⚒ Ninth Night Games

A branch of the World Tree

Hearth & Home

Eldhús · the fire-house

Where the long-fire burns and the quern turns. Daily life in a Norse longhouse, the larder that fed it, the old wisdom of traditional foods, and the recipes we cook from it now: fresh-milled grain, apples, meat over the coals, fish from cold water, and the milk of the byre.

Milk & skyrFresh-milled grainThe sea’s harvestThe byre & the huntThe old wisdom

Daily life

The Longhouse

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One long room, a fire down the middle, and everything a farm needed happening around it.

A Norse farm lived in its langhús: a long, turf- or timber-walled hall with a trench of fire, the langeldr, running down the center. The fire gave light, warmth and supper. Smoke found its own way out through the ljóri, a vent in the roof. Along the walls ran wide benches where the household worked by day and slept by night, and the byre for the beasts often stood under the same roof, their warmth part of the heating. The húsfreyja, the lady of the house, ran all of it; the keys to the stores hung at her belt, and she was buried with them.

  • Before dawn

    Raking up the fire

    The long-fire was never let die. The embers were raked open and fed, and water fetched before the house woke.

  • Dawn

    Milking — mjaltir

    Cows, sheep and goats were milked morning and evening. In summer the herds and the women went up to the shieling, where the milk became butter, cheese and skyr for winter.

  • Morning

    The quern turns — kvern

    Whole grain keeps for years; ground meal goes stale and rancid. So the day’s grain was milled fresh on the hand-quern every morning. Freshly milled grain was not a choice on a Norse farm — it was the only kind there was.

  • Mid-morning

    The day-meal — dagverðr

    The Norse ate two main meals: the day-meal after the first work was done, and the night-meal at dusk. Porridge, skyr, flatbread, butter, dried fish, and sour whey to drink.

  • The day

    Field, byre, boat and loom

    Fishing, haymaking, the plough, the wool-work. Someone stayed by the fire with the kettle on its chain, and the children carried peat and water.

  • Dusk

    The night-meal — náttverðr

    The household on the benches, bowls on their knees. Meat if there was meat, fish, bread and butter; ale on a good night. Then stories, riddles, a board of hnefatafl, and the skald if one was passing through.

  • Night

    Banking the fire

    The embers covered with ash to sleep until morning. Everyone to the benches along the walls, the beasts breathing in the dark at the far end.

The long-fire langeldr

A trench of fire down the center of the hall, edged with hearth-stones. Light, heat and cooking in one place; the whole household faced it.

The kettle ketill

An iron cauldron hung from a chain or a tripod was a rich farm’s pride. Most houses cooked in soapstone pots, klébergr, which take heat slowly and hold it for hours — the original slow cooker.

The bake-stone bakstrhella

A flat stone or iron set over the embers. Flatbread and griddle cakes were baked on it in minutes; it is the reason Norse bread was flat.

The spit teinn

An iron rod for roasting meat before the fire. The sagas call roast meat steik — the word that became our steak.

The cooking pit seyðir

A stone-lined pit, filled with fire, then with hot stones and a wrapped joint, then covered. Archaeologists find these pits by the thousand across Scandinavia: the feast-cooking of the North.

Hot stones & trough

No pot? Heat stones in the fire and drop them into a wooden trough of water until it boils. The cracked, blackened cooking-stones that this leaves behind litter every Viking farm site.

The table

Wooden bowls and trenchers, horn spoons, and everyone’s own knife — there were no forks. Wooden cups for the everyday whey and ale; drinking horns for the feast.

What they ate

The Larder

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Four things fed the North: the milk of the byre, grain from the quern, the harvest of cold water, and the animals a farm raised and hunted.

Dairy

mjólk · skyr · smjör · ostr

Cows, sheep and goats were all milked, and most of the summer’s milk was turned into things that kept — skyr, butter, cheese and whey. Sour whey, sýra, was the daily drink, cut with water as blanda. Butter was salted hard and packed in tubs, and the law counted it as money. Summer was spent at the shieling making the winter’s dairy.

Grain

bygg · hafrar · rúgr · hveiti

Barley first and everywhere; oats in the wet north and west; rye in the Danish south; wheat a luxury at home, but the rising bread grain of the English Danelaw. Ground fresh each morning on the hand-quern, eaten as porridge and flatbread, and malted and brewed into ale, the everyday drink. Whole-meal spoils fast, so the Norse milled fresh out of necessity — and ate better for it.

The Sea

þorskr · síld · lax · hvalr

Cod hung on racks in the spring wind became stockfish, the Viking Age’s great export. Herring, salmon and trout; seal and whale — a beached whale, hvalreki, still means a windfall in Icelandic; shellfish, seabirds and their eggs. A coastal farm ate fish more days than not, and inland farms traded wool and butter for the dried kind.

The Byre & the Hunt

fé · sauðr · svín · kýr

The Old Norse word for cattle, fé, is also the word for wealth. Sheep and goats for wool, milk and meat; cattle for milk and standing; pigs for the autumn slaughter; hens, geese and ducks for eggs. Horses were eaten at the old sacrificial feasts until the Church forbade it. Hunting and trapping added reindeer, elk, hare, grouse and seabirds to the pot.

Eggs egg · hæna · gás · æðr

Every spring the shores, lakes and sea-cliffs laid out a harvest of wild eggs — gulls, ducks, eiders, guillemots — and people gathered them for as long as anyone has lived on those coasts. The tame flock came later: hens and geese appear in Denmark in the Roman Iron Age, in the first centuries AD, first as prized birds buried with chieftains. By the Viking Age, hens, geese and ducks belonged to the household from Denmark to Jórvík, and on the Norwegian coast people built little nest-houses for wild eider ducks — a custom UNESCO traces on the Vega islands back more than a thousand years. Eggs went into flatbread and pancakes, and were eaten as they came.

Wheat in the Danelaw hveiti · Jórvík

At home in Scandinavia wheat stayed rare — a luxury for the rich, while barley and rye filled the bowl. But the Norse who settled the Danelaw took over some of England’s best grain land, where wheat was on the rise. In Yorkshire, in the very centuries of Scandinavian settlement, free-threshing wheat — the kind baked into bread — overtook barley as the most widespread grain in the archaeological record, and the bread of Viking-age Jórvík was baked from wheat, barley and rye. Oats stayed the grain of the wet north and west, and the English opinion of them lasted: in 1755 Samuel Johnson’s dictionary defined oats as “a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”

From the garden and the wild

Cabbage and kale, onions, leeks and garlic (geirlaukr, the spear-leek), peas, beans, turnips, angelica and nettles from the kitchen plot and the edge of the field. From the hills: bilberries, lingonberries, cloudberries and raspberries, hazelnuts, and small sharp wild apples. Honey when there was honey. For seasoning: salt boiled down from seawater, juniper, caraway, mustard seed, dill and wild thyme. Pepper and cardamom came on a merchant’s ship and cost silver.

What they never saw

potatoestomatoessugarcornricecoffeechocolatecitruscinnamon

Everything on this list reached Scandinavia centuries after the last longship was hauled up. When one of our recipes uses it, we say so.

Weston A. Price & the traditional diets

The Old Wisdom

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The sagas tell us what the Norse ate, but seldom how, and never why. For that we look to the people who were still eating the old way when someone came to write it down.

