Monday, May 23, 2016

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some of it out every day. We never thought to look for a bit of wood or a board to roll the wheelbarrow on, even though it would have helped a lot. Then it was time for "davre" and one of the girls would stick their head outside and yell for us to come get our "davre." This "davre" was what most people nowadays refer to as lunch or "Brackfast" if you want to be real English. This Davre-meal consisted of a set menu of salted herring and rye bread. Before the women called us in they had cut a round miller's loaf of bread into slices and placed a slice by each seat at the table. The salted herring had been skinned and cut into four pieces, so a 1/4 piece of herring for each person. Each of the adult men were also given a shot of brandy to accompany the herring and bread. Afterwards the bottle was placed back in the aforementioned corner cabinet. The herring was always served on wooden plates. Some of them were round while others merely consisted of a square piece of wood. It could also be served on "sildeskagler" which were boards that were four feet in length and 3-4 inches in width. On such a "sildeskagle" you'd be able to serve a large number of quarter cut herrings. The bread was always dry because we couldn't



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afford to eat fresh bread. In regards to time it never really made sense since all of the household's baking only took place once every other month, leaving us with little access to fresh baked bread. As a part of lunch we were traditionally served a porridge made from barley left over from the night before. This porridge, that had been left in a big bowl overnight, had solidified and was cut, with a knife into pieces of 2,3 and 4 inches in size. They were then put into the "Davre"-pot and set over the fire. A measure of sour milk was added and it wasn't uncommon for this milk to separate into curds and whey, but we ate it nonetheless.  
Then it was time to go to school and we were handed bread with lard on it in one hand, our books in the other and of to school we went. Once there, we placed our bread on the windowsill for snacktime. We seldom had a chance to wash up, because our mothers weren't there to remind us to wash up. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that there wasn't actually a law saying we had to wash at all.  



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