[Sca-cooks] Viking Fish preservation

[Elizabeth A Heckert]

  Gentle Cousins,

         A Viking-oriented list I'm on has been discussing this article
that was mentioned briefly on the Cooks' list.  The discussion has led me
to several questions, some for chemist-cooks and some for archeologists.


         Has anyone seen information on Viking-era peoples using peat as
a meaning of keeping food?  All the article is willing to commit to is
that it is 'traditional' (which I consider a four-letter word!)

        I jokingly said I thought gardening peat moss wouldn't work, and
someone else said why not?  There's no indications of amounts in the
article, but I have some USDA pamphlets on root cellars, in which they
discuss the use of other substances, such as sawdust, for preservation,
so I'd be okay on amounts, but I didn't know if sterilizing the moss
would do funny things to the sugar that has been isolated.  The article
says that there are villages who drink peat filtered water safely, but I
was also wondering about the tannic acid.  I know it is present in black
tea, but I also know from dying that too much is not necessarily good,
either!

       I was looking into root cellars as I would like to be able to grow
and store parsnips, turnips, figure out what to do about the pears, etc.
and this seems like a fun project to pursue; but I haven't ever tried to
start a research project with the archeology, and am a little stuck.

      I've added the article that someone had very kindly posted to the
Manx list.  Hope this isn't too long, and thanks, y'all, in advance!

     Elizabeth



Tempus est, erat, non est.
(Time is, Time was,  Time is not.)
--inscribed on an English sundial.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/07/19/viking.preservation.ap/index.html
>          Viking trick could save food industry millions
>
> July 19, 2001
>
> OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Researchers are looking at an old Viking trick --
> using peat moss -- as a way to preserve foods and save millions of
kroner
> (dollars) a year in refrigeration and transportation costs.
>
> A millennium ago, the Vikings used water from peat moss bogs because it
> would stay fresh during their months of sailing aboard longboats.
> Scandinavian freshwater fishermen traditionally used peat bogs to
preserve
> their catches until they could pick them up on their way out of the
> mountains.
>
> It still works, says Dr. Terence Painter, professor emeritus Norwegian
> University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.
>
> Fish buried in peat moss or treated with a moss extract stayed fresh
weeks
> longer than untreated fish.
>
> "Definitely, deep freezing and quick filleting are the best way to
preserve
> fish ... but it is also darned expensive," Painter says. "We have all
kinds
> of idealistic ideas about expanding the market for Norwegian fish in
> countries that cannot now afford it."
>
> Peat bogs have long been known for preserving organic material. In
> Scotland, tubs of butter have been found intact after 1,800 years;
> elsewhere, a loaf of bread thousands of years old was found.
>
> "We seem to have forgotten a lot of this ancient wisdom," he said.
>
> But Painter, a British-born biochemist who has lived in Norway for 33
> years, said what really piqued his curiosity was the 1984 discovery of
a
> fully preserved ancient human body, known as the Lindlow man, in
Britain.
>
> Norway, a major exporter of fish caught by trawlers and raised on fish
> farms, has about 2 billion tons of peat. Little is used, so Painter was
> seeking industrial applications.
>
> "I thought if it will preserve a body, it ought to be able to preserve
a
> fish," he said.
>
> Researchers long believed organic material lasted in peat bogs due to a
> lack of oxygen preventing decay or the presence of a chemical called
> tannins acting as preservatives.
>
> Painter and his associates Yngve Boersheim and Bjoern Christensen
isolated
> a complex sugar in sphagnum moss, which forms peat bogs after hundreds
of
> years. They set out to prove that the sugar, which they have named
> sphagnum, was the real preservative in a variety of tests in a
> government-funded study.
>
> In one test, they buried salmon skins in peat moss or coated them with
the
> extract and did the same with control skins buried in wood cellulose
for
> nine to 28 days. After removal, fish stored in the peat or extract
stayed
> fresh for up to a month, while the non-treated fish stank after two
days.
>
> In other tests, the researchers treated 2-centimeter (3/4-inch) long
Zebra
> fish with peat or extract and left others untreated. After two weeks,
the
> treated fish were fine, while the untreated ones had virtually vanished
due
> to decay.
>
> In a demonstration for the Norwegian state radio network NRK,
Christensen opened a plastic container in which a Zebra fish had been
stored on
peat for two years. It was intact and smelled fine.
>
> "When you take a fish and put it on the peat, it will be preserved in a
> very special way," Christensen said. "If you had put it in anything
else, it would have rotted away and smelled bad in a couple of days."
>
> Painter said freezing fish and shipping it in refrigerated ships or
trucks
> is extremely expensive, while drying fish, although cheaper, removes
> nutrients.
>
> His team is looking into ways that the fish could be shipped in peat,
or
> even better treated before shipment with the complex sugar, which
appears
> to slow attack by bacteria that causes decay.
>
> Fish isn't the only food that may be preserved. Painter said his team
has
> had success with apples, carrots, radishes and other vegetables.
>
> "Norwegians had a tradition of storing their root plants, such as
carrots and turnips, in peat bogs to preserve them," he said.
>
> Painter also said there is little chance that it would be harmful to
> humans, since many villages in places like Finland draw all their
drinking water from peat bogs.
>
> The researchers have received a Norwegian government grant to start a
> pilot project testing commercial applications. Painter said it is not
clear
when the first commercial uses could begin.






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