What's for Dinner in Iceland, Part 2

So it appeared that I was pretty well able to produce a menu that wasn’t a bad one for a Norseman in the Scandinavian world, but what could I come up with for Iceland? Now that I was discovering how the rules seem to be different there…

I’d known that Iceland was a marginal settlement, a harsh land. I had never realized until talking with archaeologists, and being steered towards more focussed research, just how different it was. Basic things that I took for granted about northern Europe; geography, climate, growing season, trade distances and likelihood, didn’t necessarily apply to Iceland. Until now, I had just assumed… But as I’ve started learning more, I just end up with a longer list of questions, and have had to try to completely rethink some things.

In the end, I came up with menus for two meals, a lunch, and a dinner. By rights, a day-meal or ‘dagverthr’ would probably have been a morning meal, but only some of us were staying on the site, and the morning hours were required for setting up the demos. Thus, lunch.

Because I’d be cooking over a fire in a simple camp setting, I decided that a soup was the best way to go. (As it turned out, we ended up having to use a ‘fire ring’ for our fire pit, which altered access to the heat, and left no convenient way to use ashes or embers for cooking. That put paid to any ideas about experimenting with salt evaporation or roasting eggs, or making use of the bake pots.)

(picture by Karen Peterson)

One of our number doesn’t eat farmed meat, so my lunchtime soup included mushrooms, fish, and dulse.
I am a compulsive dryer of mushrooms. I like them for demos, but I like them for anything, and I always manage to feel remarkably thrifty when drying mushrooms. Also, mushrooms shrink when they dry, but not by so much that you don’t feel rewarded at the end of the process. For this soup I also dried onions, leeks, and fish. I did this partly for the convenience it would lend to packing, and storage, but also because I felt that for Iceland, I might be able to justify some dried ingredients, where it would be harder to guarantee fresh.


I brined the fish lightly before dehydrating, as a way to incorporate some salt. (Icelanders didn’t have the access to salt that was possible in other locations. It was too cold for natural evaporation, and there wasn’t the fuel to waste. I’d wanted to try experimenting with a basin of salt water by my cooking fire, but with the fire ring, didn’t actually have anywhere to try this. Another thing to add to the list of ‘must try’.) But sea fish would have some natural salt to them, and I was thawing frozen fish anyway… As well, the dulse has a salty taste. (I think I also used some carefully hoarded wild leek bulbs…)
But as far as I’ve been able to find, there weren’t many indigenous greens that I have any way of obtaining or replicating, except for seaweeds.

We also had some smoked sausage, and dried meats. I didn’t make the sausage myself, so had less control over flavourings, but I did have some elk sausage to offer up. (Elk isn’t appropriate to Iceland, sadly, but is a bit more interesting than store-bought!) I had made several batches of dried meat/jerky. One was elk, again with the one person in mind. (Apparently there were no indigenous land mammals at all in Iceland, other than the arctic fox, so this is a case where using beef or mutton would have been more correct!) I did try one small batch of dried beef with minimal flavouring: a mild marinade of water/vinegar/salt, and slight seasoning of smoke and mustard seed. It is SO hard to give up my perceptions of taste! (When we were at the 2000 celebrations in Newfoundland, I had made up dried meat to take, that was only lightly brined and dried, with no other seasoning. - this was prior to learning about the no salt in Iceland rule. - I ended up using it happily as an ingredient in cooking, but found it unpalatable on its own.)

I had made some unleavened flatbreads, mostly of barley flour, with a bit of rye, and a bit of wheat, because otherwise serving a soft cheese is awkward! But the leathery flatbread crackers also keep well and travel, so maybe cousins coming to the Althing brought them or the flour along.

(And thanks to the cousins for also bringing along some dried apples!) (And justifying some other dried fruits I’d made, plums, and berries.) A belatedly-remembered plan to make some butter resulted in trying it with cream still too chilled from the cooler for butter. Instead we ended up with a thickened cream, which tasted very fine with the dried fruits.

On the whole our luncheon wasn’t exactly what might have been a plausible meal for a Viking Age Icelander, but it wasn’t totally unlike, either: a soup, cooked in a kettle over a fire, of fish and mushrooms, with some dried flavourings: some dried or smoked meats to chew on; some cheese; and maybe some dried berries. The most glaring inaccuracy would be the flatbreads. Though even they might be partially excusable because of the festive occasion of an Althing. (Though that’s just guessing, on my part. And extrapolation from what my archaeologist friend told me.)

Our dinner strayed a bit further still from the Icelandic path:
I did two stews, one of venison and elk, for the same non-farmed-meat eater, (though to be honest, it was farm-raised elk, but maybe closer to free-range?) and one of lamb. I had felt that I needed to make two pots’ worth of stew because of the numbers that ended up being involved in being fed, so that did allow me to use a meat in one that would be more appropriate to the Icelandic diet, lamb. Because there were no huntable mammals in Iceland, the only meat would have been that which they brought and farmed themselves. Sheep, mostly, goats, and pigs to a lesser degree, and some cattle, though cows were valued more for their milk production.
One of our folk had a quantity of leftover vegetable and lentil broth that they’d pleaded with me to use up, so that justified its inclusion! Even so, I wasn’t able to squeeze in as much as they had for me to use.

We had some smoked fish of varying kinds. (Thank goodness smoked fish is justifiable! We all love it. Now I just need to build a smoker and make my own…) And I’d made some pickled fish. And some other pickled fish was contributed. The major difference is that these were fish pickled with vinegar, and it should have been pickled in whey. I need to do some experiments with whey-pickling, more than I’ve tried up till now, but then I also need to fine-tune methods of whey-production, since it’s not an ingredient one can just run out and fetch.
We justified some leavened bread, since the Althing is also a festival, and we had those cousins popping over from Norway…
To end the meal, I faked out some skyr.

