SC - A new project....

[James F. Johnson]

allilyn at juno.com wrote:
> 
> Seumas,
> 
> >>I experimented with making all rye flatbread yesterday. The batch I
> made
> was very much like a rye pita. It even inflated a bit, mitigated by the
> several holes pricked into each side. I could grow to like these. (I
> _love_ rye) <<
> 
> I love it, too.  Would you please share your recipe and directions?
> Sounds like a great snack food.

Recipe? Well....

The first batch was just rye flour and water, rolled flat and cooked on
a hot griddle. Unleavened. A little tough, but tasty. The second batch
is an experiment with some leaven (assuming perhaps a little natural
leaven in the air/kitchen) and salt. That's resting right now before I
cook them.

> Hope you post all your recipes.  I'm not sure what skyr is--some sort of
> sour milk/cream product?  What documentation do you use--other than saga
> mentions--since we don't have the northern cookbooks?

The skyr is curdling as we speak, three hours into a five hour period.
Then I start straining it. I'll let you know.

I'll make the point again. Documentation is intentionally not a weighted
value here. I'm doing my nearest, best guess as a favour to a friend on
the occasion of his Pelican vigil. He's 10th century Icelandr. Very
little documentation of recipes. This is not a feast either, mostly
'finger food' or nosh type stuff, so in this case, all I might need is
some evidence in the archaeo-botanical record. Things like plums,
hazelnuts, etc. The rest is conjecture based on 'traditional' recipes,
with little support that those traditions extended back ten centuries.
We're not even sure there were northern cook _books_. Even the more
southern MA cookbooks don't appear until the 13th or 14th centuries.

Seumas