SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #2924

[Ron and Laurene Wells]

The title of the book is Eyewitness Books VIKING, author is Susan M. 
Margeson. You might be able to find a copy at your local library, our 
library has many (though not all) of the Eyewitness Books.  I think I own 
more copies than our local library has now, thanks to DKFL (sigh... I wish 
they had not closed that door of opportunity!) Half the information in DK 
books are depicted in pictures.  I tried to find it on DK.com where they 
sometimes have the pages of the book available for viewing online, but I 
could not find it.  So, you'll have to suffer through my text-only summary 
until you can find a copy to browse for yourselves!  Any spelling or 
grammatical errors are my own, as I had to type this by hand.

The pages talking about mealtime are 34, 35.  Obviously there were not 
"recipes" only food ingredients.  I am noticing that no dates are really 
mentioned on these pages, which I know is something that most of you are 
interested in.  These are the foods mentioned though:
Dried cod, salted meat and fish, and probably smoked meat and fish.  Pine 
kernels and  pine bark.  Dried peas "Poor Vikings made bread with whatever 
they could find.  One loaf found in Sweden contained dried peas and pine 
bark."  Horseradish "was one of the seasonings found in the Oseberg burial 
along with wheat, oats, and fruit."  "Cabbages and peas were the most 
common vegetables.  Many Vikings grew their own." Cumin was a spice found 
in the Oseberg burial.  "Bread was kneaded in wooden troughs.  Then it was 
baked on a griddle over a fire (as in this 16th century Swedish picture) or 
in a pan that sat in the embers.  Barley bread was most common, but rich 
people had loaves made of finer wheat flour."  In another part it says 
..."Most Vikings drank beer made from barley and hops. ...They also enjoyed 
wine imported in barrels from Germany." It says they used garlic and onion 
in soups and stews, they gathered gulls eggs for eating and ate roasted 
gulls. Game birds like duck were roasted on a spit.  "Hares were trapped 
and hunted, as well as elk, deer, bears, wild boars, reindeer, seals and 
whales for meat.  Sheep, cattle, pigs, turkeys, and even horses were raised 
to be eaten."  Berries (pictured are a blackberry and a raspberry) and wild 
fruits "such as apples, cherries, and plums were gathered in the 
summer."  There is also a photo of a Cauldron found on the Oseberg ship, 
and it explains how the cauldron was hung over a fire in the center of the 
living room.  Oh yes, it said that salt was collected by boiling sea water.

So, now we can all go make a roasted duck (or seagull?) and some Barley 
bread with dried peas and have ourselves a real Viking feast 
tonight!  :)  Or if you are in a colder region you could boil a hunk of 
meat with some garlic, onions, salt and cumin for a nice Viking-style stew.

- -Laurene

At 12:16 PM 1/26/01 -0600, you wrote:
>Laurene wrote:
>
> > I have a wonderful book, EYEWITNESS Viking that has several pages with
> > photographs of artifacts found in a dig, and fresh food (from modern
> > tables) that would have resembled the food which Vikings ate.  Apparently
> > archeologists found a site with such detail that the food residue was still
> > identifiable, so now we know what they ate!!  Pretty cool.
> > Other DK books, and especially the Eyewitness books series, have similar
> > information about food, and customs.  They are my favorite!!!
>
>So, give!  What do they say they found on the Viking table, and what kind of
>fresh menus did these fellow re-creators serve?
>
>EYEWITNESS Viking, sounds like a news show on the History Channel maybe.
>"Dateline, Jorvik..."
>
>Selene

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