{"id":152528,"date":"2021-05-14T09:00:27","date_gmt":"2021-05-14T13:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=152528"},"modified":"2021-05-14T12:04:09","modified_gmt":"2021-05-14T16:04:09","slug":"cooking-with-sigrid-undset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooking with Sigrid Undset"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please join Valerie Stivers and Hank Zona<\/a> for virtual Undset-themed drinks on Friday, June 4, at 6 P.M.<\/small> on <\/em>The Paris Review\u2019s Instagram account<\/a>. For more details, visit our events page<\/a>, or scroll down<\/a> to the bottom of the article.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo: Erica MacLean.<\/p><\/div>\n

The most common food in the medieval historical romance Kristin Lavransdatter<\/em>, written by the Norwegian author Sigrid Undset (1882\u20131949), is oatmeal porridge, a dish I made elaborate perfection of during my children\u2019s early years. The porridges in Undset\u2019s book are good and nourishing but plain (though in one scene, a young Kristin eats hers with \u201cthick cream\u201d off her father\u2019s spoon). Mine, on the other hand, were ridiculous. I blitzed half the oats in the baby-food blender before cooking. I tried different combinations of milk and water. I made fruit puree swirls. I had a two-year-old daughter, an infant son, and an office job, to which I fled every day in great relief to get a moment to myself and then struggled not to leak breast milk on my work clothes. My husband was unhelpful with the children. Childless people found my travails boring and embarrassing. I\u2019d never thought being a woman mattered much, but suddenly it seemed to. I was miserable, and perfecting the oatmeal made me feel better.<\/p>\n

Kristin Lavransdatter<\/em>, which unfolds over the course of three volumes\u2014The Wreath<\/em><\/a>, The Wife<\/em><\/a>, and The Cross<\/em><\/a>\u2014is a woman\u2019s story. It\u2019s also a gripping read and an impressive feat of historical re-creation, which helped Undset win the 1928 Nobel Prize in Literature. The epic\u2019s structural and textual allusions are so numerous that, as the professor Sherrill Harbison dryly remarks in her introduction to The Cross<\/em>, they \u201cshow no signs of being exhausted by scholars.\u201d (She also\u2014correctly, I feel\u2014thinks the book is overlooked.) When writing Kristin Lavransdatter<\/em>, Undset drew from sagas, ballads, Scandinavian oral tradition, and medieval texts of all types, notably the allegory Le roman de la rose<\/em>, to tell the tale of a woman in the early fourteenth century, a time when society was changing for women, who takes her newish right to consent to her own marriage a step further and demands her own choice of husband. Not accidentally, Undset was writing in the 1920s, another time of rapid social change. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Beef brisket, ready to be \u201cboiled\u201d like they did in the Middle Ages. (I cheated a little and stewed it.) Photo: Erica MacLean.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The story follows Kristin, daughter of Lavrans, from childhood to death. Lavrans is a salt-of-the-earth Norwegian, \u201ca strong and courageous man, but a peaceful soul, honest and calm, humble in conduct but courtly in bearing, a remarkably capable farmer and a great hunter.\u201d As the treasured offspring of this strong and good man, Kristin is herself strong and good, and destined to carry on her family\u2019s legacy of virtue. But in the book\u2019s first section, Lavrans takes her up to the mountain pastures with a handful of children and servants to see to some land-management tasks. The group eats lunch outdoors amid the dazzling mountain views\u2014\u201csoft bread and thin lefse<\/em>, butter and cheese, pork and wind-dried reindeer meat, lard, boiled beef brisket, two large kegs of German ale, and a small jug of mead.\u201d Lavrans gives Kristin \u201call the ale she could drink, along with frequent sips of mead\u201d and says: \u201cGod\u2019s gifts will do you good, not harm, all you who are still growing. The ale will give you sweet red blood and make you sleep well.\u201d The whole party falls asleep in the midday sunshine. Kristin, unaccustomed to drinking, wakes up with a headache and a dry mouth and accidentally wanders off down the wooded slope, where she is first captivated by her reflection in a stream and then sees an apparition, a woman with \u201ca pale face,\u201d \u201cflowing, flaxen hair,\u201d and \u201cfull breasts,\u201d which are \u201ccovered with brooches and gleaming necklaces.\u201d Kristin flees in terror, but the damage has been done.<\/p>\n