No Norse cook left a recipe. The sagas mention skyr and butter, ale and porridge; archaeology finds the grain, the fish bones, the butchered bone and the stones that cooked them. Nobody wrote down how a mother fed her children through a northern winter, or why a farm kept its best food for the young.

In the 1930s an American dentist, Weston A. Price, went looking for the healthiest people he could find. He travelled to communities still living on their traditional foods — in the Swiss Alps and the Outer Hebrides, Alaska and northern Canada, the South Seas, Africa and the Andes — and recorded what they ate, the state of their teeth, and the faces of their children. Where people ate the foods of their ancestors he found broad faces, straight teeth and almost no decay. Where white flour, sugar and tinned food had come in, the next generation’s teeth crowded and rotted. He set it all down in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (1939), and the Weston A. Price Foundation carries his work on today. Where the Norse record is silent, we cook by what Price saw — and in each recipe, those notes are marked The old wisdom.

Price’s road · I

The Isle of Lewis

Ljóðhús · the Outer Hebrides

For four centuries the Hebrides were Norse — Suðreyjar, the Southern Isles of the Kingdom of the Isles — and Lewis is still thick with Norse place-names. Price found island families living on fish and oats, with a little barley: oatcakes and oatmeal porridge at nearly every meal, fish and shellfish, and one of their most prized dishes, a cod’s head stuffed with chopped cod’s liver and oatmeal, baked. In the interior, where the old foods held, barely one tooth in a hundred had decay. In Stornoway, the island’s port, where white bread, jam, cakes and tinned food were sold, decay was everywhere. Our Krappin Cod is that dish, in a modern pan.

Price’s road · II

The Lötschental

a high valley in the Swiss Alps

Not Norse, but a farm life any Norse household would have known at a glance: cattle driven up to mountain pastures for the summer, cheese and butter made there for the winter, dark bread of whole rye grown in the valley, meat about once a week. The villagers gave thanks for the first butter of spring, burning a wick in a bowl of it in a sanctuary built for the purpose. Price tested butter from around the world and found that made on fast-growing spring and summer grass far richer in vitamins than winter butter.

Mill it fresh

kvern

A wheat berry keeps for years because its oil is sealed inside. Once it is ground, that oil — in the germ, along with the grain’s vitamin E and much of its B vitamins — starts to oxidize and go stale. Shelf-stable white flour solves the problem by removing the germ and bran altogether; “enriched” flour puts back a few B vitamins and iron, and nothing else. The Norse turned the quern every morning because meal spoiled. We mill fresh for the same reason and keep the whole grain: mill what you need for the day or the week, and freeze the rest.

Soak, sprout or sour

sýra · malt

The traditional peoples Price studied rarely ate grain plain: they soaked it, sprouted it or soured it. Grain holds phytic acid, which binds minerals, and an overnight soak in warm water with a little whey, sprouting, and long souring all break much of it down. The Norse had the whey and the malt — barley was sprouted for ale, and whey went into everything. Our rye loaf soaks overnight in whey, and our porridge can too.

The cod’s liver

lýsi · tran

The cod stores its vitamins A and D in its liver — the two a northern winter takes away. Price prized cod liver oil and used it, with butter oil from cows on green grass, to treat his patients. Icelanders still call it lýsi, the Old Norse word for the fish oil once burned in their lamps; Norwegians call it tran, and the old rule is a spoonful in every month with an R in it, September to April. Extra-virgin cod liver oil is taken from fresh livers without heat or refining; follow the label for the dose. Or eat the liver itself, with oats, as the Hebrideans did — see Krappin Cod.

Butter from green grass

smjör · sel

Price found that butter from cows on fast-growing spring and summer grass carried far more of the fat-soluble vitamins than winter butter: vitamin A, vitamin D, and a third factor he called Activator X, which researchers have since argued is vitamin K2. You can see it in the color — June butter is deep yellow. The Norse made their year’s butter at the summer shieling, on exactly that grass, and salted it down for winter. See Shake-Jar Butter.

The whole animal

slátr

The peoples Price visited prized the organs above the lean meat — liver most of all — and ate the fat, the marrow and the blood. So did the Norse: at the autumn slaughter nothing went to waste. Icelanders still make slátur every autumn, liver and blood puddings bound with rye and oats, and once kept the slices through winter in sour whey. See the Liver & Oat Loaf.

Broth from the kettle

soð

Bones simmered long with a splash of vinegar give a broth that sets to jelly when cold — the mark of good gelatin. The Foundation calls broth the backbone of a traditional kitchen; it costs almost nothing and uses what would otherwise be thrown away. The Norse verb for cooking meat was sjóða, to seethe, and what it left in the kettle was soð. See Kettle Bone Broth.

Cultured, and sometimes raw

skyr · sýra

Price’s peoples ate much of their food fermented and some of it raw: cultured milk, cured fish, raw dairy. The Norse table ran on cultured milk — skyr, sour whey, aged cheese — which keeps without a cellar, and whose culture has already eaten much of the milk sugar. Price’s families drank their milk raw, and the Foundation campaigns for raw milk from clean, grass-fed herds; where you can buy it legally from a farmer you trust, it makes beautiful skyr.

First food to the young

for the next generation

The pattern Price found again and again: the richest foods — fish eggs, liver, deep-yellow butter — were set aside for young couples before marriage, for mothers carrying and nursing children, and for the children themselves. On a homestead, that is the point of the whole larder.

What Price saw replace them

white floursugarsweets & jamtinned foodpolished ricevegetable fats

Price called them the displacing foods of modern commerce. Wherever they took the place of the old foods, he found decay followed.

Where this comes from

Weston A. Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (1939), and the Weston A. Price Foundation, westonaprice.org. Price was a dentist reporting what he saw in the 1930s, not a historian of the Vikings — so wherever his findings fill a gap in the Norse record, our recipes say so.

Recipes

The Hearth

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The recipes we cook on the homestead from the Norse larder. Each opens with what happened at the long-fire, then gives the way we make it now — with an oven, a grill and a thermometer where the Norse had embers and a good eye.

A word on the pot. Where the archaeology and the sagas are clear, we say so. Where we are cooking in our own kitchen — a crust, a brine, a baking soda — we say that too, and where we lean on Weston A. Price’s traditional peoples, the note is marked The old wisdom. Grain is fresh-milled throughout; if you have no mill, whole-grain flour from a good miller will do, and rest every dough a little longer.

In the kitchen: open a recipe, set how many you are feeding, and press Start cooking to go step by step with the amounts worked out and a timer wherever there is waiting. Timers keep running while you cook something else, and ring like a bronze bowl when they are done.

19 recipes on the hearth

Units
8flatbreads
At the long-fireNorse bread was mostly flatbread. Barley meal, water and salt were kneaded, patted thin and baked on a bakstrhella — a flat stone or iron griddle set over the embers — and eaten torn and wrapped around meat and butter. Bread finds from Birka in Sweden show barley and oat loaves, some mixed with flax or pea flour. Baked bone-dry, flatbread keeps for months; later Norwegian farms baked a whole winter’s supply at once.
The old wisdomFresh-milled barley and wheat keep their germ, and with it the oil, vitamin E and B vitamins that shelf-stable flour has had taken out. For the old way, mix the dough with whey instead of water and let it rest overnight, covered, before rolling: the sour soak breaks down much of the grain’s phytic acid, and the dough rolls even more easily.

