SC - Harpestreng fish recipe consensus???

[Philip & Susan Troy]

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





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