[Sca-cooks] Rape Seed Oil, Canola Oil, and the Early Norse

[Terri Morgan]

> I've wondered what sort of cooking oil would actually be
> available to the Viking-era Norse. We know that a small
> amount of luxury olive oil was imported but aside from lard - 
> what would have been most commonly used? 


To expand (answering myself), Anne Hagen in her book on Anglo-Saxon Foods &
Drink mentions that the poor may have eaten fish fried in rape oil, and in a
section on foods for the infirm she mentions walnut oil which I am assuming
would have been nearly as expensive as olive oil. Earlier, there is a
glancing mention of flaxseed oil, but for the most part the sections on food
preparation simply say 'cooked/fried in oil' without specifying the source.


Hrothny