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

Terri Morgan online2much at cox.net
Thu Apr 25 15:58:06 PDT 2013


> Define Viking-era Norse. 

Norse/Danish cultures found in Scandinavia, the British Islands, Greenland,
and Iceland. (We are for the most part focussing on those settling in the
British Islands) during the 700s-approx 1066.

> I would be interested in the canola oil/rape seed oil extrapolation. 

Yes. My quick reading online about rape seed says that the oil contained a
dangerous amount of acid up until the 1800s, so I had doubt that it was
commonly used pre-1000 with any surety of safety.

> Do we know the technology used to process the amount of seeds
> needed for this type of oil production existed? 

It appears that a certain amount of extraction was possible by crushing
source and collecting the runoff. This made me curious about the possible
use of flax seeds, as the seeds could be harvested before the flax was
retted to make fibre for cloth.

> If pork production was high I would think Lard would be one
> of the most important oil products (easy to store and easy to produce). 

But also quick to go rancid, wouldn't it be? (I'm hazy on that.)


Hrothny





More information about the Sca-cooks mailing list