there were not 
"recipes" only food ingredients.  I am noticing that no dates are really 
mentioned on these pages, which I know is something that most of you are 
interested in.  These are the foods mentioned though:
Dried cod, salted meat and fish, and probably smoked meat and fish.  Pine 
kernels and  pine bark.  Dried peas "Poor Vikings made bread with whatever 
they could find.  One loaf found in Sweden contained dried peas and pine 
bark."  Horseradish "was one of the seasonings found in the Oseberg burial 
along with wheat, oats, and fruit."  "Cabbages and peas were the most 
common vegetables.  Many Vikings grew their own." Cumin was a spice found 
in the Oseberg burial.  "Bread was kneaded in wooden troughs.  Then it was 
baked on a griddle over a fire (as in this 16th century Swedish picture) or 
in a pan that sat in the embers.  Barley bread was most common, but rich 
people had loaves made of finer wheat flour."  In another part it says 
..."Most Vikings drank beer made from barley and hops. ...They also enjoyed 
wine imported in barrels from Germany." It says they used garlic and onion 
in soups and stews, they gathered gulls eggs for eating and ate roasted 
gulls. Game birds like duck were roasted on a spit.  "Hares were trapped 
and hunted, as well as elk, deer, bears, wild boars, reindeer, seals and 
whales for meat.  Sheep, cattle, pigs, turkeys, and even horses were raised 
to be eaten."  Berries (pictured are a blackberry and a raspberry) and wild 
fruits "such as apples, cherries, and plums were gathered in the 
summer."  There is also a photo of a Cauldron found on the Oseberg ship, 
and it explains how the cauldron was hung over a fire in the center of the 
living room.  Oh yes, it said that salt was collected by boiling sea water.

So, now we can all go make a roasted duck (or seagull?) and some Barley 
bread with dried peas and have ourselves a real Viking feast 
tonight!  :)  Or if you are in a colder region you could boil a hunk of 
meat with some garlic, onions, salt and cumin for a nice Viking-style stew.

- -Laurene


Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 14:47:08 -0600
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #2924

I'd be a little hesitant to take this at face value.  Rye was a far more
common grain than barley or wheat and the accounts I have of Scandinavian
baking practices tend to support rye as being the common loaf.

While I don't discount a loaf of bread from pea flour and pine bark, I would
judge it to be famine rations or possibly horse bread, rather than a normal
loaf for human consumption.

Hopping beer presumably started around the 12th or 13th Centuries, somewhat
after the Viking period.

Does the book provide a bibliography of sources, against which their
conclusions can be checked?

Bear

<clipped>
> So, now we can all go make a roasted duck (or seagull?) and iu8j some Barley 
> bread with dried peas and have ourselves a real Viking feast 
> tonight!  :)  Or if you are in a colder region you could boil a hunk of 
> meat with some garlic, onions, salt and cumin for a nice Viking-style stew.
> 
> -Laurene


Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 20:26:03 -0500 (EST)
From: Jenne Heise <jenne at mail.browser.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #2924

> While I don't discount a loaf of bread from pea flour and pine bark, I would
> judge it to be famine rations or possibly horse bread, rather than a normal
> loaf for human consumption.

The material quoted from the book did indicate that that might be famine
rations. However, I remember barley bread being indicated multiple times
by multiple sources that I consider reliable with regard to the Vikings.
 
> Hopping beer presumably started around the 12th or 13th Centuries, somewhat
> after the Viking period.

Hm. Hildegarde of Bingen (1098-1179) wrote in her _Physica_ (1151-1158)
of hops 'its bitterness inhibits some spoilage in beverages to which it
is added, making them last longer', and later mentions a recipe 'if you
want to prepare beer from oats, without hops...' (this is from the
translation by Priscilla Throop). So unless the translator or intervening
sources have altered the text, one presumes that hopped beer was known in
Germany by 1160. 
- -- 
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net


Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 15:41:33 -0500 (EST)
From: Jenne Heise <jenne at mail.browser.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #2924

> Rye was and is the most common grain grown in the extreme northern climates.
> To talk about barley and wheat and ignore rye is, in my opinion, a serious
> omission.  Please note that I did not say they did not make barley bread,
> just that rye was the common grain.

