One of the great benefits, and challenges, of moving to another country is that you get to experience a new cuisine. Increased globalization and the omnipresence of Mr. McDonalds might give you the impression that food is food is food pretty much everywhere you are in the West. But as it turns out, just like Canada, Norway has it's own specific flavour. A flavour that takes some time before you appreciate it (at least, our family took a while).
Just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, taste is in, well, the mouth of the muncher. And the munchers in our house differ significantly from one another. The best eater of all of us is Nori. She likes everything, tries everything and eats with gusto. Eluin is definitely a good eater, too, unless of course her 4-year-old logic takes over. Like last week when she decided that she refused to eat animals. Whatever dish we served, she would meticulously pick out all things animal protein and put them next to her plate with a look of great pity and regret on her face. So, I decided during my weekly grocery trip, to pick her up some vegetarian fake chicken nuggets. You know, to placate the budding vegetarian (I do applaud her effort, don't get me wrong). And simultaneously easing my mind about her weekly protein intake. So...I made her some ficken nuggets that night and serve them to her. I informed her that I bought her some special chicken nuggets that were not made out of chicken, so she would not have to eat a dead animal again. Insert full-on 4-year-old meltdown here. Turns out, the lady likes the chicken in her nuggets. So I had to take them back to the store and "put the chicken back into them". I kid you not, that was the request I got (so of course I walked back to the kitchen, opened the fridge, rummaged through few drawers, closed the fridge again, walked back to the kitchen table with the same plate of ficken nuggets and informed Eluin that the chicken was back in the nuggets...sheesh!).
At the other end of the table, we have Menno and Jura. Now, Menno is not really a picky eater. But he is definitely a creature of habit. And he does not like meat with bones. Or beef. Unless it is ground beyond recognition. And he sometimes has an issue with the texture of food. Which brings me directly to Jura, the pickiest eater of all of them. And her biggest issue with food is texture, too. For years she would refuse to eat anything with a skin on it, because once a piece of skin of a cherry tomato got stuck at the back of her throat. So, out went the apples (unless they were peeled), berries and nectarines. And, because tomatoes could not be trusted, obviously, out went all things tomatoey, too. Including pasta sauce and ketchup. Or curries. Or basically anything in which you could not clearly see what exactly is in it.
And then there's me. I Love Food. And eating. Obviously, I would say, because I did not get overweight eating celery sticks ;-) And, this is pretty awkward, I tend to, erm, really show how much I like food. My foodie-friend back in Vancouver used to kid that she should videotape my food-ecstatics, because in some dark corner of the internet, there might be a group of food-fetishist that would pay good money to hear me moan over sushi :-D
Unfortunately, though, besides having a good appetite, I also have IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrom). That is no fun. Luckily, I got introduced to a new diet by my physician in Vancouver, called Fodmap (the diet, not the doctor). The reasoning behind the diet is that some types of sugars can act as a trigger for intestinal discomfort. So, although leaving out those sugars do not cure the underlying illness, it can reduce the number of triggers. So, I started out by eliminating all those sugars from my diet (there's a lot of them) and by slowly reintroducing them, I found out what my triggers are. They include gluten, legumes (peas, beans, soy, etc.), stonefruits (cherries, mangos, avocados, etc.), high-fructose corn syrup, onions and garlic. Thankfully I figured out that fresh garlic is not nearly as much of a trigger as garlic powder, so I still use it in pretty much everything I make ;-)
On the plus side, eating on plan makes me feel a whole lot better. I no longer feel as if I have swallowed a piano and have no idea what tunes it is going to play (from tediously painful ballads to Rachmaninov, but never easy listening ;-) ). On the downside, food takes a lot more time, because I have to cook so many things from scratch. Also, it makes eating out/with friends always a bit more awkward. Since I'm not in mortal danger if I eat anything from my "nono-list", I tend to eat on plan as much as I can, but also sometimes just close my eyes and cross my fingers and eat food that other people serve me. Because I don't want to be rude and whiny and because I don't always feel like explaining why I cannot eat their delicious food!
So, now you know who are at our table, let's get back to Norwegian food. With the munchers above in mind, it should not come as a surprise that the first time I ever went to a supermarket in Norway to get my weekly groceries, it took me two hours! And not just because I had to Fodmap-approve pretty much everything that went in my cart. So many new things, so many options, so many things I had no idea about what it even was! Take meat for example. It's all called kjøtt. But except for kjylling (chicken) I still have no idea which kjøtt comes from which animal. I'm sure there is a logic to the meat section at the supermarket. I just haven't found it yet...
