St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1886-09-25
NORWEGIAN FLADeRoo.
Substitution Of Indigestible Bark for Ry
or Wheat Flour.

Substitution Of Indigestible Bark for ny,
or Wheat Flour.
Most travellers in Norway have prob
ably had more than sufficient oppor.
tunities of becoming acquainted with
the so-called ..Fladbrod," fat bread, Of
the country. Few, however, among
them who have partaken of this dry
and insipid food may possibly be aware
that in many districts, more especially
in Hardanger, the chief ingredient in
its composition is the bark of trees.
This substitution of an indigestible
product for bona fide -four is not nee.
essarily proof of the scarcity OF &C.
reals, but is to be ascribe d rather to
an opinion prevalent among the peasant
women that the bark of young pine
branches. or twigs of the elm are capa-
bic of being made into thinner paste
than unadulterated barley or rye-meal,
of which the Morse housewife, who
pridcs herself on the lghtness of her
"Fiadbrod, puts in only enough to
make the compound hold together.
The absence of any nutritive prop
erty in bark bread, whether made with
elm or pine bark. and the positive in
Jury it may do the digestive organs.
has of late attracted much notice among
Norwegian PSYCHOLOGISTS, and the eiitor
of Naturen, with a view of calling the
attention of the public to the subject.
has, with the authors permission, re-
printed some remarks by DR.. Schubeler
on the history and character of the
bark bread of Scandinavia. From this
source we learn that the oldest refer
ence to the use of bark bread in Nor
way occurs in poem. ascrib I'll to the
Skaid Sighvat, who lived in the first
half of the eleventh century. In the
wear 1909 the annals of Gothland record
| q season Of dearth in which men were
forced to eat the bark and leaf-buis of
trees. while then. and during the latter
periods of the middle ag.s, the frequent
famine of the crops in all parts of Sean
dinavia led to the systematic US OF the
bones and roe of fishes. as well As the
bark of trees as Il substitute for genuine
-four, and SO extensively was the latter
substance used that Pastor Herman
Ruge. who. in 1862, wrote Il treatise Oh
the DTeStESltfOu vi "oous- vi =" II
attention to the almost complete disap-
pearance of the elm in the Bohus dis
trict. which he ascribes to the univer-
sal practice in bygone times of stripping
the bark for the preparation OF bread.
In Nordland and Finmark the root
| Of Strutiiop,eriS yermGaica and other
ferns, as well as the leaves of various
species of Rumex, have been largely
used with barley-meal in making ordi-
| nary bread as well as "Fladbrod. In
Finland the national .'pettuleipa" Ozark
bread). which was in former time al
most the only breadstuf of the eoun-
try. still ranks as an ordinary article
| Of food in Kaiana and in the forest re-
rions of Oesterbotten and Tavastland
| Here it is usually mad, of the inner
LAYERS of the pine bark. ground to
| maal, which is mixed with small
quantity of rye flour to give the requi-
site tenacity to the dough. The Fin.
landers of an older generation showed
| marvellous ingenuity in composing
brcadstuffs in which scarcely a trace
, of any cereal could be detected in the
| mixture of bark. berries, seeds. bulbs
and roots of wild plants, which they
seem to have accepted as a perfectly
legitimate substitute for corn bread.
! In the interior of Sweden, according to
! Prof. Save, the best bread of the peas
ants consisted till the middle of this cen
turv OF peas, oats AMI barley-meal in
equal proportions, while in the ordi.
nary daily bread the husss, chaff and
spikes of the oats were all ground
down together. In bad seasons even
this was unattainable by the Dalekar
liam laborer, who had to content him
self with pine-bark bread.-Ndture.