SC - reminiscing as source

[Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir]

Bonne wrote:
>but I always wonder, when reading something like
>this that seems to leave something out, if the former child simply didn't
>really know all that was involved.  There may well have been a starter, a
>sweetener or something else.  If the now grown up and old person thinking
>back to childhood states they were specifically taught such and such,
that's
>different.  But when they seem to be recalling only what they observed and
>remember, I wonder what they didn't and don't.

I agree, but in this case I´m sure the author is remembering correctly. I
have read many similar descriptions. Traditional Icelandic cookbooks have
recipes for breads of this kind - no leavener at all but the dough is
usually left overnight before being baked or steamed. I steamed a rye bread
like this - rye flour, water and salt - a couple of weeks ago - it was very
dense but quite edible. I want to do more experiments, as I was using
regular fine-ground rye flour.

Whey was sometimes used but none of the old recipes have any sweetener
added. There are recipes that include sourdough, too.

>For that matter, sometimes statements made by adults make me wonder if they
>really knew what was going on in the kitchen, or were guessing.

Yes, I´ve seen examples of that - I even had an ongoing argument with my
sister about how a certain delicacy involving sheep´s intestines was
prepared at our childhood home. We finally gave in and asked our mother.
Turned out neither of us was quite correct. Now if we hadn´t asked, and had
then both written down our childhood recollections later on, you would have
had two different descriptions, both of them wrong.

On a vaguely related note, I also remember when I was working for the
Icelandic Place-Name Institute (yes, there is such a thing) 15 years ago and
one of my assignments was collecting place names from the farm I grew up on.
I talked mostly to my grandfather and his brother, old men who had lived
there all their lives. They came up with around 380 names and lots of
wonderful stories, involving ghosts, un-dead children, elves, outlaws, the
mistress of a Catholic bishop, and so on. But they were utterly unable to
agree on the name of a river on the farm. A river they had both crossed
almost daily for decades. Now I had never heard the name my grandfather
insisted was the correct one; neither had anyone else I asked. But I still
hesitate to say he was wrong; maybe he was, in his old age (86 or so)
recalling an old name that had not been in use any more when his much
younger brother was growing up. And then again, maybe he was just mixing
things up ... I know that after this, I found myself sometimes doubting
things he told me about his childhood, which I had never done before.

Nanna

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