The woman is an elf maiden. In Norwegian folklore, Harbison writes, the elf maiden represents \u201cabduction and erotic abandon; her mischief is to lure young girls into the mountain for orgies with the mountain king.\u201d Later, it will be Kristin\u2019s fate to defy the counsel of her wise and good father, the values of her community, and the expectations of her religion, and reject an eminently appropriate betrothed, Simon Darre, for a different man, Erlend Nikulausson, with whom she falls in wild, besotted, sexual love. The reflection in the water is a reference to the myth of Narcissus, an inspiration for Le roman de la rose<\/em>, which is about a dreamer who falls in love with a beautiful rose at the bottom of a pool but is eventually persuaded to make the more \u201cresponsible\u201d choice: to marry a woman and reproduce. Throughout the entirety of Kristin Lavransdatter<\/em>, the title character struggles with her decision to choose Erlend, herself, and her passion over her community\u2019s values\u2014which are also, with anguish, her own values. The motifs of Narcissus, the elf maiden, and the mountain king continue to appear.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Every year, Kristin\u2019s father brings home \u201cwonderful gifts\u2014cloth from abroad for her bridal chest, figs, raisins, and gingerbread from Oslo.\u201d I made the gingerbread. Above, some ingredients for it. Photo: Erica MacLean.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Familiarity with the source material invaluably deepens one\u2019s appreciation of the book\u2019s themes, making Harbison\u2019s introduction to The Cross<\/em> required reading. She explains that even the idea of romantic love the way Kristin experiences it was relatively new in the fourteenth century. Romantic, or courtly, love was \u201cinvented by poets in France in the twelfth century\u201d and represented an advance in the status of women, because suddenly they were deemed worthy of inspiring heights of passion. (Prior to this, sex with women was considered a troublesome and low occupation that kept men from their real work.) Courtly love, though, wasn\u2019t quite the same as how we view romance today\u2014it claimed the highest status for doomed, forbidden, secret passions, usually between people who were married, but not to each other. The beautiful, unattainable rose at the bottom of the pool in Le roman de la rose<\/em> is evocative of this kind of love. In an echo of its symbolism, Kristin and Erlend\u2019s first outing together is in a rose garden.<\/p>\n

Le roman de la rose<\/em>, however, is a bifurcated text. The first part, extolling the values of courtly love, was written by one author; the second, a palinode in which that form of love is rejected, was written by a different author forty-five years later. In the intervening time, Harbison explains, Christian tradition had caught up to the newfound concepts of romance and erotic love and tried to tame their antisocial tendencies by suggesting that such feelings had their proper place\u2014between married men and women, for the ultimate goal of procreation. Erotic abandon became merely an inferior echo of divine love.<\/p>\n

Undset\u2019s genius, to my mind, was first in what Harbison calls her \u201cbrutal realism.\u201d Kristin is pregnant even before her wedding, and then nearly continually for the duration of The Wife<\/em>, eventually bearing seven sons. Childbirth, nursing, and the mind- and body-destroying state of near-constant pregnancy are realistically portrayed. Undset is realistic about human nature as well: the lives depicted in Kristin Lavransdatter<\/em> are recognizable to us even today despite the book\u2019s convincingly medieval setting. Isn\u2019t it still true that forbidden passion is the most electrifying? Could the first writers about romance have been more right than we are now? And isn\u2019t it also true that marriage and wild, erotic love are not states that easily coexist, and that the former is a harnessing of the latter in the service of property, social stability, and procreation, just as the medieval church encouraged? Kristin and Erlend\u2019s relationship, founded on erotic love, never goes quite right after their marriage. The elf maiden and Narcissus motifs appear again in the third volume when Erlend tries to convince Kristin to abandon their (nearly grown) children and live on a mountain farm with him, clearly demonstrating a conflict between family life and sexuality.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Gingerbread dough. Be aware that you need time to chill this before you roll it out. Photo: Erica MacLean.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Undset was an outlier in her times, with views that would be even less popular today. Kristin\u2019s struggle is not for sexual freedom, or for the ability to assert her selfhood or rights in the feminist sense, but for virtue and God. What\u2019s interesting to me is that this does not mean condemning sexuality but instead fully engaging with its harsh and exhilarating demands. Kristin\u2019s passion for Erlend is one of her life\u2019s animating forces. It is not wrong; it participates in the divine. But it hurts other people and causes scandals, troubles, complications, and hardships that are indelible on Kristin\u2019s conscience. It also, in a way, both enriches and hurts her<\/em>, with all those babies.<\/p>\n

