Today’s video is not one to watch with the kids. At least the last part of the history section. It gets a little dark, but I give a warning when it’s about to do so.
Vikings were not patriarchical, but both patriarchical and matriarchical. Females were just as important as gods/godesses as men. This also applies in viking daily lifes. Please correct this going forward.
If you do bake it until it's like a cracker, you'll end up with traditional Scandinavian crackerbread (knekkebrød), and yes, they traditionally had holes in the middle so they could be stored on poles in the rafters of the house, safely away from mice and rats, and to hang above the hearth where smoke and the heat kept them dry and free of bugs and pests.
@@akrinornoname2769 at least for the kind you can buy in stores here (I believe it's a Swedish brand), I think it most closely resembles a triscuit. Awfully dry of course, but not unpalatable and it's quite nice with cheese and/or jam.
Thank you for not shying away from the more gruesome aspects of history to make it more palatable. History is ultimate just people, and it can get dark. Thank you as well for warning people.
Completely agreed. This is a story I will likely think of a lot in the days to come. And I am very happy about that. It's a gruesome, yet strangely touching and very personal bit of history. The customs of a long-vanished people, doing as they thought was best. In short - thank you for including it, Max! :D
Please keep in mind as well to not engage in presentism though, a lot of people make this mistake and act like they're superior or enlightened than people in the past
@@ChristoffRevan True, while societies have changed countless times, we have remained the same species for longer than recorded history, and we do all still have things in common with people of eras gone. The advanced societies we have now are built on the shoulders of old ones.
@@ChristoffRevan We *are* superior in every measurable way. We can create a sun on top of our enemies we can put a man on the moon and then bring him back safely we can cross any ocean any desert and any sky. What can any nation alive or dead do to claim they are superior? do they have more gold? no. do they have more food? no. do they have any greater understanding of the world or wider universe? no. Stop trying to make it seem like "were all just people bro." were not and objective reality isn't something to be ashamed of or feel guilty about.
Yeah, I appreciate it too! I can only imagine the kinks that culture had, with such a... lively traditional end lol.. From the way our friend Fadlan describes it, I can't even imagine what the poor slave girl's thoughts were. Did she truly love her lord, and wished to honor him? Stockholm, maybe? Or was it just a sweet release from a miserable existence? Not to get.. weird, but.. I'd be curious what the thoughts of the slave girl was as well as the other women in the culture about the.. 'merriment' with all of those men. I mean... I think I have a pretty good idea, but on the other hand people are so complex that it makes me wonder sometimes. Regardless, this story was morbidly fascinating!
Anthony Boudrain once said " It was a long, bloody road to this cup of coffee", in reference to coffee's history. This is true for a lot of the foods we have at our disposal today. It's important to keep things like this in mind. Gives you context for the world we live in now, and where we were before.
Max's two episodes on sugar really bring home the horrible history of sugar cultivation, and his decision to not shy away from that was what really cemented his status as historian in my mind.
The whole history of food explorers is interesting. I just finished The Food Explorer: The True Adventure of the Globe Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats by Daniel Stone. It centers on the United States and the USDA but it is fascinating and I am sure reflects the way foods and cooking styles have migrated around the world.
I have a degree in religious studies from Denmark (kind of corresponding to a major in undergrad but with 3,5 years of pure religious studies) and focused on learning Old Norse and reading this stuff, and I must say: This is probably the best and most matter-of-fact presentation of pre-Christian Scandinavian burials I've ever encountered outside of an academic setting. I could literally not have done it better myself, and I spent the best part of two years reading these myths, historical accounts, and papers about the archeological evidence. Bravo! Hope you read this, Max, big kudos to you! Have enjoyed your videos for a while now, and this cements your place in my mind as an excellent presenter of history.
It only took over a year to finally get the thesis statement of the show said aloud "I have nothing in common with a viking from the 10th century, except I do. He eats. I eat." Simply put, but eloquently said. Hell Yeah.
Long before this channel I wondered over how one could taste a culture through it's food. *Far from an original revelation I'm sure. Beer is my favorite go-to for this method of travel and exploration but I suppose bread and garum works too.
I remember awhile ago, when this channel was a side gig for Max... He did talk about wanting to share a meal that would have been at a event in time, and also about the artwork he has for this.... Then he had to make the call to go back working for the mouse or leave the company all together.... I do think it is very cool as he makes history something we all can share in with a bit of a story and then sitting down with the food.... I know they can trace my dad's side of the family back to 1300's Sweden, so odds are this is helping me understand my forefathers.....
When he said that I thought of this; "“The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by the question 'Where shall we have lunch?” From Douglas Adams.
@@mikespangler98 This is one of those cases like Max described in the previous video, where one has never heard of a thing (I am ashamed to admit I have never read Douglas Adams) and then comes across it twice in the same day. You were second.
As a history teacher from Norway with a passion for all things norse I can say that this was interesting and nuanced. No glorification or macho approach. Only food and culture.
I once knew a man who was Swedish American. He was a Navy vet who served in World War 2. After a long life and a long career as a History PHD. He terrified the HOA by announcing that he wanted to recieve a Viking funeral when he passed. Sure enough when he died a small replica longboat appeared on the lake near his house. The HOA lost it's mind until they learned that he had been cremated. His friends rowed out aways and had a toast of mead to their friend put his ashes over the side drank another round and returned. I like to think he was laughing at the buffoons on the HOA board from Valhalla. 😂
I can’t stand HOAs usually. What right does someone have to tell you what you can and can’t do on your property that you own and pay for just because someone else doesn’t like it? Obviously as long as the behavior is legal and not harming anyone else.
@@terminallumbago6465 They can be scummy for sure, but ideally you choose to live in an HOA because you like the rules. You don't want your neighbors playing loud music at 2AM or cluttering up the street with 20+ cars. You don't want to look at a rusting boat and other junk in their front yard. Maybe you like the idea of only being able to paint your house one of 15 approved colors and want the grass cut weekly or biweekly, especially if it means your neighbors have to do the same (if you've seen some really ugly yellow or pink houses you might agree, or the people who abandon their yard so it's all overgrown and full of weeds with the house falling apart). Odds are if you don't like it there is a cheaper option elsewhere. HOA cost more money to live in than normal neighborhoods. I live in a condo which is in a lot of ways even more strict since you don't own the exterior, I think the most you can do here is plant some flowers and put decorations on your patio. You never have to do yard work though or worry about the snow.
I knew going into this that you’d include ibn Fadlan’s account, as it is literally the most accurate recording of a Viking funeral’s events we have, but I am both surprised and very grateful that you went all the way with it, and didn’t cut any of it out for fear of demonetization or anything.
Something I always imagine about whenever I see Max's videos, and him trying to recreate a recipe as close as he can to the original, is the people Max talks about getting happy and ecstatic - "Yes, we were here! We lived! We laughed! We told stories, same as you! Thank you for not forgetting us!"
Really history is just people. Even though we may be separated by time, culture, language, social status, etc. we are not that different. We have the same needs, triumphs, struggles, etc. We are all human. While none of us lived in the Viking Age, and our funeral practices are quite different from theirs, we can all relate because we’ve all lost people and have ways of sending them off and saying goodbye in the established practices of our own cultures.
Max! I am Khalil, a Lebanese American Historian and I am a professor at the American University of Beirut! I have Phonecian recipes researched and will be emailing you some info. I would love for you to do a Phonecian dish episode!
Greetings professor, I was accepted into American University Beirut back in 1987. Needless to say I did not matriculate but I always wonder how things would have gone if I had.
The pop culture Viking funeral is a mash up of two different Viking funerals. The burning comes from Fadlan, but the launching off onto the whale road comes from Beowulf. Thing is, the launching of the boat (Homaged, like almost all of Beowulf, in "The Lord of the Rings" when Boromir's body is sent down the river) did not involve burning. It was just sent into the sea.
Fun fact: the Atli mentioned in the excerpts is none other than Atilla the Hun. The vikings simply saw him as another warlord, foreign yes, but with battle prowess that demanded respect. In fact, his fame amongst vikings was so widespread that he shows up in several unrelated myths.
There is also a community of mongols that emigrated to the viking lands (yes i know its a verb but anyway) same wat many vikings emigrated to the byzantian empire
I can't remember exactly who said it but this applies. " If you truly want to know a people's history study their food. It will tell you things even they have forgotten."
what you said at around 20:00 is why i love this channel so much. eating and food is such an everyday, human thing, and learning about what people from decades to millenia ago ate opens a window to their lifes more than any history book could, it makes them and their lifes feel so much more real, tangible and human and relatable, i dont know how to explain it im not good with words, but through this channel more than anything else ive gained that feeling that the past really happened, that there were people before me who were just like me, who lived and ate and who had their own lives and hopes and dreams, idk. i really love and appreciate your work max, thank you.
As a swede, my first connotation to the bread having a hole in the middle and being strung onto something is probably that it was hung up to dry. That is still how knäckebröd (crispbread) is traditionally made, though you "thread" large rounds of the bread on a wooden dowel and hang them up to dry. I haven't looked into this, though. I also thought the Rus were specifically from Roslagen (earlier Roden), which was basically the eastern-most coastal areas of modern Sweden. Both 'Rus' and 'Roslagen/Roden' stemming from a term for 'men that row', and these areas were very early on organised into geographical units based on manning a rowed ship.
I can see a selection of dried bread, hung up to avoid it getting spoilt or eaten by rodents being something a Viking might take on a long journey, to the afterlife or otherwise. A bit like hard tack.
@@mattheweagles5123 It's also just a method to store bread for later. People did this until the 20th century. Look up knäckebröd as @DoctorEth mentions.
@@mattheweagles5123 It was absolutely done to avoid rodents. The Knäckebröd is very similar to the viking bread recipe, and like hard tack it was something they did here to get through the winters when they could not get access to grain. It would hang from a rafter in the cooking area, often on a wooden pole, and they would just snap one of the wheels off when needed. The hole now is mainly to hark back to the olden days but if you buy a full wheel of the bread the majority of it will come with a hole in the middle. Also going back to max, they usually make it with water, but you can also find it made with cream, again the recipe is very similar and I'd say it is almost certainly very similar to the flat breads they would have eaten way back then.
Yeah there are a lot of folk etymologies trying to connect certain groups of Vikings to certain places based on names, like the supposed Roslagen/Rus connection or the claim the word "viking" comes from the fact the first vikings were from Viken, but they're usually much later and lack any actual evidence. There's no evidence for where the Scandinavian elites among the Rus originated, probably in no small part because they came from many places all over rather than a single unit with a single origin. There is a sense that people from modern-day Sweden tended to dominate the Baltic and Volga regions while people from modern-day Norway and Denmark were more dominant on the Western Seaboard of Europe, however even that is pretty vague and nebulous and it certainly would be going too far to try and connect the Rus to any specific region within Sweden. "Scandinavia, probably mostly Sweden" is about the most we can realistically say, anything beyond that is just speculation at best.