Hm. On which archaelogical studies are you basing the prevalence of rye
over barley?

Interestingly, the Viking Answer lady says:
"Barley was the most commonly grown grain in Sweden in Denmark.
  Rye began being grown in Finland, eastern Sweden and parts of
  Denmark around 1000-1200, although rye production did not become
  widely established until the late Middle Ages. "

She also says:  "Finds at Birka suggest that the most common types of
bread were made with a mixture of barley and some type of wheat, although
bread might also contain other grains, such as spelt, oats, linseed, or
even sprouted peas. Rye was used mostly for baking bread as well. "

Can the person who posted the information about the book give us more
information about the period that they define as 'Viking'? (The
Encyclopedia Britannica defines Vikings as: "Scandinavian seafaring
warriors who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the 9th to the
11th century". 
- -- 
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net


To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 12:18:49 -0400
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Irish recipies
From: Elizabeth A Heckert <spynnere at juno.com>

     I realized all of a sudden, "I've got food to research!" at the end
of this past week.  (Viking era, isle of Man--c.950, courtesy the camp
commander).

    Friends lent me a lovely book, *Norse and Later Settlement and
Subsistence in the North Atlantic*, edited by Christopher D. Morris and
D. James Rackham, University of Glasgow, 1992, ISBN 1 873132 40 9.

     I also had an archeological report (in English) of the finds at
Viking era Ribe in Denmark.  So I've been able to contrast the food
remains in Scotland and the Orkneys with Denmark, and the finds are
different.   I think the Norse settlements book would be useful, in
indicating what could be grown, as that had the Scottish and Orkney info.
 (Scotland being that much closer to Ireland, etc.)

    Ann Hagen produced two books on Anglo Saxon food and drink that also
have mentions of food in Dublin, from slightly later.  I have found Hagen
extremely helpful, because, after plowing through Latin plant names which
weren't always translated into English common names, she had a section on
what we would nowadays call wild-crafted foods, which listed the finds of
non-cultivated food and starvation food.

    Elizabeth


To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 14:25:24 -0400
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Viking cookbook
From: Elizabeth A Heckert <spynnere at juno.com>

On Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:38:50 -0400 "Linda M. Kalb"
<lmkalb at mail.med.upenn.edu> writes:

>3. What are (and/or where can I find) the following and what do they
>look and taste like:

>b.) swedes

      Swedes are rutabegas.  They were developed in Sweden in the
nineteenth century, and are related to turnips.  They are *definately
not* period for Vikings.

>4. Where/how does one get nettles?  What do they taste like?

     Urtica dioica (stinging nettles) have been found at Viking era digs
in Ribe, Denmark; Earl's Bu, the Orkneys; Svalbarth, Iceland; and York,
England.  These and other greens would have been eaten particularly in
the spring as a source of vitamin C.  The number and variety of this type
of plant makes *me* think that they were not eaten just as 'starvation'
food.  I have not eaten any of them.

    I have been working on food for a demo at the end of October, Inga.
It would be appropriate for Viking era settlers in the British Isles
*only*; but I can send it to you.  (It's sort of long).  I compared it
with food at Ribe, Denmark; Haithabu (Hedeby) now in Germany; and a place
called Archsum.

    Finally, I had to spell 'Svalbarth' wrong.  I have a creaky e-mail
program that will not translate non English characters.  It should end
with a character that looks like a crossed d.  The English equivalent for
this letter, as far as I understand is a varient on the 'th'-sound.

    Elizabeth


Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 20:24:06 -0500
From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Scandinavian feast sources

You might take a look at this site.
http://www.notaker.com/

It's Norwegian...and has links to lots of sites.

