[Sca-cooks] Salt in Iceland (was Honey butter)
Stefan li Rous
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
Wed Apr 1 01:18:02 PDT 2009
Euriol commented:
<<< I had a chance this past weekend to glance at a research paper on
Icelandic Skyr & Mysa (curds & whey) and I think this was mentioned
in the paper (I've asked the author for a copy that I might be able
to read it cover to cover).>>>
I'd love to hear more about this paper and perhaps get a copy to
read, if that doesn't conflict with someone's copyright.
<<< If I'm remember right from the paper, it was the scarcity of wood
that made the harvesting of the salt impractical in Iceland.>>>
Correct. You need either a fuel source, such as wood, or adequate
sunshine to create a viable salt processing industry from salt water.
Salt was processed from brine pools in Germany in period, but they
had large forests to burn.
When Europeans reached Iceland the interior was covered in forest.
Unfortunately, within the first few centuries the Icelanders had
managed to cut down most of the forests. Extensively enough that it
affected what livestock they could raise and many types that they had
brought over with them died out. The onslaught of the mini Ice Age
didn't help either. I believe this is discussed by Nanna in both the
Florilegium Iceland-msg and fd-Iceland-msg files, as well as in her
book(s).
The scary thing is that this happened on both Easter Island and
Iceland, although they were half a world apart and two totally
separate cultures. The problem is that we are treating the entire
world the same way. It's just taken a lot longer to over harvest the
riches of an entire planet compared to two small, isolated islands.
Unfortunately, we've had some world leaders recently, who have their
heads in the sand, or up various parts of their anatomy, or who
simply, knowingly, put their own agendas ahead of saving our
civilization from this impending disaster.
Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous Barony of Bryn Gwlad Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris Austin, Texas
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at: http://www.florilegium.org ****
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