Ingredients

  • 6 oz (170 g) fresh-milled barley flour (hull-less barley)
  • 3 oz (85 g) fresh-milled hard white wheat flour (or all barley for the crackery original)
  • 1 tsp fine salt
  • 1 tbsp (14 g) soft butter or lard
  • ¾ cup (180 ml) warm water or whey, plus a splash more
  • extra flour for rolling

Method

  1. Mix the dryWhisk 6 oz barley flour, 3 oz wheat flour and 1 tsp salt together, then rub in 1 tbsp butter with your fingertips until it disappears.
  2. Make the doughAdd ¾ cup warm water a splash at a time and stir to a soft, slightly tacky dough. Fresh-milled flour drinks slowly — it feels wet, then firms up. Knead a minute until smooth.
  3. RestCover and rest 30 minutes so the bran hydrates. The dough rolls far better and the bread is more tender.
  4. Divide and rollCut into 8 pieces. Roll each into a thin round, about ⅛ inch (3 mm), on a floured board. Keep the rest covered while you work.
  5. Bake on the ironHeat a dry cast-iron skillet or griddle over medium-high until a drop of water skitters. Bake each round 60–90 seconds a side, until speckled brown and puffing in spots. Stack in a clean cloth to keep them soft.
  6. For storage breadRoll thinner and bake until completely dry and crisp. Cool and keep in a tin — it lasts for weeks, the way the Norse kept bread through winter.

To serveTear and wrap around grilled lamb with a spoon of skyr, or butter it warm and drizzle with honey.

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4servings
At the long-firePorridge was the dish every Norse household ate most days: grain simmered in water, milk or whey in a soapstone pot or iron kettle by the long-fire, and eaten with butter, sour milk or berries. Barley (bygg) was the everyday grain of the North; wheat (hveiti) was a luxury in Scandinavia but the rising grain of the Danelaw, where the Norse settled some of England’s best wheat land; and barley sprouted for ale gave the house its malt. Scandinavians still drop a knob of butter in the middle of the bowl and call it the butter-eye — smørøye. This is our homestead bowl: soft white wheat and barley milled fine, so it cooks up smooth and malty like the Malt-O-Meal Minnesota has made since 1919, only fresh.
The old wisdomSoaking the meal overnight in warm water with a spoonful of whey, the way the Weston A. Price Foundation teaches, breaks down much of the grain’s phytic acid and gives a creamier porridge that cooks in minutes. Malting the barley does the same work by sprouting it, and gives the malt its flavor. Both are in the notes below.

Ingredients

  • 4 oz (115 g) soft white wheat berries
  • 1 oz (30 g) hull-less barley, or home-malted barley (see notes)
  • 2 cups (480 ml) water
  • 2 cups (480 ml) whole milk, plus more to thin
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp (28 g) butter, plus a knob for each bowl
  • honey or maple syrup, cold cream, berries or diced apple, to serve
  • For the overnight soak (optional)
  • 2 tbsp (30 ml) whey, kefir, buttermilk or yogurt

Method

  1. Mill the grainMill 4 oz soft wheat and 1 oz barley together to a medium-fine farina — finer than grits, coarser than flour, like fine sand. Start a few notches coarser than your bread-flour setting, and leave the bran in.
  2. Bring to a boilIn a heavy pot, bring 2 cups water, 2 cups milk and ½ tsp salt to a boil. Watch it — milk boils over the moment you turn away.
  3. Whisk in the mealPour the meal in slowly, whisking hard so it cannot lump, and keep whisking until it thickens, a minute or two.
  4. SimmerTurn the heat to low and cook 8–12 minutes, stirring often and scraping the bottom, until thick, smooth and no longer gritty between your teeth. Coarser meal and more barley take longer; a heavy pot or a double boiler keeps it from scorching.
  5. Rest and butterOff the heat, stir in 2 tbsp butter and let it stand 3–5 minutes — it thickens as it sits. Loosen it with a splash of milk if you like it thinner.
  6. ServeSpoon into bowls, press a hollow in each and set a knob of butter in it: the butter-eye. Honey, cold cream, berries or apple on top.

The old way: soak itThe night before, stir the fresh meal into 2 cups warm water with 2 tbsp whey, cover, and leave it on the counter 8–24 hours. In the morning bring 2 cups milk and ½ tsp salt to a boil, stir in the soaked meal, and cook 4–6 minutes, stirring. Soaked grain cooks fast and comes out creamier.

Malt your barleyFor the true malt taste, sprout the barley before milling: soak it overnight, drain, and rinse twice a day until tiny rootlets show, 1–2 days. Dry it at the lowest oven or dehydrator setting until hard and crisp, then toast 20 minutes at 225°F (110°C) for a deeper malt. That is how the Norse began their ale, and sprouting is one of the old ways of preparing grain. Malt a big batch and keep it in a jar.

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1loaf
At the long-fireRye (rúgr) grew across Viking Age Denmark and southern Sweden and followed the trade routes north. Dense, dark loaves baked slowly — in the ashes, in covered pots, or in the warm cooking pit after the fire died down — and dark rye became the bread of the Nordic south and east. Whey was the everyday liquid of the farm, so it went into the bread. This loaf keeps the overnight soak and the whey; baking soda does the lifting.
The old wisdomAn overnight soak in whey is exactly what the Weston A. Price Foundation teaches for grain: the acid softens the bran and breaks down much of the phytic acid that locks up minerals. The Swiss villagers Price visited in the Lötschental lived on dark bread of whole rye grown in their own valley.

Ingredients

  • 10 oz (280 g) fresh-milled rye flour
  • 5 oz (140 g) fresh-milled hard white or hard red wheat flour
  • 1½ cups (360 ml) whey or buttermilk (saved from making skyr or butter)
  • 3 tbsp (65 g) honey
  • 2 tbsp (28 g) butter, melted, plus more for the pan
  • 1½ tsp fine salt
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp caraway seed (optional)

Method

  1. Soak overnightStir 10 oz rye flour and 5 oz wheat flour with 1½ cups whey into a thick paste. Cover and leave at room temperature 8–12 hours. It softens and sours a little — that is the point.
  2. Heat the oven350°F (175°C). Butter a 9×5-inch loaf pan for each loaf.
  3. MixBeat 3 tbsp honey, 2 tbsp melted butter, 1½ tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp caraway into the soaked flour. It will be a heavy, sticky batter rather than a dough. Scrape it into the pan and smooth the top with a wet hand.
  4. Bake55–65 minutes, until the loaf is dark, pulls from the edges of the pan and reads 200°F (93°C) in the middle.
  5. Cool completelyRye sets as it cools. Cut it warm and it gums; wait until it is fully cold — overnight is best — and it slices clean.

To serveThin slices with butter and cheese, or under smoked fish.

With a sourdough starterSkip the baking soda and stir ¾ cup (180 g) of active rye starter per loaf in with the whey at the soak; let the batter rise in its pan about an hour before baking.

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4servings
At the long-fireThe hot stone or iron that baked flatbread could cook a thin batter cake just as well, and thin griddle pancakes stayed a Nordic habit — Icelanders still make pönnukökur on a dedicated pan. In Scandinavia wheat (hveiti) was a rich man’s grain and a cake of it a treat; in the Danelaw and Jórvík, where the Norse farmed England’s wheat land, it went into everyday bread. Fresh-milled soft white wheat makes a tender one.

