[Sca-cooks] Viking cookbook

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

On Sun, 23 Sep 2001, Elizabeth A Heckert wrote:

> >
> >3. What are (and/or where can I find) the following and what do they
> >look
> >and taste like:
>
> >b.) swedes
>
>       Swedes are rutabegas.  They were developed in Sweden in the
> nineteenth century, and are related to turnips.  They are *definately
> not* period for Vikings.


And they're extremely nasty. One woman's opinion. ;-)

And, referencing somebody else's post, what the heck is a mangle
wurzel? Another UK friend of mine has mentioned them in conjunction with
rutabagas (blech) but he didn't explain the reference.
>
>
>     Finally, I had to spell 'Svalbarth' wrong.  I have a creaky e-mail
> program that will not translate non English characters.  It should end
> with a character that looks like a crossed d.  The English equivalent for
> this letter, as far as I understand is a varient on the 'th'-sound.
>
>     Elizabeth
>

It's called an "eth", with a hard "th" as in "the" rather than a soft
"th" as in "eigth", which would be a thorn. A thorn, depending on the
script, either looks like somebody drew a b on top of a p, or sometimes
(and mostly later) a 'y'. Thus, "ye" in "ye olde whatever" is actually
*the*, with a soft "th".

More than you ever wanted to know, probably. ;-)

Margaret, renegade scribe