[Sca-cooks] Salt in Iceland (was Honey butter)

[Daniel & Elizabeth Phelps]

Sefan:

Include on your list certain islands in the Mediterranean Sea and the 
Caribbean.  Also there are those islands in the Pacific that were mined into 
moonscapes for guano.

Dan

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stefan li Rous" <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com>
To: <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 4:18 AM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Salt in Iceland (was Honey butter)


> 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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