I know it’s a bit unusual that I’ve been in Finland for more than a year now, but have so far barely mentioned anything regarding Finnish food in my posts. What’s on offer and how am I surviving on the poor Finnish diet are the most frequent questions asked. Poor diet? I don’t think so. But I see where that is coming from.

Most recently the reputation of Finnish food has been stumped by political leaders of two countries: France and Italy. After their visits to Finland Jacques Chirac and Silvio Berlusconi have been bashing food they ate in Finland. I’ve no idea what they were offered, but I do know that both gentleman are easily arrogant and insulting. Which makes me believe their statements have very little to do with the actual food. Constipated gentlemen take your own sandwiches with you next time.

Since the time when crops can grow is considerably shorter this far in the north, especially in comparison to Central and Southern Europe, one has to get creative with what can be grown (although admittedly technology has left an imprint on agriculture too). But there’s plenty of forest fruits, mushrooms and game that spice up Finnish cuisine. Of course, there are staple foods like bread, meat, potatoes which are practically the same as they are in other Western societies. But far more interesting is the weird stuff.

Talking about weird stuff, my favorite weird Finnish dish is mämmi. And I don’t think food gets more bizarre than mämmi around here. It is probably the most unique of all dishes in Finland; there’s nothing like it found anywhere else in the world (OK, a close relative in Iran, but I wonder how are they actually related and what that relative looks and tastes like).

Mämmi is a traditional Finnish Easter dessert Finns abominate and adore at the same time. Kids loath it because of its looks. And it really does look like a pile of shit, even on the serving suggestion photos embellishing the packaging containing mämmi where it really looks like shit floating in cream and covered with sugar. Mmmm! I understand kids. Polled adults also tend to grimace upon hearing the word mämmi or, even better, words mämmi and like in the same sentence or, god forbid, next to each other. But I don’t understand the adults as they are most likely the ones buying it. The stores are full of mämmi from January to April and during the peak consumption times it even runs out, making it hard to get. Which means that I had to check a few stores before finally getting my daily fix of mämmi.

To feed both your curiosity and to provide a spark for your imagination, check out at least the first few images and let me know what you think.

So, what is this mämmi? Mämmi is a dessert made out of rye flour, rye malt, water, sugar, salt and spices. Although it is fairly easy to make, the preparation is a time consuming process recommended for the patient only as it can easily take a whole day to make and is best when it is made in large quantities. Not for the faint hearted. The process involves several cycles of cooking rye flour and malt in water and cooling the mixture before finally sticking it into the oven for a few hour baking session. The baking part is traditionally done in birch bark baskets. The result is, well, peculiarly looking and incredibly tasty rye porridge hated on declaratory level, but obviously loved by most Finns.

Mämmi is served fresh, but must be chilled to fridge temperature and covered with cream and sugar just before eating (I like my mämmi with cream only). Of course, it tastes like rye (duh!), but considering that the amount of sugar used for making it is practically nil, it is surprisingly sweet, rye kind of sweet. I adore mämmi and based on my observations, I am sure many around me do too, but they are just not ready to get out of their mämmi closets yet.

Mämmi is just a beginning of a truly interesting excursion into the peculiarities of Finnish cuisine. Writing about all of them at once would do justice to none and some of you might even get bored. Thus, do come back and help yourself to seconds. One spoon at a time.

Mladen

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 13th, 2006 at 6:46 pm and is filed under Culture, Finland, Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.