Sunday, June 5, 2011

Finnish food

The five basic food groups.

1. Fish

There is a huge fish-eating culture here. Although the cured herring makes me gag, I'm rather partial to hot smoked salmon and have been eating it almost every other day.

2. Berries

A favourite past time of Finns (young and old) is to go berry-picking in the forest during the summer. Wild strawberries and blueberries are my favourite.

3. Dairy

Finns sure love their dairy products. Everyone here seems to have a glass of milk with their main meal. Even better than regular milk is something the finns call piima...sour milk.

4. Rye

White bread is hard to find here in Finland. Rye is the default.

4. Salmiakki

Salty licorice (ammonium chloride). The same stuff comes spewing out of volcanos and gets left behind when you burn coal.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I suppose the salty liquorice is similar to the Dutch salty liquorice. Bit of an acquired taste, but I like it.

Adaptive Radiation said...

If it's the same product, I should point out that the manufacturing process involves ammonia being combined with either hydrochloric acid or hydrogen chloride.

Victor said...

I love rye bread, we had lovely bread made on our boat during our recent cruise.