SC - cranberries bogged me down

[Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir]

Allison wrote:

>Is there documentation for the growth of cranberries in Scandinavia?

Tranebær/tranbär are found all over Scandinavia, but that is Vaccinium
oxycoccos L., closely related to Amercian cranberries, Vaccinium
macrocarpum, which are known by the same name in the Nordic languages.
According to the bothanical website of the Swedish Museum of Natural History
(http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/inne.html) they were first described in a
Swedish publication in the 17th century but they certainly grew there long
before that and may be mentioned in much earlier sources - I don´t know but
will let you know if I come across anything.

I'd
>like it, and so would my Viking friends.  So far as you know, would there
>be any reason, good or bad, to throw or not throw cranberries into your
>barley pottage?


Not that I know of. Rice porridge with raisins was very popular all over
Scandinavia later on (there is a recipe in the 1616 Danish cookbook), so the
idea of adding fruit or berries to boiled grain probably wasn´t alien. But
the sources I´ve consulted are somewhat vague on the use of berries in
Scandinavia in the old days - some say they were mostly eaten by poor
people, and in the regions where little or no grain could be grown, people
made their graut/grød (porridge) with berries.

The few types of berries we have here in Iceland probably were much used
(there are no other fruits) and the mid-13th century law book Grágás states
that it is allowed to pick berries on Sundays but that people can only take
home as much as they can carry in their hands - which must mean that people
were bringing berries home to use them in cooking. They were - and still
are - often mixed with skyr (curds; delicious with cream and sugar) and
frequently also preserved throughout the winther in sour curds.

Nanna

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