Notaker has written several articles for PPC
and the Oxford conferences.  He's the author of
Fra kalvedans til bankebiff
[or Norwegian cookbooks until 1951. History and bibliography.]

You might find something of interest on the site.

Johnnae     Johnna Holloway

Peter Ryan wrote:
> Period Scandinavian is very difficult to do. The best I have come up with is
> reconstruction of recipes and cooking methods using archeological findings
> as a guide. snipped off the rest


Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 05:55:05 +0100
From: UlfR <parlei at algonet.se>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Earliest Viking area post-Viking cookbooks
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Sharon Gordon <gordonse at one.net> [2003.10.27] wrote:
> I am trying to compile a list of the earliest 2-3 cookbooks for the various
> Viking areas.  Since there are no actual Viking cookbooks, the earliest ones
> seem to be at around 50-100+ years later or more.  Lists of archeological
> findings would be helpful as well.

Going away from the viking era in the other direction, isn't there a
byzantine manuscript from just before the viking age?

But, unless you are looking for recipies of food that "vikings may have
eaten" rather than what they ate "at home" I think that there is only
some literary mentions of food (primarilly the Edda Saemundar?) and
archaeology. Based on archaeology you get data of two kinds:

        a. "This was available". 
        b. "This was -- sometimes with the qualifier: almost certainly -- 
           eaten".

Category a is data we have from seed and pollen analysis, middens, etc.
In the second group we have a bit more data of interest, since we here
are talking of analysis of food remains, both "macroscopic" stuff like
the remains of bread, and "lab data" like fatty acid contents of clay
pots, isotope ratios in teeth, etc.

An example of the best we can do from this is "a piece of bread
containing these things was found in a grave",  "the pot had been used
for cooking salmon, mutton and seal", or "the person got his protein
almost exclusively from marine sources".

Have a look at some of the Ph.D. theses from the Archaeological 
Research Laboratory at Stockholm University
(http://www.archaeology.su.se/arklab/avh.htm): 

Hansson, Ann-Marie (1997) 
On Plant Food in the Scandinavian Peninsula in Early Medieval Times. 
(Theses and Papers in Archaeology B:5)

Isaksson, Sven (2000) 
Food and Rank in Early Medieval Time. (Theses and Papers in Scientific 
Archaeology 3)

UlfR
-- 
UlfR Ketilson                               ulfr at hunter-gatherer.org


Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 08:45:13 -0800
From: Susan Fox-Davis <selene at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Favorite Norse/Viking camping event recipes
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Sharon Gordon wrote:
>I was wondering what people's favorite recipes were for doing old Norse
>style recipes while cooking at camping events?
>
>Sharon
>gordonse at one.net

My favorite Viking Food page is part of Mistress Thora's fine website:
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikfood.html

My =least= favorite thing is undercooked whole pig on a spit, 
half-cooked by clueless guys who are trying to look manly and tough. 
 <insert Tim Allen 'more power' grunt here>

Selene Colfox


Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 10:40:49 -0700
From: "Patricia Collum" <pjc2 at cox.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Source information for the make-up of
	removes?
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

From the reading I did into viking food, the information in the sagas is
pretty much limited to 'we had a feast and much good food was had by all'.

Some good on-line sources for info about viking food are
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikfood.html ,
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/food.htm ,
http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/text/food_and_diet.htm ,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/vikings/food_01.shtml .

For the same period Anglo-Saxon try  http://www.regia.org/feasting.htm .

Cecily


From: val_org at hotmail.com (Gunnora Hallakarva)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: viking recipie
Date: 16 Jun 2004 17:27:09 -0700

"Vidarr  Wolfsbane" <Wolfsbane at bigpond.com> wrote in message news:<C2Vzc.30098$sj4.16892 at news-server.bigpond.net.au>...
> i have ayule celebration that i have been asked to bring a desert wondering
> if any one had a easy one
> i could take

Pancake with Berries
This recipe comes from Vikingars Gästabud (Fant, Michaël, Roger
Lundgren and Thore Isaksson. Vikingars Gästabud ["The Viking Feast"].
Malmö: Richters Förlag. 1998.), and is for four servings.