Yes the soul of scandinavia the knekkebrød As GW In a book said the bits that Are essential for Nordic is butter , cheese , knackbrod , herring and dill . Over here bread like that also been hang up to dry for long time .
Classic Max. That's why we love this channel and i like how he doesn't make it overly dramatic. Yea this is a very freakish story but he tells without it feeling like exploiting it for titilation
When he talked about the flexibility of the bread and said "If you bake it longer, it will be more like a cracker", I half expected a hardtack reference. I'm almost disappointed.
Key word: almost. Given the topic of the video, I think Max made a good call with leaving out the hardtack reference. It's usually a positive and funny interjection, which really would clash with the theme of this episode.
the hardtack gag is only effective with explicit references to hardtack. a good creative choice here, as it's almost overplayed at this point. less is more!
This is the most philosophical episode of the show I've ever seen, and I absolutely loved it. Food, in our everyday life, is a way we commune with our family and members of our community. It's a way we commune with our ancestors, a way we commune with our great grandmas we never got to meet but still get to taste her recipe for biscuits. Sometimes, at it's best it's a way to commune with absolute strangers, either those here now or those from long ago. Food is art, and like all art it connects people, but unlike some forms of art it is absolutely universal. Thanks for making this show, Max, thanks for your humanity and thanks for connecting us with the humanity of those who came long before us. You're a gem.
20:40 "I eat, he ate, I eat" for some reason made this real for me, it opened my eyes to the direct connection to someone from thousands of years ago... what a great video! keep up the great work!! Also, small suggestion for another video: maybe a handful of discovered frozen individuals like Ötzi or Tollund Man..
Interesting note: The first part of "Eaters of the Dead" by Michael Crichton--which was made into the movie "The Thirteenth Warrior"--is directly from ibn Fadlan's notes. (The test is a re-telling of "Beowulf.")
“Lo, there do I see my father. Lo, there do I see my mother, and my sisters, and my brothers. Lo, there do I see the line of my people, Back to the beginning! Lo, they do call to me. They bid me take my place among them, In the halls of Valhalla! Where the brave may live forever!"
"Nabeeth" is tha arabic word for any alcoholic drink that is left to be fermented in order to become alcoholic, but mostly it is used specifically for grapes or dates alcoholic drinks. In modern days, it is used specifically for "wine"
@@mattheweagles5123 Usually different things produce their own unique flavor when fermented. Most of the time the drinks ends up tasting different than the item itself. So, who knows
You hit the nail on the head about food history and history history. Food is such a vital part of every day life, and so universal to the experience of being human, no matter when or where you are from.
There is an old tradition in Sweden to have "knäckebröd" (a kind of hard, flat bread, round, and with a hole in the middle) hanging on a rod in the roof close to the fireplace (traditionally to keep them dry and perhaps to keep them away from rodents too). You can see these rods of bread in history books and museums. This kind of bread is still made with holes in the middle, even though most people don't keep them hanging in the roof nowadays.
If the bread gets stale, just make it into a sort of porridge by putting it in a broth of some kind. Nice to have on it's on or with salted pork. Yes, we still do that...
Bread porridge - part of my grandfather's generation, to be sure, but I don't know anyone who has made it in my time. I know some people still do, thanks to the internet, but by and large it's a thing of the past. Just like blood pancakes.
Their certainty that the dead would be carried to the afterlife by the wind within an hour (which wouldbe hard to believe in a windless day), as well as the amount of time they'd have to spend planning all this, makes me think they chose the time of the burial as precisely as they could.
The reference to Atlamal made me clap with joy, I immediately recognised the quotation and shouted "Max you didn't?!" And restarted that section. I studied reading and analysing old Norse texts during my master's and am now adapting a combination of Atlakvida and Atlamal into a modern play. These videos always make my nerdy heart happy but I love how well you cover Viking history-can always trust Max to use proper sources and dispell the dumb perceptions ♥️
Somebody may have pointed this out already, but in the beginning of "The 13th Warrior" the account of the funeral witnessed by Ahmad Ibn Fadlan is sorta portrayed, and perhaps part of that novel was based on Fadlan's account of his contact with Northmen who had gone a "Viking".
Do not apologize for any of this video!! The Viking Funeral History absolutely did tie in to Food History and we all (Your faithful Fans!!!) very much enjoyed the entire video. Your determination to fully and truthfully research each food topic, along with the History which surroundeds it, greatly impressises us and we all learn so much. Im a Historical Archaeologist and I have learned all sorts of History watching your show!!! Keep the History and the amazing Food coming!!! You're the BEST food history/cooking show on TH-cam - bar none. I and my entire Family absolutely LOVE YOU and watch every episode - some more than once. GOD Bless and keep You ❤
I agree with Dawn. Dawn what area of the world do you work in as a Archaeologist if you do not mind me asking??? Max you did a good job as always tie a event in time to the food that would have been eaten/drank at the event... I think this is the most in-depth video I have seen of what a real Viking Funeral was like.... They can trace my dads side of the family to a town that was destroyed in 1300, and then the last name was a common one for the area..... Thank you Max for shining a light to a most likely part of my dad's side of the family tree..........
Great points! It was heartbreaking to hear about the slave girl and of course they had to get her drunk and take her from yurt to yurt to be raped. But that’s the history. It astounds me that women have even persisted this long with every horrible atrocity that has been done to us in every culture all over the planet. That young woman was in a way my foremother and I am glad to know of her life.
@@KaylaNoelle1 and who knows if it even happened, when all we have is an account from a person we may or may not be able to trust. Remember that the story was not based on archeological findings so take it with a grain of salt
My parents used to make flat bread at the fire when i was a kid, on flat stone or directly on the coal when we where out fishing. wheat flour, salt and buttermilk. going to make some the next hunting trip, got a bit of nostalgia watching this. So easy to do as you make the dough at home and keep in a bag for a couple of days if you keep it chilled, or mix the dry ingredients in a bag and just add the milk(works with water too, but not as good) and kneed it in the bag when you need it.
I made a similar bread once. The recipe came from an archeologist who was studying the early Norse. He called them Proto-norse. It was made of equal amounts of Oats and Rye, water and fat. They got this by analyzing the bread remains found in these proto-norse homes that were excavated. It was easy to make, I cooked them on a dry griddle. They tasted good. Oh, they were also made with a hole in the center for stringing up between rafters. They are great with butter and lingonberry jam.
@@Lazydaisy646 It's a traditional Norse berry. You can usually get them in US supermarkets in the baking aisle. it's a favorite or modern Norwegians, Swedes, Fins and Danes.
That disclaimer of yours after the history bit is quite insightful. Also I'm glad you don't skip the more complicated parts of history related to your content, which I feel is important in historical research.
just as it is better to describe a wedding celebration when making a wedding cake.. it makes sense to describe a funeral when making funeral bread... bravo
Max, your explanation of how food & history inform each other is one of the reasons I got into historical cooking. I've always loved history & food. Much of "old school" history & archaeology tends to focus on the kings, emperors, chiefs & general big cheeses. I'll never live their lives, but I can eat like them. Also I've generally been more interested in the everyday folk & how they lived. so I can vicariously glimpse their lives through preparing their food in the ways they did & hopefully enjoy it. It was one of my favourite parts of reenactment. It's also one of the reasons I think your channel is so good; it's well presented, authentic & you take your time to research & learn how to pronounce things properly. Food is a constant in all our lives & is often our own personal time machine where scents & tastes transport us to happier times in our own lives or to the far off lands & times of others. Those Proustian madeleine moments.
Wow, Max. Just Wow. I went through grade school in Norway in the late sixties, and the textbooks were eager to tell us all about the Vikings, and how they "heroically" conquered even "The Lands to the East" (i.e. Russia; "The Big Red Scare" at the time). We were taught very little about the Vikings' other, grisly practices. I am amazed and impressed at the research you obviously put into your videos. This is one where I KNEW some of the facts, but you still taught me more. This being the Net, I'm sure quibbles will be made, but MAN, what a history lesson, Max. Thank you!
As a Swede who went through grade school in the late noughties, I'd say our education in regards to the vikings was pretty evenhanded (though nowhere near as graphic as this, of course).
Poor thralls, that's horrific. I feel they must have inherently known it wasn't great if they were banging loud enough to drown out the cries. The bread looks delicious and would be great with some curry.
@@Gunitz89 As a Catholic myself, no they were not. They were a war, and a bloody one at that. People were told that if they died in the Crusades, all their sins would be forgiven, yet the Bible itself says that stealing and killing another are both sins (see ten commandments), and both of these happened on a regular basis in the Crusades. So it's fine to sin when a man tells you to, even after God said not to? Are we following the word of a man, or the word of God? Which is superior? Now, I know a lot of people try to justify it because muslims were "expanding and stealing Christian territories and persecuting Christians". Actually, both Christians and Jews were allowed to freely and safely practice their respective religion under muslim rule. It only changed under the rule of Al Hakim, who forbade Christian and Jewish practices and killed those opposed to him, which, by the way, included Muslims too, so it wasn't necessarily about Christians but people opposed to him. Even the muslims of the time were so shocked by his ideas and behavior and found him so controversial that they wrote about it a lot. One of the things he did was force Christians and Jews to wear symbols and clothes that would point them as non-muslims, not unlike Hitler did with Jews (except Hitler claimed himself as a Christian). But that Al Hakim guy died in 1021, and his son had the Church of the Holy Sepulchre rebuilt in a joint effort with the Romans, and the peace between religions came back. Christians were not persecuted anymore by the time the Pope started the Crusades in 1095, which was a whole 74 years after Al Hakim's death and the return to peace. In comparison, it would be the same as waging war on Germany now in a response to Hitler's rule. Kind of weird, right? Let's also remember that the Pope did so because Alexios, the head of the Roman Empire at the time, asked for help regaining HIS roman territory. For him, it was never about Christianity. He was using the Pope to get a bigger army, and the Pope used Alexios and Alexios' army to get control over most of those reconquered territories under the pretext of a religion war, against the promise he made to Alexios to return said territories under Roman rule. Let's also not forget that in some parts of the Crusades, the Crusaders made no distinction between Muslims and Christians and killed both without a second thought (I think this happened in Egypt, but do not quote me on the location). Lots of men who participated in the crusades also did so not for religious reasons, but in order to gain territories, wealth and power overseas. Serfs also went to fight in the Crusades not for God, but because the Pope promised them freedom if they did. So while a lot of men at the time were doing it for religious reasons, and THOUGHT they were justified and following God's orders, it wasn't the case for a lot of them, and it doesn't make the Crusades "great". It was just a regular conflict on which they slapped the "religion war" label in order to try and justify it, because Christians at the time had been opposed to wars in general, since the Bible advocated against it (again, the killing, stealing etc). It was bloody and caused a lot of suffering. Let's not even mention Constantinople, which was the biggest Christian city in 1204 and was attacked and ransacked by the Crusaders (Christians attacking Christians in a "religion" war? What the heck???). Those Crusaders pillaged and destroyed not only lots of artwork, but also CHURCHES, MONASTERIES and CONVENTS, and killed around 2,000 civilians in the span of 3 days (again, Christian civilians). How is that great?