Ingredients

  • 4½ oz (125 g) fresh-milled soft white wheat flour
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 1¼ cups (300 ml) whole milk
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 tbsp (14 g) butter, melted, plus more for the pan
  • 1 tbsp (21 g) honey
  • Skillet apples
  • 3 firm apples (Haralson, Honeycrisp or Northern Spy), peeled and sliced
  • 2 tbsp (28 g) butter
  • 2 tbsp (42 g) honey
  • pinch of salt; skyr or whipped cream to serve

Method

  1. Make the batterWhisk 4½ oz flour, ¼ tsp salt, 1¼ cups milk, 2 eggs, 1 tbsp melted butter and 1 tbsp honey until smooth. It should pour like heavy cream — thin it with a splash of milk if it is thicker.
  2. Rest20 minutes, so the fresh flour hydrates. The pancakes come out more tender and tear less.
  3. Cook the applesMelt 2 tbsp butter in a skillet over medium heat, add the apples and a pinch of salt, and cook 8–10 minutes, turning, until golden and tender. Stir in 2 tbsp honey for the last minute and keep warm.
  4. Cook the pancakesHeat a well-buttered 8-inch skillet over medium-high. Pour in a scant ¼ cup of batter and swirl to coat the pan thinly. Cook about a minute, until the edges lift, flip, and cook 30 seconds more. Stack on a plate under a cloth.
  5. ServeFold each pancake in quarters, spoon the apples over and add skyr or cream.
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1pancake
At the long-fireThis one never saw a long-fire. It needs an oven, and the oven pancake is a farmhouse dish of the last few centuries: ovnspannekake in Norway, ugnspannkaka in Sweden, German pancake or Dutch baby in American kitchens. But every part of it comes from the Norse larder — eggs, milk, butter, wheat and apples. The sugar, vanilla and cinnamon are ours, not theirs. Fresh-milled soft wheat won’t puff quite as tall as white flour; the rest gets it most of the way, and the flavor is richer.
The old wisdomEggs from hens on pasture, with yolks the color of marigolds, and butter from grass-fed cows carry the fat-soluble vitamins Price prized; fresh-milled soft wheat keeps the germ that white flour throws away.

Ingredients

  • Batter
  • 3 large eggs, room temperature
  • ½ cup (120 ml) whole milk, room temperature
  • 2¼ oz (64 g) fresh-milled soft white wheat flour (or spelt)
  • 1 tbsp (12 g) sugar or honey
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • ⅛ tsp ground nutmeg or cardamom
  • Apples
  • 3 tbsp (42 g) butter
  • 1 large firm apple (Haralson, Honeycrisp, Northern Spy) (6–8 oz / 170–225 g each, or 2 small for each large)
  • 1½ tbsp (18 g) brown sugar or maple sugar
  • ½ tsp cinnamon
  • lemon wedges and powdered sugar, or cream, to serve

Method

  1. Make the batterBlend or whisk 3 eggs, ½ cup milk, 2¼ oz flour, 1 tbsp sugar, ¼ tsp salt, ½ tsp vanilla and ⅛ tsp nutmeg until completely smooth and a little frothy — about 30 seconds in a blender.
  2. Rest the batterLet it rest at room temperature 20–30 minutes. Fresh-milled flour needs the time to drink up the milk; it gives a taller puff and a smoother bite. Meanwhile heat the oven to 425°F (220°C), and peel (if you like), core and slice 1 apple ⅛–¼ inch thick.
  3. Cook the applesSet a 10-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat on the stove. Melt 3 tbsp butter, add the apples, 1½ tbsp brown sugar and ½ tsp cinnamon, and cook 5–7 minutes, turning, until just soft and syrupy.
  4. Pour and bakeSpread the apples in an even layer. Give the batter a quick stir and pour it straight over the sizzling apples — the skillet is already hot, so it needs no time in the oven first (if you do give it some, keep it to 2–3 minutes or the sugar scorches). Bake 20–25 minutes without opening the door, until puffed high and deep golden at the edges.
  5. Serve at onceIt sinks as it cools, and the middle stays lower under the apples — that is how it should be. Flip it onto a plate to bring the caramelized apples to the top if you like, then squeeze lemon over and dust with powdered sugar, or pour on cream.

One skillet, one pancakeEach pancake needs its own 10-inch skillet; for more, bake them one after another. A 12-inch skillet takes one and a third times the recipe (4 eggs).

PlainSkip the apples, brown sugar and cinnamon: heat the empty skillet in the oven while the batter rests, add the butter and swirl until it foams, pour in the batter and bake 18–22 minutes.

No cast iron?Cook the apples in any skillet and tip them into a hot, buttered 9×13 metal pan or pie plate, pour the batter over, and start checking at 15 minutes. Room-temperature eggs and milk give the biggest puff.

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4servings
At the long-fireApples (epli) in the Viking Age were mostly small, sharp wild apples, gathered in autumn and stored. The Oseberg ship burial in Norway (c. 834) held a bucket of wild apples and a store of hazelnuts — the same pairing as this dish. In the myths the goddess Iðunn keeps the apples that hold the gods’ old age at bay. Honey and butter were on the farm; cinnamon was not. Leave it out and you are closer to the long-fire.

Ingredients

  • 4 firm, tart apples (Haralson, Honeycrisp, Northern Spy)
  • 2 tbsp (28 g) soft butter
  • 2 tbsp (42 g) honey, plus more to serve
  • ¼ cup (30 g) hazelnuts, toasted and chopped
  • 2 tbsp (12 g) rolled oats or coarse-cracked oats
  • ½ tsp cinnamon (optional, see above)
  • pinch of salt
  • ½ cup (120 ml) apple cider or water, for the dish
  • skyr, cream or sour cream, to serve

Method

  1. Heat the oven375°F (190°C).
  2. Core the applesCore 4 apples: cut a cone from the top with a paring knife and scoop out the core with a spoon, leaving the bottom intact. Peel a thin band around the top so the skins do not burst.
  3. Make the fillingMash 2 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp honey, ¼ cup hazelnuts, 2 tbsp oats and a pinch of salt (and ½ tsp cinnamon, if using) into a paste. Pack it into the apples and mound the rest on top.
  4. BakeSet the apples snugly in a baking dish, pour ½ cup cider around them, and bake 35–45 minutes, basting once, until a knife slides in easily and the tops are bronzed. Small apples cook faster.
  5. ServeWarm, with the pan juices spooned over and a dollop of skyr or cream.
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1galette
At the long-fireThere was no pastry in a longhouse — no oven, no refined flour, and no sugar at all in the North. But a crust of fresh-milled grain and butter wrapped around apples is honest to the Norse pantry, if not to the method. This is the galette we bake at home: a whole-grain crust, a toasted-oat bed to keep the bottom crisp, and a glaze made from the apples’ own juices.

