The food issue

Woke up this morning to the sound of Toto and the classic 80's hit song Africa --"I bless the rains down in Africa."  This was followed by an unknown folk singer with a tune called "Perfect Storm."  And, yes it is raining/snowing this morning.    While I (and most Norwegians) spend a great deal of time discussing weather, today I turn to the much tastier subject of food. 

Knowing my penchant for fine foods, my friend Craig emailed me a recipe he developed called "the Porkster" which lists the first ingredients as:

Heirloom breed porterhouse pork chop – pounded flat

Roasted leak, fennel, and carrot chopped medium fine

Lobster parboiled.  Shell turned into stock with butter, vermouth, black pepper.

and apparently ends with a fancy lobster, pork roll wrapped in smoked bacon and grilled.  I'm sorry but anything wrapped in bacon has got to be good.

However, to make such a dish could perhaps be challenging here in Norway where there are only a few common brands for everything.  As far as I can tell, pork or "svinekjøtt" (sveena-shit) is only sold wrapped in plastic and produced by either Gilde or Norwegian Fjord -- the two companies that provide nearly all meat "products" found at the store.  I'm not sure their brand of meat would qualify as "heirloom."  But, I'm pretty sure reindeer meat would still qualify as "heirloom" and you don't find that anywhere in the U.S. but Alaska - so score a half point for Norway.

Second, bacon??  Norwegian bacon, what there is, is sadly sad.  It cannot come close to the crackling thick-sliced strips of hardwood smoked bacon....oh stop, I'm drooling.  That reminds be of my many  months on a Norwegian ship called the Polar Duke where we toured the frigid Southern Ocean eating meals cooked by a delightful clog-wearing Norwegian chef.  For my first few weeks, I wondered why the chef would not clean out his skillet after cooking fish the night before because the bacon had a distinctly fishy overtone.  Then, I found out that the bacon came from Chile and Chileans feed their pigs fish...Aha, you are what you eat apparently.  Should we ever have to go cannabalistic, I'm sure Norwegian flesh has King Oscar sardine overtones...  But back to bacon, I also spent some time recently on the Big Island of Hawaii searchinig for that perfect local wild boar that feast on macademia nuts and have succulent sweet meat.   Ok, I'm drooling again...

There are no really deli counters here.  The cheese is a bit bland and rubbery Jarlsberg and Gulost (literally "yellow cheese"), similar to some of the common U.S. varietals.  Oddly enough, fresh fish is not all the easy to get or common here except at restaurants and the fish market downtown.  Before Christmas, however, we got this 90 kg Halibut at the Marine Station from some local fisherman and my fabulous colleagues filleted it up expertly.

Local Trondheim roasted halibut with tomato capers and saffron risotto

Filleting the halibut

The Norwegian spice section is filled with the standard fare of spices and some with names that seem oddly unfamiliar.  We spent some time at lunch figuring out that "turmeric" is called "gurkemei" here in Norway, which is apparently a derivative of the latin Genus name "Curcuma."  I also discovered my favorite "spice" capers.  Yes, I searched the entire store for capers the other day.  I checked every pickle jar from cornichon to olives and even the refrigerated smoked salmon section. Finally, I asked the grocer and sure enough, a jar of pickels was found under "C" in spices.  The "Caper" whole in vinegar is apparently considered a spice here...who knew???  Another major food company Toro conveniently makes "Kanel og Sukker" a perfect blending of cinammon and sugar, as well as packets of every kind of sauce and hamburger-helper style mixture to be added to meat. 


Norwegian stores and choice, however, are changing fast.  The T.V. is rampant with shows like Masterchef (with the Britain, Australian, and U.S. versions), Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, and some other British dude who is really really goofy.   They are fast becoming foodies.  Think about how bleak the U.S. food scene was in the 70's, for example, where the only choices were wonderbread, Folgers coffee, and green jello (a nod to my fellow Minnesotan readers ;). 

The Norwegians are already excellent bakers and their supermarket bread is delicious, far surpassing the standard supermarket variety in the U.S., as well as their bolle, and marsipan cakes....mmmm

We are producing an International Cookbook at the girls school this year as a fundraiser and I submitted some "American" recipes including Mango Tango Salsa and Kid-licious Chocolate Banana Bread.   As a nodd to Norway, I added a few tablespoons of Norwegian crunchy Nugatti (their version of Nutella) and some cardamom to the banana bread recipe. 
 
The local food movement is gaining steam fast here and I'm sure the food diversity will increase exponentially as Norwegians expand from prepackaged Fiskekaker, Karbonade, and Kjøttkaker (this is the Norwegian meatball and literally pronounced "Shit kaka" -- really, I'm not kidding).  When purchased from Gilde or Norwegian Fjord, the girls and I have decided that all three of the above strangely taste alike even though made with fish, pork, and beef.

I've recently found some local salami and ham from a neighboring town Helgeroa that is delicious. The local garlic liver pate' is yummy.  I picked up an terrific British cheddar recently.  Can't wait for lunchtime.  Seek and ye shall find.  I implore the Norwegian "Foodies" to stand up and unite for change!