short ancestors

[The Wizard]

I heard that the ancient Finns (read: Viking Age and after) put moss in their bread, but that could just as well have been an urban myth.

EDIT: Yeah, I asked my mother about it (her family is a peasant one) and they actually did eat something on their bread, at least hereabouts. It involved the fat off bacon, which was combined with syrup and then smeared on bread.

[Watchman]

These days most use butter - that was naturally a luxury in the old days, being mostly exported. The consumption of butter on your bread was actually a sign of "good life" recently enough that in some postwar comedy movies (Sixties-Seventies actually I think) one character's general lowbrow greed and nouveau riche lifestyle is emphasized by him laying the stuff something like an inch thick...

The relatively-nutritious layer under the bark of some trees, known as pettu in Finnish, was incidentally used as a substitute for grain in bread during the leaner years. Ought to tell you something. The practice was probably more or less universal among the peasants of the Forest Belt; people obviously tend to figure these things out pretty readily.

Moss, I suspect, is rather ill suited for human consumption so I figure that story can either be dismissed as hearsay, or alternatively was disorted beyond recognition somewhere in telling.

[The Wizard]

In that case, I guess somebody mistook pettu for moss somewhere during translation.

[Watchman]

Huh, it's on the Wiki too.