From Lofoten to Jorvik: Viking cooking tips revealed!

Called upon to give talks and workshops in his niche field of Viking cuisine, experimental archaeologist Daniel Serra is responsible for the seminal work, An Early Meal - A Viking Age Cookbook and Culinary Odyssey, about this very subject. 

Co-written with Hanna Tunberg, this medieval cookbook, published by ChronoCopia in 2013, remains one of the stand-out works in the genre.

As no recipe books were handed down from our Norse forebears, Serra and Tunberg chose to focus on the archaeological remains at specific locations, each different in terms of surroundings and natural resources.

Food from Lofoten to Jorvik

"Each of the seven settlements is a Norse site where archaeologists have found substantial evidence of human activity," Serra tells The Viking Herald. "These range from Lofoten off the Northern coast of Norway to Jorvik, modern-day York, in Northern England."

"I'm a big fan of fantasy literature, and most books start with some kind of map showing the various fictitious places where these adventures take place. Our book also begins with a map showing the seven places that you can trace as a kind of odyssey, from Lofoten, then further south, across the North Sea, and ending with Birka in near Stockholm in Southern Sweden."

Serra was doing a Ph.D. in archaeology when he realized a book would be the perfect vehicle for the concept. Food, from a historical point of view, has been Serra's thing since 1994. As a young archaeology student, he sampled the flavors of Ancient Rome by recreating dishes from the Roman cookbook by Apicius. 

He has since studied, reconstructed, lectured, cooked, and tasted his way from the Iron Age to the Renaissance and is now considered an authority on Viking Age by museums and re-enactors across Scandinavia and the States.

Serra was employed to help reconstruct medieval Nordic dishes at the Lofotr Viking Museum in Lofoten in 2010 and Renaissance ones at the Glimmingehus Museum in Hammenhög a year later. 

Through his company Memento-Past Food, Serra gives lectures, courses, work­shops, and consulting about food archaeology and culinary history.

Lamb, game, and cod

Although his book is currently celebrating its tenth year in print, Serra "still stands behind every recipe in it." Each has been researched around its geographical and historical context. 

"The sagas also inspired me," says Serra. "For example, spit-roasted, honey-coated lamb's heart has a central theme in the Saga of the Volsungs involving Sigurd the Dragon Slayer, a tale of greed and cursed gold."

"Jorvik, today's York, had Anglo-Saxon and Roman influences. In Scandinavia, there were three main varieties of cooking from north to south, depending on climate, resources, and the landscape."

"Their diet also depended on their status and income. Game was the meat of the nobility. Merchants and traders might feed on nuts and berries, while a simple farmer's family would eat the very basics. A lot of the fish was exported, particularly dried cod."

"In Greenland, the climate wasn't as extreme as it later became; it was slightly warmer. Vikings brought with them the same farming methods they used back in Scandinavia. They would keep cattle, but the animals shrank in size over the years due to the harsh conditions."

"Beef and pork were otherwise the most common forms of meat. Pigs played a dual role; they were also used like waste disposal units around the home, eating whatever was discarded, even human waste."

Horsemeat was another part of the Norse diet, albeit to a lesser extent. Other differences with modern-day customs include the cutlery – there were no forks, "they used their fingers, knives and spoons, especially flat spoons for a savory porridge. The food was otherwise cut up before being served".

Salt was used for preservation rather than flavoring, so "there would have been quite a lot of acidity to deceive the tongue," as Serra puts it. "Honey and malt may have been used as a sweetener, however, there wasn't much by way of desserts."

Storage was another vital factor, the best times of the year being fall and winter, spring and summer, the seasons when foraging was more common. "They would dry the food and smoke it to preserve it. All in all, it was a pretty healthy diet but prone to drought or famine. It covered most things, but alternatives were quite limited." 

The book An Early Meal - A Viking Age Cookbook and Culinary Odyssey can be purchased on Amazon, here.

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