At the point of that early Althing menu, I barely knew what skyr was. Some soft curded cheese. Then, it was all more conjectural anyway. There was also far less accessible research material, and no-one within reach who knew much about it, or had tried eating or making it. Now I know about skyr. I’ve had skyr. At least I’ve had modern incarnations of skyr, which may or may not be what was produced in the Viking Age. I’ve even tried making it myself with varied results. (Yes, you, my faithful reader, have struggled along with me on that!) But since I’ve still not been able to define to myself, or have other experienced skyr-tasters define to me, just what skyr is exactly reminiscent of, or like unto, unless it’s right before us… there’s still a sort of x-factor that allows for some play. What I did this time was to drain some yoghurt for a yoghurt cheese, and blend some cottage cheese to smooth out the curds, and then combine the two. I think the end result wasn’t unlike some of the grainier versions of skyr that I’ve had. Essentially, flawed skyr. Oh well.
With it we had a cooked-down compote of berries, blueberries, which might have been available, cranberries, and red currants, because I happen to have a whole truckload of red currants, thanks to my mother-in-law. Crowberries also grew in Iceland, but aren't something I had access to. Against all Icelandic food rules, I sweetened this with some honey. (No bees in Iceland, therefore, no honey.)

But we seemed to have enough food to go around, and it was neither too strange for people, nor completely wrong for an Icelandic Norseman, even if didn’t quite follow our expected habits of eating. I need to do a lot more research, taking the information I have about possible indigenous herbs and plants, and trying to identify them and relate them to what I know. However, there’s a good chance that I’ll never be able to replicate ingredients, which means that Icelandic food, more so than that of any other Norse cultures, may always stay just a little elusively out of grasp.

What's for Dinner in Iceland, Part 1

Yes, my nagging reader. I’ve been an absent girl. I’d like to blame it on the process of writing something for what tries to be a semi-lucid blog, when semi-lucid is usually way beyond my means. But truth be told, in the last year there have been huge stretches where even a multi-word status update on Face Book was beyond me!

(Though it does still take way more time to write something that’s thought out, intelligible, researched, and makes some kind of point, which is what I aim for here…)

My previous question-to-myself had been “what’s for dinner in Viking Age Iceland.” The reason? Two-fold.

We are working to put together a presentation in conjunction with the 50^th anniversary of the World Heritage Site at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. A few of us have a very long time connection with the site. In 1996, we went there to present a prototype interpretive program. Before then, there had been no costumed interpreters at LAM. So in ’96, there were four of us, and a big bunch of gear, and three or four local volunteers that we kitted out, who worked with us to flesh out the presentation.

http://www.warehamforge.ca/ENCAMPMENT/beach.jpg

When the program got the green light, there was more involvement as my husband designed it, and produced the artefacts for their use. I designed and sewed the costumes, and had a hand in shaping the domestic crafts side of the program, and we have had an on-going relationship with the site for a number of years since.

http://www.warehamforge.ca/ENCAMPMENT/index.html

(photo by Karen Peterson)

(photo by Karen Peterson)

There is a fine balance, I find, between what is purely a food demonstration, and what is a meal for a crowd, especially in a short time frame, and on a primitive site. (We had to bring our water and firewood.) Initially I’d assumed it was the ‘usual suspects’ I’d be feeding, and pretty much knew what give-and-take would be involved. But more of the team decided it sounded convenient, so the whole project expanded a bit.

In the end it meant it wasn’t purely ‘Icelandic’ food, but I did learn a lot in the process, and tried to bear in mind those limitations.

One of the first hurdles I faced were our modern perceptions when it comes to food. While I will admit to hardly ever eating breakfast, on the whole, people today think in terms of three meals. And snacks. And anyone who prepares his or her own meals is often aware of the need to attempt a balanced diet. And… is usually interested in variety.It seems quite likely than in the context of Viking Age world, food was fuel. It was a colder harsher climate, and a more active, working lifestyle. There was also much more labour involved in filling the cook pot. I imagine that the reward of a meal was sufficient in itself!Variety, then, and even not that long ago, was more by season, or luck, or forethought.

Some number of years ago, I’ve forgotten (conveniently) when, I did a menu for an Icelandic Althing event. That was one where we were actually serving a feast. Admittedly, there was much less to be had as reference material at all, and certainly very little on early period food, so in retrospect, it doesn’t surprise me to look back on the menu and see the weak points.

- roast eggs, flatbreads with ‘skyr’ and cheeses, stuffed breads, pickled fish
- sausages, cabbage with apple
- fish soup, dish of lentils
- bread with butter, salt chicken, roast pork, baked onions with garlic, mushrooms
- frumenty with soft fruit, roast apples
- and some roast goat for the Chieftains.

Knowing what I now do about the possibility of Icelandic foodstuffs, some of this is less than likely.
The eggs could have been seabird eggs, and since that time I have successfully roasted eggs in the ashes of my fire; though it would be helpful to do a bit more experimentation with that, so I have a better sense of how hot = how long. (I’ve also exploded eggs in my fire pit; much excitement ensued!)

The flatbreads, stuffed breads, basic bread, and even the frumenty of grains aren’t an impossibility for elsewhere in the Norse world, but are far less likely in Iceland. (This is one of those points where my brain just stalls, and goes ‘huh?’) While my sense is that bread, or grain, is one of the major food items of any agrarian culture, it turns out that very little grain was grown in Iceland during the Viking Age. Arable land was used to grow hay for herd beasts. There were some grain crops, most likely barley, but it’s suggested this was used more for brewing. In fact, I have been told that there’s almost no archaeological evidence for any grain processing or baking tools till later in Iceland’s history. Dentition evidence also suggests no processed sugars and starches in the diet till almost the post-Medieval period!