Undset became a Catholic shortly after Kristin Lavransdatter<\/em> was published, another choice that made her unpopular with her literary peers. But she called herself a \u201cpagan Catholic\u201d and rejected the puritanical antisex form of Catholicism, which she thought was especially prevalent in America. The church, as Undset writes it, helps Kristin navigate the painful contradictions between her competing values.<\/p>\n

In my own form of conflicting values, I have never really accustomed myself to the loss of self inflicted by motherhood\u2014it\u2019s worth it, but it\u2019s hard, always. Nor have I ever found the combination of sexuality and committed relationships to be easy. Undset\u2019s vision is consoling in its suggestion that such struggle with our embodied fates is not a failure but a form of success. \u201cHowever impatient, stubborn, and rebellious Kristin has been,\u201d Harbison writes, on her deathbed \u201cshe suddenly understands that full engagement in her earthly marriage has indelibly marked her as God\u2019s own.\u201d (I\u2019d take \u201cmarriage\u201d in this case to mean the wider sense of whatever we choose to commit ourselves to, another person or not.) Embodiment can take all forms these days. Reproduction\u2014or the decision not to reproduce\u2014can happen in any combination of people, single or attached, in any gender, but we all have our own forms of embodied struggle, and they rarely correspond with what they\u2019re \u201csupposed\u201d to be. Undset\u2019s brutal realism was to admit it, and then to offer a church that admitted it, too, and helped. I\u2019m not sure that church ever existed\u2014being narrowly proscriptive of sexuality and condemning in a variety of ways is more what we\u2019ve come to expect\u2014but I wish it did. It would have been a miracle to me, in the perfect-oatmeal years, to feel less alone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

My beef stew was inspired by a scene in a hospice garden, where \u201cin the noonday sun there was a hot, spicy fragrance of dill and celery, onions and roses, southernwood and wallflowers.\u201d The rose petals smell like \u201cwine and apples.\u201d Photo: Erica MacLean.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

I did not make that oatmeal for my Undset-inspired feast (and I hope none of you ever do either\u2014the blender step is really unnecessary). Instead, I turned to the other foods available in Kristin Lavransdatter<\/em>, simple dishes like the \u201cboiled beef brisket\u201d mentioned above and \u201csoft barley bread.\u201d The only dessert mentioned is \u201cgingerbread from Oslo,\u201d and it appears twice, so I made that, too, shaped with a fancy rolling pin whose effect looks Scandinavian to me. The food descriptions are light on seasoning and details (possibly because there wasn\u2019t much seasoning in fourteenth-century Norway), but I learned many interesting things about dining traditions. In one long passage, Kristin explains an old style of table that could be easily folded and removed so that the extended household could sleep on the floor of the hall. In another, Erlend instructs her to scatter \u201cjuniper and flowers\u201d on the floor, place \u201cthe best cushions on the benches,\u201d and cover the table with a linen cloth. When styling my food, I spread dried grasses and flowers on the table to evoke this spirit. I also cheated and added the garden and orchard ingredients mentioned in the rose-garden scene\u2014one of the book\u2019s loveliest\u2014to my beef brisket: dill and celery, onions and cherries.<\/p>\n

