FOOD AND DRINK

Eating and drinking well were undoubtedly among the Vikings' joys, as befits a rural culture where daily food is not always abundant and refined, and whose economy of scarcity does not allow feasting every day. We are in countries where ordinary life must have been quite austere.

In reality, only two meals were eaten per day. The first was, by far, the most important, a practice that Germanic countries have more or less maintained with their substantial breakfast. It was the "dagverdr" (or dögurdr) taken at "dagmal", more or less at nine in the morning, once the first farm chores concerning livestock were finished. The second, or "nattverdr", a kind of equivalent to our dinner, was done at night, once the day's tasks were finished, around nattmal, that is, about nine at night.

Depending on the season, the hours could vary by up to an hour. But the scheme presented here, overall, remains valid.

They got up at rismal, around six in the morning. At dagmal, at nine, breakfast took place. Then came hadegi, around twelve. It is likely that a mid-day snack was taken around eykt, which was about three in the afternoon. At around six, it was mid aptan, or mid-afternoon. Then came nattmal, at nine, mid nott, midnight, at twelve, and otta, at three in the morning.

It is not that the day was rigorously divided in this way, as far as we know, into exact three-hour slots, since the long winter night and the long summer day determine work periods much more strictly. But it is a standard way of organizing and dividing daily time.

At mealtime, as everywhere in the Middle Ages, the lady of the house prepared a base sauce that was always on hand, with the staple dish being a cereal-based porridge, "grautr". It was accompanied by bread made from barley ground on a hand-operated quern or crushed with a mallet. On this bread, butter was spread, always salted to ensure its preservation, stored in buckets or boxes that were easy to transport when sailing. The substantial dish was fish, more often dried (skreid) than fresh, usually boiled in water, sometimes roasted and consumed with likewise dried seaweed or with certain vegetables such as peas or beans.

Meat was rarer. The norm, no doubt, was to pound it after cooking, as can still be seen in Central Europe, but archaeologists have found a significant number of utensils for roasting it, such as that long iron rod ending in a spiral of the same metal. There were plates or, more exactly, wooden bowls, each person, man and woman, having their own knife and spoon made of wood or horn. Of course, the fork did not exist, just as it did not elsewhere.

Numerous deep wooden dishes attest that some pastries were not unknown. They were sweetened with honey from bees, which they collected by smoking the hives. All kinds of soups or various decoctions were common: cauldrons, pots, boilers that have been found everywhere, sometimes accompanied by long-handled ladles for stirring the liquid and serving, are proof of this.

Dairy products were numerous and varied, the main ones being skyr, a kind of curdled milk that the Vikings were very fond of and which should not be confused with today's Icelandic skýr, which is the name applied to an extremely creamy white cheese, and sýra, whey that was used as a common drink. Cheese, ostr, undoubtedly goat cheese, also appeared on the menu and, as everywhere, it was pressed to give it shape. In some texts we find the series slatr, skreid ok ostr, meat, dried fish and cheese, which can give an idea of the available provisions.

Fruit was not absent but, as can easily be imagined, it had neither the richness nor the variety known in other southern countries. The texts only mention apples, in Denmark and southern Sweden, hazelnuts and walnuts, which seem, moreover, to have enjoyed particular prestige in some religious myths, and above all, berries of all kinds from which, moreover, a kind of wine called "berjavin" could be made. It is evident that a housewife did not have an unlimited palette of options to compose her daily menu.

The sources significantly insist much more on the subject of drink, on the act of drinking, than on the provisions themselves, with the term "drykkja" or "drekka" (the act of drinking, the drink) frequently having the meaning of banquet. It was, more than the satisfaction of a basic need, a gesture of conviviality whose importance is perfectly understandable in a rather close-knit society where hospitality was a must. Consequently, it is not surprising that they do not celebrate Jól, a wedding or a funeral, but rather they "drink" them (drekka jól, drekka brullaup, drekka erfi).

Thus, apart from water and milk, they mainly drank beer. However, the term used, "öl", covers various types of drink, although in all cases it involved malt, barley and more rarely, hops, fermented and possibly spiced. The texts do not always clearly establish the difference, but at least three terms apply to this drink: öl, bjorr and mungat, all three stored in barrels.

The making of this brew was apparently a delicate and important matter, and was entrusted to the care of specialists, some more renowned than others. It seems that mungat, despite its name meaning treat, was applied more to light beer, with bjorr being much stronger, and öl representing strong beer, although, as mentioned, the word can apply to all cases.

Wine was imported by definition and appears only in literature. The myth that Odin only fed on wine is undoubtedly symbolic, according to the etymology of the god's name, since óðr means intoxication or ecstatic fury.

But the drink par excellence, as befits an Indo-European civilization, was mead, mjödr, made from honey, as its name indicates. To tell the truth, there must have been varieties of "beer" that included honey, as well as all kinds of spices, and everything suggests that, many times, when we are told about "öl", we should understand mjödr.

In any case, these drinks were probably strong and the Vikings do not seem to have tolerated alcohol consumption well. Drunkenness was, so to speak, the obligatory conclusion of every banquet and texts like Egil's Saga, Son of Grimr the Bald, do not spare us repugnant or gruesome details about such binges. They drank from horns, natural or metal, even wooden, often very artistically decorated, painted, engraved, trimmed with metal plates and arranged on ingenious stands. Glassware, without a stem, was imported from abroad, especially from the Rhineland. Or, as proven by the tapestry of Queen Matilda, stemless cups were used, a kind of very flared beaker. In all cases these were vessels that were practically impossible to put on the table; they had to be emptied as soon as they were filled and hence the rapid intoxication mentioned earlier.

There are table rituals that we can reconstruct from what the sagas say, especially regarding the way of drinking. In general, they drank in rounds (sveitardrykkja), each having to drink as much as his neighbor. It also happened that one drank alone (einmenning) and, in that case, it was no doubt done in smaller horns. There was also the custom of drinking as a pair (tvimenning), either between two men, or between a man and a woman. As a general rule, the horn was passed in a circle or passed from one row to the opposite one. In any case, drinking abundantly was considered a great feat; a true hero had to empty many horns without interruption, at the risk of vomiting, which apparently did not matter.