The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1886-08-19
NORWEGIAN hlADsRO0.
Substitution of Indigesfibl. i'r Ky
or Wheat Flour.

! or Wheat Flour.
Most travellers in Norway lias> PROB
ably had more than sufficient oph' or
tunities of becoming acquainted with
the so-called .'Fladi Hat bread, OF
the country. Few. however, among
them who have partahen 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 flour is not nee.
essarily proof of the scarcity of &C.
reals, but is to be ascribed rather 10
an opinion prevalent among the peasant
women that the bark of young pine
branches, or twigs of the elm are capa-
BILE of being made into a thinner paste
than unadulterated barley or rye-meal.
of which the Morse housewife, who
pridcs herself on the lIghtness of her
..Fiadbrod," puts in only enough to
make the compound hold together.
The absence of any nutritive prop
ertv in bark bread, whether made with
el@ 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 editor
of Naturen, with view of calling thu
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. ascribed to the
Skaid Sighvat, who lived in the firSE
half of the eleventh century. In th,.
year 1900 the annals of Gothland record
season of dearth in which men wers
forced to eat the bark and leaf-buds Of
trees, while then, and during the latte
periods of the middle ages, the frequen.
famine of the crops in all parts of Sean
dinavia led to the systematic use of the
bones and roe of fishes, as we'll as the
bark of trees as a substitute for genuine
flour, and so extensively was the latter
substance used that Pastor Herman
Ruge, who, in 1862, wrote treatise Ola
the preservation of woods, has drawn
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 StrutdiOptertS geTnaGnicd 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 we'll as ''Fladbrod." In
Finland the national .'pettuleipa' Ozark
bread). which was in former time al
most the only breadstuff of the cOun-
try, still ranks as an ordinary article
of food in Kaiana and in the forest re-
gions of Oesterbotten and Tavastland.
Here it is usually made of the inner
layers of the pine bark, ground to a
meal, which is mixed with small
quantity of rye flour to give the regui-
site tenacity to the dough. The Fin
landers of an older generation showed
marvellous ingenuity in composing
breadstutfs in which scarcely trace
of any cereal could be detected in the
mixture of bark, berries, seeds. bulbs
and roots of wild plants, which they
SccLn 10 nave dcccPlcu dS PclicCClS
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
fury OF peas, oats and barley-meal in
equal proportions, while in the ordi-
nary daily bread the husks, chaff and
spikes of the oats were all ground
down together. In bad seasons even
this was unattainable by the Dalekar
Ian laborer, who had to content him.
self with pine-bark bread.-Nature.