SC - Viking Sweets, my creative adventure

[Helen]

Ok, one of my first forays into cooking for the unread public is over,
and I am glad to report that I survived it!

This last weekend in Ansteorra was Laurel's Prize Tourney, in which
everyone is encouraged to display what they have been working on
lately, and let the Laurels walk around and take notes, make comments,
and generally immerse each other in art.

I have a lot of embroidery that I displayed, but with all the things I
have learned on this list, I wanted to have something to nibble at my
table.  If there were something to eat, people were likely to stop and
look at other things.

So I read what I could find on "What Vikings Ate".  We had that page
posted to the list about a month ago from Mistress Thora Sharptooth,
and here in Ansteorra we have the Viking Answer Lady.  I perused both
sites, and looked in some books.

Now we know that there are no books with recipes from that period, but
I persevered.  Mistress Gunnora mentioned that they had a great and
abiding love of plums and prunes, so I went from there.

The archaeological record has plums and hazlenuts found in digs in
Dublin (exactly where I was wanting to look).  I decided on something
sweet with prunes.

>From there, I checked out --LOTS-- of cookbooks from Germany, Russia,
Ireland, Scandinavia, anywhere there was a Norse cultural influence. 
And the interesting thing I found was a repetition of stuffed prune
recipes.  I found one stuffed with an almond, one with cheese, one
wrapped in bacon, etc.

I took these ideas, rejected the almond in favor of the hazlenut, and
this is what I came up with.

Stuffed Prunes

1 lb dried prunes
mead
1/2 t ground pepper
1/2 lb sliced bacon

Put the prunes in a saucepan, cover with mead and add pepper.  Stew
until soft, but not falling apart.  Cool prunes, then stuff a hazlenut
into each one.  Wrap each prune with a piece of bacon and cook (I
surmise that this would work on a griddle, in a hot oven, or in some
sort of basket arrangement over an open fire.  I put them in a pyrex
dish, and heated them in the microwave engine until the bacon was done.


That is all.  I left the toothpicks (which held the bacon together) so
that my guests would have a "handle" to eat them with.  I was hoping
for a new taste, and not exactly sure what I would get.

Amazing!  Somehow the overwhelming sweetness of the prunes was toned
down by the salt of the bacon.  It was as if these flavors had always
been together.  The pepper flavor didn't show up until the prune had
been finished for a minute or two (when they were already at the next
table) and was not strong, just a pleasant memory of flavor.

One thing I laughed at.  I had to leave my table for a bit to use the
restroom.  When I got back, I knew that someone had visited me because
there was a partially eaten prune on the old toothpick stack.  I think
what happened was that someone came to the hazlenut, and thought it
was the prune pit, and stopped eating.

Comments?  (sorry this is so long)  I feel successful.  People not
only ate it, but liked it.  Adults and children alike.

Tyrca




 
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