Sadly, for the cabbage and apple, there were no indigenous fruits in Iceland, and cabbages were introduced well beyond the time period I’m looking at.
Lentils, at least, travel well, so there’s a faint chance…
The roasted meats, on the other hand, are far more likely!

So, after I’ve shot down my years-old menu in flames, where do I go from here? While still being able to produce some food that will be manageable within the constrictions of the day and budget, which will also sufficiently feed a group of people with varying tastes and preferences…

[As an aside, several friends have often mused about the possibility of doing some kind of small event, where for the most part, we'd only be allowed to have what we'd legitimately be able to carry in a sea chest. I wonder if we'd also be up for an occasion where we'd only be allowed to eat what they would have...]

(end of part 1)

~v

Feel free to walk around and stretch, take a trip to the loo, or rootle out a snack. Smoke 'em if you got them. See you soon for part 2.

What's For Dinner?

In Viking Age Iceland?
Oh my, now that's a poser!

And it's not a question I've ever considered before. Up till now, all the info I've accumulated on on Norse foodstuffs, or Viking Age cookery, has been by dint of taking every scrap of info and piling it into a not very big heap, and working with that. I've never worried about what was specifically available in one location simply because there's not a lot of information. Period.

It's far easier to wonder what they ate in France, 1550. Or Italy, 14th century. Even putting together the late period English menu was really only cheating a bit by looking to cookbooks a few years beyond, and they were only beyond ONE of the dates suggested by the theme of the event. No one ever suggested a specific date to me for the feast.

But when you pick early period, pre-cook book time periods, and then pick a country that doesn't really get chatted up in a big way in the reference material, then things get tricky.

I started by picking the brains of one of my favourite Icelandic archaeologists, and he helpfully passed along some info. But it's scarier by its 'lacks' rather than for its inclusions. He corroborated some casual info and facts I had stored in the back of my brain. Not much by way of game animals. Not a lot of indigenous fruits or berries. No real evidence of salt production. And he's thown some special spanners into the works as well, like no evidence of bread production till later. Eek.
All of a sudden things have got a bit tricky. A lot more thought is going to be required. Yes, a bunch of thinking and reading, indeed!

(All of a sudden, I'm hungry.)

Stay tuned, folks.

Tudor Research

So, I've pretty much garnered myself a long list of favoured foods for the Tudor time period. And started weeding through them.

Some are impractical. Eels. Just for example. Though I was amused by reading about all the variety of names in use for eels, at the time, depending on their stage of development: "An eel was a Fauser, then a Grigg or Snigg, then a Scaffling, then a Little Eel, an Eel, and when very large, a Conger." [from Tudor Food and Cookery]
It seems almost worthwhile serving eels, just to list griggs, and sniggs and scafflings on the menu!

But fish, and fishy items, although such a major part of any historical diet, can be a food one has to tiptoe around. (I have eaten eel, at a feast. Twice, actually, same group. Same event in two different years.) But there are either a lot of people who don't eat fish for a number of reasons, or a lot of people who are scared by the possibility of eating fish. And I don't want to tie up a large chunk of my budget in a dish that people won't eat. So, I guess I'll try some smaller savoury morsels, some of which will include a little bit of not-too-scary fish.

[Besides, I'm not sure how far afield I'd have to go for eel, and while I wasn't too squeamish to eat it, I'm not sure how intrepidly I'd be facing it in my kitchen! Cooking seal flipper at L'Anse aux Meadows kind of floored me...]

v.

A Different Tack

Still food, still historical... I've been invited (or bullied my way or whimpered enough) to design and execute a feast for another canton in the SCA. Not my local group, assuming I can even call that one my local group, since I don't go to meetings.
Anyway, I enjoy the planning and cooking, and this 3 hours-distant group has no cooks this year who aren't already busy doing other jobs, or didn't just cook the last feast!

They had suggested Henry VIII as the possible time frame, but aren't necessarily holding me to that. I'm widening the net to "Tudor", and am willing to accept a dating I found of 1485 to 1603, because that will open up the range of cookery information I can look at. (There aren't really a lot of English or english-language cookbooks from the 16th century.) But this means I can haul out a few 15th c ones for a look, and flip through Hugh Plat as well. I may not actually use them, but the more sources to start with the better.

I'm beginning by gathering up a list of foodstuffs that were popularly used, and from there I'll decide what's liable to be available, and what's liable to fall more within budget. Then I have to cross-reference those ideas with known allergies within the host group (that's a definite politeness!) and have a little think about what is more likely to appeal to the general population that will cross our paths. I'm lucky that this group tends to draw a crowd more willing to be fed some historical food. So that will make the voyage more fun.

I'll keep you posted as we set sail.

v

Temperatures, an Experiment

So, as part of learning some of the stuff I feel I need to learn to really get a handle on trying to make skyr, I did some experiments in maintaining a temperature.

A number of cheeses have a much quicker process time; higher acidity, and higher temps, may work to form a curd in a shorter time period. The recipes for skyr all seem to suggest a coagulation time of 12 to 24 hours. That’s a long time to maintain a temperature. Certainly 24 hours means going overnight, and a period of unsupervised sitting.
Up until now I had been following an idea I’d read somewhere of putting the pot in the oven with the oven light left on. (Mind you, I also had a less concrete idea of what temperature I was trying to maintain.)

