[Sca-cooks] Viking Age Cookbook?

Terri Morgan online2much at cox.net
Wed Mar 20 07:02:01 PDT 2013


> The description is given thusly: “An Early Meal - a Viking Age
> Cookbook & Culinary Odyssey” is more than just a Viking Age
> cookbook. It is a combination of a textbook on Viking Age
> culinary practices and mouthwatering recipes based on
> archaeological finds and experimental archaeology.
<snip>
> Does anyone have further information?
> Alys K.


I own it. In fact, I was just looking at it this morning, skimming for ideas
of what to serve to a bunch of Viking reenactors next month. Overall, I am
not very impressed. The beginning chapters of the book cover various time
periods; Hunter/Gatherer, Farmers & Livestock Breeders, Bronze casters &
Potters, and so on through the Viking era to the mid-medieval period. Each
era has a small drawing assigned to it and once you get to the recipe
chapters (one recipe per page) that picture is your only guide as to which
era the recipe is based in. Most of the recipes are based on, or influenced
by, the period cooking texts we are already familiar with. There are some
oddities to them, for instance, the "Walnut Pesto" on page 46 (with the
picture showing that it is based the 1200-1350s) uses a "large pinch of
sugar" but doesn't specify what type of sugar. It suggests that the pesto
would go well with fish. There is no information about which area of Europe
the dish may have been eaten in. (The ingredient list was; walnuts, sage
leaves, white wine, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and sugar.)

A later recipe, "Troll Crème" (based in the "seeresses and seafarers" era of
600 - 1050) has one whisking 4 cups of cranberries into a single egg white,
then dribbling honey into the mixture. It doesn't say what the final result
should look like, simply that you should garnish it with additional
cranberries. There was no mention of mashing the four cups of cranberries
before adding them to the egg white. I have no idea what sort of period dish
this recipe is supposed to be.


Hrothny




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