Ingredients

2/3 cup white flour 
1/2 cup whole wheat flour 
1/2 teaspoon salt 
2-1/2 cups milk 
2 tablespoons butter 
1 cup lingonberries or bilberries 

Turn on the oven to 425°F (225°C). Whisk the batter together without
the butter and stir in the berries.  Melt the butter in a
heat-resistant baking pan and pour it in the batter. Bake it in the
middle of the oven for about 20-25 minutes until the pancake has a
nice color.
  
Cut it into pieces and serve with some jam.

Also, some info from a related culture:

Ann Hagen.  A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food: Processing and
Consumption.  Norfolk, UK: Anglo-Saxon Books. 1992.

Note - be aware that in Europe "corn" is synonymous with "grain" and
doesn't mean "maize" as it does in the U.S. Another Britishism is the
use of "biscuit" to mean what Americans would recognize as "cookie".
Where the text uses italics, I have enclosed italicized text in angle
brackets, <italicized text is shown like this>.  My occasional notes
will be in square brackets, [My notes are shown like this]. Most of
the italicized terms are Old English, but some Latin is present as
well and I'll note that for you when Hagen does not.  <Leechdoms> and
<Gerefa> are Anglo-Saxon written works, with <Leechdoms> being medical
and herbal formularies.

p. 14
'Meal' (<meolu/melu>) was the term given to corn, or other material,
after grinding.  Grube considers that the term was applied to ground
grain from which 'siftings/bran' (<sife›a>) had been sieved.  He bases
this interpretation on a passage from Alfred's translation of
Boethius: 'so men sift meal - the meal goes through the holes and the
siftings are thrown away' (<swa saw mon mealo seft: ›æt meolo ›urcryp›
ælc ›yrel 7 fla syfe›a weor›a› asyndred>.)  However, a reference to
<flrittig mittan clænes melowes and sixtig mittan o›res melowes>
suggests ground corn in general, and substances other than corn were
ground into <meolu>.  <Mealan stane> seems to have been an alternative
term for <cwern>.  Unspecified meal was sometimes mentioned in rents.

Meal could be ground more or less fine, and coule be sieved then
bolted through various grades of cloth to retain or exclude more or
less of the bran, and also spiders and the flour moth.  <Leechdoms>
refer to 'finely sieved meal' (<getemsud melu>), and Cockayne explains
<temse> as a fine hair sieve, a term still in use when he wrote. 
<Hersyfe> and <tæmesplian> (hair sieves) are referred to in <Gerefa>. 
Appropriately the <getemsud melu> was to be made into a cake as food
for a patient with a delicate stomach.  Refined meal - the fine flour
- was referred to as <smedma> or <smedema>.  One recipe calls for
'fine flour of wheat meal' (<hwætenes meluwes smedman>).  <Hlaf
smedman> translates 'bread of very fine flour' (<pania smili agineus>
[Latin]), and <smedma> glosses <similia> [Latin] (the finest wheaten
flour). <Pollis> [Latin] (fine flour) is glossed by <grytt>.  Finely
divided flour was available in Anglo-Saxon contexts, but it seems
probable that only the richer members of society would be able to use
it as a matter of course.

<Leechdoms> are not necessarily representative of substances generally
ground into meal, but they are the most prolific source of references.
 There are ten references to barley meal, plus one to 'fine barley
meal' (<smæl beren meal>); six to wheat, plus one to 'fine wheat meal'
(<smæl hwætan meolwe>), and one to 'fine wheat flour' (<hwætenes
meluwes smedman>); three to rye (as bran, meal, and dust); and one
reference each to oat meal and bean meal.  All five - barley, wheat,
rye, oats and beans - were field crops, and their use for flour is not
surprising.

