Eggs. The Vikings not only ate eggs from domestic animals like chickens, ducks and geese, but they also enjoyed wild eggs. They considered gulls' eggs, which were collected from clifftops, a particular delicacy.
Dagmal was the morning meal in which the adults would eat leftover stew from the night before with bread and fruit. The children would usually have porridge and dried fruit or, on occasion, buttermilk and bread.
Meat, fish, vegetables, cereals and milk products were all an important part of their diet. Sweet food was consumed in the form of berries, fruit and honey. In England the Vikings were often described as gluttonous.
The Vikings had several options, when it came to making porridge. It could be made from barley, oats, buckwheat or millet. They mixed berries and apples into the porridge to add sweetness. Porridge was typically part of the daily food intake, especially that of the poor.
In Iceland, especially, Vikings enjoyed their dairy, and often ate it in the form of skyr, a fermented, yogurt-like cheese that today is sometimes marketed as a dairy “superfood.” Viking lore mentions the creamy substance, says Barraclough, who recalls a “saga where a man hides from his enemies in a vat of skyr—which ...
Many foods commonly consumed today were unknown, such as corn (maize), potatoes, and sugar; the only available sweetener was wild honey. To these foods would be added whatever could be hunted, captured, or gathered. Along coastal regions, and near rivers and lakes, fish were a staple part of the diet.
Grains and bread
A large part of the Viking diet consisted of grain products like bread and porridge. Bread would have been enjoyed with every meal, though it wouldn't be much like the bread we eat nowadays.
The Vikings, who fueled themselves for their expeditions in part by eating Gamalost, also considered the cheese an aphrodisiac. Gamalost was once a staple of the Norwegian diet, in large part because it could be stored for long periods of time without refrigeration.
For dessert the Vikings will eat fresh fruit and a little honey on buttered bread. Beer will be drunk as well as mead, a beverage made from honey. Horsemeat was spitted and roasted rather like a kebab. The Vikings had bowls and plates very similar to our own, but made more often from wood rather than pottery.
The Vikings were skilled breadmakers, and one of their most commonly made bread was rye bread, a popular bread that still exists today.
The evening meal could be fish or meat, stewed with vegetables. They might also eat some more dried fruit with honey as a sweet treat. Honey was the only sweetener the Vikings knew.
The Viking diet was generally a healthy and balanced one. Because they were hunters, meat was a daily staple. The type of meat would depend on their location and could include pork, mutton, or the meat from elk, deer, or goats. Vikings also consumed horse meat.
In fact, Vikings most often boiled their meats. Indeed, the centerpiece of the day's meals was a boiled meat stew, called skause. As meats and vegetables were taken out of the pot, new ones were added, and the broth became concentrated over days of cooking.
Wild fruit and berries grew abundantly in the Viking period. The Vikings could supply themselves with raspberries, bilberries, plums, wild apples and hazelnuts from the woods. Walnuts were also available in some areas. The Vikings knew about the health benefits of eating apples.
Vikings used to brew both strong and weak beer and mead for different occasions. Weak beer was used as a water replacement to quench thirst and was deemed suitable for children, whereas the stronger brewed beverages were held in an adult-only space on the proverbial top shelf, reserved for special occasions.
The Vikings most likely ate domestic eggs as part of their everyday diet. They would cook or eat them raw in various dishes like bread. Wild eggs, on the other hand, were not as common but did occasionally appear in Viking recipes.
Did the Vikings have ice cream? Perhaps not, but they certainly could have had it on Iceland – using Skyr! Read on and follow our frozen journey back to the ancient origins of this...
Unlike modern Norwegians, Vikings tended to only eat two meals per day. These were known as dagmal and nattmal, which meant a day meal and night meal.
In fact, they might've also been one of the first to produce an ice cream mix containing cheese and snow. One manufacturer claims that the Vikings might've even used mammoth milk in their snowy desserts. Although the last mammoth died out over 5,000 years ago, this is still an incredible thing to think about.
Archaeological findings show that the Vikings in the ninth century AD already ate flat, round pastry based loafs showing all kind of ingredients, which were baked in ovens that look like something like modern pizza ovens. This was about eight hundred years before the first mention of pizza in Italy.
Milk and dairy-based drinks in Viking society
In Viking communities, the ownership of cows, sheep and goats provided a ready supply of milk, which played a significant role in their diet. Milk, whether consumed fresh or curdled, was a staple beverage for the Vikings.
And believe it or not, they ate sandwiches made from thick slices topped with a type of butter, and meat of wild boar, deer, elk or bear. Honey was often used as sweeteners in these dishes: they loved sweetening in soups too so they added honey and they sometimes had garlic.
A 'balanced' diet
Vikings had a varied and rich diet of wild and domestic meats, fruits, crops, poultry, fish, and other food they could grow, harvest, or hunt. Therefore, it is not surprising that their diet was much better and more varied than in other parts of medieval Europe.
The Vikings made sausages from the offal and blood of their domestic animals. The sausages were made after animals were slaughtered in the autumn. Horsemeat was only eaten on festive occasions. In Haakon the Good's saga it is described how horsemeat can be used to make a soup.
The Viking trained their what Shaul calls their “tactical or combat chassis”—legs, hips, and core—daily. They did this by farming (lifting heavy stuff), shipbuilding (chopping trees), and rowing (strengthening legs, arms, and lungs).