Pipraðir páfuglar: Matgerðarlist Íslendinga á miðöldum by Sverrir Tómasson (review)

This delightful and beautifully produced book on the Icelanders’ food habits in the Middle Ages is a treasure trove of information. It appears to be intended for the more general reader, but it also has great value as a scholarly work. As Sverrir explains in his preface, he was inspired to write the book when he was working on chapters for Íslensk bókmenntasaga, Volumes I and II, during the early 1990s. He came across writings containing medical advice, lists of medicinal herbs and stones, and food recipes. Very little work has been done on this material, and no work at all has been done on the influence such writings might have had on Iceland’s medieval literature. Accordingly, Sverrir’s Pipraðir páfuglar is a significant and original contribution to scholarship on the literature, history, and—not least—culture relating to medical practices in Iceland. As Sverrir rightly points out, “um það þarf ekki að fara mörgum orðum að matargerð, ölhita og víndrykkja er stór partur af menningu tímans og þekking á því efni getur nýst öllum þeim sem vilja skilja bókmenntirnar og þá stéttaskiptingu sem lesa má út úr heimildunum” (p. 14) [it goes without saying that preparation of food, brewing of beer, and wine-drinking is a large part of the culture of the time, and knowledge of this material may be beneficial to those wanting to understand the literature and the class distinctions that may be gathered from these sources]. Sverrir attempts to rely primarily on writings from before 1550, but he acknowledges that at times he has had to turn to post-Reformation writings, and that he has made use of the narratives of Jón Ólafsson of Grunnavík, chief medical officer Vilmundur Jónsson, and Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness. He also draws attention to the fact that unfortunately there is no information about what kind of herbs were cultivated in the monasteries and convents and on the main farms in Iceland, that there is no information about what spices were imported to Iceland, and that no Icelandic recipes from the Middle Ages have been preserved. Despite these caveats, it is amazing what Sverrir has been able to unearth about the Icelanders’ food habits during the Middle Ages.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part consists of eleven sections (which in the following are referred to as chapters). In chapter 1, “Matur eða ómeti” (Food or Uneatable Food), Sverrir discusses what Icelanders ate in the Middle Ages. Drawing mostly on post-Reformation accounts, he points out that, while many people probably ate simple, mostly boiled food using whatever ingredients were available, some of the more affluent members of society likely used foreign recipes, which required a variety of herbs and spices. However, he also points to accounts in the medical sources, which suggest that human meat was consumed. Chapter 2, “Matseld forfeðranna” (The Ancestors’ Cooking), is concerned exclusively with medieval sources, including the Norwegian Homily Book, eddic poetry, Snorri’s Edda, and Völsunga saga. Sverrir concludes that, although the accounts of food and cooking in the Poetic Edda have to do with supernatural events, they are nonetheless in agreement with other medieval sources: “Matur skyldi annaðhvort steiktur á teini eða soðin, en fæðan var einnig súrsuð, reykt eða þurrkuð og þannig geymd” (p. 30) [Food should either be fried using a roasting spit or boiled, but the food was also placed in sour whey, smoked, or dried, and in this way preserved]. Chapter 3, “Hugmyndafræðilegt baksvið” (Ideological Background), deliberates on why Nordic recipes have been preserved primarily in medical treatises. Chapter 4, “Hráefnið” (The Raw Material), a very long chapter, deals with what foods were available to Icelanders in the Middle Ages and the degree to which they were available: beef, pork, mutton, goat meat, horse meat, fowl, fish, vegetables, and...