Finnish Food Interesting Things I Ate

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1 Finnish Food Interesting Things I Ate By Allison Varga 1. Reindeer Stew, with Mashed Potatoes and Lingonberries. (Zetor Restaurant, Helsinki, Finland, June 19, 2007) Reindeer are most common in the region of Lapland, and reindeer farming is a large part of the economy there. All reindeer in Finland are owned by someone, and have ear markings distinctive to every reindeer farmer in Finland. There are many delicacies from Lapland that contain reindeer meat. Reindeer meat is quite expensive, as well as rare in the vast majority of Finland, so this was the only time I got to eat reindeer during my stay. The meat is served with mashed potatoes and lingonberries. I thought that this dish was very good. Reindeer tastes somewhat like elk, only quite a bit milder. The lingonberries add some tang, which is nice and compliments the meat. Lingonberries are commonly eaten with most other kinds of meat all throughout Finland. Potatoes are also a very common food in Finland. I ate potatoes every day that I was in Finland. This was my first taste of Finnish food, and I really liked it.

2 2. Musta Makkara (Black Sausage) (Sahalahti, Finland, June 25, 2007) Black Sausage is a specialty of the Tampere region, which is the area where I was staying. It is only found around the city of Tampere, and is always sold in the markets of the city. My first taste was a few days into my home stay, and I have to admit, it was quite an experience. It is definitely not as bad as it looks, but I can t say I liked it very much, either. I have no clue what it is made out of. This is pretty much the only Finnish food that I didn t absolutely love, but I m glad I got the chance to try it.

3 3. Liver and rice co 3. Liver and rice combination, with butter and lingonberry jam, and some salad (June 28, 2007) My host family s hometown, Sahalahti, is famous for this dish. Sahalahti is a small town, with only about 2000 inhabitants, but it does have a major food factory. The factory is for the Finnish food brand Saarioinen, which produces a wide variety of food. This particular dish is produced only in Sahalahti, and not in any of their other factories around Finland. My host family lives in Sahalahti, and they wanted me to experience the local flavors as much as possible. In Finland, jam is never put on bread, but is usually put on meat, especially lingonberry jam. The salad greens are from a friend s garden, and my host family almost always ate salad with their meals. I liked this dish, even though I had never tasted anything like it before.

4 4. Kahvi ja pulla ( Coffee and pastry) (daily) Coffee (or Kahvi in Finnish) is a huge part of Finnish culture. Finns are some of the world s heaviest coffee drinkers, and their coffee is strong! For adults, a couple of cups are drunk at breakfast, maybe one at around noon, a couple of cups after lunch, and then perhaps one cup just before evening sauna is fairly typical for most Finns. There are some people in Finland who don t drink coffee, but they are definitely a minority. When visiting a private house in Finland, it is considered improper to not serve coffee to visiting friends. It is also improper to not at least try the coffee if you are visiting, unless the hosts are given a reason in advance. For visiting children (under 20 years old), these rules are waived, and juice is usually available. Some sort of pastry is almost always served with coffee, especially with guests. This particular type of pastry is filled with jam, and is fairly common in cafés. I had this while I was at an automobile museum called Mobilia, which is on the edge of the same lake system my family lives on. I almost never drink coffee in the U.S., but I drank Finnish coffee quite often when I was staying there. Most Finnish people who I met didn t drink their coffee black, but instead put some milk or sugar in it. I ended up putting milk in mine.

5 5. Pasteija ( Meat and rice inside, with spices outside) (July 3, 2007) I had this while I was at my host sister s friend s summer cottage. My host mom was meeting with her mom and a bunch of other women who were members of an organization to plan a fundraising dance for their group. This was one of the items served for their coffee. Not many Finnish foods have a lot of spices in them, so I was a bit surprised when I first tried this food. I thought it was very good, but I had never had any food with spices on it, other than pulla, while I was in Finland. Even though it was unusual, it seemed to be a big hit.

6 6. Punajuurisalaatti (Beet Salad) (July 4, 2007) My host parents wanted to celebrate the 4 th of July with me, but they still wanted me to try a new Finnish food. This is what they came up with. Root crops are very common in Finland, with beets being one of them. This salad is quite tangy, and I don t quite know what it reminds me of, and it isn t beets. The salad is bright magenta, and is hard to miss in the stores. My host family liked it a lot, even though I couldn t eat too much at one time. But I liked it, too.