Ingredients

  • Crust
  • 6 oz (170 g) fresh-milled soft white wheat or spelt flour
  • 1 tbsp (12 g) sugar or brown sugar (or maple syrup — see notes)
  • ½ tsp fine salt
  • 4 oz (115 g) cold unsalted butter, cubed
  • 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
  • 5 tbsp (75 ml) ice water
  • Filling
  • 19 oz (540 g) firm apples, whole weight (3 medium per galette — about 16 oz once peeled, cored and sliced)
  • 3 tbsp (36 g) brown sugar or maple sugar
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • ¼ tsp ground cardamom
  • 1 tbsp fresh-milled flour
  • Oat layer & finish
  • 2 tbsp (12 g) rolled oats (or quick oats)
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tbsp (14 g) butter, cut into small bits
  • 1 large egg, beaten
  • 1 tbsp coarse sugar

Method

  1. Make the doughWhisk 6 oz flour, 1 tbsp sugar and ½ tsp salt. Cut in 4 oz cold butter with a pastry blender or your fingers until there are pea-sized lumps and some flattened flakes. Mix 1 tsp vinegar into 5 tbsp ice water and drizzle it in a tablespoon at a time, tossing with a fork, until the dough holds together when squeezed. Fresh flour is thirsty — you may need an extra spoonful.
  2. ChillPress the dough into a disk (one per galette), wrap, and chill at least 1 hour. Overnight is better: the bran fully hydrates, the dough rolls more easily and the crust bakes more tender.
  3. Toast the oatsPulse 2 tbsp oats in a blender or your mill to a coarse meal (quick oats can skip this), then toast in a dry pan a few minutes until nutty. Toss with 1 tsp sugar.
  4. Prepare the applesPeel, quarter and core 19 oz apples and slice them ⅛–¼ inch thick — slices, not cubes, so they bake evenly and the crust folds flat. Toss with 3 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tsp lemon juice, 1 tsp cinnamon, ¼ tsp cardamom and 1 tbsp flour. Let stand 10 minutes, then drain the juices into a small pan.
  5. ShapeHeat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Roll the dough to a 12-inch round on floured parchment and slide it onto a rimmed baking sheet — the rim catches any juice. Scatter the toasted oats over the middle, leaving a 2-inch border, shingle the apples on top, dot with 1 tbsp butter, and fold the edge up over the fruit in pleats.
  6. BakeBrush the crust with 1 egg, beaten, and sprinkle with 1 tbsp coarse sugar. Bake on the lowest rack for a crisp bottom (or on a sheet preheated in the oven) until the crust is deep golden and the juices bubble — 40–45 minutes in all.
  7. GlazeWhile it bakes, simmer the drained juices 2–3 minutes to a syrup. With about 5 minutes to go, pull the galette out, brush the syrup over the apples only — the crust already has its egg and sugar — and return it to the oven to set to a glossy coat.
  8. CoolLet it cool on the sheet about 20 minutes before slicing, so the juices set.

Maple syrup in the crustUse 1 tablespoon, stirred into the ice water rather than the flour, and hold back about a tablespoon of the water. The crust browns faster — check it at 35 minutes and tent the edges with foil if they darken.

Baking with the crispBoth fit at 375°F (190°C): the galette on the lower rack about 50–55 minutes, the crisp above it 45–55 minutes. Swap racks and turn both pans halfway; go by deep golden crust and thick bubbling juice, not the clock.

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8servings
At the long-fireOats (hafrar) were the hardy grain of the Norse north and west, and the Norse ate toasted grain over sour milk and berries long before anyone wrote down a crisp. This one belongs to our kitchen: fresh-milled soft wheat and rolled oats in the topping, firm apples underneath, brown sugar where the Norse would have used honey, and hazelnuts if you want the nut that grew by every Norse farm.

Ingredients

  • Apples
  • 36 oz (1 kg) apples, peeled, cored and cut in ¾-inch cubes
  • ¼ cup (55 g) brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1½ tsp cinnamon
  • ¼ tsp ground cardamom or nutmeg
  • 1 tbsp fresh-milled flour
  • Topping
  • 3½ oz (100 g) fresh-milled soft white wheat or spelt flour
  • 3 oz (85 g) rolled oats
  • 3½ oz (100 g) brown sugar
  • ½ tsp cinnamon
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 4 oz (115 g) cold unsalted butter, cubed
  • 2 oz (55 g) chopped hazelnuts, walnuts or pecans (optional)

Method

  1. Heat the oven375°F (190°C). Butter an 8- or 9-inch square baking dish — a loaf pan for a half batch, a 9×13 for a big one.
  2. Make the toppingMix 3½ oz flour, 3 oz oats, 3½ oz brown sugar, ½ tsp cinnamon and ¼ tsp salt. Rub in 4 oz cold butter with your fingers until it forms clumps, and stir in 2 oz nuts if using. Chill it while you prepare the apples: the rest lets the fresh flour hydrate, so the topping bakes up crisp instead of sandy.
  3. Prepare the applesToss 36 oz cubed apples with ¼ cup brown sugar, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1½ tsp cinnamon, ¼ tsp cardamom and 1 tbsp flour. Spread evenly in the dish.
  4. TopScatter the topping over the apples in an even layer, squeezing some into larger clumps.
  5. Bake45–50 minutes, until the topping is deep golden and the juices bubble thickly at the edges. If the topping browns before the apples are tender, cover it loosely with foil.
  6. Rest15 minutes, so the juices thicken.

To serveWarm, with heavy cream, vanilla ice cream or skyr.

The apples36 oz of cubed apples is about 2½ lb whole — 6 medium. Firm kinds hold their shape: Haralson, Honeycrisp, Northern Spy, Granny Smith. Keep the cubes about ¾ inch so they soften in the time the topping takes to crisp.

For a 9×13 panDouble the topping and use about 4 lb of whole apples (56–60 oz cubed).

Baking with the galetteAt 375°F both fit: the crisp on the middle or upper rack 45–55 minutes, the galette below it. Swap racks and turn both pans halfway.

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2bowls
At the long-fireThe Norse day-meal (dagverðr) came after the first work was done — milking, water, the quern — and was often just skyr or porridge with whatever the season gave. Toasting grain in a dry pot was how a cook made the morning grain taste of something. This is that meal, with the apple of autumn.

Ingredients

  • 1½ cups (360 g) skyr
  • 1 crisp apple
  • 2 tbsp (42 g) honey
  • 3 tbsp (18 g) rolled oats or coarse-cracked oats
  • 2 tbsp (16 g) hazelnuts, chopped
  • pinch of salt; pinch of cinnamon (optional)

Method

  1. Toast the grainStir 3 tbsp oats, 2 tbsp hazelnuts and a pinch of salt in a dry skillet over medium heat 3–4 minutes, until golden and fragrant. Tip onto a plate to cool.
  2. Build the bowlsDivide 1½ cups skyr among the bowls. Top with 1 apple, grated or diced, drizzle with 2 tbsp honey and scatter the toasted grain over. Cinnamon if you like — the Norse did not have it, but they also did not have you to answer to.
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4servings
At the long-fireSheep were the backbone of a Norse farm — wool, milk and meat. Roasting (steikja) meant a joint on an iron spit (teinn) over embers, or buried in a seyðir, a stone-lined cooking pit. Sour whey (sýra) was drink and preservative both; meat kept in it came out tender. Juniper, garlic (geirlaukr) and wild thyme grew within reach. Pepper was imported and dear — saved for a feast.
The old wisdomLeave the fat on. The traditional peoples Price visited prized animal fat over lean meat — it carries the fat-soluble vitamins — and the fat of grass-fed lamb is some of the best there is. Save the bones for the broth kettle.

