[Sca-cooks] 'Viking' recipes

[Terry Decker]

Here's part of a post by Nanna Ragnvaldardottir, the Icelandic culinary 
author, from about 15 years ago.  The "malvasir" mentioned is probably 
Malvasia wine.  Bear

In a book on Norwegian food history (mostly post-1500) by Fredrik Grøn that 
I have here it says that "The first Nordic writer to mention the baking of 
flat breads and even has an illustration of them in his work is the Swedish 
archbishop Olaus Magnus, around 1550. He is the first to tell the often 
repeated tales about flatbread that keeps so long that it can be baked at 
the birth of a child and served at its engagement party. He also says that 
women in Norway "at the ocean coast", but also women in many Swedish 
communities, will come together on bright spring days to help each other 
with the baking. That was a group activity. They use "thin metal plates", he 
says, no longer flat stones. The dough is made of flour, beans and peas, and 
this is also correct for Norway. Then he describes how the flatbread is kept 
in high piles, and says it will keep for 16-20 years. Olaus Magnus doesn´t 
use the term "flatbrød". He also mentions other types of bread baked in 
Sweden, "julebröd" (Christmas bread), "krydred bröd" (spiced bread), bread 
that will go stone hard in the air, "skorpor" and lastly "a fine bread for 
delicate Nordic gentlewomen". The dough for that consists of wheat flour, 
eggs and sugar, with added rose water and "malvasir" (don´t know what that 
is)."