Norway

I saw how they catch salmon.

The church here was very small.

14th. In the evening we arrived at the manse of Mr. Joh. Rasch, assistant pastor at Rorstad.2 He has been in the West Indies and Africa. He has also written a fine description of his journey as well as of various fish and plants. Gave me an honest welcome. I left him in the morning and travelled back to Törrfjord with the skipper. I now saw the full expanse of the Western Ocean and was told that if one were to travel due west one would come to Greenland.

He had a beautiful daughter called Sara Rasch, 18 years old, extraordinarily pretty; must eventually write to her for she said that she would never have believed that any honest Swede would come her way.

Wished that Mr. Ingvald would visit us so that I could express my indebtedness and repay him, which will be impossible unless he comes.

Everywhere I went there was talk of a Västergötlander who had gone about the district lying and deceiving.

Västerbotten flat-bread is made from barley and husks in the following manner.

When the threshing has been done, they take a large sieve and riddle the barley, husks and ears – very often a little straw as well – through it. This is dried and ground. Wealthier people use pure barley, others 1 part barley to 2 parts husk, and others again 2 parts barley to 1 of husks. Once ground, this flour is made into a dough with cold water without yeast and with no fermentation. (Warm water makes it more brittle.) The flour and water is kneaded long and thoroughly into dough, which must, however, be a pliant dough, for if it is hard it becomes unmanageable. It is then kneaded on the table, a good handful of the dough being used for each loaf. No one would imagine that so much bread would come from so little dough. Next it is moulded by hand, patted without being lifted, a good deal of flour being added, and pressed with a spatula rather than rolled until it is as thin as parchment. Then it is turned with a fairly large baker’s spade and pricked first on one side with a pricker specially made from a good handful of wing quills from ptarmigan or partridge, then turned again and pricked on the other side before being put into the oven. No more than one loaf goes into the oven at a time and someone has to stand by and constantly move or lift the loaf a little so that it does not burn or catch fire. It does not need to stay in long before it is baked through. It is then laid over the bedposts or something of that sort so that it hangs down on both sides; and the others are put there with it because otherwise there would never be enough room to dry them. They are then stacked one on top of the other in a big pile and saved for future use.

Some people bake bread from the bark of pine trees. They take the bark from large trees and avoid twiggy ones for twiggy, young trees are more resinous and bitter. The lower bark close to the root is best but the hard outer layer must be thoroughly scraped off, and this is often stored for winter. Before being ground into flour it is put over a low fire of embers and toasted or heated a little so that it becomes quite porous and thick. Only then is it ground and baked. It holds together better than dough made from barley – almost as well as rye dough – but the bread is bitter.

“Missne” bread in spring, before the leaves of ‘Dracontium’ [Bog Arum] open: take up the root, wash it really well, dry it in the sun or in the house. Clean off the small roots, dry it in the oven and pound it like pine-bark in a pestle. The pestle is made of the hollowed-out trunk of a large pine and stands waist high. The bark is put in it and pounded with a spade, as is done with pickled cabbage, until it is the size of peas or groats and smells sweet and good. Then it is ground and the flour is boiled and stirred like porridge. It is boiled for the same length of time as porridge and then left to stand in the pot for 3 or 4 days – the longer the better since it is bitter at first but that disappears if it is left to stand. It is mixed in with pine-flour or the like since it does not go far and these roots are difficult to get hold of. In a few places, however, they can be got by the cartload, in which case this porridge is baked along with other flour, producing a loaf as tough as rye-bread and very sweet, rather tasty and white, especially when it is freshly baked. They rarely bake bread from cattle – “missne” as it is too bitter but they give the roots to the cattle and they eat up every bit. This is found plentifully in rivers and on their banks.

Norwegian bread. Make a dough with cold water and rye-flour or barley with one third part of rye. Knead it until it no longer sticks to your hands, then roll it out with a grooved rolling-pin, turning it in all directions. Fold in the outer edge and press it into the bread in order to prevent the edge from splitting. It will be paper-thin and smooth even though it was rolled with a grooved pin. Bake it on a bakestone, turning it both over and round and brushing it smooth with a little bundle of dried, threshed rye-straw that has been dipped in a little water.

In bad times when there is nothing but ‘Spergula vera’ [Corn Spurrey] to be had in the field, the seed is collected, dried, cleaned and used with a small admixture of corn. It makes a dough that is black but good.

When I went up into the hills to pick wild strawberries, I caught sight of a Lapp who was out with his gun to hunt for birds. I took no notice of him until there was a bang, at which I looked back and saw that he was fairly close to me and below me. The ball struck a stone immediately above me. Praise be to God I was spared and he ran off. I did not see him again but I set off home at once.

Norwegian cheese from sour milk.

Take sour milk, boil it until the solids settle on the bottom, then strain it through a linen cloth; the liquid runs off and the solids remain behind like groats. Now stand this in a covered vessel for 8 days, after which work it with fat on a plate of some sort into the shape of a blunt cone and put it in a place out of draughts and heat. If it splits at this stage, work it again into its former shape and put it back in the same place to dry – it often takes one or two months for this to happen. At this stage an epidermis forms on it, which is wrinkled or cellular as in a reticulum. This is no more than a fusty layer of old substance that may be scraped off afterwards.

15th. No fences are used in this part of Norway since there is a shortage of sizable timber, so the cattle are always accompanied by a girl. The only distinction between meadow and woodland is that the woodland has a few deciduous bushes whereas the meadow is quite smooth. They cut the woodland as well as the meadow, for the grass grows quite high in both even though the cattle graze there. The cattle are not driven home either at night or for milking. Instead, they are retained within a square fence that can be moved to wherever they are being milked; the purpose of doing this is to manure the meadows. Horses roam free, pigs are tethered, cows are milked 3 times -morning, noon and evening. Goats and sheep accompany the cattle.