Love getting these neat viking stories. I've been to Iceland and eaten their flatbread there many times, which still looks exactly like what you made. Usually we have it with butter and smoked lamb or salmon (smoked over sheep dung in the traditional way) or pickled herring. It's got such a unique set of flavors that just brings you back to gray, windy days looking out over the lava fields with just open horizon as far as the eye can sea and majestic mountains in the background. Would love if you can do a future episode on the history of Jolakaka (Yule Cake) and the holiday traditions and myths of Iceland and of the Norse. There are some great stories to tell there, from the Jolabokaflodid (Yule Book Flood) tradition established in a newly independent Iceland just post WWII to the Yule Lads, Iceland's trollish children pranksters.
They did actually have a funeral pretty close to this on the show Vikings. The slave girl was slaughtered and everything. I can't remember her going yurt to yurt, or how she was killed on the boat (I don't think it was quite that brutal) but pretty similar. She was plied with drink and killed on board alongside her master.
I love how you cut the music for the explaination because you can hear the genuine care in your voice! Amazing video! as always. Watched the linked video and...wow its grim.
Thank you for this well researched and nuanced video! I know you always do your research well, but with this topic I appreciate it even more because I do Viking Age living history and reenactment and it can be frustrating at times how much misinformation is floating around about Vikings and Norse culture due to terrible TV shows and people also doing really bad and unhistorical attempts at "reenactment" or SCA/Larp and calling it "authentic". So, thank you from the bottom of my heart for not perpetuating the seemingly endless cycle of misinformation!
As geek of history, your content is so interesting, even if l'm not cooking, l watch it for the story and description of the food. Truly, the videos are reliving of forgotten experience.
Max, I have to say this was one of the best videos you have ever posted. Not just because it was interesting, very very interesting. But your explanation of how everything is intertwined! Thank you so much for that part of the video.❤
When I was living and working in Denmark from 2000-2003, I visited The Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde. It was really impressive. On another note, all of my Danish friends say that the Vikings stopped their raiding a plundering once they learned how to brew beer.
It's so crazy to think that, for the vast majority of humankind, they did not deplore the idea of human sacrifice and humans as property as we do today.
Indeed. Not sure why people think things were wonderful in the past. Always the question, what’s wrong with people today? The answer is nothing; study history.
What you say about food history is I think also true of other less prestigious subfields, like fashion history. What do we have in common with early medieval nordic people? They ate, they made and wore clothing, they spoke to one another. Such subfields are like small prisms which reflect the whole society.
What they’re wearing, eating, their language, their art, all these things tell us parts of their lives. It helps to understand the humanity and the why people were the way they were. As just one example: Considering that we’re crossing the 80 year mark, WW2 is becoming “old” history. Rationing of food and the clothing created because of rationing tells us much about how the people at home lived and survived the war. I am lucky enough to have many photos of my great grandmother and young grandmother from that era, but they won’t last forever. Even with digital backups, things can be lost. It’s more likely that fragments of textiles or whole garments might make it longer than my family photos do. That’s important to me!
Thank you for this. Not sure it's the right niche but if anyone's very much into Medievan Scandinavian warfare and culture I strongly recommend Schwerpunkt's relative content. Keep up the amazing work
I genuinely wish we had a way to find out if this one detailed account is a general overview, or if the tourist got dragged out to that one group with the extremist traditions for the shock value. Like will humans in the future dig up one story of the tydepod challenge and decide we all willingly put poison in our mouths for no reason other than the attention?
I like your interpretation of Ibn Fadlan's account here. It could very well have been a one off event much like the "Tide Pod Challenge"... It could've been an Extremist tradition... Ibn Fadlan definitely saw these people as Heathens as he was sent from the Abbasid Caliphate... Much like how the Spanish chroniclers and conquistadors wrote about the Mesoamericans
I love the statement you made about how you talk about how food follows history. This is exactly why I have followed you since you had your start during COVID. I also want to mention, that you described a form of communion - eating the food, drinking the drinks etc to honor something bigger than us all, the history of humanity ❤ Love your book :)
Interesting fact: Michael Crichton wrote a book 'Eaters of the Dead' based on Ahmed's writings about the Norsemen and an adventure he had with them (the Vikings weren't eating dead people btw.). It was later made into a movie '13th Warrior' starring Antonio Banderas.
Butter was a big deal in the nordic countries. It still is. Have you heard about the Norwegian butter crisis in christmas 2011? High status people have butter for their bread. Common people use lard (pork fat) and a sprinkle of salt on a thick slice of rye.
Butter was also a way to store dairy for the winter. Look up bog butter. Every once in a while they'll find a 10 or 20 pound ball of butter submerged in a bog. Some of it is as much as 5000 years old and still edible. A bit strong and gamey but still wholesome.
Interestingly some modern Swedish crispbreads are still baked with the hole in the middle (although usually the (rather large) round wheels are then cut into wedges before being sold, so while I think it was for storage at one point now it's mostly just tradition).
They stack alright on store shelves that way. Not as well as squares, but you get that nice circle of stacked packets of bread, it's a neat presentation.
thank you max for including these stories, and for articulating why. as a historian the eternal question is "what is the same and what is different"? to feel similar, and to also attempt to understand a mindset beyond our own. thanks again for being my favourite channel on yt.
Thank you for the time stamp Max 🙏 I’m autistic and have a lot of trouble managing my emotions when faced with violence in any form so I really appreciate it 😊
This was very interesting. Even though quite gruesome, it is beneficial to see humanity in it's brutal forms to show us what we don't want to repeat. The bread looks really nutricious and simple, so I will try that! But just the bread...
One of the biggest benefits of being a teacher is being able to watch Tasting History videos the second they hit during summer 😊 Have you ever thought of doing a pregnancy foods through the ages vid? I know you're not planning on getting pregnant anytime soon, but there are some fascinating, gross, and weird things women have eaten to get pregnant, make it a certain gender, or consumed during labor (asparagus, 'groaning cakes', etc). Maybe for Mother's Day one year!
One of the biggest benefits of being a teacher is being able to watch these videos? SMH... you got a bucket of crap on your nose there. People need to stop it with the nonsense and parasocial relationships. Get a life and a grip.
Hahahaha true! As a strong proud Ndebele woman 🇿🇼 I doubt she is worried. Dad will rescind the request pretty quickly. I will fire a fire arrow for him just for the sake. @coffeeguyd
@@coffeeguyd well, it's a slave girl, not his wife, so since he doesn't have slaves that part would e skipped, like it most certainly was for more everyday folks ack then
Thank you for including even the darkest aspects of Ibn Fadlan's account of the Viking funeral. I see it as a matter of respect towards those who have gone before to get as realistic a view as possible about their times, their cultures and what they went through in good times and bad, in essence how they lived and how they died. It not only presents a new source of awe and appreciation (as well as horror) about the people of the past, but also provides a framework for appreciating our own culture; how far we have come and how far we could yet rise, or might fall back to. Also, I think we have a tendency to overstate our differences to people of the past, partly justified concerning stark differences in cultures and worldviews, but then again oftentimes disregarding our shared humanity. Same as us the people of the past liked good food and good company, wanted to be safe from danger and harm, spend time with their loved ones and wanted to make the best of the opportunities life gave them. In that sense, we all had more in common with the Viking chieftain, Ibn Fadlan and the slave girl than we were different. May we all learn as much as we can from the lessons history tries to teach us. And thank you Max for doing your part. Your work is phenomenal and provides great value in entertainment, culinary delights and education. A true TH-cam gem.
If it makes you feel better, there's pretty much 0 evidence that ever actually happened. It sounds to me like something old Ibn made up, both for a more gruesome story and to reinforce biases against the "heathen" Norse.
Point of order: "viking" was a job description in pre-conversion Norse cultures, which encompassed piracy, raiding & pillaging, and trading, and the definitive trait was that they traveled on boats to do it. The majority of pagan Norse folk weren't vikings; they were thralls (essentially, forcibly indentured servants or slaves, but not in the chattel sense), freemen craftspeople and farmers, and so on. Going a-viking was an efficient way to get a bunch of wealth, and for many freemen and carls and so on it was also a way to perhaps die in battle and go to Valhalla or Folkvangr. (Those who die in battle were split between the two; the first is Odhinn's hall, the second is Freyja's field outside her own hall, Sussrumnir, where the Einherjar feast outdoors in a place forever green.) Neither Valhalla nor Folkvangr are "Viking heaven"; if you didn't die in battle and join the Einherjar, you went to Hel (or Helheim), which is not a place of punishment like Christian Hell, but a place where you could join your ancestors and family that did not die in battle… unless you were a thief, murderer, or, worst of all, an inhospitable host (seriously, to this day many Scandinavians shrug at an ancestor being a murderer but would be deeply ashamed if they learned an ancestor was a bad host), in which case you _were_ sent to a frozen hellscape.
Another thing is that belief in Valhalla might be more associated with the warrior type of norsemen. The hunting god Ullr is thought to have had one. But we don't know crap about him because he was probably more popular on the scandinavian mainland. Alot of places in Sweden are named after him.
One of my favorite descriptions of vikings was the tales of the city that flowed with gold where they would sell-sword. Byzantium, where the varangian guard was famously high skilled norseman and other vikings from up north
Hello. This information was enlightening to me Thank you! Well I’m of Swedish Descent and was raised with many stories of olde and traditions. I was taught the Vikings were the one that went to sea and were raiders, traders, and plunderers. Some even abducting women to bring home. Well that’s what I got!
