SC - Lefske and Lutefisk Recipes?

[Nanna Rognvaldardottir]

Stefan wrote:

>Do you have any idea why Icelanders didn't go for the lutefisk? Is
>one of the needed ingredients of a lower quality? Or is there some
>climatic or cultural differance that would account for this? Or is
>it "just one of those things"? I'm assuming lutefisk was in use
>before Iceland was colonized, so the techniques and tradition would
>be originally there in both places.


I don't think so. No one really knows where or when the origins of lutefish
were but most sources I've looked at say "early 16th century or earlier",
which is, after all, 5-600 years after the settlement of Iceland. Let's look
at what Alan Davidson calls "neccessary conditions for the emergence of
lutefish":
a) a strong tradition of fishing and of drying the catch. (We're OK there)
b) a climate so cold as to permit use of the technique in the days before
refrigeration. (No problem at all)
c) forests or woods to supply wood ash to produce the lye. (Oops ...)

If lutefish is a Viking age dish (which I'm not so sure about), it probably
was made in Iceland at one time, but it would have disappeared within a few
centuries, as Iceland became deforestated.

You asked about horsemeat. I've discussed this earlier but here is the
horsemeat entry from my book, which should answer your questions (and no,
there are no horsemeat recipes in it, although I mention in one or two cases
that horsemeat can be used for this or that dish):

"Icelanders love their horses and generally treat them well, but they do not
share the aversion for the eating of horseflesh that most English-speaking
people seem to have, despite the fact that consuming horsemeat was forbidden
for many centuries. One of the conditions the Icelanders set for accepting
Christianity in the year 1000 AD was that they should be allowed to continue
to eat horsemeat in secret. This can not have continued for long, however,
and horsemeat was not eaten again until the 19th century, except perhaps
during severe famines.
In the early part of the 20th century, the use of horsemeat became very
widespread but it has been slowly declining again. There are few specific
horsemeat recipes, as almost any beef recipe can be used. Horseflesh is
fairly similar to beef, although it has a sweetish taste that not everyone
likes. The flesh of young horses is very lean and tender but it will spoil
faster than other meat so it must be fresh."

As for my cookbook, I delivered the manuscript to Hippocrene last month and
got an email only this morning saying their copyeditor had gone through it
and they were sending it back to me for corrections. I still don't know what
they thought of it but since I'm writing in a foreign language (and besides,
I tend to mix up British and American English somewhat dreadfully), I
suppose there is still a lot of work to be done on it.

The book is called Icelandic Food and Cookery and it will be published by
Hippocrene, probably late this year. There will be 20-30 pages containing
information on food history, feast days and food customs related to them,
and Icelandic ingredients (the horsemeat entry above is fairly typical), and
then there are around 165 recipes, each with a short - or, in a few cases,
not so short - introduction discussing origins or characteristics of the
dish, or maybe telling a family anecdote. The book is rather more personal
than I originally planned, because many of the recipes are old family
recipes.

I'm not planning on continuing to pester you with snippets from the
manuscript but I think the foreword sums up the book quite nicely so I'll
just post it here - then you know what to expect:

"I grew up on a remote farm in Northern Iceland in the 1960s. Icelandic
society has changed so much since then that sometimes it seems to me this
must have been the 1860s, not least in culinary matters. The food of my
childhood was partly the old traditional Icelandic food, salted, smoked,
whey-preserved, dried, and partly the Danish-influenced cuisine of the
Homemaker’s Academy my mother had attended; heavy sauces, roasts, endless
porridges, puddings and soups.

Things were much simpler then. Apples were red by definition, haddock was
almost the only fish worth eating, and a meal was not complete unless it
included potatoes, invariably boiled. The spice drawer contained ground
pepper and curry powder for savory dishes, cinnamon and cloves for sweet
dishes and cakes, and not much else.

Electricity had not yet arrived but there was a huge coal stove in one
corner of the kitchen. At least it looked huge to me, but the kitchen is
very small, so it probably wasn’t. And there was no refrigerator but a
couple of barrels, filled with fermented whey, stood in the larder and the
icy, tangy whey drawn from them was the most refreshing drink imaginable on
a hot summer day, when the sheep were being sheared.

Today’s young Icelandic chefs win awards in international culinary
competitions and can master any cooking trend and technique that comes their
way. The shops are full of exotic ingredients and apples and oranges are no
longer the only fruit, as I discovered when I tasted my first banana at the
age of seven. But that is not what this book is about.

It is about the food I grew up on, the food Icelanders think about when they
get a bit nostalgic, the food our mothers and grandmothers cooked. It is
also partly about the food that has been slowly replacing it, as more
vegetables, fruits and spices have gained a permanent place in the Icelandic
kitchen. And it is about food traditions and the love of food."

Nanna