Which is why I usually drift over to the seafood aisle. Sweet lordy pyjama pants, there is some gooooooood seafood here! Which should come as no surprise because of Norway's geographical lay out, but still; omnomnom! Again, though, there are still things I dare not buy yet, because I have no idea how to prepare them. Lutefisk for example. Or fiskeboller.
But, for every thing in the supermarket that I have not brought home yet, I have at least sampled two other products that I have never had before. And as per all our Norwegian adventures, Eluin has been leading by example. I can't say it enough, Eluin has truly won the jackpot with regards to the school she is going to! At school, they have a cook, that cooks them a warm lunch three times a week. They eat bread with cheese and fruit in the afternoon as well. Freshly baked, homemade bread that is. Plus, they often cook while they are on tour, outside on the wood fire. One time, they even wrapped some meat in tinfoil, dug a hole, built a fire, heated some stones under the fire, took the fire of the stones, put the meat on the stones, covered it up with soil again and dug it up again after a couple of hours. At least, that's how I think they did it. According to Eluin that was the best food she ever ate, so she has been pestering me to build a fire pit like that in our backyard, so we can try it out as well ;-)
Because Eluin is such a great ambassador to Norwegian food, we have slowly introduced some Norwegian staples into our diet. Perhaps not always how they were meant to be eaten, but hey, live and learn! New favourites include makrell i tomat (yes, that's right, mackerell in tomato sauce), knackebrød and brunost (a sweet-salty specialty cheese that everybody eats here). Oh, and risgrøt. That is technically something you eat for dinner, but Eluin and I have decided to gloss over that fact and so we eat it for breakfast sometimes as a special treat (with sugar and cinnamon, sooooo good!). To Norwegian people that is probably the equivalent of eating mac and cheese for breakfast, but hey, we have no Norwegian people at our breakfast table, so who cares. Added bonus is that one of the ready-made containers comes with a vent in the plastic lid that whistles/moans when it is done. The mention of that feature has Eluin out of bed in no time in the morning, eagerly watching the tub turn in the microwave until it makes that weird sound.
Having had dinner with Norwegian families a couple of times now, I have come to realize what characterizes Norwegian food. First off, it is very seasonal. People integrate local produce in their dishes. So, in summer, you eat berries. Norwegian strawberries (jordbær) are the stuff of dreams, so imagine how lucky we felt that pretty much the first friends we made here own a strawberry farm. All through late summer and early fall we picked blåbær (blueberries) and tyttebær (cranberries). I still have bags and bags of tyttebær in the freezer that I some day hope to one day turn into tyttebær syltetøy, a tartly sweet cranberry compote that is a bit like the cranberry compote you eat with your Turkey, but not quite...
Of course, people also pick mushrooms in the fall. And they taste amazing! Freshly picked cantharells are incredibly good. Too bad that I am too scared of picking the wrong ones (well, eating the wrong ones I picked would be more accurate), so I will leave that to the professionals for the next couple of years. Because so much food comes from the forest, people enjoy preparing food in the forest as well. It may seem to be a bit of a hassle, and truth be told, we have never done it as a family yet, but a lot of families hike into the woods during the weekend with firewood and stuff to cook on the fire. Whether it be pølse (sausages), brødskive med ost (bread with cheese) or freshly caught fish (again something that our family will need a couple of years for before we get to that stage ;-) ), it is all grilled on the fire and it all tastes amazing. If you don't drop it in the fire, of course.
Overall, Norwegian food is all about hearty and authentic flavours. The kind of stuff that you want to eat after a day of cross country skiing. Or after a day of picking berries in the woods. My only frustration is that there is so much more I want to try, yet because the tastes are pretty outspoken sometimes, I am afraid that my family won't like it. It is with this in mind that I am a little bit anxious about December.
As in every cuisine, the holidays are a reason to go all out. And Norway is no exception. And the dishes are pretty, well, exotic. As in, I had never heard of any of them before they started showing up in the special Christmas flyers of the supermarkets. The traditional foods are, amongst others (because every region seems to have their own favourites), lutefisk (which is fish with lye???), ribbe (like spareribs, but then looking as if the pig's skin is still attached to it) and pinekjøtt (lambchops, but marinated and dried it looks like). There are special Christmas sausages. And Christmas meatballs. There's risgrøt, too, with an almond hidden inside it that brings a year of good luck to the one who finds it. And some kind of saffron bread rolls. It all sounds and looks delicious and I really hope I get to sample some of it in the coming months. I just hope my kids will be good sports and not turn up their noses for these very elaborate dishes and thus by insulting them jeopardize what little social contacts we have here... ;-)
