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. They ate and drank too much according to the English.
Typical Viking Meal
The first meal, the "dagmal" (day meal) would likely be leftover stew from the night before served with bread and pickled or dried fruit. In the evening, the "nattmal" (night meal) could be fish or meat, stewed with vegetables and served with ale or mead.
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.
For breakfast, the dagmal, the adults might eat a bit of some leftover stew still in the cauldron from the night before, with bread and fruit. The children would have porridge and dried fruit or perhaps buttermilk and bread. The evening meal could be fish or meat, stewed with vegetables.
As it turns out, their food was healthy, fresh, and even a poor Viking ate much better than an English peasant during the Middle Ages.
The Vikings needed all the energy that they could get in the form of fat – especially in winter. 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.
Excavations of Viking sites have turned up tweezers, razors, combs and ear cleaners made from animal bones and antlers. Vikings also bathed at least once a week—much more frequently than other Europeans of their day—and enjoyed dips in natural hot springs.
The Vikings drank strong beer at festive occasions, together with the popular drink of mead. Mead was a sweet, fermented drink made from honey, water and spices. Wine made from grapes was also known of, but had to be imported, from France, for example.
The Vikings also used onions to gauge how deep stomach wounds were. They fed their wounded warriors onion, then smelled the man's belly afterward. If the stench could pierce through the gash, then the wall of the stomach had already been cut, indicating that death was imminent, and no treatment would be effective.
Roasted and boiled meats, rich stews, platters of buttered root vegetables, sharp, welcome greens, and sweet fruits and nuts meant a rich feast and full bellies. While major feasts might last 12 days, minor feasts and celebrations would last a few.
Sources appear to agree that Viking warriors probably ingested one of two mushroom species: Amanita muscaria (fly agaric) or Amanita pantherina (panther cap). In both cases, the primary psychoactive ingredient is muscimol. both contain the psychoactive compound muscimol (right).
The Vikings kept dairy cows and enjoyed drinking milk, buttermilk and whey as well as making cheese, curds and butter.
Archaeological finds 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.
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 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.
One of the more hotly contested hypotheses is that the berserkers ingested a hallucinogenic mushroom (Amanita muscaria), commonly known as fly agaric, just before battle to induce their trancelike state.
Play is not a recent development in history in fact from grave goods and the sagas, we learn that Vikings played board games avidly, they carved dolls and toys for their children, played dice and gambled as well as partaking in boisterous sports at their feasts and gatherings.
We do know from Arabic observer that the Rus, a Swedish Viking tribe that are believed to be the ancestors of East Slavic people, had tattoos. He wrote: Each man has an axe, a sword, and a knife and keeps each by him at all times. The swords are broad and grooved, of Frankish sort.
Description: The waterlogged areas of the excavation at Whithorn uncovered preserved 'sheets' of moss, which had been discarded. Closer analysis revealed them to be studded with fragments of hazel nut shells, and blackberry pips.
Beds were most likely lined with straw and animal skin. However, some historians believe that the Vikings actually slept sitting up with their backs against the wall given the limited and confined space that was available on the benches.
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 ...
Dairy products formed an important part of the diet in Viking Age Scandinavia. This is described in the Norse Creation Myth, and also the Icelandic sagas recount of cheesemaking.
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.