7 7. Leipäjuusto ja Lakkahillo (Bread Cheese and Cloudberry Jam) (July 6, 2007) This is apparently a delicacy more common in Lapland than in the south of Finland. The jam is made of cloudberries, which are found wild in Finland. Cloudberries are like large yellow raspberries. The cheese is made in Finland as well. I liked this combination, but the cloudberry seeds are just big enough that they got stuck in my teeth very easily, and it was very difficult to get them out. It became such a chore to just be able to close my mouth after each bite that I finally gave up and scraped off the jam and ate the cheese plain. The cheese was pretty good, but it was so rich that it was hard to eat much of it at a time.

8 8. Harnekeitto (Green Soup) (July 7, 2007) This soup is essentially pea soup, and is very similar to the American version. It might not look like it tastes very good, but I really liked it. I could still taste what went into it, and it wasn t bland or overly flavored. I don t really like pea soup most of the time, because of the blandness or too much flavor, but I liked this version. My host mom made it completely from scratch, and she said it didn t take her a long time to make it. The soup was very thick and rich.

9 9. Ruispalat ja Juusto (Dark Rye bread and cheese) (Daily) I am totally addicted to this bread. I don t usually eat rye bread in the United States, but I m currently working on trying to find a recipe to make this bread at home. I have been unable to find a suitable starter for this bread. I liked it that much. My family liked their rye bread slightly toasted, with lots of butter, cheese, and whatever else was available. I usually just put a little butter and some cheese on mine. Most of the time, we ate this Finnish cheese called Ottermanni, but my family really likes Swiss cheese, so that was usually available as well. This is a fresh version of the bread, and this kind is baked in a small bakery in the city of Tampere. Dark rye bread has historically been a staple of Western Finland, and less common in Eastern Finland. In the past, bread was only baked twice a year in Western Finland, because people had specific times to mill their grain. In order for the grain to not spoil, they needed to bake it into bread immediately after milling. Rye bread was the result. They typically formed the bread into large, flat, doughnut shaped loaves, so that they could be hung up on the rafters after baking to dry. They ate this dried rye bread until they got a chance to mill more grain.

10 10. Kesäkeitto (Summer soup) (July 8, 2007) My host grandmother taught me to make this soup. My host siblings and I cut up the needed ingredients, and then waited to put them in the pot. We ended up eating quite a bit of the raw ingredients, but there was still plenty to put in the soup! When the soup was ready, it was really hot and I burned my mouth, but I still really liked it a lot. This soup is made out of potatoes, pod peas, carrots, cauliflower, milk, and a little bit of butter. Peas are common in Finland, and are in season during the summer. This soup is considerably lighter than most Finnish foods. Most Finnish meals consist of mainly potatoes or sometimes rice, and meat of some kind. This soup is vegetarian, making it unusual, if not uncommon. This soup is typically only eaten in the summertime, because the vegetables are in season then.

11 11. Pannukakku ja maniskahillo (Pancake with strawberry jam) (July 9, 2007) My host grandmother also made this for my host sister and me. This is one of the few times where jam is put on anything other than meat or cheese. This type of jam is strawberry jam, and is very common in desserts. Strawberries are very common in Finland. The actual cake is only about half an inch thick, but it is quite rich! The cake is baked in a jelly-roll type pan, and during cooking, large air bubbles form in the cake, and it is a lot of fun to watch it bake, just for that reason. I have also heard of people who put the pancake batter into a waffle iron, and make waffles instead of cakes. However, in my region, it seemed to be that cake was the only option.

12 12. Lihapiirakka ( Rice and meat in a bun) (July 9, 2007) I really liked these, whether they were hot or cold. When they are purchased, they are already cooked. When I was first offered this, I didn t know what it was, so I asked for two. It turns out, they are quite rich, so I ended up eating the extra for breakfast the next morning! When they come out of the bag, they look like hamburger buns without the sesame seeds. I heard some stories about foreigners cooking up meat to go inside of these pies, only to discover their mistake when they open them up. Many Finnish dishes combine meat and rice in some sort of way, so this food is very common in Finland. In the Finnish language, it is officially classified as a pie, so if offered a pie by a Finnish person, there is a good chance this is what they are offering. These pies are commonly eaten with a couple of slices of cheese, or some tomato. This type of pie is not usually eaten as a meal by themselves, but might be served as an aftersauna snack.

