[Sca-cooks] salmon and gravlax

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Stefan li Rous:
>Yes, I did find that message in the next digest. After I'd posted my 
>questions. I had originally saved that recipe to my modern recipes 
>files because I wasn't sure if it was period or not. In particular, 
>I was, and am, questioning the amount of sugar used. Specifically 
>for something in a northern European region, even at the end of our 
>period. So was this recipe close to a period recipe or is it just 
>similar to what a period gravlax recipe would likely be like? Would 
>honey have likely been used for this recipe within out period?

My guess is that the sugar added (and other recipes use less sugar, 
say two parts salt to one of sugar, or even less, and may originally 
have used none) is a modern addition to the process. If I had to 
guess, I'd say it's possible much less salt was used, and little or 
no sugar, and the curing process was slower. Which, given good 
drainage and low temperatures, was probably not a problem. After all, 
it's a preservation method, and if the people in question needed 
their fish right away they could eat it fresh.

Unfortunately, I don't have a written recipe from the Neolithic Age, 
but it's been posited that the older process of burying the fish, 
wrapped in branch tips, is quite ancient. The modern recipe is 
presumably just that: modern. I'd be wary of trying to doctor it back 
to a form I'd call peri-oid.

Do we have an even remotely detailed description from Nana 
Rognvaldardottir on the hakaarl process? I mean, sufficiently 
detailed to reproduce the process? If all Nanna provides is a 
description of the product, and documentation that it exists, we've 
already got that from outside sources.

I'll have to check your Florilegium article, I guess.

Adamantius

-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04