Correction, viking comes from people who lived in vik, as in the bay. So no, most Norwegian Scandinavians would be Vikings, because the fjords where the best place to live in this god forsaken country. Pretty certain this was the standard around the rest of scandinavia too. Also no, not most where thrall. A thrall would be close to a slave. No society had more than 10% slaves. Most where freemen.
This is very similar to the finnish bread rieska! It used to be served at parties in the western coast, made most often with barley flour. Great with a bit of butter and smoked whitefish!
Max, I've been a subscriber since you started out in 2020, when you only had around 38k followers. It's amazing to see how far you've come over the past 4 years. I love seeing your videos, and learning a little bit of history that I didn't know before. Your videos remind me of Bob Ross with the storytelling intertwined with his passion, painting. Keep doing what you do.
As a Finn, my ancestors (the Sami, the indigenous Finns) did not do much other than do trading with the Vikings, with the occasional incursion by the Vikings. The Sami were sometimes referred to as mystics and healers… The Finns are not known for their cuisine, though are known for drinking copious amounts of coffee, and for salmiakki, or salted licorice. And of course there was a considerable language barrier.
I knew it. Max witnessed a real Viking funeral! In Roman times, he was Maximus Bestus of the guild of Millers. In the medieval era, he was Mäx Millerson. We'll eventually uncover his identity during the Renaissance and Enlightenment. At least in the future, we know he'll be Max ... IN SPACE!
This may have been my favorite episode ever. I want to know everything about history, even the unpleasant stuff. I appreciate your honesty, and thank you so much for doing the research!
I've watched every episode so far on Tasting History, and I think this is one of my top 10 favorites, because, graphic or not, it sheds light on the day to day life of our ancestors. The food is so entwined with our culture they are inseparable, and these stories are just little windows into life as it actually was lived. Love your research and dedication to both food and history!
These videos are awesome! I discovered your channel two days ago and have binge watched a few dozen already! As an "ancient history" fan and also fan of all things culinary, i love the ones that deal with medieval amd Roman / Greek history the most. Keep up the amazing work! This is definitely one of the best TH-cam channels that I've had the pleasure of discovering!
Michael Crichton wrote _Eaters of the Dead_ by adapting and combining Beowulf and Ahmad ibn Fadlan's account. Antonio Banderas plays Ahmad ibn Fadlan in _The 13th Warrior,_ the movie of the book by John McTiernan.
Just this morning I was saying to a coworker that when a particular scientific instrument finally dies and can't be fixed we would give it a Viking funeral. Ope nope, not any more! We will find a new, fun, no-slave-girl-or-animal-sacrifice-required method of honoring the decades of service of an inanimate object. (Fun fact, some Viking did die on burning long ships, but that was when they tried to raid Constantinople and got hit with Greek fire. Also, they were still alive when the ships were set aflame, so not really the same.)
I think there are some Shinto practices I've heard about that honor the service of inanimate objects with far less bloodshed involved. Perhaps something inspired by those would be more appealing?
Max: “Now if you bake it longer…” Me: (waiting for the clack clack) Max: “…it’ll be more like a cracker.” Me: You had the perfect opportunity to use the clack clack and you didn’t use it. A plague on your house! Just kidding, Max.
I also think food history is incredibly important because it offers a glimpse into what life was like at various points of history in various places. Food is such a huge part of life, both the mundane and the extraordinary. It’s what brings people together. It’s what creates such powerful memories and emotions, both good and bad, even in our own lives. You can tella lot about how people were living based on what they were eating and drinking.
You have always impressed me, Max, with your ability to combine historical matter with food. Your decision to go ahead with that grim story which adds to the complexity of what you are telling overall is admirable. There ARE dark and even scary things that are part of our history. Ignoring or cleaning them up is dishonest and deprives everybody of context. Thanks again.
In Finland it was historically common to hang bread to dry on wooden dowels up on the rafters. A cow horn was used to poke a large hole in the middle of the dough, then the wheel of bread was baked and the batch was put up to dry. That way the bread could keep for much longer.
Yeah and what about the innocent animals ? They are not even raised animals for eating. (That’s for survival obviously, fine.). No it’s just useless killing. Sacrifices are so f’ing idiotic. All for moronic beliefs.
I wish I hadn’t watched that part :( when Max said it would be graphic, I thought he meant gore or something. I didn’t know a young girl would be taken advantage of multiple times :(
One of your best episodes yet! The food connection is there, as well as the harsh reality of this time period and these communities. Thank you for what you do!
Fantastic video Max and thank you José for the captions. I liked that you put the warning in all caps. This was an intriguing episode. Such a simple bread that is connected to such a significant occasion. That is the best part of your channel, that you connect the food and history no matter how slight the connection is. This one I think has a deeper connection then you implied. Funerary food was such a huge tradition for so very many cultures, even today! I know here in Western culture that while we don't give the deceased while feasts anymore some people will place the favorite food or candy in the casket. My father got some salt water taffy. After there is still the food for the living. Food is intricately enmeshed in life. As you said; you eat, he eats, you eat... Life must consume to survive but learning what they ate in the past gives us a deeper understanding. Because we can do as you have and make the same food as they did. 😊 keep eating! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍
Hell yeah! I’ve been busy unfortunately during the release of the last few videos so I’m happy to be back and enjoying a new episode fresh of the press!
We as people have come a long way since the beginning of sitting at tables and eating what our ancestors once grew in the field next to them, and carried from great distances in order to have with them at their new settlement. I love your channel and don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t able to tell all of these great stories to my family while we eat. It’s a part of our weekly routine…from dad😊
Thanks for the episode! I really like those stories/accounts like the funeral because it's such a small dot on the scale of human history it does help you connect and realize that there's very little difference between humans now and centuries ago. I LOVE THIS PART OF THE SHOW IT'S SO GOOD PLEASE KEEP IT UP YOU DO SUCH A GOOD JOB!
I do, I want my death to be as much work as possible, been joking about when the day comes, when one gets the final words from the doctor, to blow myself up in a public place (when no one’s out ofc), just to be hanging in smal smal fragments smelling foul for days.. what a way to be remembered.
A big feast with food, drink, fornication and a bonfire, what's not to love? I mean we can leave out the sacrifices, but the rest of it sounds like how I would like to go out.
A bread of the dead Finely sifted Softly kneeded To master memory Of the long lost warrior To see them on their way to a heroic rest A loaf for the no longer alive Longed for by their long ship A sweet memorial of two sea sisters In Oseberg a 70 feet long ship Their ranks, relationships and provisions offering mystery And divinely offered foods
the gruesome parts of that history are just wild, but thanks for not leaving it out! also when i first saw the bread the first thought that came to mind was naan it looks a lot like naan but the ingredients are different.
Like a lot of comments are saying, I'm also grateful to you for sticking to the history and telling it like it is (was?). It's safe to say you can trust your gut with these kind of decisions, your channel is fantastic and it's growing so quickly! There's no point in having history if it's all censored for comfort.
Today’s video is not one to watch with the kids. At least the last part of the history section. It gets a little dark, but I give a warning when it’s about to do so.
Love your videos bro
LOVE your videos max! Thanks For this one❤❤❤❤❤
Well I've been watching your show since the semi beginning so I'm tough
Thanks,
Vikings were not patriarchical, but both patriarchical and matriarchical. Females were just as important as gods/godesses as men. This also applies in viking daily lifes. Please correct this going forward.
If you do bake it until it's like a cracker, you'll end up with traditional Scandinavian crackerbread (knekkebrød), and yes, they traditionally had holes in the middle so they could be stored on poles in the rafters of the house, safely away from mice and rats, and to hang above the hearth where smoke and the heat kept them dry and free of bugs and pests.
had tack?
@@advanceringnewholder No, crackerbread, while very dry, is much lighter and more eatable than hard tack
Pettuleipa in Finland is made the same way, but with a mixture of pine inner bark flour, oat flour, and rye flour.
@@akrinornoname2769 at least for the kind you can buy in stores here (I believe it's a Swedish brand), I think it most closely resembles a triscuit. Awfully dry of course, but not unpalatable and it's quite nice with cheese and/or jam.
... *clack clack* @@advanceringnewholder
Thank you for not shying away from the more gruesome aspects of history to make it more palatable. History is ultimate just people, and it can get dark. Thank you as well for warning people.
Completely agreed. This is a story I will likely think of a lot in the days to come. And I am very happy about that. It's a gruesome, yet strangely touching and very personal bit of history. The customs of a long-vanished people, doing as they thought was best.
In short - thank you for including it, Max! :D
Please keep in mind as well to not engage in presentism though, a lot of people make this mistake and act like they're superior or enlightened than people in the past
@@ChristoffRevan True, while societies have changed countless times, we have remained the same species for longer than recorded history, and we do all still have things in common with people of eras gone. The advanced societies we have now are built on the shoulders of old ones.
@@ChristoffRevan We *are* superior in every measurable way. We can create a sun on top of our enemies we can put a man on the moon and then bring him back safely we can cross any ocean any desert and any sky. What can any nation alive or dead do to claim they are superior? do they have more gold? no. do they have more food? no. do they have any greater understanding of the world or wider universe? no. Stop trying to make it seem like "were all just people bro." were not and objective reality isn't something to be ashamed of or feel guilty about.
Yeah, I appreciate it too! I can only imagine the kinks that culture had, with such a... lively traditional end lol.. From the way our friend Fadlan describes it, I can't even imagine what the poor slave girl's thoughts were. Did she truly love her lord, and wished to honor him? Stockholm, maybe? Or was it just a sweet release from a miserable existence? Not to get.. weird, but.. I'd be curious what the thoughts of the slave girl was as well as the other women in the culture about the.. 'merriment' with all of those men. I mean... I think I have a pretty good idea, but on the other hand people are so complex that it makes me wonder sometimes. Regardless, this story was morbidly fascinating!
Anthony Boudrain once said " It was a long, bloody road to this cup of coffee", in reference to coffee's history. This is true for a lot of the foods we have at our disposal today. It's important to keep things like this in mind. Gives you context for the world we live in now, and where we were before.
Max's two episodes on sugar really bring home the horrible history of sugar cultivation, and his decision to not shy away from that was what really cemented his status as historian in my mind.
The whole history of food explorers is interesting. I just finished The Food Explorer: The True Adventure of the Globe Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats by Daniel Stone. It centers on the United States and the USDA but it is fascinating and I am sure reflects the way foods and cooking styles have migrated around the world.
Love me some Bourdain, he was a modern philosopher. Coffee, sugar, chocolate, yeah, it's dark. Still is unfortunately.
I didn’t realize how bloody the history of bananas was until recently.
im not sure how that sentiment applies to this video.