Ingredients

  • Marinade
  • 1 cup (240 ml) whey or buttermilk
  • 2 tbsp (28 g) butter or tallow, melted
  • 4 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 tbsp juniper berries, crushed
  • 1 tsp mustard seed, crushed
  • 1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves (or a third as much dried)
  • 1½ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • Lamb
  • 2 lb (900 g) lamb loin or shoulder chops, about 1 inch thick (or leg steaks)
  • flaky salt
  • Skyr sauce
  • ¾ cup (180 g) skyr
  • 1 small garlic clove, grated
  • 2 tbsp chopped dill or chives
  • salt

Method

  1. MarinateStir together 1 cup whey, 2 tbsp melted butter, 4 garlic cloves, 1 tbsp juniper, 1 tsp mustard seed, 1 tbsp thyme, 1½ tsp salt and ½ tsp pepper. Add 2 lb lamb, turn to coat, and refrigerate 4–12 hours.
  2. Make the sauceStir ¾ cup skyr with the grated garlic, 2 tbsp dill and a pinch of salt. Chill.
  3. FireLight a chimney of charcoal (or heat a gas grill on high). Spread the coals into two zones, hot on one side and cooler on the other. Clean and lightly oil the grates.
  4. GrillPull the lamb from the marinade and pat it dry — wet meat steams. Season with flaky salt. Sear over the hot side 3–4 minutes a side, moving the chops to the cool side if they flare, until a thermometer reads 130–135°F (55–57°C) for medium-rare.
  5. Rest5 minutes, loosely covered.
  6. ServeWith warm flatbread, the skyr sauce and grilled onions.
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4chops
At the long-fireIn Valhöll the cook Andhrímnir boils the boar Sæhrímnir in the cauldron Eldhrímnir every day, and every evening the boar is whole again: the Norse picture of plenty was pork without end. Real pigs ran half-wild in the woods and fattened on acorns and windfall apples in autumn, which is why pork and apples belong together. The Winter Nights (vetrnætr) in late October were slaughter time, when the year’s pork was salted, smoked and hung.
The old wisdomPigs raised outdoors on pasture and windfall apples give fat worth keeping: trim it, render it slowly into lard, and fry in it all winter. The bones go to the broth kettle.

Ingredients

  • Brine
  • 4 cups (950 ml) cold water
  • 3 tbsp (50 g) fine salt
  • 2 tbsp (42 g) honey
  • Chops
  • 4 bone-in pork chops, 1 inch thick (about 10 oz / 280 g each)
  • 1 tsp caraway seed, crushed
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • Apples & onions
  • 2 tbsp (28 g) butter or lard
  • 1 large onion, sliced
  • 2 firm apples, cored and sliced
  • ⅓ cup (80 ml) ale or apple cider
  • pinch of salt

Method

  1. BrineDissolve 3 tbsp salt and 2 tbsp honey in 4 cups cold water, submerge 4 chops and refrigerate 45–60 minutes. Longer makes them salty.
  2. Dry and seasonPat the chops very dry and rub with 1 tsp caraway and ½ tsp pepper. The brine has salted them already.
  3. FireMedium-hot coals in two zones (or gas on medium-high). Oil the grates.
  4. Grill the chopsSear 4–5 minutes a side over direct heat, then move to the cool side until the thickest part reads 140–145°F (60–63°C).
  5. Apples and onionsMeanwhile set a cast-iron skillet on the grill (or the stove). Melt 2 tbsp butter, cook the onion 5 minutes, add the apples and cook 5 minutes more, until golden. Pour in ⅓ cup ale, scrape the pan, add a pinch of salt and let it reduce to a glaze.
  6. Rest and serveRest the chops 5 minutes, then spoon the apples and onions over.
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4servings
At the long-fireA teinn was an iron spit or rod. Small cuts threaded on it roasted fast over an open fire, the way the sagas show men cooking at a camp or on the way to the þing. Cattle were wealth as much as food, so beef came to the table less often than mutton, and a hunter’s venison or elk filled the gap. Ale (öl) and honey were the household’s sour and sweet. Even Þórr roasts his goats on the road — and they stand up whole in the morning, as long as nobody splits a bone.

Ingredients

  • 1½ lb (680 g) beef sirloin or venison, cut in 1½-inch cubes
  • ⅓ cup (80 ml) dark ale
  • 2 tbsp (42 g) honey
  • 2 tbsp (28 g) butter, melted
  • 1 small onion, grated
  • 1 tsp juniper berries, crushed
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • 2 onions, cut in wedges
  • skewers — iron, or wooden ones soaked 30 minutes

Method

  1. MarinateWhisk ⅓ cup ale, 2 tbsp honey, 2 tbsp melted butter, the grated onion, 1 tsp juniper, 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp thyme and ½ tsp pepper. Add 1½ lb meat, cover, and refrigerate 2–8 hours (venison likes the full 8).
  2. SkewerThread meat and onion wedges alternately, leaving a little space between pieces so the sides brown.
  3. FireHot coals, grates oiled.
  4. Grill2–3 minutes a side, turning four times — 8–10 minutes in all for medium-rare (125–130°F / 52–54°C). Venison is leanest and best stopped early.
  5. Rest5 minutes. Serve over flatbread with skyr sauce or a sharp mustard.
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1loaf
At the long-fireGormánuðr, the slaughter month, began with the Winter Nights in late October, and nothing of the animal was wasted: blood, liver, fat and stomachs all became food. Icelanders still keep the custom every autumn in the sláturtíð, the slaughter season, making blóðmör (blood pudding) and lifrarpylsa (liver sausage): liver, suet, rye and oats sewn into pieces of sheep’s stomach and boiled. The slices were packed in sour whey to keep through winter — the old Icelandic way of keeping meat without salt. A loaf pan stands in for the stomach.
The old wisdomPrice found the peoples he visited prized the organs above the lean meat, liver most of all. Ounce for ounce, liver is among the richest foods there are in vitamin A, vitamin B12, copper and iron. If plain liver is a hard sell at your table, this is the way in: rye, oats, and a crust fried in butter.

Ingredients

  • 1 lb (450 g) lamb or beef liver, trimmed of membrane (calf’s liver is mildest)
  • 1 cup (240 ml) whole milk
  • 1½ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • ½ onion, grated
  • 1 cup (100 g) fresh-milled rye flour
  • 1 cup (90 g) rolled oats or coarse-milled oats
  • 4 oz (115 g) beef or lamb suet, finely diced or grated (or cold butter)
  • butter for the pan, and for frying slices

Method

  1. Purée the liverCut 1 lb liver into chunks and purée in a food processor or blender with 1 cup milk, 1½ tsp salt, ½ tsp pepper and ½ onion, grated, until smooth.
  2. Make the batterStir in 1 cup rye flour and 1 cup oats, then 4 oz suet. It should be a thick batter, like stiff porridge. Rest 30 minutes so the fresh flour and oats drink up the milk. Meanwhile heat the oven to 350°F (175°C), butter and line a 9×5-inch loaf pan for each loaf with parchment, and put a kettle on.
  3. Bake in a water bathScrape the batter into the pan, cover tightly with buttered foil, and set it in a roasting pan. Pour hot water into the roasting pan to come halfway up the loaf pan. Bake 60–75 minutes, until firm and the center reads 160°F (71°C).
  4. Rest and sliceCool 15 minutes in the pan, then turn it out and slice thick.
  5. ServeWarm, with mashed turnips and butter. The next day, fry cold slices in butter until crisp on both sides — the best way of all.
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3quarts
At the long-fireThe Old Norse verb for cooking meat was sjóða, to boil or seethe. It gave its name to the cooking pit, seyðir, and to what the kettle left behind: soð, broth. Even in Valhöll the boar Sæhrímnir is boiled, not roasted. The kettle over the long-fire took the bones and trimmings of every animal the farm killed, and its broth became the base of the next day’s pot.
The old wisdomBroth is the backbone of the Weston A. Price Foundation’s kitchen: cheap, made from what would otherwise be thrown out, and rich in gelatin — the test is whether it sets to jelly in the fridge. The Foundation teaches soaking the bones in water with a little vinegar before heating, to help draw minerals from them. Drink it hot from a mug, cook barley in it, and use it for the Fish & Barley Pot.