p. 15
... the discovery that fermenting liquor from brewing produced lighter
bread had evidently been made on the continent before the beginning of
the Anglo-Saxon period.  Perhaps <beorma> (yeast), which is
etymologically connected with <breowan> (to brew), referred to this
kind of liquid yeast source.  The Anglo-Saxons may have also used the
sediment from bottom-fermenting yeasts - produced by the fermentation
at low tempertures of light beers.  This is born out by the fact that
one Old English term for yeast, <dærst> is derived from <dros>
(dregs).  This yeasty sediment was slow-acting, and resulted in heavy,
damp, sour bread.

p. 15
... the common Germanic character of terms for yeast also points to
the early production of leavened bread among Germanic peoples;
particularly when there were also common terms for unleavened 'low'
bread; Old English <fleorfe> and 'raised' bread, Old English <hlaf>.

p. 17
In Asser's version of the story of Alfred and the 'cakes', the loaves
are burning at the fire; in the Claud MS. the loaves are on a pan with
the fire underneath, while Matthew of Westminster's version has the
bread under the ashes of the fire to bake.  <Axbakenne hlaf>
[ash-baked yeast bread loaves] and <heor›bacen hlaf> [hearth-baked
yeast bread loaves] are two variants in translations of Gregory's
Dialogues.  One of the leechdoms instructs 'bake him a warm loaf on
the hearth' (<bacan him man flanne wearmen hlaf be heor›e>), but
another prescribes 'an oven-baked loaf' (<ofen baocan hlaf>).  Ovens
were enclosed - in their simplest form an inverted pot covered with
embers [similar methods are used to bake in Dutch ovens today].  A
clay-lined oven had been built into the chalk rubble walls of a what
was evidently a cooking hut on the sixth/seventh-century site at
Puddlehill, Beds.  In <The Life of Ceolfrith>, written soon after 716,
but probably referring to a time before 674, an oven is lit and then
cleansed when loaves are placed in it, suggesting a bread oven on
conventional lines in which faggots are lit and the ashes raked out
before baking.

p. 20
On feast days, at least in religious contexts, the ordinary bread was
relaced by a finer kind, or spiced cakes.  Feast-day bread may have
been made from enriched dough mixtures.  <Gesufel> loaves were
bequeathed as an offering on Sundays by Ealhburg and Eadwulf... and
the Abbotsbury guild loaves were to be <well gesyfled>.  <Gesufel>
seems to mean 'spiced' or 'flavoured'.  Guild loaves were also to be
<well besewen>, which perhaps means 'sprinkled with seeds'.  Dill,
caroway, poppy, fennel and sweet cecily seeds could all have been
used.  <Leechdoms> gives instructions for making 'a cake' (<anne
cicel>) of 'finely sifted flour' (<getemsud melu>) into which cumin
and march seed was to be kneaded, so perhaps seeds were incorporated
into the dough.  Such enriched loaves could have been kneaded with
milk instead of water (cf. the <Erce> charm), or cream, and had eggs,
butter or other fats incorporated into the dough.  They may have been
sweetened with honey, or contained fruits, preserved in honey or
dried.  Local variations of enriched loaves and buns may derive from
the special breads of Anglo-Saxon feast days.

p. 63
Fats and oils were almost certainly used as shortening in biscuits and
cakes.  The glossing of [Latin] <crustulla> (a flat cake) by
<halstan/heallstan> (hall-stone, possibly hearth- or baking stone)
might suggest a mistranslation.  However, <halstan> could have been
something like a round of shortbread, and the name a humerous one like
'rock' cakes.  The French <astel>, a type of biscuit or cake recorded
in the twelfth century was compared to a flat, round stone.  This was
made from flour, shortening and honey, and would have been similar to
shortbread.  The low temperature needed for cooking would have been
available in an oven after the bread had been baked, or at the
hearth-side.  Enriched breads provided another sort of cake.