13 13. Jäätelo- Lakritsi (Ice Cream- Licorice flavor) (July 10, 2007) I m not usually a big fan of licorice, but I think that licorice ice cream is absolutely delicious. Finnish people are some of the world s highest per capita ice cream consumers, and as a result, ice cream stands are everywhere. My first ice cream in Finland was pistachio flavored, and it was right outside of an open-air museum in Helsinki. This picture was taken in the main market in Tampere. Ice cream flavors range from vanilla to Salmiakki, and every color in between. Salmiakki is basically salty black licorice, and comes in everything from ice cream to chocolate. I never got up the courage to try a full cone of Salmiakki ice cream, but I did try a sample of it, and it was quite good! I think that Finnish ice cream is considerably better than American ice cream, which is probably because of the high level of freshness of everything in Finland.

14 14. Piirakka (pies or pastries) (July 11, 2007) These pies were sold at a dance, and were homemade by one of the organizers of the dance. The ones on the left are sweet dough, with raspberries, or vadelma in Finnish, and the ones on the right are basically raspberry cheesecake. I tried both, and both are very good. They are commonly eaten with coffee, and were sold at the food booth for 1 (euro) apiece. I somehow ended up selling coffee and piirakka to people, and trying to figure out what they wanted, with just the little Finnish I knew. I ended up doing okay, and it is one of the most memorable experiences of my trip.

15 15. Pulla (Finnish Sweet Bread) (July 11, 2007) My host mom also taught me to make pulla, but she did not make the pulla shown here. This was also for the dance fundraiser. Pulla is commonly served with coffee, and may be either bought or homemade. Pulla can come in many different shapes, but it is all the same recipe. This particular kind of pulla is very similar to American cinnamon rolls, except that kardemumma, or cardamom in English, is added to the dough. Cardamom is added to any sweet white bread in Finland, making it pulla. Finnish sweet breads are not considered pulla unless they have cardamom in the dough. It is acceptable to serve store bought or homemade pulla to guests at coffee.

16 16. Karjalanpiirakka (Karelian Pie) (Daily) These are my personal favorite. I first tasted them in Market Square in Helsinki the morning before I left to go to my host family, and have loved them ever since. Even though these pies originated in Karelia (no longer part of Finland), they are very common throughout Finland today. A Karelian pie consists of a rye crust that surrounds a rice porridge that has been baked. Some common variations are carrot or potato in the middle instead of rice, but the form is essentially the same. These pies are usually eaten at breakfast, or as a snack, but almost never as a full meal. They can be eaten cold, but are often preferred hot with some butter and melted cheese on top. Karjalanpiirakka can be found at virtually any grocery store or market, so they are easy to find.

17 17. Pulla ja Lakritsipala (Sweet bread and Finnish licorice) (July 15, 2007) This is a loaf of store bought pulla, and some Finnish licorice. Even though I don t usually like licorice, I did like this kind of licorice, in small doses. I don t have the ability to eat a whole bag of licorice by myself, at one time, but a couple of pieces at a time are all right. Store-bought pulla is what we frequently ate for coffee time because we didn t have access to an oven to make our own. I thought that store-bought pulla was almost as good as homemade pulla. This is probably because the recipes are supposed to be exactly the same.

18 18. UCabbage, rice and meat baked, and combined with jam.u (July 15, 2007) This was my second to last dinner with my host family. My last one was a taco night. Cabbage is often used in rice and meat combinations as well, and usually makes it quite rich. I was only able to eat the amount shown in the picture, because this dish was so rich. I really liked it, though, but I don t think I can find anything comparable to it in the United States. I don t know what kind of jam is eaten with this dish, but I think it is lingonberry jam. This is a summary of the most interesting foods I ate while I was in Finland. In general, I really liked Finnish food, and I am glad I got the recipes that I did. This photo story is placed in chronological order as much as possible, but the foods I ate every day, such as rye bread, karjalanpiirakka, and coffee with pulla were placed randomly. Hopefully, you learned something about Finnish foods, and you will get a chance to try it sometime. Thanks to my host family, including my host grandmother, and to everyone who helped me with the names of food items.