October 9 ‘Wine and Cheese’

October 9th is Lief Erikson Day. My first book is “The Story of America in Pictures”, arranged by Alan C. Collins, published 1938. It has this picture of Leif Ericsson (sic).

Once again, I turn to my collection of Landmark Books. They have been great resources for history. This is “The Vikings” by Elizabeth Janeway, 1951. This is a good, easy to read history story. In this quick Viking story we hear of the exploits of Eric the Red-Leif Ericsson’s father. Vikings were explorers. He discovered Greenland. Lief’s friend Bjarni actually saw North America first, but did not land. They both went together to land on what Leif called Vinland-he saw wild grapes growing, and took some with him.

There are more stories in this book including Leif’s aunt Freydis, who fought a band of Skraelings (Indians) by herself.

October 9th is National Moldy Cheese Day. I didn’t know much about moldy cheese except that if a hard cheese, and you find some mold, you can just cut it off-no problem. Then I discovered that with Penicillium Rroqueforti, you have the mold that gives you the blue veins in some cheeses.

So I went to my “Cheese Cookery” cookbook, by Helmut Ripperger, published 1941. I looked for any moldy cheese recipes. I found a ‘Roquefort Dressing’ made from scratch. It didn’t look too bad. It had to marinate for a while, and then stirred up right before using. The author also reminded that it should be quite cold.

I have a lot of cookbooks, so I looked up moldy cheese in several others. In my “Complete Cook’s County TV Show Cookbook” 2022 (which has every recipe from fifteen seasons of the show), I found two recipes. First was ‘Blue Cheese and Bacon Baked Potato Fans”. It didn’t look too bad, but then I found ‘Blue Cheese and Bacon Mashed Potato Cakes’. Those looked pretty good.

I cannot go wrong using the “Betty Crocker Cookbook.” Again, I looked for moldy cheese recipes. I was not let down. I may soon try this ‘Gorgonzola Linguine with Toasted Walnuts’.

It is said that cheese and crackers were a thing with sailers and exployers. Vikings usually drank Mead (fermented honey) which could be sweet like a port (which were wines the rich Vikings could get from France). Those sweeter drinks seem to go with a greater variety of cheeses. Long before the French invented the charcultery board, the Vikings invented the smörgåsboard…and discovered Vinland. I’m grapefull for that.

Why didn’t the Vikings name the new world Norse America?

What do you call a Viking librarian? Eric the Read.

Thanks for sailing in this adventure with me.