Foods of Viking Scandinavia
A description of the staple foods and meals eaten across Scandinavian during the early medieval era.
From Social Scandinavia in the Viking Age by Mary Wilhelmine Williams, 1920.
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
The native foods included meats of various sorts, — the flesh of the horse as well as of other domestic animals, — and also a great diversity of fish and game; eggs from wild fowl in addition to those from the farm-poultry; milk and milk-products, from which many sorts of dishes were prepared; several kinds of cereals; a few varieties of fruits, nuts, and vegetables; and honey, from wild and domestic bees, which appears to have been the only sweet known to the majority of the population.
Salt was not considered as indispensable as at present, perhaps because it could be secured only by laborious processes and was quite expensive. A fair amount was imported from abroad, but Denmark, particularly Jutland, and some other parts of the North had salt springs, from which the best quality of “white” salt was made. That most frequently used, however, especially in Iceland and Norway, was produced from seawater, and was known as ''black" salt. The sea-salt was obtained in various ways: by directly evaporating the water by exposure to sunshine or by boiling; by throwing it upon hot rocks or burning wood; and by burning sea-weed, which is always rich in salt — the last method being the common one in Iceland. Some people made their livings by the manufacture of salt after these primitive modes; but it was a very poor and humble calling, and the salt-burner was looked upon as a type of the person lowest in the social scale.
Some kinds of meats, particularly fish, were eaten raw after being dried, smoked, or pickled. There were two methods of pickling — laying the pieces in brine, which was perhaps the least usual; and putting them in very sour whey, which did service for vinegar, and was cheap. Food thus treated would keep for a long time. Most of the flesh foods were, however, probably cooked before being eaten, perhaps most often by boiling, though they were also roasted, fried, and broiled. The usual sauce appears to have been butter, which was especially liked with fish, but it is probable that gravies, thickened with flour or meal, were not unknown. Certain vegetables, as, leeks and angelica, were used as relishes with meat.
Eggs were usually cooked and eaten soon after being gathered, but there were doubtless ways of keeping them for a long time raw; and they were also pickled in whey, like meats, after having been hard-boiled and shelled. The milk of goats and sheep, as well as of cows, was used as food in ancient Scandinavia. While sweet, it was drunk, cold or hot, by young and old alike; and when sour it was also used as a beverage. Buttermilk was also much liked, but the most common milk drink appears to have been whey, which was relished old and sour, as well as fresh, for a supply of it might be kept for years. When it became disagreeably tart, however, it was diluted, or blended, with water, from which it was called blanda.
The Northmen were fond of clabbered milk raw, but it was perhaps more often eaten after being made into curds by the application of heat, very much like “cottage cheese" of the present day. In the latter form, it was mixed with sweet milk, cream, butter, or crushed berries. A great variety of cheeses were made from the three kinds of milk used and the dairy maid increased the diversity by the employment of vegetable flavorings, as well as by different processes in the making. Butter was also made in abundance, and used very freely in the preparation of various dishes, as has just been indicated; but it was also spread upon bread. It was, however, rarely, or never, salted; and though sometimes partaken of when fresh and sweet, it was more often permitted to become sour and rancid before using, and the more sour it was, the better it was liked. After becoming thus old and seasoned, it would keep for many years, and appears to have been especially prized as a sauce with fish and other foods.
All of the common cereals were grown in Scandinavia, but climate permitted greater variety and abundance in some parts than in others; and to certain sections wheat, especially, had to be imported. But in Iceland, where this grain could not be produced, Nature offered compensations, for here, along the coasts, grew a native grass somewhat like wild oats, the seeds of which could be used for food like the domesticated cereals; and it is probable that the nutritive qualities of the lichen called ''Iceland moss" which grows upon the highlands had already been discovered before the close of the viking time.
The grains were ground in hand mills of which there were two or three styles. The ones used in the humbler households were quite small, and shaped of stone after the simple mortar and pestle principle, like those used by the American Indians; but the larger farms had more complex structures, made from two heavy stones, the one placed upon the other, and the top one supplied with a wooden or metal handle. This latter style of mill was usually worked by two persons, as a rule, women, who turned the stones to the accompaniment of special milling songs, as is customary in Iceland even to-day.
From the ground cereals the women made various kinds of breads, some baked in thin, flat cakes, similar to the present Swedish flat-bread, before the open fire, and others kneaded into loaves and baked in the homemade ovens already described. Whether yeast was used is not evident, but it probably was, since the fermentation principle was well known in connection with brewing ale. But if the Scandinavian housewives had not learned thus to leaven their bread, they doubtless knew how to make it light by means of sour dough, which had fermented and ''risen," used like yeast — a method quite familiar to many primitive peoples. They prob- ably also prepared fancy breads from their leavened batter by the addition of butter, honey, fruits and nuts.
Much of the home-milled meal was used for porridge, called grant, — a favorite dish of the Northmen, — for the cooking of which an unusually large kettle was provided. Barley, oats, rye, and wheat were made into grant, and probably the wild grains and the starchy Iceland moss already mentioned were also used, for they are so employed in modern times. The meal was cooked in milk as well as in water, and was eaten with milk, cream, or whey, or with butter or berries spread over it. This porridge perhaps was the main supper dish in the North a thousand years ago, as it is now in many parts of Scandinavia.
The only fruit in domestication throughout the Scandinavian North was the apple, which could be stored away for winter use, and was eaten raw or cooked. But a diversity of edible berries grew wild in great abundance, even under the Arctic Circle; these included several well-known varieties, as well as some kinds peculiar to the Far North. The berries, perhaps more than apples, were combined with other foods in preparation for the table, but there is no evidence that the people had learned how to preserve them for winter use. The hazel shrub grew extensively in Scandinavia, and its nuts were appreciated as a food; the same was true of the nut of the beech tree, while the acorn was also eaten, at least among the very poor.
There were a number of vegetables in domestication in the North even in the heathen days, and these were augmented in the early Christian time. They included some members of the cabbage family, beans, peas, turnips, leeks and angelica. The last two were largely used as relishes, but angelica, which was grown at least in Iceland and Norway — probably in the remainder of Scandinavia as well — was also eaten raw as a sort of salad, and was likewise cooked. The stalks, cut in small pieces crosswise, appear to have been the part of the plant chiefly used, and these were eaten with butter.
Various wild plants were probably boiled in water and eaten as "greens"; and in Iceland at least one uncultivated plant, the sol, or samphire, was an important article of diet, and was stored away for winter use. This plant grows on the coasts of the island, generally along the margin of the water, and was considered so valuable as a food, even in the olden time, that prohibitions are found in the most ancient law-code of Iceland against gathering either it or wild berries upon the land of another. The leaves, which are rich in sugar, are the edible part, and were eaten raw, when fresh, as a relish with fish, but were also dried and packed away in kegs or vats, for winter use. After this treatment the sol was cooked as a separate dish, as well as eaten with butter as a relish for other foods.
Williams, Mary Wilhelmine. Social Scandinavia in the Viking Age. The Macmillan Company, 1920.
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