Everywhere there was food in medieval Norway, there was drink, and often many kinds on the same table\u2014wines and meads, ales strong and weak. The ensuing drunkenness is another aspect of the books\u2019 harsh realism and another example of the dual nature of God\u2019s gifts. My spirits consultant, Hank Zona<\/a>, found me not just meads but a mead trend, which serendipitously reflects both Kristin Lavransdatter<\/em>\u2019s pagan Catholic spirituality and some of our more modern struggles to live virtuously and situate ourselves in our wider human community. First, I spoke to a home mead maker named Eileen Coles, whom I met through the Norwegian immigrant community in Brooklyn. Coles brews mead as a sacred beverage in the Heathen tradition. (Heathen is a designation for the pre-Christian Scandinavian and Northern European religion.) Coles noted that mead is found worldwide, \u201cwherever one would find beehives, in places as far-flung as India, Ethiopia, and China,\u201d but that it and beer are more prevalent in Northern Europe because of the climate. Since grapes don\u2019t grow well in the cold, \u201cpeople made do with what was available\u2014grains, herbs, and honey.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mead was a sacred beverage in the old Scandinavian religion and a popular one in Kristin Lavransdatter<\/em>. These are from Melovino, in New Jersey, and Enlightenment Wines, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Photo: Erica MacLean.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

For those of us who can\u2019t make our mead at home, Zona suggests two commercial mead makers: Melovino<\/a>\u00a0(a name that contains the Latin words for \u201choney\u201d and \u201cwine\u201d) in Vauxhall, New Jersey, and Enlightenment Wines<\/a>, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Sergio Moutela, the owner of Melovino, started out as a home brewer; he became interested in mead because it was something of a crossover from his Portuguese immigrant family\u2019s home winemaking tradition. From Melovino, Zona and I chose two bottles: Au Contraire, a purist sip of\u00a0 \u201cjust vinified honey and no flavorings,\u201d Zona says; and Once Bitten Twice Dry, a mead-cider co-ferment made from local apples. Our meads from Enlightenment are the St. Crimson\u2014a \u201cdry black mead\u201d made from local black currants and honey, spontaneously fermented in oak barrels for more than a year\u2014and Nought, a dry mead from raw wildflower honey, also spontaneously fermented (which means using the natural organisms present in the honey to start the fermentation process). Enlightenment mead maker Raphael Lyon also emphasized that while it\u2019s accurate to connect mead to a Northern European tradition, that\u2019s not the whole story: the beverage is an ancient and global tradition. His method, which uses only local ingredients he finds in New York State, connects him to that wider community. \u201cWhen you look at mead making, everybody does it differently wherever they are,\u201d he said, \u201cbut you also do it in the same way, which is that people are using what grows locally.\u201d<\/p>\n

The black currant mead in particular suited my beef stew. In order to determine this, my photographer and I liberally tasted all four, discovering for ourselves that mead\u2019s high alcohol content and the additional sugar from the honey make it, as Coles said, \u201ca sippin\u2019 beverage.\u201d We got drunk. Unlike Kristin, we did not fall asleep afterward on a mountainside or wake up to be lured away by elf maidens\u2014unless, in the greater sense, that comes with embodiment and has already happened to us all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo: Erica MacLean.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Medieval Barley Bread <\/strong><\/p>\n

Adapted from Medieval-Recipes.com. <\/em><\/p>\n

4 tsp yeast
\n1\/3 cup brown ale
\n12 oz bread flour
\n12 oz barley flour
\n1 1\/2 tsp salt
\n1 1\/2 cups warm water
\n2 tsp honey<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo: Erica MacLean.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Preheat the oven to 450.<\/p>\n

Combine the yeast, ale, warm water, and honey in the bowl of a stand mixer, and let sit for five minutes, until the yeast is bubbly. If the mixture doesn\u2019t puff up, the yeast is dead, and you\u2019ll need to start again with different yeast.<\/p>\n

While the yeast is proofing, mix together the bread flour, barley flour, and salt in a large bowl. Once the yeast has become bubbly, add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, and mix with the dough attachment. If it\u2019s not coming together, add more warm water a little bit at a time until you have a coherent dough.<\/p>\n

