SC - Scrabble was Scrapple-Recipe-OOP

[Lee-Gwen Booth]

Seaumas wrote:


>I'd welcome recommendations and personal opinions on dishes that _might_
>have been served in the tenth and eleventh centuries up north. Lacking
>any substantial proof at this time, I'd settle for possible, probable,
>likely, and not incongruous dishes. Authentication is not a _primary_
>goal here, but if it's there, I'd love it more.
>I'm not out to win an A&S cooking contest, just provide suitable
>hospitality to a friend's guests.
>Oh, Nanna......? :)


Oh dear. Difficult. A vegan Icelander would soon have died of starvation any
time before the late 20th century, and people would have thought it served
him right (still would, I suspect). Once you leave out meat, seafood, and
dairy products from the Icelandic diet, what you have left is unleavend
bread - most of it barley - porridges (probably often made with butter or
milk) some herbs and berries (but these were probably usually mixed with
skyr or other dairy products anyway) and not much else.

The sagas and other primary sources sometimes mention kál, which means
cabbage these days but may have meant just about any vegetable in the past,
so no one really knows if any vegetables were grown here or if the term is
being used for wild herbs and vegetables only. "Onion gardens" are also
mentioned but no one is sure what was grown in them - probably chives, at
least. In addition, garlic and red onions are mentioned in old sources. It
is known that some of the monasteries had vegetable gardens in the 12th
century and grew turnips, peas and beans, but there is no indication that
the cultivation spread beyond these monastery gardens.

Mushrooms might be an idea - there are several types of wild mushrooms here,
although there is no evidence they were eaten in the 10th century - the
earliest (mid 18th C) source says they are "not much eaten now", which may
mean they were much more popular earlier. And maybe some bread strips like
Maire is suggesting. Hummus is not precisely Icelandic but since peas and
beans were being grown in the 12th century, maybe some kind of dip made with
legumes is not too far-fetched. I guess you could use any spice known in
Northern and Western Europe at the time - those who went a-viking could
easily have brought a packet of spices home to Mother.

Maybe some small tartlets filled with blueberries? Anything made with honey
and nuts (imported but certainly available), probably some dried fruit ...
I´ll think about this some more and try to come up with some ideas.

Now, if you could get hold of some dulse strips, that´s your ideal finger
food. Definitely vegan, eminently documentable as a snack (Egill
Skallagrímsson was nibbling on them in the 10th century, or so the sagas
say) and quite tasty (at least if you are an Icelander and have been chewing
them since childhood).

Nanna