Yggdrasil · Humankind
The People Behind the Bread
Grain, bread, porridge and beer in the Viking Age: a regional overview of daily food, not one household.
The story
Thematic connection: this is a general picture of everyday food, not the story of one household or one person.
Most meals in the Viking Age began with grain. It was kept whole and ground when needed, then cooked as porridge, baked as bread or brewed into beer. Rye and barley were among the most important cereals, with oats and others grown too. Flatbreads could be cooked over an open fire, and ovens in ordinary households became more common toward the end of the period. Because grinding was repeated again and again, it was part of the rhythm of nearly every home.
The sources used here describe the work, not the workers. They do not say who ground, baked or brewed, and this entry does not either. It is tied to no god. Grain and bread simply show the daily labour that stood behind a meal, in the same world as the myths.
- National Museum of Denmark, Bread and porridge in the Viking Age (opens in a new tab), page title: Bread and porridge in the Viking Age Rights: Web page cited, text not reproduced.
- P. Carelli and P. Kresten, Acta Archaeologica 68 (1997); introduction on Medievalists.net, Give us this day our daily bread: A study of Late Viking Age and Medieval Quernstones in South Scandinavia (opens in a new tab), introduction Rights: Web page cited, text not reproduced.
What we know, and what we do not
What is recorded: grain, porridge, flatbread and beer were part of daily food in the region, and grinding tools were common in homes. This is a regional overview, drawn mainly from Denmark and southern Scandinavia. It does not describe any one farm, and practice will have differed by place, wealth and year.
What is not recorded: who did the grinding, baking and brewing. Some popular writing assigns brewing to women, but the museum sources do not, and this entry assigns the work to no gender or status. The exact mix of rye and barley is also debated. Modern demonstration recipes for Viking-style bread or ale are reconstructions, not authentic recipes, since no recipe from the period survives.
- National Museum of Denmark, Bread and porridge in the Viking Age (opens in a new tab), page title: Bread and porridge in the Viking Age Rights: Web page cited, text not reproduced.
- P. Carelli and P. Kresten, Acta Archaeologica 68 (1997); introduction on Medievalists.net, Give us this day our daily bread: A study of Late Viking Age and Medieval Quernstones in South Scandinavia (opens in a new tab), introduction Rights: Web page cited, text not reproduced.
The evidence
The National Museum of Denmark’s page on bread and porridge names rye and barley as the most important cereals, with oats, millet and wheat also grown. It describes flatbreads baked over a fire or in a pan, and says ovens became common in households only near the end of the period. Its page on beer says beer was made from barley.
Carelli and Kresten’s 1997 study of late Viking-age and medieval quernstones in southern Scandinavia calls porridge and bread by far the two most important parts of the diet, notes that grain was usually stored unground and ground as needed, and suggests the quern was as central to the household as the well and the hearth.
- National Museum of Denmark, Bread and porridge in the Viking Age (opens in a new tab), page title: Bread and porridge in the Viking Age Rights: Web page cited, text not reproduced.
- National Museum of Denmark, Beer and mead (opens in a new tab), page title: Beer and mead Rights: Web page cited, text not reproduced.
- P. Carelli and P. Kresten, Acta Archaeologica 68 (1997); introduction on Medievalists.net, Give us this day our daily bread: A study of Late Viking Age and Medieval Quernstones in South Scandinavia (opens in a new tab), introduction Rights: Web page cited, text not reproduced.