I have a degree in religious studies from Denmark (kind of corresponding to a major in undergrad but with 3,5 years of pure religious studies) and focused on learning Old Norse and reading this stuff, and I must say: This is probably the best and most matter-of-fact presentation of pre-Christian Scandinavian burials I've ever encountered outside of an academic setting. I could literally not have done it better myself, and I spent the best part of two years reading these myths, historical accounts, and papers about the archeological evidence. Bravo!
Hope you read this, Max, big kudos to you! Have enjoyed your videos for a while now, and this cements your place in my mind as an excellent presenter of history.
As a fellow "history buff" with this era as special intrest I can only agree. Very well done!
I'm glad you didn't censor the darker parts of the funeral. Understanding history involves the good and the bad.
It only took over a year to finally get the thesis statement of the show said aloud "I have nothing in common with a viking from the 10th century, except I do. He eats. I eat." Simply put, but eloquently said. Hell Yeah.
Max plunders the world for riches but uses charms, not arms.
Long before this channel I wondered over how one could taste a culture through it's food. *Far from an original revelation I'm sure. Beer is my favorite go-to for this method of travel and exploration but I suppose bread and garum works too.
I remember awhile ago, when this channel was a side gig for Max... He did talk about wanting to share a meal that would have been at a event in time, and also about the artwork he has for this.... Then he had to make the call to go back working for the mouse or leave the company all together.... I do think it is very cool as he makes history something we all can share in with a bit of a story and then sitting down with the food.... I know they can trace my dad's side of the family back to 1300's Sweden, so odds are this is helping me understand my forefathers.....
When he said that I thought of this;
"“The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by the question 'Where shall we have lunch?”
From Douglas Adams.
@@mikespangler98 This is one of those cases like Max described in the previous video, where one has never heard of a thing (I am ashamed to admit I have never read Douglas Adams) and then comes across it twice in the same day. You were second.
As a history teacher from Norway with a passion for all things norse I can say that this was interesting and nuanced. No glorification or macho approach. Only food and culture.
What did you think of the series "Vikings" and "Vikings Valhalla"?
@@maryroberts9315 As a Norwegian it's very unrealistic. It's Scandinavian Game of Thrones.
I once knew a man who was Swedish American. He was a Navy vet who served in World War 2. After a long life and a long career as a History PHD. He terrified the HOA by announcing that he wanted to recieve a Viking funeral when he passed.
Sure enough when he died a small replica longboat appeared on the lake near his house. The HOA lost it's mind until they learned that he had been cremated. His friends rowed out aways and had a toast of mead to their friend put his ashes over the side drank another round and returned.
I like to think he was laughing at the buffoons on the HOA board from Valhalla. 😂
HOAs are so stupid
I can’t stand HOAs usually. What right does someone have to tell you what you can and can’t do on your property that you own and pay for just because someone else doesn’t like it? Obviously as long as the behavior is legal and not harming anyone else.
Damn, those are some good friends!
Good for your friend! I bet he was laughing from Valhalla!
@@terminallumbago6465 They can be scummy for sure, but ideally you choose to live in an HOA because you like the rules. You don't want your neighbors playing loud music at 2AM or cluttering up the street with 20+ cars. You don't want to look at a rusting boat and other junk in their front yard. Maybe you like the idea of only being able to paint your house one of 15 approved colors and want the grass cut weekly or biweekly, especially if it means your neighbors have to do the same (if you've seen some really ugly yellow or pink houses you might agree, or the people who abandon their yard so it's all overgrown and full of weeds with the house falling apart).
Odds are if you don't like it there is a cheaper option elsewhere. HOA cost more money to live in than normal neighborhoods.
I live in a condo which is in a lot of ways even more strict since you don't own the exterior, I think the most you can do here is plant some flowers and put decorations on your patio. You never have to do yard work though or worry about the snow.
I knew going into this that you’d include ibn Fadlan’s account, as it is literally the most accurate recording of a Viking funeral’s events we have, but I am both surprised and very grateful that you went all the way with it, and didn’t cut any of it out for fear of demonetization or anything.
Something I always imagine about whenever I see Max's videos, and him trying to recreate a recipe as close as he can to the original, is the people Max talks about getting happy and ecstatic - "Yes, we were here! We lived! We laughed! We told stories, same as you! Thank you for not forgetting us!"
This makes me kind of emotional to think about
What a beautiful and hopeful sentiment ❤
Really history is just people. Even though we may be separated by time, culture, language, social status, etc. we are not that different. We have the same needs, triumphs, struggles, etc. We are all human.
While none of us lived in the Viking Age, and our funeral practices are quite different from theirs, we can all relate because we’ve all lost people and have ways of sending them off and saying goodbye in the established practices of our own cultures.
Max! I am Khalil, a Lebanese American Historian and I am a professor at the American University of Beirut! I have Phonecian recipes researched and will be emailing you some info. I would love for you to do a Phonecian dish episode!
Greetings professor, I was accepted into American University Beirut back in 1987. Needless to say I did not matriculate but I always wonder how things would have gone if I had.
That sounds awesome. Say what would syou say based on your research are unique characteristics of Phoenicean cuisine.
Yes! Max! You must do one!
Awesome!
+1, would love to see an episode on the foods of the people who invented the alphabet!
The pop culture Viking funeral is a mash up of two different Viking funerals. The burning comes from Fadlan, but the launching off onto the whale road comes from Beowulf. Thing is, the launching of the boat (Homaged, like almost all of Beowulf, in "The Lord of the Rings" when Boromir's body is sent down the river) did not involve burning. It was just sent into the sea.
Was just going to point this out!!! The ship burning did not happen on water!!
Fun fact: the Atli mentioned in the excerpts is none other than Atilla the Hun. The vikings simply saw him as another warlord, foreign yes, but with battle prowess that demanded respect. In fact, his fame amongst vikings was so widespread that he shows up in several unrelated myths.
There is also a community of mongols that emigrated to the viking lands (yes i know its a verb but anyway) same wat many vikings emigrated to the byzantian empire
I can't remember exactly who said it but this applies. " If you truly want to know a people's history study their food. It will tell you things even they have forgotten."
what you said at around 20:00 is why i love this channel so much. eating and food is such an everyday, human thing, and learning about what people from decades to millenia ago ate opens a window to their lifes more than any history book could, it makes them and their lifes feel so much more real, tangible and human and relatable, i dont know how to explain it im not good with words, but through this channel more than anything else ive gained that feeling that the past really happened, that there were people before me who were just like me, who lived and ate and who had their own lives and hopes and dreams, idk. i really love and appreciate your work max, thank you.
As a swede, my first connotation to the bread having a hole in the middle and being strung onto something is probably that it was hung up to dry. That is still how knäckebröd (crispbread) is traditionally made, though you "thread" large rounds of the bread on a wooden dowel and hang them up to dry. I haven't looked into this, though.
I also thought the Rus were specifically from Roslagen (earlier Roden), which was basically the eastern-most coastal areas of modern Sweden. Both 'Rus' and 'Roslagen/Roden' stemming from a term for 'men that row', and these areas were very early on organised into geographical units based on manning a rowed ship.
I can see a selection of dried bread, hung up to avoid it getting spoilt or eaten by rodents being something a Viking might take on a long journey, to the afterlife or otherwise. A bit like hard tack.
@@mattheweagles5123 It's also just a method to store bread for later. People did this until the 20th century. Look up knäckebröd as @DoctorEth mentions.
@@mattheweagles5123 It was absolutely done to avoid rodents. The Knäckebröd is very similar to the viking bread recipe, and like hard tack it was something they did here to get through the winters when they could not get access to grain. It would hang from a rafter in the cooking area, often on a wooden pole, and they would just snap one of the wheels off when needed.
The hole now is mainly to hark back to the olden days but if you buy a full wheel of the bread the majority of it will come with a hole in the middle.
Also going back to max, they usually make it with water, but you can also find it made with cream, again the recipe is very similar and I'd say it is almost certainly very similar to the flat breads they would have eaten way back then.
Yeah there are a lot of folk etymologies trying to connect certain groups of Vikings to certain places based on names, like the supposed Roslagen/Rus connection or the claim the word "viking" comes from the fact the first vikings were from Viken, but they're usually much later and lack any actual evidence. There's no evidence for where the Scandinavian elites among the Rus originated, probably in no small part because they came from many places all over rather than a single unit with a single origin. There is a sense that people from modern-day Sweden tended to dominate the Baltic and Volga regions while people from modern-day Norway and Denmark were more dominant on the Western Seaboard of Europe, however even that is pretty vague and nebulous and it certainly would be going too far to try and connect the Rus to any specific region within Sweden. "Scandinavia, probably mostly Sweden" is about the most we can realistically say, anything beyond that is just speculation at best.
Yes the soul of scandinavia the knekkebrød
As GW In a book said the bits that Are essential for Nordic is butter , cheese , knackbrod , herring and dill .
Over here bread like that also been hang up to dry for long time .
"A charred body bobbing in the water" has got to be one of my favorite descriptions you have ever made.
The hand gesture really sells it!
I laughed in that graveyard humor way
Classic Max. That's why we love this channel and i like how he doesn't make it overly dramatic. Yea this is a very freakish story but he tells without it feeling like exploiting it for titilation
Memories of Half-Life 2.
When he talked about the flexibility of the bread and said "If you bake it longer, it will be more like a cracker", I half expected a hardtack reference. I'm almost disappointed.
Same!😅
Key word: almost. Given the topic of the video, I think Max made a good call with leaving out the hardtack reference. It's usually a positive and funny interjection, which really would clash with the theme of this episode.
the hardtack gag is only effective with explicit references to hardtack. a good creative choice here, as it's almost overplayed at this point. less is more!
*KLACK-KLACK
He has high standards for the hardtack clip.
A cracker is not hardtack.
You can break a cracker.
This is the most philosophical episode of the show I've ever seen, and I absolutely loved it. Food, in our everyday life, is a way we commune with our family and members of our community. It's a way we commune with our ancestors, a way we commune with our great grandmas we never got to meet but still get to taste her recipe for biscuits. Sometimes, at it's best it's a way to commune with absolute strangers, either those here now or those from long ago. Food is art, and like all art it connects people, but unlike some forms of art it is absolutely universal. Thanks for making this show, Max, thanks for your humanity and thanks for connecting us with the humanity of those who came long before us. You're a gem.
20:40 "I eat, he ate, I eat" for some reason made this real for me, it opened my eyes to the direct connection to someone from thousands of years ago... what a great video! keep up the great work!! Also, small suggestion for another video: maybe a handful of discovered frozen individuals like Ötzi or Tollund Man..