Ingredients

  • 4 lb (1.8 kg) bones: beef or lamb knuckles, marrow bones, necks and ribs, or chicken carcasses with necks and feet (feet and knuckles give the most gelatin)
  • 4 quarts (3.8 L) cold water, enough to cover by an inch
  • 2 tbsp (30 ml) apple cider vinegar
  • 1 onion, halved
  • 1 leek, or a handful of leek tops
  • a few sprigs of thyme, 8 peppercorns, a few juniper berries
  • carrots and celery, if you like (later arrivals to the North)
  • salt, added when you use the broth

Method

  1. Roast, for a brown brothFor beef or lamb, roast the bones on a sheet pan at 400°F (200°C) for 30–40 minutes, until browned. Skip this for a pale chicken broth.
  2. Soak with vinegarPut 4 lb bones in a big pot, cover with 4 quarts cold water, add 2 tbsp vinegar and let it stand an hour before you heat it.
  3. SkimBring it slowly to a simmer and skim off the grey foam that rises in the first half hour.
  4. Simmer longAdd the onion, leek and herbs. Keep it at the barest simmer — a bubble or two breaking the surface — uncovered or with the lid ajar: 6–12 hours for chicken, 12–24 hours for beef or lamb. Top up with water to keep the bones covered. A slow cooker on low, or a 200°F (95°C) oven, does the same.
  5. Strain and coolStrain through a sieve, cool it quickly, and refrigerate. The fat sets on top as a lid; lift it off and keep it for cooking. Good broth sets to jelly when cold.
  6. KeepSalt it when you use it, not before. It keeps 5 days in the fridge and months in the freezer.

Fish brothUse the heads and frames of 2–3 white fish, gills removed, in place of the bones. Skip the roasting and simmer gently 1–4 hours, tasting as you go.

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4servings
At the long-fireSalmon (lax) ran every river of the Norse world, and the rivers were worth fighting over — Icelandic law fixed who owned which stretch of fishing. Fresh fish went on hot stones or a stick over embers, with butter if the farm was rich enough; dill grew in the kitchen plot. Most of the catch, though, was dried, salted or smoked for winter.
The old wisdomChoose wild salmon when you can, and eat the skin — the richest fat lies just beneath it. Price found the coastal and island peoples he visited ate the whole fish: roe, liver, head and all.

Ingredients

  • 1½ lb (680 g) skin-on salmon fillet, pin bones removed
  • 2 tbsp (28 g) butter, melted
  • 1 tsp salt
  • ½ tsp black pepper (optional)
  • 3 tbsp chopped fresh dill
  • 1 lemon, halved (optional — citrus never reached the Viking table)
  • lard, tallow or oil for the grates

Method

  1. FireMedium-hot coals, 400–450°F (205–230°C). Scrape the grates clean and oil them well.
  2. SeasonPat 1½ lb salmon dry, brush it with half of 2 tbsp melted butter, and season with 1 tsp salt and ½ tsp pepper.
  3. Grill skin-downLay the fillet skin-side down, close the lid, and cook 8–10 minutes without moving it, until the skin releases and the thickest part reads 125–130°F (52–54°C) for moist flesh, or 145°F (63°C) for fully opaque.
  4. FinishSlide a wide spatula between skin and grate to lift it off — no flip needed. Brush with the rest of the butter, scatter 3 tbsp dill, and squeeze lemon over if using.
  5. ServeWith flatbread, skyr sauce and buttered turnips. (The Norse had turnips; potatoes came seven hundred years later.)
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4servings
At the long-fireOn the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Price found that one of the most prized dishes was a cod’s head stuffed with chopped cod’s liver and oatmeal, baked. Lewis was Ljóðhús to the Norse, part of their Kingdom of the Isles for four centuries, and the dish turns up all across the old Norse North Atlantic. In Shetland, where a Norse tongue was spoken into the 1700s, liver and meal stuffed into a fish head is krappin. In northern Norway, cod boiled with its liver and roe is mølje, the feast of the winter cod run. Nobody wrote down whether the Vikings ate it. Their descendants did, on the same islands, from the same sea. Our version spreads the krappin over fillets instead of packing it into a head.
The old wisdomCod liver is what cod liver oil is made from: rich in vitamins A and D and the long-chain omega-3 fats. Eating it whole, with oats to soak up every drop, is how island families got it. Tinned cod liver in its own oil, from Iceland or the Baltic, is easy to find.

Ingredients

  • 1½ lb (680 g) cod or haddock fillets, about 1 inch thick
  • Krappin
  • 1 tin of cod liver in its own oil (about 4 oz / 120 g) (or 4 oz fresh cod liver per tin, chopped)
  • ¾ cup (70 g) medium oatmeal, fresh-milled from oat groats (or rolled oats, pulsed)
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • ½ tsp salt, plus a little for the fish (taste first — tinned liver is salted)
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • 2 tbsp (30 ml) milk or water, if needed
  • 1 tbsp (14 g) butter for the dish
  • chopped parsley or chives, to finish (optional)

Method

  1. Heat the oven400°F (200°C). Butter a baking dish with 1 tbsp butter.
  2. Make the krappinTip 1 tin of cod liver, oil and all, into a bowl and mash with a fork. Work in ¾ cup oatmeal, the onion, ½ tsp salt and ½ tsp pepper to a thick, spreadable paste; add up to 2 tbsp milk if it is dry. Let it stand 10 minutes so the oats drink up the oil.
  3. Dress the fishSeason 1½ lb fish lightly with salt and lay it in the dish. Spread the krappin thickly over the top, about ½ inch deep.
  4. Bake15–20 minutes, until the fish flakes and reads 140–145°F (60–63°C) in the thickest part and the crust is browned and sizzling. Thin fillets cook faster.
  5. ServeHot, with buttered turnips or flatbread, and parsley or chives over the top.

Liver dumplingsRoll any leftover krappin into walnut-sized balls and simmer them 15 minutes in fish broth — a supper on their own.

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4servings
At the long-fireCod (þorskr) fed the North. Hung on racks in the cold spring wind it became stockfish (skreið), the great export of the Viking Age, traded south for grain, silver and wine. At home, fresh or soaked fish went into the kettle with whatever grain and roots the farm had, and milk made it a meal. A soapstone pot kept it from scorching over the long-fire.
The old wisdomMake the broth from fish heads and frames — a fishmonger will often give them away. Sea fish are among the best food sources of iodine, and a baked cod’s head was one of the most prized dishes Price found on the Isle of Lewis.