Other Anglo-Saxon cakes were small: at least <cicel> (cake) is glossed
by [Latin] <pastillus> (a little cake) in one of the later
word-lists... perhaps the standard cake size was 2-5 inches in
diameter, our bun or scone size.  Grube considers that cake was known
to the Germanic peoples long before the Migration period.  He thinks
that on occasion the term <æppel> (apple) was used to signify a
dumpling, as in 'knead it together so that you make it into an apple/a
dumpling' (<snuce tosomne flan gelice fle flu æppel wyrce>).  On occasion
these may have been sweetened to produce some sort of cake since
<hunig æppel> (honey dumpling) glossed Latin <pastellus>.

::GUNNVOR::


Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2005 08:24:59 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] RE:  Plums
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

The Norse probably had access to plums and prunes beginning around 900 CE
when they began direct trade with Byzantium.  Since Pliny (79 CE) states
that the Syrian plum made its way first to Greece and then to Italy, I would
assume that plums were in cultivation in the Mediterranean regions when 
the Vikings arrived.

According to the Cambridge World History of Food, plums were introduced into
England by the Normans, suggesting that either the Romans or the Norse 
had introduced their cultivation into Normandy.

Bear

> Kool! So it was the reg. plumes/prunes that were used and not the red.
> My question is, did the Norse have access to the prunes/plums?
> As was stated, "....but otherwise it fits what I know about Hiberno-Viking
> cooking. I've read that they loved plums."
> I was wanting docs. because Norse is one of my areas of interest and 
> would love to increase the variety to the "smorgasbord". :)
>
> Lyse


Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2005 08:44:22 -0400
From: "a5foil" <a5foil at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Plums  was: Lammas 1005 menu
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

According to Hagen, plum and sloe stones have been recovered at both York
and Gloucester. They may have had a variety similar to damsons. So  
it's not unreasonable to have plums in Dublin.

Cynara


Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2005 10:41:06 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] RE:  Plums  and Irish
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Harald Hardrada, who invaded England in 1066, had been a member of the
Varangian Guard in his youth.  Vikings had been entering the Mediterranean
both through the Straits of Gibraltar and down the rivers in the Steppes
since the early 9th Century.  The probability that none of these venturers
wound up in Ireland is very low.

Rollo settled in Normandy in 911 and whether his Vikings brought the plums
or the Romans left them, that establishes a hundred year span for getting
them into Ireland.  Since the Vikings were in the trading business as well
as the raiding business, shipping prunes to other Viking settlements seems
highly probable.

Were I looking for further evidence to support or refute the contention, I
would look at what information is available on the diet of Viking Era
Dublin.

Bear

> From my understanding she is trying for Irish Norse feast. The Rus and
> the Svea were in the Mediterranean but not the Irish.
> Also, there was little contact between the Romans in Briton and the Irish.
> If she is trying for Irish Norse then it is a very slim possibility for
> the Irish to have plums (actually prunes).
> I am not sure about the red plums.
> And though Normandy seems to have the plums does not mean that the Irish
> had them. Also, the Normans would have introduced the plum either a little
> before or after 1066 (into England, not Ireland) and I think she is  
> trying for 1005.
>
> Lyse


Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 07:19:14 +0200
From: UlfR <ulfr at hunter-gatherer.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] RE:  Plums  and Irish
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Terry Decker <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net> [2005.08.07] wrote:
> Were I looking for further evidence to support or refute the contention, I
> would look at what information is available on the diet of Viking Era
> Dublin.

Not primary source, but Thora Sharpstooth lists them for a bunch of
viking age locations (http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikfood.html).

/UlfR
-- 
UlfR Ketilson                               ulfr at hunter-gatherer.org


Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2005 20:19:32 +0200
From: UlfR <ulfr at hunter-gatherer.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] RE:  Plums  and Irish
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

UlfR <ulfr at hunter-gatherer.org> [2005.08.08] wrote:
> Terry Decker <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net> [2005.08.07] wrote:
>> Were I looking for further evidence to support or refute the  
>> contention, I
>> would look at what information is available on the diet of Viking Era
>> Dublin.

