Anyway, the Vikings obviously didn’t eat that way.  I think that they (or at least many of them) relied heavily on dairy products and that meat and fish were a constant (if not staple foods).  At the same time, I think they ate a lot of plants too, probably more than we do in the modern American diet. 

Where I’m going with all this is that I’ll be continuing to experiment, but there may be a few substitutions here and there.  I want to try to stick to “Viking-possible” if not “Viking-probable” ingredients.  As an example, I’ll use hazelnut milk as a substitute for dairy milk.  I know the Vikings ate lots of hazelnuts.  We know that Medieval Europeans made “milk” from almonds.  Does that mean vegan Vikings drank hazelnut milk?  Nope.  Hence possible, not probable.  What I won’t be doing is making Viking porridge with tempeh bacon.  Not even possible.

Alright, that said, over the weekend I tried out the first plant-based experiment at Eulalia’s open fire cooking day.  In a round bottomed clay pot, I stewed a leek and a turnip (diced) in hazelnut milk (I used Pacific Foods brand, but I’ll probably try making my own) until the turnips started to soften up.  To that I added some brown mustard seed, a bunch of fresh dill (chopped), a bunch of watercress (chopped), and a bag of frozen green peas, plus a little salt at the end.  I was pretty pleased, and would certainly consider making this again.  Some people found the “dill as a vegetable” a bit much, but I’m a fan, and it has a great texture.  Kale or cabbage would do well in this too, and it might not be bad with dried peas, although the overall “green-ness” of the peas + dill + watercress was nice.  I also considered trying dried fava beans, so maybe that will be next time.  I had meant to pick up some dried dulse (seaweed) to add, which I think would have been good, but I forgot.

I’m looking forward to reading more, and I would heartily recommend the book to anyone looking to understand and practice more fermentation for fun, for health, for understanding historic foods, whatever.

For the first I put some pearl barley, whole oat groats, and whole dried green peas into a pottery vessel with some water and mustard seeds.  I then spent quite a few hours trying in vain to get it to boil.  I did finally achieve a nice rolling bubble after many hours of fussing with the fire, and it pretty much cooked the whole rest of the day.  Sometime 2-3 hours before dinner I through in some pieces of roast pork and stirred them in.  The whole peas never got quite done.  They weren’t crunchy, but definitely firmer than I would have liked.  Perhaps split peas are more sensible over the fire.  Nonetheless, it was tasty, and very filling. 

For the second I started much later in the day with a diced red onion, a chopped bunch of chard, and a couple of chopped up smoked pork sausages.  Once that all cooked down (which didn’t take too long because I’d finally gotten the fire management under control) I added about a cup or a cup and a half of dried fava beans.  The fava beans cooked much better than the peas did, and were pleasantly done by dinner time.  Due to a slight miscommunication the smoked pork sausages turned out to be andouille, which obviously include non-Viking appropriate spices, so next time I’d try it with something more along the lines of a smoked brat.  The andouille sure were tasty though, and the finished dish was quite spicy.  I’ll definitely be using the dried favas again. 

To round out the demo I also made some flat bread using barley flour, salt, and buttermilk, and cooked them on a dish iron.  Plus, mostly just for kicks, I spitted some eggs on a new spit that the neighboring black smith whipped up for me.  Probably not the way the Vikings did it, but we do know that it was at least done in 16th C Italy, and it sure makes an impression at demos.   I only had one explode, too.  For Sunday’s flatbread I added a bit of the talkkuna I made, which gave it a bit more flavor. 

To make mine, I put 1 part pearl barley (I’d have rather used whole, hulless barley, but I’m out), 3/4-1/2 part whole oat groats, and 1/2-1/4 part whole, dried green peas in a roasting pan in the oven at 350°.  I started with the grains, and added the peas toward the end because I was worried about them burning.  In future, I think I might start with the barley by itself, then add the oats, then the peas.  The oats are quite a bit smaller, and the browned much faster than the barley. 

When it all looked “roasted” and smelled toasty but not burnt, I took it out of the oven and let it cool until morning.  In the morning I dumped the whole thing in my grain mill (a Nutrimill) on a medium/fine setting and ground it all into flour. 

The result is a nicely textured, very toasty smelling flour.  It’s great with yogurt (I don’t have any villi just now) with a little honey and fresh fruit.  I also tried mixing it into dough with some filmjolk and rolling it into balls, and those were quite pleasing too, if a little bland. 

We know the Vikings had malt kilns, and means of grinding grain, so they certainly had the technology.  Obviously we can’t know if they ever ate talkkuna in this way, but it’s one more option to add to the “Viking-possible” toolkit. 

At some future date I’d like to try sprouting/malting the grain first to see what the taste is like.  For that I’ll have to unearth my dehydrator, because there can’t be any moisture in the grain or it will gum up my mill.  I’ll report back if I give it a go.

I don’t have any direct evidence, but the more I read about early modern Finnish food and foodways, the more I suspect that the Finns remained more culturally isolated (due to language, geography, politics) than did the rest of Scandinavia, and thus that early modern Finnish food can give us more insights into what Viking food was like.

