Mjólkursoðinn lundi - Puffin in milk sauce

I don't care much for puffin and other sea-birds as food, but many people love them and eat them whenever they can. This recipe resembles the recipe for rock ptarmigan, in that the birds are cooked in milk.

4 ea. puffins* 50 g smoked bacon 50 g butter 300 ml milk 300 ml water to taste salt

Puffins should be skinned or carefully plucked and singed. Remove the innards and discard. You can use the breasts alone, or cook the whole birds. Wash well in cold water and rub with salt, inside and out. If you are using whole birds, truss them. Draw strips of bacon through the breasts. Brown the birds on all sides, and stuff the birds tightly into a cooking pot. Heat the milk and water and pour over the puffins. Bring to the boil and cook on low for 1-2 hours (test the birds for softness). Turn the birds occasionally. Remove from the cooking liquid and keep warm while you prepare the sauce.

The sauce:

30 g butter 4 tblsp flour 400-500 ml cooking liquid to taste salt and pepper as needed caramel/sauce colouring to taste redcurrant jelly (optional) to taste whipped cream

Melt the butter and stir the flour into it like you were making white sauce. Strain the cooking liquid and gradually add to the butter/flour mixture. Add colouring and spices to taste, and redcurrant jelly/cream, if using.

Serve with boiled and/or caramelized potatoes and lightly boiled vegetables, like carrots, peas and brussels sprouts.

Recipe taken from Helga Sigurðardóttir's "Matur & Drykkur", Mál og Menning, Reykjavík, 1986 (1947).

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		Hi Jacqui and all,

		Your puffins sound very tasty. 

		This is a fascinating book on seabird fowling, with plenty of references to puffin but no recipes as far as I remember: 

		Randall, J. (ed.) 2005. Traditions of Seabird Fowling in the North Atlantic Region, Stornaway: The Islands Book Trust.

		Some or all of these also include references to catching and eating puffins in Iceland and the Faroes: 

		Church, M. J., S. V. Arge, S. Brewington, T. McGovern, J. M. Woollett, S. Perdikaris, I. T. Lawson, G. T. Cook, C. Amunsden, R. Harrison, Y. Krivogorskaya & E. Dunbar, 2005. Puffins, pigs, cod and barley: palaeoeconomy at Undir Junkarinsflotti, Sandoy, Faroe Islands. Environmental Archaeology, 10, 179-97.

 
McGovern, T., 1992. Bones, buildings and boundaries: palaeoeconomic approaches to Norse Greenland, in Norse and Later Settlement and Subsistence in the North Atlantic, eds. C. D. Morris & D. J. Rackham. Glasgow: University of Glasgow Department of Archaeology
McGovern, T., S. Perdikaris, Á. Einarsson & J. Sidell, 2006. Coastal connections, local fishing, and sustainable egg harvesting: patterns of Viking Age inland wild resource use in Mývatn District, Northern Iceland. Environmental Archaeology, 11(1), 187-206.
 
Re the dominance of wing elements, you could also look at: Cruz, I., 2005. La representación de partes esqueléticas de aves. Patrones naturales e interpretación arqueológica. Archaeofauna, 14, 69-81.
 
Cheers
Dale
 
 
Dale Serjeantson
Visiting Research Fellow
Archaeology
School of Humanities
University of Southampton
Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
 
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http://www.arch.soton.ac.uk/people/dale	

________________________________

From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites on behalf of GREGORY CAMPBELL
Sent: Mon 25/02/2008 15:12
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ZOOARCH] puffin butchery and consumption


Alan Davidson's Oxford Companion to Food, the first book you should turn to if you have any food-related questions, lists puffin as one of the national dishes for the Faroe Islands, where it is served roasted with potatoes, gravy and jam, and (unimaginably) as soup with raisin dumplings or stuffed with sponge cake.
 
Greg Campbell
 
Hello Zooarchers, 

Does anyone have any good references (or recipies) for puffin?  We have a puffin-dominated Iron Age
assemblaged dominated by wing elements - does anyone know of comparible sites?  I have a student
working on the material and we have drawn a blank on any accounts of puffin preparation/butchery.

I hope you can help.

Jacqui