[Sca-cooks] Viking recipes site

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

And in fact the use of cider may reflect DEEPER knowledge of the  era:

" literary analysis shows that Old English beor and Old Norse björr  are 
terms used for sweet alcoholic beverages. Until the last ten years or so,  
philologists thought that beor and björr were derived from the word for barley, 
 and it is only recently that it was realized that the term almost 
certainly  referred to cider (whether from apples or pears) during the Viking Age 
(Hagen  pp. 205-206; Roesdahl, p. 120). English translations of the sagas will 
translate  both öland björr interchangeably as beer or ale, and so are not 
a good guide to  the actual terminology being used in the original Old Norse 
 text."

(Hagen, noted here, is, in general, a very rigorous  scholar.)
 
This page overall is nicely done.
 
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/drink.shtml


Jim Chevallier

"Spices in France in the Dark Ages"
http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2014/01/spices-in-french-dark-ages.html

In  a message dated 1/18/2014 5:23:06 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, 
JIMCHEVAL at aol.com  writes:
Cider and calvados are specialties of Normandy which was settled  by  
Vikings and cider at least began its dominance within a few  centuries of 
their  occupation.