Again, this is just speculating, but early modern Finnish cooking relies heavily on forest products, fish, unleavened or sourdough breads, cultured dairy products, wild game, and fermented food and drink.

Also, there are a lot of examples in early modern Finnish cooking of utilizing all parts of animals at harvest time (blood soups, blood dumplings, offal soups, blood porridge, many different sausages, etc.).  There are also cooking techniques such as cooking on stone hearths, cooking fish wrapped in newspaper (read leaves or wet straw) in an open fire, and brewing traditional beers using hollow logs and juniper branches that may well be holdovers from a much earlier time.

Your mileage may very, of course, but I think it’s worth considering…

There are lots of Viking-possible foods that will survive a weekend without refrigeration.  They possibilities really break down into two groups depending on whether or not you are willing to do any cooking, or just want to live off the cold food.

Cold food:

• Pickled vegetables.  Some suggestions are sauerkraut, sauerruben (much the same only with turnips), pickled carrots, fermented kale, pickled radishes, pickled/fermented apples, cherries, plums.  All of these things can be lacto-fermented (which is what the Vikings would have done) or modern vinegar pickled versions can be substituted.  Any of these will survive a weekend without cooling, particularly if you can keep them from getting too hot.
• Bread.  Any heavy wheat or rye bread will keep well.  Alternatively, barley based hard tack or crisp bread.  Easy to make, easy to keep, and filling.  The hard tack can be eaten dry, or broken up into soup.  You can also break up the hard tack into water or small beer and eat like grape nuts.
• Sour milk/buttermilk/yogurt/skyr.  If you can keep it reasonably cool, these will all keep just fine for a few days.  These go will with bread (above), by themselves, with fruit, or with roasted flour.
• Roasted flour.  I’ve long suspected that the Vikings probably used pre-roasted barley flour as a travelling food, mush as the modern Tibetans do.  Just recently, I found references to a Finnish food called talkkuna (or kama in Estonian) that is flour made from roasted barley, oats, rye, and/or peas.  Since the roasting pre-cooks the grains, they don’t require additional cooking to be digestible.  The modern Finns mix talkkuna with villi (a cultured milk product) or other yogurt/buttermilk to make While that doesn’t mean for sure that the Vikings did the same, it certainly is plausible.
• Cheese.  A nice hard cheese will keep easily without refrigeration.  Think a nice hard, sharp Cheddar, or Emmantaler for something more Norse.  Parmesan or other hard grating style cheeses (mizythra, asiago) also work well.  While probably not Viking, modern Scandinavian whey-cheeses like gjetost also keep well.
• Pickled meat or fish.  You can make your own, or use modern equivalents.  Pickled sausages are good.  If you are willing to deal with non-period spices, bar-style pickled hot links are (aside from the chili pepper) very similar to Icelandic whey-pickled sausages.  Some import stores also carry German sausages in glass jars (think giant Vienna sausages).  These are really “pickled”, but they are salty enough to last the weekend, particularly until opened.  Pickled pigs feet, salt pork, or salted and potted pork (think rillettes) also should keep, although I haven’t tried them.  If you bring any kind of non-canned meat, make sure they stay cool and check them carefully for spoilage before you eat them.  Canned kippered or other styles of herring are perfectly appropriate, and will keep indefinitely.  They go really well with bread, cheese, and pickled vegetables.  Dried meat such as jerky is passible, but I personally don’t think that the Vikings would have had the salt to dry rather than pickling beef.  Maybe, though…
• Raw root vegetables or cabbage.  Carrots, turnips, and green cabbage all store well if they are not too hot, and can be eaten raw or with skyr or other dairy products.  Cabbages can be shredded for salads, and lightly salted cabbage with piima or other “buttermilks” is a simple coleslaw.  Onions also keep well.
• Fruit.  Apples, cherries, plums.  Dried fruit keeps even better, but the fresh ones will last the weekend if kept out of the sun.

If you are willing to do some cooking, there are lots of possibilities.

• Grain + sour milk + salt + heat = flat bread
• Grain or peas plus water + preserved meat and vegetables makes soup or stew
• Sour milk, preserved fish + broken up hard tack makes “chowder”
• Grain + water + heat = porridge.  Excellent with sour milk, fresh or preserved fruit,  nuts.
• Old bread, cheese, preserved vegetables + hot broth makes “sops”.
• etc.

These are just a few of the possibilities.  It does take some planning, and as mentioned above it’s best to keep many of these things out of high heat or direct sunshine.  I sometimes use an insulated wooden box in the shade to keep things as cool as possible without resorting to ice.

If you come up with other ideas I’d love to hear about them.

I used cast iron again, because I don’t have a potter vessel that will hold that much chicken.  I chopped up some bacon and fried it in the pot, then used the bacon fat to brown the chicken.  I used a mix of drumsticks and thighs this time.  Once they were browned I added some salt and cumin seed, plus a bunch of watercress, and a container of baby arugula.  When the chicken was well cooked and falling off the bone, I threw in a pint of full-fat sour cream.  Once it was all warm we dished it up on flatbread.  The cumin, in particular, really made it this time.  Also, the sour cream rather than the piima I used last year gave it a less runny texture. 

