SC - Introduction

[Laura C Minnick]

Bonne wrote:
>Smorgasbord or something like it seems common to all--but how long ago
would
>this have started?

I remember having read somewhere some speculation that Russian zakuski (hot
or cold savouries served with vodka before a meal) may originate in an early
version of smörgåsbord - I think there is even a legend that the Swedish
Viking chief Hrærekr (Rurik) introduced zakuski to the Russians. Can´t
remember where I read that, though.

>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.

In Iceland, they never baked much bread anyway, as grain (barley mostly) was
difficult to grow, and no grain at all will ripen in many regions. (Later
on, when the Icelanders had destroyed all the woods, they didn´t have much
fuel either, but that´s another story.) Grain for bread mostly had to be
imported and was very expensive. So bread was not everyday food, unless
maybe for wealthy people. There is little or no tradition here of storing
bread for long periods of time and I can´t offhand recall any historical
references to storage of bread.

Very few homes had an oven (I believe that in the 18th century at least,
there wasn´t even one oven in the whole of Iceland - and no baker, either)
but if there was an oven, it was in a separate building. Most breads were
baked in the hearth (but, as I said, we are not talking about anything like
2 pounds per person per day here) and these were probably mostly
flatbreads - something like the lichen bread I posted a recipe for earlier.

Nanna

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