Fermented mutton in the Faroe Islands: the survival of a local artisanship and food heritage
Dried and fermented mutton has been an essential storable protein source in an economy where weather conditions and seasonal fluctuations affect the availability of food. For generations, the Faroe islanders have prepared ræstkjøt (fermented and semidried mutton) and skerpikjøt (dried mutton) as an...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:10239674 2023-07-02T03:32:12+02:00 Fermented mutton in the Faroe Islands: the survival of a local artisanship and food heritage Svanberg, Ingvar 2023-06-05 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10239674/ https://doi.org/10.1186/s42779-023-00182-7 en eng BioMed Central http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10239674/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s42779-023-00182-7 © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . J. Ethn. Food Original Article Text 2023 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1186/s42779-023-00182-7 2023-06-11T00:46:53Z Dried and fermented mutton has been an essential storable protein source in an economy where weather conditions and seasonal fluctuations affect the availability of food. For generations, the Faroe islanders have prepared ræstkjøt (fermented and semidried mutton) and skerpikjøt (dried mutton) as an efficient and valuable cultural strategy for preserving meat. The data for this study have been collected through anthropological and ethnobiological fieldwork as an embedded participant observer, supplemented with studies from written sources. Data were selected and qualitatively analysed. Our findings show that this traditional cuisine, so far rarely noticed by researchers as a food heritage, requires that the islanders have access to sheep, master the technique of properly treating the slaughtered carcases, and that the necessary ecological conditions, in relation to wind and temperature, prevail for the meat to ferment and dry. They must also have access to the necessary equipment and skills, and be able to assess when the dried meat is cured. The relationship that exists between humans and the active microorganisms in this specific context is also discussed. Appreciating and consuming local fermented food is also an important way of expressing Faroese cultural identity. Once a staple for rural people, fermented mutton is nowadays a rather exclusive delicacy. The study provides insights into a complex activity that includes local artisanship and food heritage based on the triangle of human–sheep-microbiota. Text Faroe Islands PubMed Central (PMC) Faroe Islands Mutton ENVELOPE(-65.652,-65.652,-66.008,-66.008) Journal of Ethnic Foods 10 1 |
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Original Article Svanberg, Ingvar Fermented mutton in the Faroe Islands: the survival of a local artisanship and food heritage |
topic_facet |
Original Article |
description |
Dried and fermented mutton has been an essential storable protein source in an economy where weather conditions and seasonal fluctuations affect the availability of food. For generations, the Faroe islanders have prepared ræstkjøt (fermented and semidried mutton) and skerpikjøt (dried mutton) as an efficient and valuable cultural strategy for preserving meat. The data for this study have been collected through anthropological and ethnobiological fieldwork as an embedded participant observer, supplemented with studies from written sources. Data were selected and qualitatively analysed. Our findings show that this traditional cuisine, so far rarely noticed by researchers as a food heritage, requires that the islanders have access to sheep, master the technique of properly treating the slaughtered carcases, and that the necessary ecological conditions, in relation to wind and temperature, prevail for the meat to ferment and dry. They must also have access to the necessary equipment and skills, and be able to assess when the dried meat is cured. The relationship that exists between humans and the active microorganisms in this specific context is also discussed. Appreciating and consuming local fermented food is also an important way of expressing Faroese cultural identity. Once a staple for rural people, fermented mutton is nowadays a rather exclusive delicacy. The study provides insights into a complex activity that includes local artisanship and food heritage based on the triangle of human–sheep-microbiota. |
format |
Text |
author |
Svanberg, Ingvar |
author_facet |
Svanberg, Ingvar |
author_sort |
Svanberg, Ingvar |
title |
Fermented mutton in the Faroe Islands: the survival of a local artisanship and food heritage |
title_short |
Fermented mutton in the Faroe Islands: the survival of a local artisanship and food heritage |
title_full |
Fermented mutton in the Faroe Islands: the survival of a local artisanship and food heritage |
title_fullStr |
Fermented mutton in the Faroe Islands: the survival of a local artisanship and food heritage |
title_full_unstemmed |
Fermented mutton in the Faroe Islands: the survival of a local artisanship and food heritage |
title_sort |
fermented mutton in the faroe islands: the survival of a local artisanship and food heritage |
publisher |
BioMed Central |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10239674/ https://doi.org/10.1186/s42779-023-00182-7 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-65.652,-65.652,-66.008,-66.008) |
geographic |
Faroe Islands Mutton |
geographic_facet |
Faroe Islands Mutton |
genre |
Faroe Islands |
genre_facet |
Faroe Islands |
op_source |
J. Ethn. Food |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10239674/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s42779-023-00182-7 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1186/s42779-023-00182-7 |
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Journal of Ethnic Foods |
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10 |
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