[Sca-cooks] Pickling with Whey

[Harris Mark.S-rsve60]

Lady Sunnifa Eiriksdottir asked:
I have heard that the Viking Age Norse used whey instead of vinegar in
food preservation and pickling, but I am not having much success in
turning up any recipes or hints on how it was done or how to do it.
<<<<<

Nanna, who was on this list a while ago, did mention this several
times. I just recently bought her book on Icelandic food. Much of
this book is on modern foods but she does have a number of recipes
that use whey and she talks about how the Icelanders preserved food
in whey. I can't remember the title off the top of my head, but
it may be in the Florilegium or I can get the bibliographic info
when I get home.

While the Scandinavians did do some food preservation in whey,
the Icelanders used it much more. Iceland was a salt poor
country, so preservation in why was one of the few available
alternatives. One of the reasons that salt was rare, even though
the island is surrounded by the Atlantic is that there isn't
enough sun to evaporate the seawater and particularly after
several hundred years, the Iceland inhabitants had distroyed
most of the forests.

You might also check these files in the Florilegium.
fd-Iceland-msg    (75K)  1/11/02    Food of medieval Iceland. Recipes.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BY-REGION/fd-Ireland-msg.html
dairy-prod-msg    (80K) 10/ 4/01    Dairy products. milk, butter, curds, cream.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/dairy-prod-msg.html

Stefan li Rous
stefan at texas.net