Today I tried a series of tests.
First, a whole lot of reading had suggested that a good temperature to maintain during this process would be between 100 and 110 F. Apparently that’s an optimum temperature for rennet to coagulate the milk solids into curd. Even if it ends up not being the temperature I finally decides works best for skyr, it was still a good starting point.
So I tried a container of water at 110F in the oven. I had preheated the oven just a fraction, by turning it to it’s lowest setting for a few minutes only, then placed the uncovered container in the center and left the light on and door closed. Within an hour and a half the temperature had dropped to 96 degrees.

A second test had water at a temperature of 106 F in a wide-mouthed thermos. (I felt that I had better thermoses with narrow mouths, but didn’t fancy the idea of trying to get coagulated milk out of them. Certainly it wouldn’t work for anything that I’d hoped would form a firmer curd!) In the hour and a half, the temp had dropped to 96 degrees.

A third test had water of 109 F in a crockpot. Unfortunately, it’s a slightly older style slow cooker, and has only a low or high setting. I gather the new models also have a warm feature. In an hour and a half, the temperature ROSE to 126 degrees.

These had been my first and easiest ideas. And I guess I haven’t found an easy answer. I have a couple of other things to try next…

Not Skyr

Yet again, I have been vanquished in the quest for skyr.
This time I again tried the skimmed milk recipe. I was hopeful, because early on I was seeing some curd separation, but in the end didn’t get anywhere near a useful degree of coagulation. (Is there a happier word one can use to describe the actions of rennet when making cheese products?) And to my sense of taste, there really wasn’t any kind of marked degree of change from the flavour of milk. It was ‘not milk’ in flavour, but without any of the tang or faint acidity I’ve come to associate with skyr.
I did get to try out the new piece of equipment my loving husband gifted me with for Christmas.

A nylon jelly strainer system from Lee Valley. Far simpler for clean up. Cheesecloth may really be washable, but I think I prefer to save it for theatrical costume uses, because it’s nothing but a pain for use in the kitchen. (Well, perhaps if I had a kitchen dedicated to culinary experiments that wasn’t also full of the rest of our lives…)

But I’m starting to think that some of the comments I’ve made about the iron-smelting experiments that go on outside our house also apply here. Too many unknowns and too many variables, and never working towards setting some constants.

I’ve had several recipes I’ve been playing with simultaneously. There are several possible types of milk I can use; some of the recipes specify, some don’t. I have two different kinds of rennet, both of which are vegetable-based, so are a variable in themselves. There are a couple of different methods suggested. There is the variable of quantity: do the reactions I’m looking for require certain quantities before they occur? Are the proportions for reaction a constant?

In many ways as with the iron smelting, some of the same questions occur, and I can just plug a different noun or verb into the question, and it’s just as valid when applied to my experiments with skyr. (Scary, eh?)

* To begin with, I’m trying to experiment to create a product I don’t have much familiarity with. There is almost no experience with skyr in Canada, other than in specific communities with a cultural heritage that has kept it alive. (As in so much else in my life, I had never particularly heard of skyr, or had any interest in its existence, when I was growing up in Manitoba, a stone’s throw from Gimli and its Icelandic community. Turns out my mother knew about it, and liked it, and used to be able to buy it in the grocery store when she was younger! Thanks to the whole new world of major grocery store chains, and countrywide supply lines, that’s no longer possible. And now I live a wide province away…) So all I really know of skyr is from other people’s descriptions, which are never quite the same, and recently, thanks to a friend’s importation of some from a small producer in Manitoba, or some commercially-produced skyr brought back from Iceland. And whether either of these is typical, true skyr, or the skyr one might expect to make from the few available recipes, is as much a guess as any other.
Even from the few tastes I’ve had of skyr, I can’t really describe to my own satisfaction how it tastes. Before I’d ever had any, my interpretation of other descriptions led me to think it would be a little bit like yoghurt meets creamed cottage cheese. (Again, I had to work with products I’d already tasted. I’ve never had Quark; so don’t know where it fits in the spectrum.) When I did taste skyr, I think I was surprised that it wasn’t tangier. Because I’d been thinking about yoghurt, perhaps like a yoghurt cheese, I was expecting the same amount of acidity. (One of the things that keeps me from really enjoying yoghurt in large quantities. Too sharp a taste.) It wasn’t. But it also wasn’t like clotted cream, though the texture wasn’t that far away. It was less ‘glossy’ and loose than sour cream. (Oddly, although much sour cream is “sour” in taste, I find it less acidic than yoghurt. I feel there’s probably science involved here, which I need to know more about.) And again sour cream is still too sharp a flavour. And skyr can be more dense-seeming.
I have had some cream cheeses that are more like skyr in taste than either yoghurt or sour cream. They seem to be less typical of cream cheeses though.

So, here I am, trying to make something I’ve only tasted occasionally, can’t happily describe, even to myself, and have only very intermittently had brief access to.

Good start!

*I’m also not finding a lot of concrete information about skyr. Mostly just the same stuff re-paraphrased elsewhere, or some vague descriptions. And not much by way of recipes. I have one recipe that came via a friend, and one cookbook of Icelandic recipes from the Lake Winnipeg area that has two or three different takes on it. There’s a bit of discussion on the internet, which I’ve gleefully bookmarked, but nowhere near the amount I thought I’d find. Which is odd, because I know I’ve talked about skyr and figuring out how to make it for years now, and only recently got down to seriously trying to do something about it. I am sure I’m not the only one. In fact, by the number of Google searches that have hit on this blog by the search word ‘skyr’, I KNOW I’m not alone in this quest!

