[Sca-cooks] 13th Century Icelandic Fish Skin Tanning Techniques

[Nanna Rognvaldardottir]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <rcmann4 at earthlink.net>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Sent: 26. október 2001 04:28
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] 13th Century Icelandic Fish Skin Tanning Techniques


> On 26 Oct 2001, at 8:54, Craig Jones. wrote:
>
> > Does anyone have any info on 13th Century Icelandic Fish Skin Tanning
> > Techniques?
>
> You might ask our friendly neighborhood 20th century Icelandic
> cook and culinary historian.  Nanna?  You out there?

Barely. I'm going through the blueprints for my monster of a cookbook (3,600
recipes) and the printers in Slovenia are waiting for an OK signal to start
the printing ... I'm also editing another large book (not much to do with
cooking, although there are a few recipes) and this morning I had to cook
four dishes for a photography session for the culinary magazine I write for
...

Anyway, I did send something to the list last night but my Icelandic ISP
provider has done something strange to my home email adress so everything
has to go through Gunthar, which is why nothing has shown up yet. Here it is
again:


Drakey asked:

  Does anyone have any info on 13th Century Icelandic Fish Skin Tanning
Techniques?

 I might be able to find something but not tonight, as I'm working 15-hour
days at present. Are you just interested in shark skin, or any fish skin?

 The shark would have been Greenland shark. The thick skin was used for
shoes but I'm not sure about other uses. Ropes, maybe. It wouldn't slip
since it is so rough - like "hákarlsskrápur" (sharkskin) we still say when
we want
to describe something that has a really rough and scratchy surface.

 The skin of some other types of fish, especially ocean catfish, was used
too for shoes but only when nothing better was available, as these shoes
didn't last long on the rocky Icelandic roads - mountain trails were even
measured or graded by how many pairs of fish skin shoes you were likely to
wear out by walking them. "Sex roðskóa leið" meant you needed at least six
pairs of fish skin shoes if you are going that way and back again, as you
were
likely to wear out five pairs. You can see a drawing of such shoes, worn
with leg wrappings of skate skin, here:

http://www1.icetourist.is/domino/umm/ummlist.nsf/Leit/8195D37D71D43988002566
7B004E4B83

 Tanned fish skins are currently being made in my old hometown in the north
of Iceland but they are certainly not using traditional methods there. I´ll
try to see if I can find anything. I know how ocean catfish skin was treated
in the 19th century, however. No actual tanning was involved - you tore the
skin off dried fish, ate the fish and soaked the skin until pliable. Then it
was cut and made into shoes. And when the shoes were worn out, you could
wash them, boil them and eat them. I'm not making this up.

 Ocean catfish skin was also used for wrapping butter and such.

 Nanna