flipEplaskífur þurrkaðar — fire-dried apple rings
Eplaskífur þurrkaðar — fire-dried apple rings
Why this dish? Idunn IS the keeper of the golden apples of youth, which she preserves in her ash-wood casket (eski). Drying apples to keep them through winter is the most direct domestic echo of her myth: preserving the fruit means preserving life when the orchard sleeps under snow.
Thin slices of tart apples slowly dried until supple and concentrated like soft leather. A store of sweetness that lasts through winter—to nibble, to soak, to slip into porridge.
See my ash-wood casket: it keeps the fruits when the trees grow bare. I slice the apples into thin moons, remove their cores, and hang them near the fire until they become supple as summer leather. Thus I hold the bright season locked within the cold dark; in the blackest winter, one bite and you taste again the branches in bloom. This is my whole office: that nothing of youth be lost.
- •Wild or orchard apples (small, tart) — as many as the casket holds (sole fruit)
Eplaskífur þurrkaðar — fire-dried apple rings
Thin slices of tart apples slowly dried until supple and concentrated like soft leather. A store of sweetness that lasts through winter—to nibble, to soak, to slip into porridge.
Why this dish? Idunn IS the keeper of the golden apples of youth, which she preserves in her ash-wood casket (eski). Drying apples to keep them through winter is the most direct domestic echo of her myth: preserving the fruit means preserving life when the orchard sleeps under snow.
See my ash-wood casket: it keeps the fruits when the trees grow bare. I slice the apples into thin moons, remove their cores, and hang them near the fire until they become supple as summer leather. Thus I hold the bright season locked within the cold dark; in the blackest winter, one bite and you taste again the branches in bloom. This is my whole office: that nothing of youth be lost.
Ingredients (period version)
- Wild or orchard apples (small, tart) — as many as the casket holds (sole fruit)
Ingredients
- Tart apples (e.g., Boskoop, Reine des Reinettes) — 6 apples (sole fruit)
- Juice of one lemon (optional, for color) — 1 (prevents browning)
Method
- Preheat the oven to 70–80 °C (fan, door slightly ajar)—the gentle version of hearth-drying.
- Wash the apples, core them with an apple corer, and slice into thin rings 3–4 mm thick (with the skin).
- Briefly dip the rings in lemon water if you want to keep a light color, then pat dry.
- Arrange them without touching on a rack lined with parchment paper.
- Dry for 4–6 hours, turning halfway, until supple and not sticky.
- Let cool completely and store in an airtight jar or cloth, in a dry place.
How it was made : Drying was the great preservation technique of the North, lacking refined sugar or costly spices. Near the hearth or in ventilated lofts, they dried fish, meat, and fruit. Viking Age apples were mostly small, tart wild apples; sweet orchard varieties spread later. Dried, they were rehydrated in winter porridges and stews.
The contemporary twist : Present them threaded on a linen cord like a garland, a nod to the casket of golden apples the goddess never lets out of her sight.
Sources : Snorri Sturluson, Edda, Skáldskaparmál (account of Idunn's abduction by Þjazi and her apples) · Daniel Serra & Hanna Tunberg, An Early Meal: A Viking Age Cookbook, 2013
Idunn · Charactorium