*What recipes I can find, seem to have no consensus as to what milk to use, skim, partly-fatted, whole milk, buttermilk… Admittedly, in searching for information on Viking Age skyr, it’s not like there’s likely to be a recipe or archaeological evidence, so information from traditional practices would be a good starting point. But even that seems a bit vague.

[I should point out that I’m mostly working from my own culinary library, which isn’t totally sketchy, or what I can find on the internet. I live rurally and have no easy access to libraries anymore. Give me a lovely university library and I might make some more headway. Or not. Even if the information is really available and out there, sometimes it can be well hidden!]

Part of my brain says higher fat content milk would give more milk solids. And that maybe my lack of coagulation is because I was using skim milk. But common sense suggests that historically milk would be processed differently and separated into different components for different uses. Cream becomes butter. So it would be the thinner milks and whey that might be made into cheeses. And there are Scandinavian cheeses that are made from whey: Gjetost and Mysost. Some of the things I’ve read about skyr, say it is a low-fat cheese. But then some of the recipes don’t mention that at all. I may not be able to find a definitive answer to that, but some further experimentation may be able to tell me how I need to make it to have it work.

*I need to figure out what the differences are between animal- and vegetable-based rennet. I have no particular preference which I use, being a carnivore, but if I can get the vegetable-based version to work, then it will be suitable for my non-meat-eater friends and relations. In the long run, it will probably hinge on what’s available to me. But I do need to learn if there are variations in how well each work, and in the amounts that should be used. The recipe I was just trying asked for twelve drops per 4 quarts of milk. I noticed that the rennet bottle itself suggested five drops per 1 litre. Hmmm… Mind you, I based my amount of rennet on that 5drops per litre, and did NOT get any really tangible curd formation. It ‘looked’ liked it was working, but when I went to strain off the liquid, it was far more liquid than solid.
And I don’t think that just giving it more time is the answer either. I did that with one of the very first attempts, and by the time I’d developed some thickness that was strainable, the milk was somewhat past human consumption. Even our cats, who adore dairy in any way, shape or form, were completely disinterested!

*Temperatures. When they say heat to boiling, do they mean heat it till it IS boiling, or until it reaches that temperature? Or maybe even boil for a bit of time? And cooling to lukewarm… What is lukewarm exactly? Does it matter? Am I over analyzing?

Hmmm… I was just grubbing about in yet another cookery book, thinking about an offshoot from this project that would involve trying to make something else, where I can find more info, and lo and behold! Have come across some instructions to do with yoghurt making that say: Sterilize 1 litre milk by bringing it to the boil, and simmering for two minutes to kill off any undesirable bacteria.
Now, there is the first reason I’ve seen for heating to the milk to boiling. No other source has given a reason. Is this why I should be heating the milk? And this one gives the instruction about two minutes of simmering.
This same recipe also gives a temperature for ‘lukewarm’ of 38-43 degrees C, or 100-110 F. (which is different than what I’d been doing in this last experiment.) I’d found some other suggestions of 80 – 85 F.

Entirely possible that temperature is one of the variables that is contributing to the different results. Certainly I suspected that the temperature I’ve been leaving it to sit at might have an effect on coagulation and formation of a curd, and is a bit hard to control. It is winter here in Canada, and I live in a cold house (electric baseboards and a programmable thermostat to save on hydro costs.) At a different time of year, the ambient temperatures will be greatly different.

I think I also need to experiment with some other methods for maintaining a temperature, and maybe try a higher ‘lukewarm’ temp.

I do believe, though, that I need to put aside questing for skyr until I’ve learned a little more about the rennets I have available. If I can get a handle on the processes and results when I’m working with something a bit more obtainable, like making a yoghurt, where I can easily buy commercial yoghurt for a starter, and know what it should taste like, or some soft cheese, then I may be able to apply the experience again to trying for skyr. Though I may also be limited to the suggestions of how to make a skyr starter, since the availability of real skyr is extremely intermittent.

Sadly, all my previous experiences with cheese-making and the like are just too many years behind me now to be of use. I’m really starting at the beginning all over again. I just have to hope I’ve learned a bit of patience, and can approach this methodically, and solve the mystery!

Tweaking the Bakeoven

[Apologies. Two, no, THREE shows at the theatre intervened. One, 22 actors, 23 characters; then 4 actors, and 22 or 23 or 24 characters. I lost track! And the last one, A Christmas Carol with eleven mainstage actors and a choir of 75, all in Victorian costume... This should have been posted ages ago!]

So, long long ago, up north on a friend's farm where we have an annual historical event, we built a bread oven. We'd actually envisioned it being used as a community bread oven for them what likes to bake bread. Of course, visiting the site only once a year does not make for healthy and productive maintenance.
We'd already discovered with our experiments here at our place, that weather can take a huge toll on an unsheltered, infrequently used stone oven.
Add to the general wear and tear of weather and time, the fact that one short weekend, full of a number of other time intensive projects (building a forge, smelting iron, making glass beads, earthworks and levelling...) meant that the oven just wasn't getting regular TLC. And with the passage of more than a decade, it was in sad shape indeed.

So, it was very exciting this year that a couple of ladies decided they'd like to put some effort into restoring the oven to its former glory and usefulness.

With the home oven, we'd already experimented with a number of building methods: stone, stone and sod, stone and clay, overhead cover, and eventually had just decided to mortar it. The snow load in our area is quite heavy, and the freeze/thaw cycles are extreme. Local clay eventually just degraded away. (Something we are now watching experimentally in our iron smelters.)
So our ladies decided to try a more effective attempt with clay, and brought a better grade with them. We'll have to see how it fares.

Their first step was just to find the oven!




It had been a very rainy summer this year, and the bracken was thriving. Normally the oven shows up a little bit better...

