Subject: Re: Norse recipes

From: [email-masked] (April DeLaurier)
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 1994 21:18:40 GMT

Norse food eh?
I can relate to your quest and your frustration- I have spent a
couple of years trying to research authentic norse food.  The 
big problem is that there is very little early medieval 
documentation for recipes and food in general.  The best bet is
to scour primary source documents such as the Viking sagas for
mention of foods and their preparation, and research what kinds
of foods the norse were known to have procured domestically such
as oats, rye and milk products, as well as what foods they 
exploited locally such as fish and wild berries.  By combining
the elusive mention of foods in primary source texts as well as
the archaeological/historical data of known food sources, one
can sort of derive what kind of dishes were eaten.  However,
actual "recipes" are lost to the ages I'm afraid.  In fact
recipes were not written down at all until the late middle ages,
and extensively in the Renaissance.  I have been informed of a
book that claims to have authentic reproductions of Anglo-Saxon
recipes.  I think it is called "Anglo-Saxon Cookery".  I have 
not seen it, so I can't say how good it is.
Good luck! Keep me informed.

April DeLaurier
[email-masked]

Ah yes the wonderful world of internet: everyone is eager to tell
everyone else that they don't know either.

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From: [email-masked] (Jane Beckman)
Date: 25 Oct 94 00:52:53 GMT

>"In fact recipes were not written down at all until the late middle
>ages,
>and extensively in the Renaissance." (April DeLaurier)
>
>I am not sure what implicit restrictions you intended in that
>statement; taken literally it is false. In particular:
>
[various citations]
Then there are the cuneiform texts, which were recently
translated and turned out to be an ancient Sumarian cookbook!
Has anyone heard if they intend to publish any of this?  (I
want a copy!)  The article I read gave a recipe for locusts in
honey as an example.  (Yes, that IS the insect they're making
into a delicacy.)  It's been a couple of years, and I haven't
heard anything more.

--
  Jilara the Exile   [[email-masked]]
That's how freedom will end: not with a bang, but with a rustle of file
folders.  If you love any of your rights, defend all of them!
-Joe Chew, on the net

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From: [email-masked] (david director friedman)
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 03:45:37 GMT

A cookbook attributed to Apicius was written in late antiquity.

A greek phsician named Anthimus wrote a letter to Theoderic, King of
the Franks, in the late sixth century which contains several recipes.

There is an Islamic cookbook collection that was assembled in the
tenth century; some of the component material is attributed to one of
the Barmakids, the family who were viziers for Haroun al Raschid c.
800.

If we restrict ourselves to Christian Europe well after the fall of
Rome, I believe the earliest surviving recipes are 13th century,
which some people would describe as late middle ages.

David Friedman

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From: [email-masked] (david director friedman)
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 02:24:20 GMT

>A cookbook attributed to Apicius was written in late antiquity.

and Alf Christophersen replied

"So, suddenly Rome has been a part of Scandinavia???????"

As was, I think, clear from what I quoted, the person I was
responding to did not qualify his statement by saying that it applied
to Scandinavia. Indeed, I doubt that he intended it to. So far as I
know, there are no surviving Scandinavian recipes from the late
middle ages. It sounded as though he was thinking about western
europe in general, probably post-roman western europe, but not

>statement; taken literally it is false. In particular:

Mr. Christophersen goes on to say:

"The question was about Norse Recipes, and the first statement is
correct, at least to what we know today. There may be some indirect
citations on what people eat for earlier times, but in Sweden, the
first cookbook was not produced before in about 1500-1600 century. To
my knowledge, the first Norwegian was about 1820."

This question is complicated by whhat counts as a Scandinavian
cookbook. There is a lost cookbook, probably 13th c., which survives
as three or four daughter manuscripts. One is in an Icelandic Medical
Miscellany, two are Danish, and one German. There is an article on
the subject by Rudolf Grewe in _Proceedings of a Conference on
Current Research in Culinary History: Sources, Tolpics, and Methods_,
published by the Culinary Historians of Boston in 1986. Grewe
believes, however, that the surviving manuscripts are copies of a
southern european original that somehow found its way north. If so,
it is not really a Scandinavian cookbook, although the copies were
written down in Scandinavia.

Aside from that cookbook, I am not sure that any Scandinavian recipes
survive which could be described as "late middle ages." There is a
sixteenth century Dutch cookbook, but I am not aware of anything
Swedish before 1600--can you give a more precise reference?

David Friedman

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From: [email-masked] (Lena Bolander)
Date: 26 Oct 1994 09:31:14 GMT

The oldest Scandinavian real cookbook I know about is
 "En lijten kockebook", originally anonymous published in
Sweden by the printer Ignatius Meurer, 1650.

The Iclandic traditional dish Thorrablot I have seen referenced
as probably remaining from the time of the vikings.

/Lena