He's done an Otzi video
Interesting note: The first part of "Eaters of the Dead" by Michael Crichton--which was made into the movie "The Thirteenth Warrior"--is directly from ibn Fadlan's notes. (The test is a re-telling of "Beowulf.")
A certified hood classic.
I’ve read the book several times since my youth, but have still not seen the movie!
@@fepatton Its insanely underrated
@@fepatton You should. It's a fun movie to watch.
“Lo, there do I see my father.
Lo, there do I see my mother,
and my sisters, and my brothers.
Lo, there do I see the line of my people,
Back to the beginning!
Lo, they do call to me.
They bid me take my place among them,
In the halls of Valhalla!
Where the brave may live forever!"
"Nabeeth" is tha arabic word for any alcoholic drink that is left to be fermented in order to become alcoholic, but mostly it is used specifically for grapes or dates alcoholic drinks. In modern days, it is used specifically for "wine"
Would a fermented date wine taste a bit like a mead? Dates are very sweet after all
@@mattheweagles5123 Usually different things produce their own unique flavor when fermented. Most of the time the drinks ends up tasting different than the item itself. So, who knows
proof?
@@user-oy4lk7fd9w look it up yourself it’s not that hard to find. Google “what is nabidh”
@@user-oy4lk7fd9w look it up yourself it’s not that hard to find. Google “what is nabeeth”
Really good episode! I love that you didn't shy away from the grim details, but gave a warning. A lot of Viking stuff and pretty brutal.
You hit the nail on the head about food history and history history. Food is such a vital part of every day life, and so universal to the experience of being human, no matter when or where you are from.
There is an old tradition in Sweden to have "knäckebröd" (a kind of hard, flat bread, round, and with a hole in the middle) hanging on a rod in the roof close to the fireplace (traditionally to keep them dry and perhaps to keep them away from rodents too). You can see these rods of bread in history books and museums. This kind of bread is still made with holes in the middle, even though most people don't keep them hanging in the roof nowadays.
If the bread gets stale, just make it into a sort of porridge by putting it in a broth of some kind. Nice to have on it's on or with salted pork.
Yes, we still do that...
A Norwegian friend of mine eats it with pickled and dilled herring.
Bread porridge - part of my grandfather's generation, to be sure, but I don't know anyone who has made it in my time. I know some people still do, thanks to the internet, but by and large it's a thing of the past. Just like blood pancakes.
I do it with leftover hard stale bread. Sometimes with milk eggs and bacons, sometimes with tomato @@itskarl7575
@@itskarl7575people still put croutons or crackers in soup, knuckebrod, too! Blood pancakes, on the other hand, yeah, not so popular.
So just like how people used hard tack... this is interesting.
I suppose it would also be undignifying (and kinda creepy) if tide changes and the funeral ship floated back ashore with a burning corpse.
Considering that they were sailors, it’s unlikely that they would be so careless as to send out the ship on an unfavorable tide.
Their certainty that the dead would be carried to the afterlife by the wind within an hour (which wouldbe hard to believe in a windless day), as well as the amount of time they'd have to spend planning all this, makes me think they chose the time of the burial as precisely as they could.
@@anna9072 What if they drank too much mead though.
The reference to Atlamal made me clap with joy, I immediately recognised the quotation and shouted "Max you didn't?!" And restarted that section. I studied reading and analysing old Norse texts during my master's and am now adapting a combination of Atlakvida and Atlamal into a modern play. These videos always make my nerdy heart happy but I love how well you cover Viking history-can always trust Max to use proper sources and dispell the dumb perceptions ♥️
A very well done episode. And very considerate with the “viewer discretion” warning. Thanks for being so respectful of your audience.
Somebody may have pointed this out already, but in the beginning of "The 13th Warrior" the account of the funeral witnessed by Ahmad Ibn Fadlan is sorta portrayed, and perhaps part of that novel was based on Fadlan's account of his contact with Northmen who had gone a "Viking".
Precisely!
"Lo, do I see my father, and my mother, my sisters and my brothers! Tante Signe and Onkel Oscar, and here comes..."
And the rest is a bet made by Michael Crichton that he could made Beowulf exciting.
my husband's favorite movie
@@phillygirldiane8315mine as well!!! I am pretty sure in know it by heart.
At the end of it he is told that "These are the old ways you shall not see it again". Thats because they didnt have TH-cam.
Do not apologize for any of this video!! The Viking Funeral History absolutely did tie in to Food History and we all (Your faithful Fans!!!) very much enjoyed the entire video. Your determination to fully and truthfully research each food topic, along with the History which surroundeds it, greatly impressises us and we all learn so much. Im a Historical Archaeologist and I have learned all sorts of History watching your show!!! Keep the History and the amazing Food coming!!! You're the BEST food history/cooking show on TH-cam - bar none.
I and my entire Family absolutely LOVE YOU and watch every episode - some more than once. GOD Bless and keep You ❤
he didn't
I agree with Dawn. Dawn what area of the world do you work in as a Archaeologist if you do not mind me asking??? Max you did a good job as always tie a event in time to the food that would have been eaten/drank at the event... I think this is the most in-depth video I have seen of what a real Viking Funeral was like.... They can trace my dads side of the family to a town that was destroyed in 1300, and then the last name was a common one for the area..... Thank you Max for shining a light to a most likely part of my dad's side of the family tree..........
Agreed. It's very interesting.
Great points! It was heartbreaking to hear about the slave girl and of course they had to get her drunk and take her from yurt to yurt to be raped. But that’s the history. It astounds me that women have even persisted this long with every horrible atrocity that has been done to us in every culture all over the planet. That young woman was in a way my foremother and I am glad to know of her life.
@@KaylaNoelle1 and who knows if it even happened, when all we have is an account from a person we may or may not be able to trust. Remember that the story was not based on archeological findings so take it with a grain of salt
My parents used to make flat bread at the fire when i was a kid, on flat stone or directly on the coal when we where out fishing. wheat flour, salt and buttermilk. going to make some the next hunting trip, got a bit of nostalgia watching this. So easy to do as you make the dough at home and keep in a bag for a couple of days if you keep it chilled, or mix the dry ingredients in a bag and just add the milk(works with water too, but not as good) and kneed it in the bag when you need it.
Hello. This is a fantastic camping idea! Thanks
You could add dry milk into your mixture and just add water at the camping site, save you a lot of weight with out loosing taste.
Knead it when you need it.
That's a great travel bread slogan. You should market that!!!
@@janhugo Sounds like a great idea.
The Gauchos in Uruguay make this and would carry it around for hunting
I made a similar bread once. The recipe came from an archeologist who was studying the early Norse. He called them Proto-norse. It was made of equal amounts of Oats and Rye, water and fat. They got this by analyzing the bread remains found in these proto-norse homes that were excavated. It was easy to make, I cooked them on a dry griddle. They tasted good. Oh, they were also made with a hole in the center for stringing up between rafters. They are great with butter and lingonberry jam.
Butter and lingonberry jam improve almost anything baked!
I've never heard of lingonberry..What type of berry are they?
@@Lazydaisy646 lingonberry, they're a bit like cranberries.
@@Lazydaisy646 It's a traditional Norse berry. You can usually get them in US supermarkets in the baking aisle. it's a favorite or modern Norwegians, Swedes, Fins and Danes.
That disclaimer of yours after the history bit is quite insightful. Also I'm glad you don't skip the more complicated parts of history related to your content, which I feel is important in historical research.
just as it is better to describe a wedding celebration when making a wedding cake.. it makes sense to describe a funeral when making funeral bread... bravo
Max, your explanation of how food & history inform each other is one of the reasons I got into historical cooking. I've always loved history & food. Much of "old school" history & archaeology tends to focus on the kings, emperors, chiefs & general big cheeses. I'll never live their lives, but I can eat like them. Also I've generally been more interested in the everyday folk & how they lived. so I can vicariously glimpse their lives through preparing their food in the ways they did & hopefully enjoy it. It was one of my favourite parts of reenactment. It's also one of the reasons I think your channel is so good; it's well presented, authentic & you take your time to research & learn how to pronounce things properly. Food is a constant in all our lives & is often our own personal time machine where scents & tastes transport us to happier times in our own lives or to the far off lands & times of others. Those Proustian madeleine moments.
Wow, Max. Just Wow.
I went through grade school in Norway in the late sixties, and the textbooks were eager to tell us all about the Vikings, and how they "heroically" conquered even "The Lands to the East" (i.e. Russia; "The Big Red Scare" at the time).
We were taught very little about the Vikings' other, grisly practices.
I am amazed and impressed at the research you obviously put into your videos. This is one where I KNEW some of the facts, but you still taught me more.
This being the Net, I'm sure quibbles will be made, but MAN, what a history lesson, Max. Thank you!
As a Swede who went through grade school in the late noughties, I'd say our education in regards to the vikings was pretty evenhanded (though nowhere near as graphic as this, of course).
Vikings were the ISIS of ye olden days.
Poor thralls, that's horrific. I feel they must have inherently known it wasn't great if they were banging loud enough to drown out the cries. The bread looks delicious and would be great with some curry.
thank the Catholic Church for the end of those practices
Ibn Fadlan is a trash source so it is safe to say it is likely fictious
@@Gunitz89And for the crusades?
@@ActionCow69 The crusades were great!
@@Gunitz89 As a Catholic myself, no they were not. They were a war, and a bloody one at that. People were told that if they died in the Crusades, all their sins would be forgiven, yet the Bible itself says that stealing and killing another are both sins (see ten commandments), and both of these happened on a regular basis in the Crusades. So it's fine to sin when a man tells you to, even after God said not to? Are we following the word of a man, or the word of God? Which is superior?
Now, I know a lot of people try to justify it because muslims were "expanding and stealing Christian territories and persecuting Christians". Actually, both Christians and Jews were allowed to freely and safely practice their respective religion under muslim rule. It only changed under the rule of Al Hakim, who forbade Christian and Jewish practices and killed those opposed to him, which, by the way, included Muslims too, so it wasn't necessarily about Christians but people opposed to him. Even the muslims of the time were so shocked by his ideas and behavior and found him so controversial that they wrote about it a lot. One of the things he did was force Christians and Jews to wear symbols and clothes that would point them as non-muslims, not unlike Hitler did with Jews (except Hitler claimed himself as a Christian).
But that Al Hakim guy died in 1021, and his son had the Church of the Holy Sepulchre rebuilt in a joint effort with the Romans, and the peace between religions came back. Christians were not persecuted anymore by the time the Pope started the Crusades in 1095, which was a whole 74 years after Al Hakim's death and the return to peace. In comparison, it would be the same as waging war on Germany now in a response to Hitler's rule. Kind of weird, right?