They had to clear away the bracken and accumulated dried vegetation, broken bits and pieces, and make sure the original stones were seated firmly. Then they mixed up their clay and began a serious mortaring effort. After getting thoroughly muddy in the process, they were eventually rewarded with an oven-like object, and were able to make a small fire to preheat and dry the clay.
"Useful tools" were found and created. Other friends had slaughtered one of their ducks and brought it to pluck and cook. A wing became useful to sweep out ashes. Another friend cut and carved a peel (a thin wooden paddle that allows you to slide the bread into the oven.)

Wood for the real heating was prepared, and the fire in the oven started. When it was deemed hot enough, the remains of the fire were swept out, and a loaf of bread dough placed inside, and the opening blocked with a stone. Later, after nightfall, the bread was removed, and declared a success.
Hopefully, next year the oven will still be in decent enough shape that so much time won't be spent on preparing it, and more time can be spent on using it. Ideally, if the heating is started earlier (not late in the day at the end of the weekend!) we may be able to use the oven to bake several things, utilizing the temperature curve that is part of the natural process.

A New Cookbook

Another one of my birthday presents, brought back from Denmark, turned out to be a cookbook I've heard mentioned and have actually been looking for, Prehistoric Cooking by Jacquie Wood.

See here:http://www.history.uk.com/reviews/index.php?archive=24

I've seen it mentioned a number of times, and read a few comments about it, but beyond that I wasn't finding too much info, or anything in the way of quotes or samples. So it will be very interesting to actually be able to sit down and take a serious look at this, and maybe try, and experiment, with some of what she says.
We'll have to see...

v

Little Pots

Aren't they charming?
It's not like I have any lack of pots, or the man to make them, but this series of three (coincidentally nesting) pots came from one of the museums in Denmark, a birthday gift from my husband. (Yet another reason Homeland Security was anxious about his luggage! Not just iron blooms or maple syrup...)

I'll have to seal them up, which means a chance to try several different methods, but I'm quite delighted by them!

v.

Feeding Re-Enactors

Or how do we reset our modern sensibilities?

(expanded from the posting on the DARC blog.)

** Random thought warning: No guarantees of a beginning, middle, or end, here. It’s an ongoing discovery!**

Over the years of being one of the main food providers at the varying levels of demo that DARC takes part in, my biggest challenge has been mostly, finding the time ahead, in a life that’s pretty full of other activities or work, to get ready. Fortunately, I find that food fascinates me, and drying fruit or meat or vegetables, or making flatbreads ahead, and planning it all, amuses me. The one recent conundrum has been in crossing borders. All of a sudden I’ve lost my easy ability to prepare our own supplies to take, especially meat and fruit, and have to rely on local grocery supplies. (No, the Norse didn’t really eat pepperoni, but it was the only dried sausage available at your store!)

A number of years ago now, my husband gave me a food dehydrator, which sat for a while, until I finally discovered how truly marvelous it is. I’ve tried other methods of drying, but a dehydrator sure beats the oven, or the vagaries of sun and weather, or the klutzy feet of cats who just want to be a part of everything. Now I can dry foodstuffs all year round, for me as well as for camp purposes. And truthfully, I find that some of those stocks get used up in my daily kitchen before they even have the chance to be part of a period menu!

When it comes to a demo situation, it’s far easier to adhere to a more plausible menu of foodstuffs. On the one hand, I’m preparing it before the public, so my methods will only be the appropriate ones, especially as dictated by the cookware I’ll be using. And I find the people I’m feeding are far more accepting of whatever I give them, when it’s the oasis in a busy day of talking to the public. (Not to mention that after the demo, there’s a good chance we’ll be eating out somewhere, and they can suit their own tastes!)

However, there are occasions where we camp for ourselves. What then? We had already decided in our formative period, that morning was often a time of relaxed authenticity. Partly because some of us like our coffee in the morning; but also because that gave us a period of time in which we could discuss aspects of the whole process, and review gear, etc.

When it comes to food, though, beyond that pot of coffee, I truly prefer historical foods, and more appropriate methods. And when cooking for myself, that’s not really an effort. Historical food intrigues me, as well as the processes of preparing it. (Mind you, I occasionally stray out of one time zone a bit, if I really have urges for experimentation with some other things… I don’t get enough time cooking over fires to work my way through the entire list of things I want to try! Or favourites I’d like to revisit.) But I don’t think I’ve ever had any problems avoiding modern cooking or recipes. After all, this is my chance to escape all that!

I have found that when cooking for others, it’s much harder to toe that historic line. Or when cooking for a longer period of time. Our modern tastes, and sensibilities, and habits get in the way, no matter how much we try to suppress them. Not only will the varying ‘needs’ and requirements and differing senses of taste, and experience of the members of the group get in the way, I have my own perceptions of what constitutes an adequate meal, a balanced menu, and a need to please my audience. Even that is probably a far cry from a busy huswife concerned with making a timely meal from materials to hand.

It’s very hard to turn off our modern taste buds. Easier, perhaps, to follow a period recipe and accept the results. But in earlier period cooking, we’re working from known ingredients and methods, far more often than from actual recipes. There’s an automatic assumption that comes into play, about what we should be doing with those ingredients.

I often dry meat, for example. And while I’ve adapted the ingredients in varying jerky recipes to be something more in keeping with the spicings available to the Norse, it seems highly unlikely that they spent time adding flavourful marinades to meat they were drying as a means of preservation. A simple brining makes sense, because of the useful properties of salt. But plain brined and dried meat really just doesn’t cut it as a ‘snack food’ to the modern tongue. It works well as something for the soup pot, and I’ve used it as such. But for eating? Not so much.

