SC - Viking and early Irish foods

[Joseph M. Lane]

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 he 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
If it can't be fricasseed, then fry, fry, the hen....


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