Let's also remember that the Pope did so because Alexios, the head of the Roman Empire at the time, asked for help regaining HIS roman territory. For him, it was never about Christianity. He was using the Pope to get a bigger army, and the Pope used Alexios and Alexios' army to get control over most of those reconquered territories under the pretext of a religion war, against the promise he made to Alexios to return said territories under Roman rule. Let's also not forget that in some parts of the Crusades, the Crusaders made no distinction between Muslims and Christians and killed both without a second thought (I think this happened in Egypt, but do not quote me on the location). Lots of men who participated in the crusades also did so not for religious reasons, but in order to gain territories, wealth and power overseas. Serfs also went to fight in the Crusades not for God, but because the Pope promised them freedom if they did.
So while a lot of men at the time were doing it for religious reasons, and THOUGHT they were justified and following God's orders, it wasn't the case for a lot of them, and it doesn't make the Crusades "great". It was just a regular conflict on which they slapped the "religion war" label in order to try and justify it, because Christians at the time had been opposed to wars in general, since the Bible advocated against it (again, the killing, stealing etc). It was bloody and caused a lot of suffering. Let's not even mention Constantinople, which was the biggest Christian city in 1204 and was attacked and ransacked by the Crusaders (Christians attacking Christians in a "religion" war? What the heck???). Those Crusaders pillaged and destroyed not only lots of artwork, but also CHURCHES, MONASTERIES and CONVENTS, and killed around 2,000 civilians in the span of 3 days (again, Christian civilians). How is that great?
I learn so much form your channel. Thanks!
Wow! Thank you so much.
Love getting these neat viking stories. I've been to Iceland and eaten their flatbread there many times, which still looks exactly like what you made. Usually we have it with butter and smoked lamb or salmon (smoked over sheep dung in the traditional way) or pickled herring. It's got such a unique set of flavors that just brings you back to gray, windy days looking out over the lava fields with just open horizon as far as the eye can sea and majestic mountains in the background.
Would love if you can do a future episode on the history of Jolakaka (Yule Cake) and the holiday traditions and myths of Iceland and of the Norse. There are some great stories to tell there, from the Jolabokaflodid (Yule Book Flood) tradition established in a newly independent Iceland just post WWII to the Yule Lads, Iceland's trollish children pranksters.
They did actually have a funeral pretty close to this on the show Vikings. The slave girl was slaughtered and everything. I can't remember her going yurt to yurt, or how she was killed on the boat (I don't think it was quite that brutal) but pretty similar. She was plied with drink and killed on board alongside her master.
Censorship
@@seankane8628 Or maybe some shred of human decency.
I love how you cut the music for the explaination because you can hear the genuine care in your voice! Amazing video! as always. Watched the linked video and...wow its grim.
Thank you for this well researched and nuanced video! I know you always do your research well, but with this topic I appreciate it even more because I do Viking Age living history and reenactment and it can be frustrating at times how much misinformation is floating around about Vikings and Norse culture due to terrible TV shows and people also doing really bad and unhistorical attempts at "reenactment" or SCA/Larp and calling it "authentic". So, thank you from the bottom of my heart for not perpetuating the seemingly endless cycle of misinformation!
I always appreciate how you try to authentically pronounce words from various other languages and cultures without anglicizing them, thank you!
As geek of history, your content is so interesting, even if l'm not cooking, l watch it for the story and description of the food. Truly, the videos are reliving of forgotten experience.
I really appreciated the content warning; I didn't skip that section, but it was great to have the heads up
Max, I have to say this was one of the best videos you have ever posted. Not just because it was interesting, very very interesting. But your explanation of how everything is intertwined! Thank you so much for that part of the video.❤
When I was living and working in Denmark from 2000-2003, I visited The Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde. It was really impressive. On another note, all of my Danish friends say that the Vikings stopped their raiding a plundering once they learned how to brew beer.
Even though our shortcomings, flaws, and injustices in modern society are many, I am still grateful I live in this century.
I'm saying!
real
Not just yes but heck yes!
It's so crazy to think that, for the vast majority of humankind, they did not deplore the idea of human sacrifice and humans as property as we do today.
Indeed. Not sure why people think things were wonderful in the past. Always the question, what’s wrong with people today? The answer is nothing; study history.
What you say about food history is I think also true of other less prestigious subfields, like fashion history. What do we have in common with early medieval nordic people? They ate, they made and wore clothing, they spoke to one another. Such subfields are like small prisms which reflect the whole society.
And even if it sounds trivial, we still worry about many of the same things they were worried about
What they’re wearing, eating, their language, their art, all these things tell us parts of their lives.
It helps to understand the humanity and the why people were the way they were.
As just one example: Considering that we’re crossing the 80 year mark, WW2 is becoming “old” history. Rationing of food and the clothing created because of rationing tells us much about how the people at home lived and survived the war.
I am lucky enough to have many photos of my great grandmother and young grandmother from that era, but they won’t last forever. Even with digital backups, things can be lost.
It’s more likely that fragments of textiles or whole garments might make it longer than my family photos do. That’s important to me!
Thank you for this. Not sure it's the right niche but if anyone's very much into Medievan Scandinavian warfare and culture I strongly recommend Schwerpunkt's relative content. Keep up the amazing work
I genuinely wish we had a way to find out if this one detailed account is a general overview, or if the tourist got dragged out to that one group with the extremist traditions for the shock value.
Like will humans in the future dig up one story of the tydepod challenge and decide we all willingly put poison in our mouths for no reason other than the attention?
Very interesting point!
I like your interpretation of Ibn Fadlan's account here. It could very well have been a one off event much like the "Tide Pod Challenge"... It could've been an Extremist tradition...
Ibn Fadlan definitely saw these people as Heathens as he was sent from the Abbasid Caliphate...
Much like how the Spanish chroniclers and conquistadors wrote about the Mesoamericans
I love the statement you made about how you talk about how food follows history. This is exactly why I have followed you since you had your start during COVID. I also want to mention, that you described a form of communion - eating the food, drinking the drinks etc to honor something bigger than us all, the history of humanity ❤ Love your book :)
Interesting fact: Michael Crichton wrote a book 'Eaters of the Dead' based on Ahmed's writings about the Norsemen and an adventure he had with them (the Vikings weren't eating dead people btw.). It was later made into a movie '13th Warrior' starring Antonio Banderas.
Butter was a big deal in the nordic countries.
It still is.
Have you heard about the Norwegian butter crisis in christmas 2011?
High status people have butter for their bread.
Common people use lard (pork fat) and a sprinkle of salt on a thick slice of rye.
That must be danish! We in Norway don`t eat rye bread, and absolutely not that very dark rye bread! And I always use real butter on my bread.
That's because butter is the best
Butter was also a way to store dairy for the winter. Look up bog butter. Every once in a while they'll find a 10 or 20 pound ball of butter submerged in a bog. Some of it is as much as 5000 years old and still edible. A bit strong and gamey but still wholesome.
BUTTERLANCE!!!
@@richdiddens4059 I'll try it!
You first ;)
You've truly developed as a great storyteller, Max. Great episode from a simple, humble bread.
Interestingly some modern Swedish crispbreads are still baked with the hole in the middle (although usually the (rather large) round wheels are then cut into wedges before being sold, so while I think it was for storage at one point now it's mostly just tradition).
They stack alright on store shelves that way. Not as well as squares, but you get that nice circle of stacked packets of bread, it's a neat presentation.
thank you max for including these stories, and for articulating why. as a historian the eternal question is "what is the same and what is different"? to feel similar, and to also attempt to understand a mindset beyond our own. thanks again for being my favourite channel on yt.
Thank you for the time stamp Max 🙏 I’m autistic and have a lot of trouble managing my emotions when faced with violence in any form so I really appreciate it 😊
This was very interesting. Even though quite gruesome, it is beneficial to see humanity in it's brutal forms to show us what we don't want to repeat. The bread looks really nutricious and simple, so I will try that! But just the bread...
One of the biggest benefits of being a teacher is being able to watch Tasting History videos the second they hit during summer 😊
Have you ever thought of doing a pregnancy foods through the ages vid? I know you're not planning on getting pregnant anytime soon, but there are some fascinating, gross, and weird things women have eaten to get pregnant, make it a certain gender, or consumed during labor (asparagus, 'groaning cakes', etc). Maybe for Mother's Day one year!
One of the biggest benefits of being a teacher is being able to watch these videos? SMH... you got a bucket of crap on your nose there. People need to stop it with the nonsense and parasocial relationships. Get a life and a grip.
That’d definitely be interesting !
My Dad once said he would want a Viking Funeral. I might just show him this...
Go get him some slaves to follow him then. Be a good son.
consider the prize of slave girls willing to die with her master in this economy🤔
Might wanna show your mom, too... 😅
Hahahaha true! As a strong proud Ndebele woman 🇿🇼 I doubt she is worried. Dad will rescind the request pretty quickly.
I will fire a fire arrow for him just for the sake.
@coffeeguyd
@@coffeeguyd well, it's a slave girl, not his wife, so since he doesn't have slaves that part would e skipped, like it most certainly was for more everyday folks ack then
Thank you for including even the darkest aspects of Ibn Fadlan's account of the Viking funeral.
I see it as a matter of respect towards those who have gone before to get as realistic a view as possible about their times, their cultures and what they went through in good times and bad, in essence how they lived and how they died.
It not only presents a new source of awe and appreciation (as well as horror) about the people of the past, but also provides a framework for appreciating our own culture; how far we have come and how far we could yet rise, or might fall back to.
Also, I think we have a tendency to overstate our differences to people of the past, partly justified concerning stark differences in cultures and worldviews, but then again oftentimes disregarding our shared humanity. Same as us the people of the past liked good food and good company, wanted to be safe from danger and harm, spend time with their loved ones and wanted to make the best of the opportunities life gave them. In that sense, we all had more in common with the Viking chieftain, Ibn Fadlan and the slave girl than we were different.
May we all learn as much as we can from the lessons history tries to teach us.
And thank you Max for doing your part. Your work is phenomenal and provides great value in entertainment, culinary delights and education. A true TH-cam gem.
Fun fact: "Viking" is a verb that means "Raiding". A person who does viking is a "Vikingr".
That part at the end about the slave girl is brutal. 😢
He warned you...
Yeah, I know.
Absolutely terrible
@@alperry02 it was, and more drawn out than I expected. I hope the person retelling it embellished a little.
If it makes you feel better, there's pretty much 0 evidence that ever actually happened. It sounds to me like something old Ibn made up, both for a more gruesome story and to reinforce biases against the "heathen" Norse.