Ingredients

  • ½ cup (100 g) hull-less barley (or pearled), rinsed
  • 2 tbsp (28 g) butter
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 leek, white and pale green parts, sliced
  • 4 cups (950 ml) fish broth (see Kettle Bone Broth) or water
  • 2 medium turnips or carrots, diced (optional)
  • 1½ tsp salt
  • 1 lb (450 g) cod or other white fish, cut in 2-inch pieces
  • 1 cup (240 ml) whole milk
  • ½ tsp white or black pepper
  • 3 tbsp chopped dill or chives

Method

  1. Sweat the vegetablesMelt 2 tbsp butter in a heavy pot and cook the onion and leek 5 minutes, until soft but not browned.
  2. Simmer the barleyAdd ½ cup barley, 4 cups broth, the turnips and 1½ tsp salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently 35–40 minutes, until the barley is tender but chewy. Hull-less barley takes longer than pearled.
  3. Add the milkPour in 1 cup milk and bring it back to a bare simmer.
  4. Poach the fishSeason 1 lb fish with a little salt, slide it into the pot and cook 6–8 minutes, until it flakes. Stir as little as possible so it stays in pieces.
  5. FinishStir in ½ tsp pepper and 3 tbsp chopped dill. Serve with rye bread and butter.
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3cups
At the long-fireSkyr is the Norse dairy food that survived: milk warmed, cultured, set with a little rennet and strained until thick. The sagas mention tubs of it, and whole households lived on skyr, butter and dried fish through the winter. The whey (mysa) left behind was never waste — soured into sýra, it was drunk mixed with water (blanda), used to pickle meat, and poured into bread and porridge. Make skyr and you will have whey for half the recipes on this page.
The old wisdomSave every drop of whey: it is a cultured drink on its own (the Norse sýra), the souring liquid for soaking grain, and the old brine for keeping meat. Traditionally the cream went to butter and the skimmed milk to skyr, so serve it as Icelanders do, with cream poured over — the fat, and the vitamins it carries, go back in.

Ingredients

  • 2 quarts (1.9 L) whole or skim milk, not ultra-pasteurized
  • 3 tbsp (45 g) plain skyr with live cultures (or plain yogurt)
  • ¼ rennet tablet, dissolved in 1 tbsp cool water (optional, for the classic set; or 2 drops liquid rennet for each ¼ tablet)
  • pinch of salt, to finish (optional)

Method

  1. HeatWarm 2 quarts milk in a heavy pot to 195°F (90°C), stirring so it does not catch, and hold it there 10 minutes. This concentrates the milk and sets it thicker.
  2. CoolLet it cool to 100–105°F (38–40°C). A sink of cold water speeds this up.
  3. CultureWhisk a ladle of the warm milk into 3 tbsp skyr, stir it back into the pot, then stir in the dissolved rennet. Cover.
  4. IncubateHold it near 100°F (38°C) for 8–12 hours — in an oven with just the light on, a cooler with a jar of hot water, or a yogurt maker — until set like a soft custard.
  5. StrainLine a colander with a clean cloth, pour in the curd, and let the whey drip 4–8 hours in the fridge, until as thick as you like. Catch the whey.
  6. FinishWhisk the skyr smooth with a pinch of salt. It keeps a week; the whey keeps two.
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7oz of butter
At the long-fireButter (smjör) was wealth. Norse law counted it as money, farms paid rent in it, and it was salted hard and packed in tubs to last the winter. In summer the women went up to the shieling (sel) with the cattle and spent the season churning. Before the plunge churn, cream was shaken in a skin or a tight vessel — which is exactly what a jar does. In the myths the goat Heiðrún stands on Valhöll’s roof and gives mead instead of milk; the farm goat gave the real thing.
The old wisdomMake it in spring and early summer from the cream of cows on fast-growing grass, when the butter comes out deep yellow. That was Price’s high-vitamin butter, rich in vitamins A and D and the factor he called Activator X, which researchers have since argued is vitamin K2. Keep the buttermilk for soaking grain.

Ingredients

  • 1 pint (475 ml) heavy cream, at about 60°F (15°C) (not ultra-pasteurized, if you can find it)
  • ½ tsp fine salt, or to taste
  • ice water for washing
  • clean quart jars with tight lids — one per pint of cream

Method

  1. FillPour 1 pint cream into the jars, no more than half full, and seal tight. Cool-room cream, about 60°F, breaks fastest; straight from the fridge it takes twice as long.
  2. ShakeShake hard. In 3–5 minutes it turns to whipped cream and goes quiet. Keep going, and pass the jar around when arms get tired.
  3. Watch it breakSomewhere around 10–15 minutes the whipped cream suddenly collapses into a yellow lump sloshing in thin white buttermilk. Shake one minute more.
  4. DrainPour the buttermilk into a cup and keep it — for pancakes, for soaking porridge, or for the rye loaf.
  5. WashCover the butter with ice water, knead it with a spoon, pour off the cloudy water and repeat until the water runs clear. Unwashed butter sours in days; washed, it keeps.
  6. Salt and shapeWork in ½ tsp salt, then press it into a dish or roll it in parchment. It keeps two weeks in the fridge. The Norse salted it far harder, to keep it a year.
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Three days at the long-fire

A homestead night-meal

A Winter Nights feast

An old-wisdom day

The farming year

The Year

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The Norse counted two seasons, summer and winter, and twelve months of thirty days named for what the farm was doing in them.

In the old reckoning the year turns with the farm.

Spring

vár · Harpa, the first month of summer

Barley and oats sown in the first dry days; lambing and calving in the byre; the cod come in to the northern coasts and the drying racks fill. Nettles and angelica are the first green. Eggs from the sea-cliffs and the eider islands.

Summer

sumar · Heyannir, the hay-work month

The cattle go up to the shieling, sel, and the women go with them to churn butter and press cheese. Haymaking decides whether the beasts live through winter. Fish weirs, berries on the hills, and the ships are out.

Autumn

haust · Gormánuðr, the slaughter month

Harvest and threshing; the quern turns on new grain and ale is brewed from the new barley. Apples and hazelnuts are gathered and stored. At the Winter Nights, vetrnætr, in late October, the farm feasts and the great slaughter begins: salting, smoking, drying, and the liver and blood puddings.

Winter

vetr · Þorri, the hard month

The larder’s season: dried fish, salt meat, skyr, butter and flatbread, and porridge every day. Jól at midwinter — the Norse said “to drink Yule”, and the old laws required every household to brew ale for it. Stories and games by the long-fire while the stores run thin toward spring.

Old Norse

Word-hoard

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The words of the Norse kitchen. Many of them are still on the Scandinavian table a thousand years on.

matr food
mjólk milk
skyr cultured, strained milk
smjör butter
ostr cheese
mysa whey
sýra sour whey, the everyday drink
blanda whey mixed with water
brauð bread
flatbrauð flatbread
grautr porridge
korn grain
bygg barley
hafrar oats
rúgr rye
hveiti wheat
malt malt, sprouted grain
mjöl meal, flour
kvern hand-quern
kjöt meat
steik roast meat
slátr butchered meat
lifr liver
mörr suet
sauðr sheep
svín pig
kýr cow
uxi ox
geit goat
hæna hen
gás goose
önd duck
æðr eider duck
egg egg
fé cattle; wealth
fiskr fish
þorskr cod
skreið stockfish, dried cod
síld herring
lax salmon
hrogn roe
hvalr whale
lýsi fish oil
epli apple
hnot nut
ber berry
hunang honey
öl ale
mjöðr mead
laukr onion, leek
geirlaukr garlic
kál cabbage, kale
næpa turnip
ertr peas
einir juniper
salt salt
sjóða to boil, to seethe
soð broth
eldhús fire-house, kitchen
arinn hearth
langeldr the long-fire
ketill kettle, cauldron
seyðir cooking pit
teinn spit
bakstrhella bake-stone
dagverðr the day-meal
náttverðr the night-meal
húsfreyja lady of the house
veizla feast
Jól Yule, the midwinter feast
vetrnætr the Winter Nights
sel summer shieling