Last weekend I made some Viking-style snacks for another SCA vigil, and tried some new stuff this time.  I made a big batch of skyr, and needed to make use of it, so I mixed some skyr with honey, then added some little dried prunes and hazelnuts fried in butter.  This worked out really nicely, and includes ingredients common in the archeological record.  It was quite good with the barley flat bread.  I'm thinking it would be even better filling the barley pancakes.  Hmm.

The other new one was some oatcakes, which were just butter, honey, oatflour and rolled oats (and maybe a bit too much salt).  Baked until cookie like.  They were a lot like simple (salty) oatmeal cookies.  Good with herring.

I just got a copy of the recently released

Sippin' Safari: In Search of the Great "Lost" Tropical Drink Recipes... and the People Behind Them

and it's proving to be quite an excellent book.  Jeff "Beachbum" Berry has authored three previous books on Tiki drinks ( Beachbum Berry's Grog Log, Beachbum Berry's Intoxica!, and Beachbum Berry's Taboo Table) and the food that goes with them, and this is his finest work to date. 

In his quest to recover the lost art of the faux tropical drink, he's done a truly amazing amount of legwork and research.  Sippin' Safari is as much a work of history as it is a drink book.  Mr. Berry tracked down an interviewed a number of famous (in the right circles) waiters and bartenders from the old tiki bars and gotten their recipes first hand, doing some detective work along the way.  There's a whole chapter on tracking down the Zombie recipe (which I still haven't tried, as it takes a bit of prep), tracking down leads and referencing a copy of a 1937 bartenders notebook.  Cool stuff, both from the tiki and research perspectives. 

The book is filled with pictures of classic tiki bars, old drink menus, the bartenders and their families, and other interesting details surrounding the original 30s-70's tiki scene. 

If you are into tiki, history, or both, this is well worth the read.