Point of order: "viking" was a job description in pre-conversion Norse cultures, which encompassed piracy, raiding & pillaging, and trading, and the definitive trait was that they traveled on boats to do it. The majority of pagan Norse folk weren't vikings; they were thralls (essentially, forcibly indentured servants or slaves, but not in the chattel sense), freemen craftspeople and farmers, and so on. Going a-viking was an efficient way to get a bunch of wealth, and for many freemen and carls and so on it was also a way to perhaps die in battle and go to Valhalla or Folkvangr. (Those who die in battle were split between the two; the first is Odhinn's hall, the second is Freyja's field outside her own hall, Sussrumnir, where the Einherjar feast outdoors in a place forever green.) Neither Valhalla nor Folkvangr are "Viking heaven"; if you didn't die in battle and join the Einherjar, you went to Hel (or Helheim), which is not a place of punishment like Christian Hell, but a place where you could join your ancestors and family that did not die in battle… unless you were a thief, murderer, or, worst of all, an inhospitable host (seriously, to this day many Scandinavians shrug at an ancestor being a murderer but would be deeply ashamed if they learned an ancestor was a bad host), in which case you _were_ sent to a frozen hellscape.
Another thing is that belief in Valhalla might be more associated with the warrior type of norsemen. The hunting god Ullr is thought to have had one. But we don't know crap about him because he was probably more popular on the scandinavian mainland. Alot of places in Sweden are named after him.
Bad host? This is coming from a culture that refuses to feed guests.
One of my favorite descriptions of vikings was the tales of the city that flowed with gold where they would sell-sword. Byzantium, where the varangian guard was famously high skilled norseman and other vikings from up north
Hello. This information was enlightening to me Thank you!
Well I’m of Swedish Descent and was raised with many stories of olde and traditions. I was taught the Vikings were the one that went to sea and were raiders, traders, and plunderers. Some even abducting women to bring home. Well that’s what I got!
Correction, viking comes from people who lived in vik, as in the bay.
So no, most Norwegian Scandinavians would be Vikings, because the fjords where the best place to live in this god forsaken country.
Pretty certain this was the standard around the rest of scandinavia too.
Also no, not most where thrall. A thrall would be close to a slave. No society had more than 10% slaves.
Most where freemen.
This is very similar to the finnish bread rieska! It used to be served at parties in the western coast, made most often with barley flour. Great with a bit of butter and smoked whitefish!
Thanks!
Thank you!
Max, I've been a subscriber since you started out in 2020, when you only had around 38k followers. It's amazing to see how far you've come over the past 4 years. I love seeing your videos, and learning a little bit of history that I didn't know before. Your videos remind me of Bob Ross with the storytelling intertwined with his passion, painting. Keep doing what you do.
This story was a rough one but I love learning details of history from you, Max
As a Finn, my ancestors (the Sami, the indigenous Finns) did not do much other than do trading with the Vikings, with the occasional incursion by the Vikings. The Sami were sometimes referred to as mystics and healers… The Finns are not known for their cuisine, though are known for drinking copious amounts of coffee, and for salmiakki, or salted licorice. And of course there was a considerable language barrier.
The Sami genetics are nearly perfect in my eye.
I knew it. Max witnessed a real Viking funeral! In Roman times, he was Maximus Bestus of the guild of Millers. In the medieval era, he was Mäx Millerson. We'll eventually uncover his identity during the Renaissance and Enlightenment. At least in the future, we know he'll be Max ... IN SPACE!
Max Milletróni would tell in future how we ate hot pockets 😂
Just max and Keanu existing through all of human history and sometimes meeting up to eat tapas together
This may have been my favorite episode ever. I want to know everything about history, even the unpleasant stuff. I appreciate your honesty, and thank you so much for doing the research!
I've watched every episode so far on Tasting History, and I think this is one of my top 10 favorites, because, graphic or not, it sheds light on the day to day life of our ancestors. The food is so entwined with our culture they are inseparable, and these stories are just little windows into life as it actually was lived. Love your research and dedication to both food and history!
Never change your videos max, because of you I discovered how much I loved history and now I'm studying anthropology!! Love from Brazil 💚💛
Really enjoy the cat cameo during the ad segment 😂
hopefully Factor passes the “sniff test”
Tbh, when he said “squeamish”, I interpreted that as meaning blood and gore, not SA/SV. I’m still glad he gave some sort of warning though
This one was...wow. Incredible. Great job with the research, the delivery, and especially that statement at the end. Just beautiful.
These videos are awesome! I discovered your channel two days ago and have binge watched a few dozen already!
As an "ancient history" fan and also fan of all things culinary, i love the ones that deal with medieval amd Roman / Greek history the most.
Keep up the amazing work! This is definitely one of the best TH-cam channels that I've had the pleasure of discovering!
Michael Crichton wrote _Eaters of the Dead_ by adapting and combining Beowulf and Ahmad ibn Fadlan's account. Antonio Banderas plays Ahmad ibn Fadlan in _The 13th Warrior,_ the movie of the book by John McTiernan.
they recreated the funeral (a bit of it) in the movie
Just this morning I was saying to a coworker that when a particular scientific instrument finally dies and can't be fixed we would give it a Viking funeral. Ope nope, not any more! We will find a new, fun, no-slave-girl-or-animal-sacrifice-required method of honoring the decades of service of an inanimate object.
(Fun fact, some Viking did die on burning long ships, but that was when they tried to raid Constantinople and got hit with Greek fire. Also, they were still alive when the ships were set aflame, so not really the same.)
I think there are some Shinto practices I've heard about that honor the service of inanimate objects with far less bloodshed involved. Perhaps something inspired by those would be more appealing?
Max: “Now if you bake it longer…”
Me: (waiting for the clack clack)
Max: “…it’ll be more like a cracker.”
Me: You had the perfect opportunity to use the clack clack and you didn’t use it.
A plague on your house!
Just kidding, Max.
I also think food history is incredibly important because it offers a glimpse into what life was like at various points of history in various places. Food is such a huge part of life, both the mundane and the extraordinary. It’s what brings people together. It’s what creates such powerful memories and emotions, both good and bad, even in our own lives. You can tella lot about how people were living based on what they were eating and drinking.
You have always impressed me, Max, with your ability to combine historical matter with food. Your decision to go ahead with that grim story which adds to the complexity of what you are telling overall is admirable. There ARE dark and even scary things that are part of our history. Ignoring or cleaning them up is dishonest and deprives everybody of context. Thanks again.
In Finland it was historically common to hang bread to dry on wooden dowels up on the rafters. A cow horn was used to poke a large hole in the middle of the dough, then the wheel of bread was baked and the batch was put up to dry. That way the bread could keep for much longer.
Hunans can be such horrible beings, poor girl, its so sad a human had to go through that
My only hope is she was too drunk to really take anything in.
Yeah and what about the innocent animals ? They are not even raised animals for eating. (That’s for survival obviously, fine.). No it’s just useless killing. Sacrifices are so f’ing idiotic. All for moronic beliefs.
@@HPKazanyeah I agree, but killing a human like this is on a completely different level. Disgusting!
Do not watch the Aztec Tamale episode.
I wish I hadn’t watched that part :( when Max said it would be graphic, I thought he meant gore or something. I didn’t know a young girl would be taken advantage of multiple times :(
Dont apologize for the history. That's why we are here.
History is nasty grimey and brutal that's why I love it.
One of your best episodes yet! The food connection is there, as well as the harsh reality of this time period and these communities. Thank you for what you do!
Fantastic video Max and thank you José for the captions. I liked that you put the warning in all caps.
This was an intriguing episode. Such a simple bread that is connected to such a significant occasion. That is the best part of your channel, that you connect the food and history no matter how slight the connection is.
This one I think has a deeper connection then you implied. Funerary food was such a huge tradition for so very many cultures, even today! I know here in Western culture that while we don't give the deceased while feasts anymore some people will place the favorite food or candy in the casket. My father got some salt water taffy. After there is still the food for the living.
Food is intricately enmeshed in life. As you said; you eat, he eats, you eat... Life must consume to survive but learning what they ate in the past gives us a deeper understanding. Because we can do as you have and make the same food as they did.
😊 keep eating!
❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍
Hell yeah! I’ve been busy unfortunately during the release of the last few videos so I’m happy to be back and enjoying a new episode fresh of the press!
Thank you for covering this one honestly, ibn Fadlan's account is brutal.
Hoo boy. When Max said it gets worse, it does. I don't regret it, but the squeamish should jump to the 21:00 mark.
We as people have come a long way since the beginning of sitting at tables and eating what our ancestors once grew in the field next to them, and carried from great distances in order to have with them at their new settlement.
I love your channel and don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t able to tell all of these great stories to my family while we eat. It’s a part of our weekly routine…from dad😊
Thanks for the episode! I really like those stories/accounts like the funeral because it's such a small dot on the scale of human history it does help you connect and realize that there's very little difference between humans now and centuries ago.
I LOVE THIS PART OF THE SHOW IT'S SO GOOD PLEASE KEEP IT UP YOU DO SUCH A GOOD JOB!
Don't worry about straying away from food. Food is everywhere in human life now and through history. Wonderful video❤❤❤
I’ve never heard of someone aspire to a Viking funeral but then you learn something new everyday 😂
A lot of people say that, but they don’t know what it is lol
My father jokingly said he would want one. I don't think he knows what one really is...
I do, I want my death to be as much work as possible, been joking about when the day comes, when one gets the final words from the doctor, to blow myself up in a public place (when no one’s out ofc), just to be hanging in smal smal fragments smelling foul for days.. what a way to be remembered.
A big feast with food, drink, fornication and a bonfire, what's not to love? I mean we can leave out the sacrifices, but the rest of it sounds like how I would like to go out.
You obviously don't know many Heathens
A bread of the dead
Finely sifted
Softly kneeded
To master memory
Of the long lost warrior
To see them on their way to a heroic rest
A loaf for the no longer alive
Longed for by their long ship
A sweet memorial of two sea sisters
In Oseberg a 70 feet long ship
Their ranks, relationships and provisions offering mystery
And divinely offered foods
the gruesome parts of that history are just wild, but thanks for not leaving it out! also when i first saw the bread the first thought that came to mind was naan it looks a lot like naan but the ingredients are different.
Like a lot of comments are saying, I'm also grateful to you for sticking to the history and telling it like it is (was?). It's safe to say you can trust your gut with these kind of decisions, your channel is fantastic and it's growing so quickly! There's no point in having history if it's all censored for comfort.