SC - Lefse/hleifr

[Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir]

- -----Original Message-----
From: Decker, Terry D. <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
To: 'sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG' <sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG>
Date: 25. ágúst 1999 14:43
Subject: RE: SC - Lefse/hleifr


>> The recipe comes from "Koge Bog: Indeholdendis et hundrede fornødene
>> stycker
>> Som ere om Brygning, Bagning, Kogen, Brendewijn oc Miød at berede, aare
>> nyttelig udi husholding, etc., Som tilforn icke paa vort Danske Sprog udi
>> Tryck er udgangen", Copenhagen, 1616.

I forgot to translate the title; it would be something like: Cook Book:
Containing one hundred neccessary pieces about brewing, baking, cooking, how
to make distilled spirits and mead, and are of use for a household, etc. As
has not earlier been printed in our language.

I haven´t studied it quite fully yet - I´m not all that fluent in the
blackletter (Gothic) alphabeth. But it has a lot of interesting recipes.
This is the only bread recipe, though, but wheat bread is mentioned as a
thickener in some recipes. And wheat flour is mentioned in at least one
recipe.

>You use the term midden.  Can you tell me if the Danish word being used is
>related to the Old English mycg or the Old English midding?  From the
>context, I am assuming midding.


Duh. This is a clear case of Nanna mixing up several languages in her
muddled brain - early morning caffeine deficiency, I´d say. The Danish words
is "mider", i.e. midges - the insect variety. But as it happens I was
actually thinking of Icelandic "maðkar", that is, maggots - Danish rye and
maggots having a strong historical connection here in Iceland (in case
anyone is wondering what happened to the rye that went bad in Denmark during
summer, the answer is easy - they sold it to Iceland, where Danish merchants
had a trading monopoly and the Icelanders were forced to buy it if they
wanted any grain at all).
>
>> Then you should have your flour ground at the beginning of  as much as
you
>> will use for a whole year in your household.

I see I´ve missed some words here: "... at the beginning of the fast, or
earlier if you can, as much as you ..."  I suppose the fast means the Advent
(or whatever the English name is for the fast period before Christmas).

>White bread from rye?

Yes. Finely ground rye is fairly light and was considered white, and often
called hveiti (wheat) in Icelandic. I think this was the case in Norway
also, maybe the other Scandinavian countries as well. So even if sources
mention "wheat bread", it may not really be wheat. (I think the wheat bread
mentioned in this book is made from wheat flour, though.)

 >The wet grain would need to
>dry some before milling, but it would be softer than grain which had not
>been water processed.

The book says nothing about drying, or how the grain was sifted. But I know
that when rye was ground in a hand-powered stone grinder (quern? what is the
correct name), the sifting is automatic - the fine flour falls straight down
and lies on the bottom stone, the husks and germ is thrown to the outer
edge.

>As a final comment, the way I read this, the rye referred to is the grain
>and the flour is rye flour.  No other flours or grains are mentioned.  This
>matches the historians opinion that rye was the common grain of the north.
>Since this is a cook book for households, it suggests that other grains,
>such as wheat, may have been expensive or difficult to obtain.

Rye, barley and oats were used for bread in Norway but there seem to have
been some regional preferences, and some wheat was grown in Southern
Norway - not much, though. Buckwheat was also known. Barley was probably the
only grain ever grown with any success in Iceland but rye was imported and
became much more common after we gave up on growing grain ourselves. Some
wheat was grown in Denmark and southern Sweden but rye seems to have been
much more common.

Nanna


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