> I have a sleeping child on my shoulder, else I could check a PhD thesis
> on viking age plant food I've got lying around.

The child has woken up and I have found the book :-/

Sounce:
   Ann-Marie Hansson  "On Plant Food in the Scandinavian Peninsula in  Early
   Medieval Times"  Thesis at Archaelogical Research Laboratory (Stockholm
   University) 1997

She lists that there was traces of "Prunus sp." found in Birka. Most of
the thesis was on bread (with some work on hops and plant food remains
from a couple of sited. No idea what Prunus species, though.

/UlfR
-- 
UlfR Ketilson                               ulfr at hunter-gatherer.org


Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 12:57:25 -0800 (PST)
From: H Westerlund-Davis <yaini0625 at yahoo.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Icelandic, Saami and "Viking Food"

Something to add to our repertoire of bizarre and yummy foods.

Lifrarpylsa - Icelandic style Haggis 
(http://www.simnet.is/gullis/jo/meats.htm#Lifrarpylsa)
Mj?lkurso?inn lundi- Puffin in milk 
sauce(http://www.simnet.is/gullis/jo/meats.htm#lundi)
Svi? og svi?asulta- Sheep's heads and sheep's head jam 
(http://www.simnet.is/gullis/jo/meats.htm#heads)

Bl??m?r - Icelandic blood sausage( 
http://icecook.blogspot.com/2010/01/blomor-icelandic-blood-sausage.html)Dyrestek 
med viltsaus- Roasted Reindeer with game sauce. I have about a dozen variations 
of this recipe. This is the quickest version in English. If anyone can send me 
reindeer I will be Seventh Heaven! Elk is the closes I can find. Caribou is 
seasonal and recently difficult to get. 

(http://www.sofn.com/norwegian_culture/showRecipe.jsp?document=ReindeerRoast.html)

The Saami have a dozen or variations of cooking and serving reindeer. They even 
made butter and cheese from the milk.  After the 17th Century many Saami women 
started taking care of goats and cattle, but reindeer remained a staple. I have 
to find it again, but in recent years they have had "Saami Iron Chef" in 
Northern Sweden using reindeer. 


?n?g? ?orrabl?t! February is also the month where Iceland celebrates ?orri! 
This is the time of month where skyrh?karl,and glerh?karl are eaten with a lot 
ofbrennivin. ( wonder what this is??? It makes lutfisk taste yummy!)

Aelina


Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:08:00 -0400
From: Elise Fleming <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
To: sca-cooks <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>,
	"mk-cooks at midrealm.org" <mk-cooks at midrealm.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Viking Age Cookbook?

Greetings!  Found this link (which I made into TinyURL) in a Twitter 
comment: http://tinyurl.com/d533hjb .

It's on someone's Facebook page and says, "A cookbook and culinary 
factbook based on what we know today about the Viking Age food culture. 
Both the recipes and the factbook part are based on finds, literary 
sources, other contemporary sources and experimental archaeology."

The description is given thusly: ?An Early Meal - a Viking Age Cookbook 
& Culinary Odyssey? is more than just a Viking Age cookbook. It is a 
combination of a textbook on Viking Age culinary practices and 
mouthwatering recipes based on archaeological finds and experimental 
archaeology.

The book is a result of a 15 year long collaboration between research 
and experiments of Daniel Serra, culinary archaeologist - experimental 
archaeologist and doctoral student - and the culinary skills and palate 
of Hanna Tunberg - foodie, sommelier and archaeologist.

The book is planned to be released by late spring and is the first book 
published by ChronoCopia Publishing."

The recipes, if any, won't be taken from period sources since none 
exist, but maybe they might be somewhat more "authentic" than what is 
done by re-enactors. Does anyone have further information?

Alys K.
-- 
Elise Fleming
alysk at ix.netcom.com


Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 10:02:01 -0400
From: "Terri Morgan" <online2much at cox.net>
To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Viking Age Cookbook?

