[Sca-cooks] Uses for Whey?

[Alec Story]

Thanks for the responses!

I think the Icelandic stuff was what I had in my head.  Looking for more
info on that, I found this scadian's blog
http://medievalcheese.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-to-preserve-vegetables-in-whey.html?view=classic
which at least indicates that literally pickling in 100% whey works, and
has some archaeological support, although who knows exactly what they were
doing in Iceland.  It seems unlikely to me that Icelanders would build
large vats to store whey if they were only using it as a culture starter.

Ricotta is a good idea, and I've done it, but it doesn't really solve the
problem of having too much whey because it just extracts protein from it.
You still have the whey afterwards.  My goal is to use the whey for
something constructive and not pour it down the drain.

When I get to trying this I'll monitor the pH of the whey - if it doesn't
get below 4.6 fairly quickly there's a food safety risk from botulism
toxin.  I suspect the whey will be more than acidic enough, though.

On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 9:08 AM, Terry Decker <t.d.decker at att.net> wrote:

> You might examine the chapter on salt in Niels Horrebow's The Natural
> History of Iceland, 1785.  Some naturally occurring salt was collected from
> the shore.  Also, not covered in this text, 18th Century Icelandic salt
> production appears to have used geothermal heat to dry the salt.  According
> to Horrebow, the salt making privilege was granted to some monasteries and
> ecclesiastics, which suggests that there may have been some salt making on
> the island.  What is certain is there wasn't enough salt to preserve meat
> or fish.
>
> "...there's not that much sunlight..." is an error.  Iceland is in the
> high latitudes which means the summer sun shines almost 24 hours a day.
> Average temperature and humidity are more likely to affect salt making than
> is the sunlight.  And while I haven't researched or experimented with the
> process, I'm wondering whether it might not be possible to use freezing and
> sublimation to extract salt.
>
> You don't actually preserve food in whey.  The whey is a starter for
> fermentation which produces lactic acid that does the pickling.  It's the
> essentially the same process for making kumiss.
>
> There is some out of period evidence of whey preservation at Isny and
> Darmstadt in Germany.  Given the drawbacks of whey fermentation, I would
> expect it to be used in Northern Europe and what I would look for are
> recipes or references to producing sauerkraut with whey.
>
> Bear
>
>
>
> Bear suggested:
> <<< Whey pickling is also period.  It uses roughly 1/4 cup of whey to 1 cup
> water with 1 to 3 teaspoons of salt.  Sterilize the equipment and boil the
> water before use, but cool it to lukewarm so that it doesn't kill the
> lactobacilli in the whey.  Close the container tightly, lactobacilli
> fermentation is an anaerobic process.  Keep the container cool (in period
> it
> would be in a springhouse or cellar), remembering this is a Northern
> European pickling process.  Root vegetables and cabbages work best in this
> process. >>>
>
> Okay, but no salt added in Iceland. The whole idea of using whey for
> preservation was because they didn’t have the salt for this use. Yes, an
> island surrounded by sea, doesn’t have salt. What little wood they had was
> too precious to burn to evaporate sea water and there’s not that much
> sunlight there to use that to evaporate the sea water, unlike in southern
> France.
>
> They also stored large amounts of butter, which got rather “ripe” by most
> people’s standards. So it may also be that the Icelandic preservation of
> meat with whey might take the meat a bit past what modern folks are willing
> to eat.
>
> Other than Iceland, where do we have period evidence of preservation of
> foods in whey?
>
> fd-Iceland-msg (96K) 1/ 6/11 Food of medieval Iceland. Recipes.
> http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BY-REGION/fd-Iceland-msg.html
>
> It looks like ricotta may not be the only cheese made from whey.
> whey-cheeses-msg (32K) 6/ 1/06 Cheeses such as ricotta made from the
> liquid left after making other cheeses.
> http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-DAIRY/whey-cheeses-msg.html
>
> Stefan
> --------
> THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
>   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at gmail.com
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
> **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Alec Story