Yet, in the real context, a bit of dried meat would probably have been quite the decent item to stave off some hunger, and the fact you had it at all would probably have been all that mattered.

I suppose I should be pleased with myself that I have tried the more logical ‘plain dried meat’ even, but the fact that I immediately opted back to a marinated jerky bothers me. That’s my 21^st century taste buds chiming in.

And so, when faced with a small crowd of people who find plain water something for washing with, not drinking, or a simple soup of dried vegetables or salt fish, less than inspiring, especially if it’s what you had yesterday and the day before, and the day before that…

It definitely becomes a bit more of a challenge.

Particularly when I want them to not feel cheated out of a real meal.

Consequently, we end up with far more extensive meals than I can imagine being the norm. Which, when paired with an inadequate knowledge of period furniture, means a more awkward serving setting. (And way more dishes to clean up!)

And more meals, period. What I’ve read of the Norse suggest a morning meal, and a nighttime meal. Now admittedly, I’m fairly used to a two meal day, and when I worked at my previous job in the city, often a one meal day! But many people in the modern day really are more familiar with three meals a day.

Even the modern perception of what constitutes a meal can get in the way. If the Norse might have been content with a bowl of broth or gruel for a morning meal, with perhaps a crust of bread or an unleavened flatbread to sop it up, why do we feel we cannot start our day without a buffet of tempting items? Sausage, bacon, fresh griddle cakes, fruit… I often make an attempt to offer up a bakepot of some grain porridge, but there are times where I’m the only one willing to give it a go.

Admittedly, the North American diet makes far too much use of meat. We’re spoiled by accessibility and modern methods of preservation. And quite probably, our ideas of a hearty breakfast don’t match with the workload we’re about to undertake in our day! But certainly our choices are not as likely in a culture without large-scale farming, or food-processing, or refrigeration.

And whether or not there were fewer food allergies in history, or not, certainly there are many more scruples about food today, as well as sensitivities, and food choices, and dietary concerns. All those factors can come into play, and then the whole game becomes more complex.

I was lucky recently, at least, in that it was only a very small group of people I was cooking for, which made the variables a bit more finite. Another friend ended up cooking for over two dozen people, and found that in many cases, the entire idea of period food had to be set aside for the sake of efficiency, and group and individual needs. Also, in her case, a goodly quantity of those two dozen people may have had little or no experience with period food, and might not have had the ability to adjust their expectations. For my part, I discovered that although I had a fair array of appropriate storage vessels, and a goodly quantity of period foods along, they got lost in the chaotic shuffle of making sure there was adequate breakfast, lunch, ‘tea’, and dinner that matched up with the varying needs people had brought with them, or the extra bodies that always seem to accumulate.

Certainly, I believe it to be a learned association of ideas: both surrendering what feels natural, and your regular expectations. Particularly when we’re basing the whole thing on extrapolation and conjecture at best. That’s a difficult step to take. I’d like to be able to do it more often, or at least make the attempt.

I find that some easy steps are to simply include only appropriate foodstuffs, even if sometimes the net is cast just a teeny bit wider; ‘to include Britain, as well as the Scandinavian homelands.’ This, to possibly give some scope for wheat as the primary grain, or allow us to include almonds and walnuts. Or to perhaps allow a treat from ‘far away’. (In the case of a few olives for a special snack.) I do end up playing a few mind games with my planning, if only because I live rurally, and don’t have access to preferable options. In cooking for demos, I sometimes build in a supply trip so I actually can buy and use barley flour, or hazelnuts.

[For my experimental cooking, I’m far stricter with myself. It actually ends up being more rewarding.]

Perhaps it might be worth another post just to muse about what might make for good re-enactors’ food?

Duck for Dinner!

Historic Food Out-dated?

Was having a visit with some fellow historic re-enactors last Saturday, well, a work weekend actually. But after the smelter was built, and we were sitting around, post-work, and pre-dinner, the topic of historic food came up.

There has been a discussion recently on a re-enactor list about food allergies, and how to work around them for feasts. Several times I almost made my own contribution to the conversation, and then deleted it. On the one hand, I tend to only be willing to go as far as denoting meat and non-meat dishes in a menu. I’m far too afear’d of the complex issues of food allergies to even feel comfortable giving assurances about something I’ve prepared by myself in my own kitchen, let alone in a rented kitchen with other helpers. Particularly true, as I learn more and more about all the variations of allergies. And unexpected links and molecular similarities… Eek! It just gets way too tricksy.

But that led us both to comment how on the one hand it becomes very difficult to try to reproduce any of the food from varying periods in history with any kind of attempt at veracity. And on the other hand, how it seems that not many people are even trying anymore.

In fact, I’m starting to wonder if historic cooking is becoming a thing of the past! (Now doesn’t that start to sound like something Carrie Bradshaw would be typing?)

When I first started in this whole re-enactoring thing (long, long ago and reasonably far away) we didn’t have a lot of resources. There was Pleyn Delit. And….hmmm… maybe there was Pleyn Delit. Certainly that was one of the most available books.

It wasn’t even till I’d been in Ontario for a time that others even crossed my path, though I was already on the lookout for them. But perhaps we would have been excused for using the same recipes again and again. Or filling in gaps with something conjectural, just to flesh out the menu.

But there are so many new places to turn to now for easily available information. I ended up having to move my historical cookery book collection out of my kitchen bookshelves because they take up so much more room now. And I don’t can’t afford to collect even a fraction of what is out there.

