SC - Sources, not sauces the Documentation and Subjective vs. Objective Judging

[Daniel Phelps]

On Sun, 16 May 1999, "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is> wrote:
>Stefan wrote:
>
>>This sounds like it works on the same principle as storing things in
>>honey - keeping air and microbes away for the food. But doesn't the
>>whey itself go bad? Is this whey generally from goat's, sheep or cow's
>>milk? What other foods were stored this way?
>
>It is more like pickling, actually; the term used for fermented whey in
>Icelandic, "sýra", actually means "acid" and today, vinegar is sometimes
>used, even though the results are not as good.
>
>The following are two loosely translated sections from my book, the section
>on "súrmatur", literally "sour food", i.e. food preserved in whey, and the
>section on "sýra" (fermented whey). There is some overlapping of the texts.
>Any text in parantheses is not in the original; I´ve added it to explain
>things an Icelander doesn´t need explained. I´ve removed the accent from the
>y in sýra as it may not show up on your screen correctly.
>
>
>"Pickling was one of the most used preservation methods in Iceland almost
>from the Settlement, as salt was always lacking, and the liquid used for
>pickling was fermented whey. Icelanders were by no means the only ones who
>preserved their food by pickling but long-term preservation in whey is not
>known to have been widely practised elsewhere. Whey accumulated as a
>by-product of skyr-making during the summer (skyr: curds, made from ewes or
>cows milk, a mainstay of Icelandic diet through the centuries) and was kept
>in barrels, where a fermentation process began. It was then called syra.
>Syra was either diluted with water and drunk, or used for the preservation
>of food. Many kinds of food were preserved in this manner, such as blood
>sausage, liver sausage, lundabaggar (a kind of Icelandic version of
>faggots), sheep´s heads, lamb´s testicles, fatty meat, whale meat and
>blubber, seal flippers and many other things. Dried or hard stuff, otherwise
>quite inedible, for example bones and dried fish skin, were sometimes kept
>for a long time in syra, until they softened. Food keeps very well in a
>strong syra and loses relatively little of its nourishment value, but this
>method has a great effect on the taste of the food. If a barrel was to be
>kept undisturbed for many months, some mutton fat was usually rendered and
>poured over the surface to seal it, but if the barrel was in constant use,
>it was simply closed with a wooden lid. If the surface wasn´t either sealed
>or disturbed daily, a mold might start to grow."
>
>And from the chapter on sýra:
>
>"Syra, i.e. fermented whey, was the most common beverage of Icelanders for
>many centuries and can in effect be said to have replaced ale, as lack of
>grain prevented us from brewing much ale. The whey was poured into huge
>barrels in the larder. These barrels were sometimes almost completely dug
>into the floor, as was the case with the syra-barrel Earl Gissur hid in when
>the farmhouse at Flugumýri was burned down (a famous and well-documented
>incident from 13th century Icelandic history. The barrel was almost full of
>ice-cold syra and there was another one on top of it, with a small space in
>between. The earl (the only Icelandic nobleman ever) hid in the bottom
>barrel while his enemies searched the burning farmhouse). There are also
>several similarities between the making of syra and ale-brewing, and the
>blanket that developed on the surface of a sýra barrel was called jastur,
>which is the same word as yeast in English. Syra was used for a lot of
>things besides drinking and preservation, for example to marinate food, and
>according to Íslenskir þjóðhættir (a 19th century book on folk customs and
>more), better-off farmers frequently "let the meat lie in syra for a day or
>two, before it was roasted, especially when a large feast was held". Bones
>were also put in syra to soften them up and make them edible. It is said
>that syra isn´t really mature until it is two years old. Then it was never
>drunk undiluted, but mixed with water. Syra that was diluted by 11 parts of
>water was called tólftarblanda (twelve-blend)."
>
>>Does this storage technique only work in a cool climate, which I assume
>>Iceland has even in summer? Or would it work in warmer regions such as
>>the Mediteranean? Does anyone else have any evidence of this preservation
>>technique being used elsewhere besides Iceland?
>
>
>Don´t think so. Our top food historian says she has frequently asked
>collegues from around the world if they know of this technique in other
>cultures and no one has ever heard of it. - I´m not sure if this would work
>in a warmer climate, maybe if the barrel was kept deep down in a cold
>cellar. In summer, when I was a child, the syra was icy cold, never mind how
>hot it was (not that it ever got very hot but it was the only cold drink
>available before refrigeration).
>
>Nanna
>
>
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