[Sca-cooks] Yeast and Bread in Norway

[Johnna Holloway]

MEM (Mary Morman) is off exploring Scandinavia. She came across this demo at the Open Air Folk Museum. 

Since she can’t get onto the list, she asked me to please post the following note--

Yesterday at the Open Air folk Museum we watched two young women baking bread on a griddle. One woman mixed the dough and the other rolled it into flat round cakes which she then folded onto a wide stick and unfolded onto the griddle. The bread was soft, lightly risen, and slightly sweet. Now, culinary hive mind, here is my question. I asked what kind of yeast they were using and was told there was no yeast in Norway until after the 16th century. (Flat out wrong as far as I can tell) and that bread (lefse) was raised with "horn salt" which was "like baking powder". Comments?

She added later, "Clearly they were using modern white flour, white sugar, and baking powder for the demo…. This 'traditional' bread called lefse was NOT a flatbread. Of course that doesn't mean that lefse made in 1600 wasn't a flat bread. I am just perturbed that people who run a museum that demonstrates traditional baking would instruct their staff to make a blanket about no yeast in Norway before 1700 and to suggest that hart salt Yes likely hartshorn) PRE-dated rather than Post-dated yeast. Johnna <https://www.facebook.com/johnna.holloway.7?hc_location=ufi> can you put the question up on the cooks list? I do not have access while traveling."

——
I noted "Horn salt would be hartshorn.” 

https://arcticgrub.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/trilogy-of-flatbreads-part-three/ <https://arcticgrub.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/trilogy-of-flatbreads-part-three/> describes it.

Johnnae