how to eat in finland
When I first arrived in Finland, I found the food appalling.
Meals tasted like they had come from mass-production lines. Fruits and vegetables tasted like cardboard. Fresh meat was nowhere to be found in supermarkets -- everything was either cured, processed, marinated, or ground into mystery meat and resurrected as cold cuts and sausages.
My initial theory was that Finland, being on the edge of the earth, was so far away that fruits, vegetables, and meats aged and died before they could finish their journey to Finland. And, once they get here, they are cryogenically frozen by the Finnish weather.
The secret was to eat like a local.
Having come Aix-en-Provence and its lovely Mediterranean climate, I was expecting the fruits and vegetables I had in France to taste the same in Finland. That, of course, was a stupid assumption.
I have since learned to buy only produce in season at the kauppatori, and have grown fond of some local favorites, like Aura blue cheese (named after the River Aura in Turku), Fazer chocolates, and the wide array of Finnish breads. Finnish bread, in contrast to the crusty & airy ones sold in France, are hearty and grainy, perhaps to help keep you warm in the harsh Finnish climate. Hardly a day passes now that I don't have some bread -- whether its crumbly blue cheese on warm monivilja viipaleet (a soft, chewy multigrained bread) for breakfast; a generous layer of onions, peppers, lettuce, and roast pork on a ruispalat (a coarse, dark rye bread); or large chunks of sunflower seed bread slathered with butter from our bread station at the school cafeteria.
I still have to get used to salmiakki and lakritsi, though. :)
Meals tasted like they had come from mass-production lines. Fruits and vegetables tasted like cardboard. Fresh meat was nowhere to be found in supermarkets -- everything was either cured, processed, marinated, or ground into mystery meat and resurrected as cold cuts and sausages.
My initial theory was that Finland, being on the edge of the earth, was so far away that fruits, vegetables, and meats aged and died before they could finish their journey to Finland. And, once they get here, they are cryogenically frozen by the Finnish weather.
The secret was to eat like a local.
Having come Aix-en-Provence and its lovely Mediterranean climate, I was expecting the fruits and vegetables I had in France to taste the same in Finland. That, of course, was a stupid assumption.
I have since learned to buy only produce in season at the kauppatori, and have grown fond of some local favorites, like Aura blue cheese (named after the River Aura in Turku), Fazer chocolates, and the wide array of Finnish breads. Finnish bread, in contrast to the crusty & airy ones sold in France, are hearty and grainy, perhaps to help keep you warm in the harsh Finnish climate. Hardly a day passes now that I don't have some bread -- whether its crumbly blue cheese on warm monivilja viipaleet (a soft, chewy multigrained bread) for breakfast; a generous layer of onions, peppers, lettuce, and roast pork on a ruispalat (a coarse, dark rye bread); or large chunks of sunflower seed bread slathered with butter from our bread station at the school cafeteria.
I still have to get used to salmiakki and lakritsi, though. :)
February 5 marks Runeberg Day in Finland, the birthday of their national poet J.L. Runeberg. This also means runeberg tortes season -- named after the poet, of course, and his favorite pastry.
There are so many pictures I have taken, so many things I want to write about.
A realization: living in France finally rid me of my fast-food addiction. For someone who used to eat burgers almost daily, I went four months straight in France without craving for a burger. I guess its because there are hardly any fastfood chains in France (or in Aix-en-Provence, at least) -- which proves I'm a visual eater? Out of sight, out of mind!