I sent some over to my wife, and within minutes half the fighters we know were coming by saying “I heard you had some really great chicken I should try”.  

I’ll definitely be doing this one again, and have a few more changes I’d like to try.  I think dandelion greens, nettles, or lambs quarters (if I can get some) would be great instead of or in addition to the arugula.  More greens more better.  I’d also use boneless chicken, since the whole pieces made it both a little greasy (I didn’t remove the skins until they were browned) and hard to navigate on flatbread.  The advantage to the whole pieces, OTOH, is that they are cheap.  I think the addition of some mustard or horseradish would be good too.  Wild mushrooms of some sort could also be good.  We don’t have any archeological evidence of mushrooms, since they don’t really leave much in the say of stuff in the ground, but I think it’s reasonable to suppose they were eaten.  YMMV. 

This is an older volume, but it has some good photos and descriptions of plant remains (mostly seeds).

Mitchell, G, and National Museum of Ireland. Archaeology & Environment in Early Dublin. [Dublin]: Royal Irish Academy, 1987. Print.

Great analysis of and report on plant and animal remains from the Viking Dublin digs.

Hall, Allen, and Harry Kenward. Assessment of Plant and Invertebrate Macrofossil Remains from Excavations in 2002 at Kaupang, Norway. York: Centre for Human Palaeoecology, 2003. Print. Reports from the Centre for Human Palaeoecology, University of York.

More plant and animal fossils.  There is a fair amount of this kind of report/analysis available.

Walker, Harlan. Milk : Beyond the Dairy : Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. Prospect, 2000. Print.

In particular, an article on gammalost, or “old cheese”, and how long it has probably been made in Norway.

Johnstone, C. et al. “Assessment of Biological Remains from 41-49 Walmgate York (site Code 1999.941).” Reports from the Environmental Archaeology Unit, York 4 (2000): 46. Print.

More plant and animal remains.

I get most of my pottery from Mistress Morgaina (http://jeannewoodpottery.com/medievalindex.htm).  She has been making pots in a number of Viking appropriate shapes that work very well over the fire.  I also get some stuff from Mistress Gwen the Potter (http://dragonfirepottery.com).  I have had excellent success using Gwen’s pots over the fire as well.

When looking for something appropriate for Viking cooking, look for something flat bottomed, with a “vase-like” (?) shape.  Most of the examples I have seen from the archeological record are shaped like that, although not 100%.

If other folks have favorite Viking food related sources, I’d love to hear about them. Also, if this is something people are interested in I’ll post more.

Astill, Grenville, and John Langdon. Medieval Farming and Technology: The Impact of Agricultural Change in Northwest Europe. Brill Academic Publishers, 1997. Print.

This is a great source on the state of agriculture before and during the Viking period, and the changes that took place shortly afterward. Lots of technical detail for the serious nerd. Note: this is totally about agriculture and agricultural technology, not food in any way.

Hansson, Ann-Marie. On plant food in the Scandinavian Peninsula in early medieval times. Stockholm: Archaeological Research Laboratory Stockholm University, 1997. Print.

One of my very favorites. This is the book I come back to again and again. Some of the best research into Viking bread, with some info on porridge and other grain based foods as well. Excellent pictures and analysis of the extant bread fragments.

Isaksson, Sven. Food and rank in early medieval time. Stockholm: Archaeological Research Laboratory [Arkeologiska forskningslaboratoriet] Univ., 2000. Print.

There is some great stuff here about how food is associated with rank. Of particular interest (to me) is an article about what we can learn from Viking pottery shards in terms of what foodstuffs they once contained. Isaksson looks at cellular material from the shards, as well as doing an analysis of the fat residues.

Katz, Sandor. Wild fermentation : the flavor, nutrition, and craft of live-culture foods. White River Junction Vt.: Chelsea Green Pub., 2003. Print.

Not strictly historical, but the best book out there on fermented foods and how to make them. A great resource for those trying to recreate Viking foods (many of which, I think, were fermented).

Lysaght, Patricia, and University College, Dublin.;European Ethnological Research Centre. Milk and milk products from medieval to modern times : proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Ethnological Food Research, Ireland, 1992. Edinburgh: Published by Canongate Academic in association with the Department of Irish Folklore University College Dublin and the European Ethnological Research Centre Edinburgh, 1994. Print.

Very good book of articles on how milk was processed and consumed historically. Of particular interest is an article on skyr and whey in medieval Iceland. A bit later than Viking period, but I think much of it still applies. Also an interesting piece on the mixture of beer and milk in early modern Sweden.

Meyer-Renschhausen, Elisabeth. “The porridge debate: Grain, nutrition, and forgotten food preparation techniques.” Food and Foodways 5.1 (1991): 95-120.

A very interesting article on how changes in grain processing have effected the way we percieve/use/digest grain.