But it seems we were doing more historic cooking when we had fewer recipes to choose from. Instead, it’s appeared over the last few years, that ‘ethnic’ cookery has replaced any use of historic cookbooks. (Where once we could have pointed that finger at ‘traditional’ recipes as standing in for real history.) And recently, even ethnic food seems to be giving way to what more resembles fairly ordinary restaurant food. ???

So…is period food old-fashioned?

V.

Taking the Cauldon for a Test-Drive

We spent the weekend at a 'black powder rendez-vous' (roughly 1750 - 1830) at a small county museum.
I had a chance to use the new footed kettle. And discovered quite by chance, that the lid of one of my other cast irion pots fits just perfectly! We still have to do some clean up on the pot before it gets heavy-duty cooking use, but it certainly worked beautifully to keep a welcome pot of hot water to hand. (Weather was not quite what I look for in spring camping!)

And yes, I cooked with some of the wild leeks. Yum.

Lovely!

The first wild leeks of the season! I may have to stop talking about pots and talk about food instead...

Pottery Pipkins

Ah... the Jamestowne pipkin. No, I don't know if they assume a wooden extension was inserted into that pottery handle. Certainly it would be possible, and that's the way our potter friend has designed his versions. That *is* a handle though, not a pouring spout. I didn't think to set up a shot to make that clear, but the last picture is taken looking directly at the inside where the handle is. In fact, if you really peer, you can see a slight circular mark, which is either discolouration that's occurred during use, or possibly a slight depression and shadow from actually working the clay in that spot.
Turns out I don't have any of the similarly handled cookware that David made. I'd thought I had, perhaps because there'd been such a lot of cookware all being tested at once, and then different shapes went home with different testers.

I have taken some pictures of the two pottery pipkins that I have. Obviously the smaller one has seen more use, as you can see by the smoke marks! I wondered why, until I remembered that my favourite cookpot in this series is an unfooted one. And that may be my favourite because the one firepit I use a lot actually has some flat rocks set around the bottom, and it's probably easier nestling a round bottomed cookpot in there, than getting good seating for a taller footed pot. I do find that the shape curving in towards the mouth of the pot is preferable. It contains the heat and the food better, as well as keeping ash out. I'm hoping to make up some simple wood lids this season, and that will help as well.

But with the hope of spring, there's also the chance of starting to cook outdoors again. So maybe some of these can get a bit more use and experimentation.

Road Trips & Pipkins

Sorry for the absence. I was off to Virginia for ten days in March, and as soon as I got back, was busy working on the last show of our theatre season, Mesa, about a road trip from Calgary to Phoenix. Kind of got in the way of organizing a new post.

However, one of the things I did while down south was visit the Jamestown Rediscovery Archaeology Project, http://www.apva.org/jr.html, with some of the people we'd been visiting, and some of the Colonial Williamsburg staff.
The trip down to Virginia had been all about iron smelting, so the visit to APVA was actually about iron production in Jamestown and early Virginia.

But Jamestown was about a lot more than just that, and the lab at the archaeology centre was full of something for everyone!
I was particularly taken with a lovely find of a footed pottery cook pot. It was nice in itself, but additionally interesting because I have some period-style cookware made by a potter friend of mine, including a footed pipkin.







-vandy

The Bronze Cauldron

I was asked for a few more details about the interesting bronze cauldron I'd posted the scan of. Unfortunately, the book I found the picture in says nothing more than:
"Bronze cauldron, Etruscan, early 7th century B.C. Purchase, 1954, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest (54.11.1)" It's from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Unfortunately, no amount of Googling thus far has pulled up any other pictures, or any more information.

It does seem quite possible that it's not for cooking in, though. I could well imagine it being a serving vessel for wine. But I suppose it could just as easily be a funerary urn to a fruit bowl. It's also not overly helpful that I have no idea of size.

But it *is* a pretty cauldron, and I love the legs!

v

Another Footed Cauldron

Way early, 7th century B.C., made of bronze, and the legs look a bit fragile, but what a pretty thing.



(I found the picture in Christmas Feasts from History, by Lorna J. Sass. It lives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

v

The Footed Pot

Well, I went off and scrabbled around through some of my books. Of course, they're not sorted with an eye to identifying cookware, so this is what I could find quickly.


This is a picture from Food by Audrey Noel Hume, from the Colonial Williamsburg Archaeological Series. #9. The two large pots are from before 1797, when the house they were excavated from, burned down in Williamsburg.




The second picture is from Cooking at Jamestown Settlement, which oddly lists no author at all. The pot in the picture is being used in the living history interpretive section of the museum, the reconstructed settlement, so I imagine it is a reproduction, but much closer to the source, and likely to be reasonably accurate. (Somewhere we have more info on Jamestown. I'll have to figure out which library it's in.) Jamestown Settlement dates from 1607 to the mid-1620's.



The third picture is from A Taste of History, The Origins of Quebec's Gastronomy by Marc Lafrance and Yvon Desloges. Unfortunately they give no more specific credit for any of the photos than what's included with the picture. I'm assuming there's a good chance that this pot is part of the Louisbourg artefact collection. (Again, somewhere we have lots more photos from Louisbourg, but I'll have to hunt them down.)
The caption with this photo merely describes it as a pot style used in the 18th century. It is definitely a much more elegant casting than my reproduction. Thinner, not as rough.


I also have bookmarked, an interesting article on the history of cauldrons and cast iron:
http://filebox.vt.edu/users/jselmer/cauldrons.htm
And the author includes a picture of a similar kettle from his own collection as the last image:
http://filebox.vt.edu/users/jselmer/cauldrons.htm#fig_12

Interestingly to me, this shape of metal pot seems to follow the shape of earlier earthenware pots. Maybe I'll try ferreting out some pictures of those next....

v