Grease a large bowl with some neutral oil. Place the dough inside, cover, and set aside in a warm place to rise until it doubles in volume (check after half an hour). Once the dough has risen, punch it down, shape it, and put it in the cooking vessel to rise again. (A three-and-a-half-quart Dutch oven or nine-by-four-inch loaf pan would work.)<\/p>\n

Once the dough has risen, place in the preheated oven, and bake for forty-five minutes to an hour, until the top is golden and the bottom makes a hollow sound when you knock on it.<\/p>\n

Serve with butter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo: Erica MacLean.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Beef Stew with Dill and Cherries <\/strong><\/p>\n

a pound of beef brisket, cut into three-quarter-inch chunks
\nsalt (to taste)
\npepper (to taste)
\n2 tbs flour
\n1 tbs butter
\n2 tbs neutral-tasting oil
\na small onion, chopped
\na rib of celery, chopped
\n1 1\/2 cups stock or water
\n1\/4 cup black currant mead (optional)
\n1\/8 tsp celery seeds
\n1\/3 cup dried cherries
\n1\/2 cup dill, minced<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo: Erica MacLean.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Liberally salt and pepper the brisket. Place the chunks of meat into a gallon freezer bag, add flour, and shake until the meat is evenly coated.<\/p>\n

Put a three-and-a-half-quart Dutch oven over medium-high heat, and add the butter and oil. When the butter has melted and the foam has subsided, add about half the brisket, spaced well apart so the meat will brown instead of steam. Fry until the meat is well browned on all sides. Remove the first batch of meat, and brown the second batch. Remove and reserve.<\/p>\n

Take the pan off the heat so it cools down a bit, and turn the heat down to low. After a few minutes, return the pan to the heat, add the onions and celery, and cook until the vegetables are wilted.<\/p>\n

Return the meat to the pan, along with the stock, celery seeds, and black currant mead (if you\u2019re using it). Bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer and cook, covered, for an hour. Remove the lid, and cook for forty-five minutes more, until the brisket is tender. Add the cherries in the last five minutes of cooking time and the dill at the very end. Taste for seasoning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo: Erica MacLean.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gingerbread from Oslo <\/strong><\/p>\n

Adapted from <\/em>Smitten Kitchen.<\/em><\/p>\n

3 cups flour
\n1\/2 tsp baking soda
\n1\/4 tsp baking powder
\n2 tsp ground ginger
\n2 tsp ground cinnamon
\n3\/4 tsp ground cloves
\n1\/2 tsp ground black pepper
\n3\/4 tsp salt
\na stick of butter, at room temperature
\n1\/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
\nan egg
\n1\/2 cup molasses<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo: Erica MacLean.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, and salt in a large bowl, and set aside. Beat butter and brown sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until fluffy. Mix in egg and molasses. Add flour mixture, mixing on low until just combined. Divide dough in half, and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until medium-firm, about an hour.<\/p>\n

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough until it\u2019s a quarter of an inch thick. I rolled mine a second time with a special rolling pin to make a pattern, but you could also use cutters to make shapes of your choice. Spread two inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, and refrigerate again, about fifteen minutes. Bake cookies until crisp but not dark, about twelve to fourteen minutes. Let cool on wire racks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo: Erica MacLean.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Wine!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please join Valerie Stivers and Hank Zona on Friday, June 4, at 6 P.M.<\/small> for virtual Undset-themed drinks on The Paris Review<\/em>\u2019s Instagram account<\/a>. We will discuss food and drink in Undset\u2019s work. Special guest Raphael Lyon from Enlightenment Wines will join us.<\/p>\n

