The week before last my wife and I were at a private camping event with a bunch of our SCA friends.  Every year, one of our friends rents a forest service cabin up on the NE side of Mt. Ranier, out of Natches, WA for a week, and many people come to hang out.  This year Vikki (my wife) and I got to stay the whole week, which was very relaxing. 

One of the things we do every year is try out new and different cooking techniques, preferable things that would have been done “in period”, or as would have been done in the past, for you non-SCA wonks.  A couple of years ago we rendered lard for the first time over a fire, and this year I made beef tallow.  Vikki often makes cheese over the open fire, etc.

Many years ago one of our friends got the idea for what we’ve come to call the “Law Breakfast”.  In old Irish (brehon) law, there were laws about what different people were entitled to at meal time according to their status.  Since the woman who rents the cabin in nominally the clan chieftan, we make breakfast according to what would be entitled to a chief.  This includes things like milk, beer, butter, and “condiments”.

Our interpretation has become:

• Cold roast chicken (easy to prepare ahead and freese, and really good for breakfast)
• Smoked fish (also easy to prepare ahead, although this year we didn’t so there wasn’t any)
• barley cakes (barley flour, eggs and milk, cooked like crepes) with butter and honey.  We usually try for a whole honey comb, but this year just honey.
• Milk
• Beer (it’s what’s for breakfast)
• Sometimes oatmeal

It makes a great breakfast.  The barley cakes are particularly popular.

This Saturday (9/11), there's going to be an historic cooking demo/exposition at the Beaverton Farmer's Market.  There are a whole series of 1/2 hour demos planned on various styles/periods/etc.  I'll be playing the part of "Viking Chef" at around 9:30 I think.  Come on down.  There will be foods to try, cooking to watch, plus all the benefits of what I've heard is a pretty great Farmer's Market.

There are a few sites around that have some good info on Viking food and cooking:

• The BBC has an interesting set of pages on Viking food in everyday life, told as a narative
• Thora Sharptooth (Carolyn Priest-Dorman) has a great list of ingredients from archeological sites and a couple more articles on food related things
• Some good, simple recipes from Trine Theut
• The Viking Answer Lady has a good summary, with some nice pictures of cooking and eating equipment

 

I've got PDF versions of a couple of food history classes I've taught at SCA events. 

The first is on “Cooking for Cultures with No Extant Recipes”.  Many cultures throughout history haven't used written recipes, but I don't think that should stop us from being able to recreate their cooking.  For example, we don't have an Viking “recipes”, but we do know from the archeological record what ingredients they used, and what equipment they had for cooking.  We can also refer to literature to get a feel for their tastes. 

The second is on the “Evolution of Food Processing Techniques”.  I looked at how food processing techniques have evolved over time, and what impact they have had on daily life.

Enjoy.

Thanks to an article in the New York Times (reg. req.) I just found Centropa.  It's a project dedicated to gathering and preserving oral histories of Jews living in Central- and Eastern Europe.  One of their main focuses is food, and they've gathered some pretty interesting recipes and oral histories to go with them. 

Well worth checking out if you're interested in culinary history.