<<< The description is given thusly: ?An Early Meal - a Viking Age
Cookbook & Culinary Odyssey? is more than just a Viking Age
cookbook. It is a combination of a textbook on Viking Age
culinary practices and mouthwatering recipes based on
archaeological finds and experimental archaeology.
<snip>
Does anyone have further information?
Alys K. >>>

I own it. In fact, I was just looking at it this morning, skimming for ideas
of what to serve to a bunch of Viking reenactors next month. Overall, I am
not very impressed. The beginning chapters of the book cover various time
periods; Hunter/Gatherer, Farmers & Livestock Breeders, Bronze casters &
Potters, and so on through the Viking era to the mid-medieval period. Each
era has a small drawing assigned to it and once you get to the recipe
chapters (one recipe per page) that picture is your only guide as to which
era the recipe is based in. Most of the recipes are based on, or influenced
by, the period cooking texts we are already familiar with. There are some
oddities to them, for instance, the "Walnut Pesto" on page 46 (with the
picture showing that it is based the 1200-1350s) uses a "large pinch of
sugar" but doesn't specify what type of sugar. It suggests that the pesto
would go well with fish. There is no information about which area of Europe
the dish may have been eaten in. (The ingredient list was; walnuts, sage
leaves, white wine, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and sugar.)

A later recipe, "Troll Cr?me" (based in the "seeresses and seafarers" era of
600 - 1050) has one whisking 4 cups of cranberries into a single egg white,
then dribbling honey into the mixture. It doesn't say what the final result
should look like, simply that you should garnish it with additional
cranberries. There was no mention of mashing the four cups of cranberries
before adding them to the egg white. I have no idea what sort of period dish
this recipe is supposed to be.

Hrothny


Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 10:43:09 -0500
From: Karstyl <karstyl at gmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Viking Age Cookbook?

Hrothny, I think you might be referring to a different book, perhaps with a
similar title. ?An Early Meal - a Viking Age Cookbook & Culinary Odyssey?
is not out yet.

The facebook page for the new book is:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/An-Early-Meal-A-Viking-Age-Cookbook-Culinary-Odyssey/416525951771056

It sounds more promising than the one you have!

-Hrefna


Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 08:53:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: Dan Schneider <schneiderdan at ymail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Viking Age Cookbook?

Daniel and Hannah are probably the two main early medieval food historians in Sweden today. Their previous book "En S?s av ringa v?rde" is a translationand redaction of the Harpestrang cookbook (using both the Q and K editions)into modern Swedish. Daniel has worked as a food historian at Glimmengehus, a medieval house museum in (I think) Sk?ne, the Lofotr viking museum in Norway, and the Lejre research center in Denmark, ans well as lecturing free-lance. I don't know Hannah personally, but I know she and Daniel have collaborated for several years. There's a facebook  page for the new book: https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/An-Early-Meal-A-Viking-Age-Cookbook-Culinary-Odyssey/416525951771056?id=416525951771056&sk=info

Dan (a different one)


Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2014 12:37:11 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Devra has An Early Meal  cookbook

I checked this am and Devra of Poison Pen Press DOES have copies in stock.

An Early Meal - a Viking Age Cookbook & Culinary Odyssey - $45 plus s/h

http://www.poisonpenpress.com

She's been having trouble posting to the list of late but she's still a go to source for cookery books.

Johnnae

On Feb 19, 2014, at 5:57 PM, Deborah Hammons <mistressaldyth at gmail.com> wrote:
<< I am going to hope it's at Estrella.  The only American source seems to be
out.

Aldyth >>

Johnnae wrote--
< The IACP announced their nominees for various cookbooks today.

Culinary History
Cuisine & Empire: Cooking in World History by Rachel Laudan (University
Of California Press). 

An Early Meal - A Viking Age Cookbook & Culinary
Odyssey by Daniel Serra & Hanna Tunberg (Chronocopia Publishing). 

Yes, that is correct. An Early Meal is up culinary history.

<the end>
Edited by Mark S. Harris	fd-Norse-msg	Page 29 of 29