The meads seen in the story are Au Contraire and Once Bitten Twice Dry, from Melovino<\/a>, and St. Crimson and Nought, from Enlightenment Wines<\/a>. Most can be ordered through the mead makers\u2019 websites. If you don\u2019t have a mead on hand, bring wine or ale\u2014or all three, the way they did in Kristin Lavransdattar<\/em>. Anyone who would like more specific advice on choosing a beverage for the tasting can email us (hank@thegrapesunwrapped.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo: Erica MacLean.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Valerie Stivers is a writer based in New York.\u00a0Read earlier\u00a0installments of\u00a0Eat Your Words<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In honor of Sigrid Undset\u2019s epic of medieval Norway, Valerie Stivers cooks up barley bread, beef stew, and gingerbread cookies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":669,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30795],"tags":[67827],"class_list":["post-152528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eat-your-words","tag-featured"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCooking with Sigrid Undset by Valerie Stivers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In honor of Sigrid Undset\u2019s epic of medieval Norway, Valerie Stivers cooks up barley bread, beef stew, and gingerbread cookies.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cooking with Sigrid Undset by Valerie Stivers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"May 14, 2021 \u2013 In honor of Sigrid Undset\u2019s epic of medieval Norway, Valerie Stivers cooks up barley bread, beef stew, and gingerbread cookies.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-05-14T13:00:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-05-14T16:04:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/img_8462.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"714\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Valerie Stivers\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Valerie Stivers\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"18 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Valerie Stivers\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5e9cb28fd3f58fa52d45de721dbb3520\"},\"headline\":\"Cooking with Sigrid Undset\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-05-14T13:00:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-14T16:04:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/\"},\"wordCount\":3601,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/img_8462.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Featured\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Eat Your Words\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/\",\"name\":\"Cooking with Sigrid Undset by Valerie Stivers\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/img_8462.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-05-14T13:00:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-14T16:04:09+00:00\",\"description\":\"In honor of Sigrid Undset\u2019s epic of medieval Norway, Valerie Stivers cooks up barley bread, beef stew, and gingerbread cookies.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/img_8462.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/img_8462.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Cooking with Sigrid Undset\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5e9cb28fd3f58fa52d45de721dbb3520\",\"name\":\"Valerie Stivers\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5f2496ed50315f97439c39fd493fed8cd612ecf98d9911295275e220e5f21d73?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5f2496ed50315f97439c39fd493fed8cd612ecf98d9911295275e220e5f21d73?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Valerie Stivers\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/vstivers\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Cooking with Sigrid Undset by Valerie Stivers","description":"In honor of Sigrid Undset\u2019s epic of medieval Norway, Valerie Stivers cooks up barley bread, beef stew, and gingerbread cookies.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Cooking with Sigrid Undset by Valerie Stivers","og_description":"May 14, 2021 \u2013 In honor of Sigrid Undset\u2019s epic of medieval Norway, Valerie Stivers cooks up barley bread, beef stew, and gingerbread cookies.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2021-05-14T13:00:27+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-05-14T16:04:09+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":714,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/img_8462.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Valerie Stivers","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Valerie Stivers","Est. reading time":"18 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/"},"author":{"name":"Valerie Stivers","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5e9cb28fd3f58fa52d45de721dbb3520"},"headline":"Cooking with Sigrid Undset","datePublished":"2021-05-14T13:00:27+00:00","dateModified":"2021-05-14T16:04:09+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/"},"wordCount":3601,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/img_8462.jpg","keywords":["Featured"],"articleSection":["Eat Your Words"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/","name":"Cooking with Sigrid Undset by Valerie Stivers","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/img_8462.jpg","datePublished":"2021-05-14T13:00:27+00:00","dateModified":"2021-05-14T16:04:09+00:00","description":"In honor of Sigrid Undset\u2019s epic of medieval Norway, Valerie Stivers cooks up barley bread, beef stew, and gingerbread cookies.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/img_8462.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/img_8462.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/14\/cooking-with-sigrid-undset\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Cooking with Sigrid Undset"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5e9cb28fd3f58fa52d45de721dbb3520","name":"Valerie Stivers","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5f2496ed50315f97439c39fd493fed8cd612ecf98d9911295275e220e5f21d73?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5f2496ed50315f97439c39fd493fed8cd612ecf98d9911295275e220e5f21d73?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Valerie Stivers"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/vstivers\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/669"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152528"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152583,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152528\/revisions\/152583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}