SC - favorite sweet

[Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir]

Cariadoc wrote:
>1. Do you have a period recipe for Lokma? Just because they had
>international trade, it doesn't follow that they had time travel.
>
>2. In any case, it is a lot easier to transport coins for long distances
>with no adverse effects than to do the same with pastry. So I don't think
>the presence of Islamic coins, in Wales or Iceland, provides much reason to
>believe that the relevant populations ate Islamic pastry.


I was joking, actually. The Arabic coins were found in a dig in Southern
Iceland, mixed with a whole heap of German, English, Irish, Swedish and
Danish coins - presumably some merchant or traveller (who had not
neccessarily been to any of these countries, as no coins were minted in
Iceland in medieval times and we just used any old silver coins) had either
lost or hidden his money there. The coins were all minted in the period
936-1014.

I wouldn´t dream of serving a Middle Eastern dessert at a Viking feast -
even tough some adventurous Icelanders are said to have travelled all the
way to Constantinople and served the Emperor, there is no evidence that they
picked up any cooking methods or recipes there. Possibly a pinch of spice to
bring home to Mother, but there is no evidence for that either. As far as I
know, cooking in oil or other fat was unknown in Iceland at the time. So was
the use of yeast. So - no Lokma, I´m afraid. I just mentioned it because
Ras´ description of the Islamic sweet from al-Bahdadi seemed to be an exact
description of Lokma.

Nanna

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