When parish priest Hans Strøm published his description of practically all aspects of Eiker and the oak groves in 1784, he naturally also mentioned the food scene, in the chapter on "Houses, Household Equipment and Household Economy". Unfortunately, the learned professor does not write much about this everyday subject, and he notes that "their food and drink are far inferior to what one would conclude from their household equipment and clothing".

City and fine people

Breakfast

Breakfast food was usually sourdough bread baked

with rye. The yeast was brewer's yeast.

The toppings were thinly sliced meat, pickled herring and cheese, probably of the pultost type.

Drinks were wine, coffee (with lots of sugar) and finally cognac.

Dinner

Soup, either of meat (preferably game), fish, vegetables, or all of them. Roasted meat. The vegetables were often stews or stuffings made with cream and flavored with various kinds of spices. Pea stew and cauliflower stuffing. After the meat dish came game, never less than two kinds.

Dessert

In the summer there were large quantities of all kinds of fruit, except peaches which did not thrive in Norway, as well as sweet cakes.

Right after dinner there was coffee and at six o'clock there was tea.

At nine o'clock it was time for a bigger meal again. It was almost as extensive as dinner, and consisted of roughly the same dishes, although with perhaps even greater variation in the meat, fish and vegetables.

Farmers and poor people

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Breakfast

Bread and Spirits.

Oatmeal flatbread. The spirit was grain brandy from Denmark or Germany

Possibly

Salted herring, possibly whey butter/whey cheese/other cheese, such as pulto cheese, on bread (oat flatbread)

Dinner

Porridge of all kinds. That is, oat porridge in water for the poorest, increasingly larger quantities of barley or wheat in porridge with milk for the better-off.

For finer occasions : (for example Sundays or similar) peas and cabbage, a little meat, and perhaps a root vegetable such as white cabbage.

But this was only for those who had a farm with enough animals to slaughter and land good enough for a garden plot. Oatmeal porridge on water was still the most common.

Christopher Hammer: Norsk Kogebog, 1793

Christopher Hammer: Norwegian Cookbook, 1793: some glimpses of the justice minister, his contemporaries and his kitchen

In 1994, Roar Dege published the book Christopher Hammer: Norwegian Cookbook, 1793: some glimpses of the justice of the peace, his contemporaries and his kitchen. The book is based on Hammer's manuscripts and publications from the latter half of the 18th century, and especially his cookbook manuscript from 1793. Food and housekeeping at Hammer's official estate Melbostad are the central focus of the book, and Hammer takes readers on tours of glass and ironworks, anchovy factories and sugar houses, to East Indian spices and Dutch porcelain.

A separate chapter deals with the music, with sheet music, song lyrics and examples of dance descriptions.

Christopher Blix Hammer was a Norwegian civil servant, scientist, swindler and author, known as the "father of aquavit".