Not invisible but six-fingered? Do you happen to be passing through Finland on a train? The Finnish railways warmly welcomes you in their designated passenger cars. You might not be allowed to journey entirely incognito, but you can peregrinate while sipping espresso. The invisibles can anyway pick an empty seat of their choice.

Mladen

I never imagined that I would ever have anything to say about chewing gum. But over time interesting things piled up. So there you have it.

The first time I became aware of chewing gum was only about ten years ago. Sure I’ve consumed it before that, but I’ve never really paid any attention to it. Then I had just moved to the US and for the first time in my life I tasted cinnamon flavored gum. I’ve always thought of cinnamon as a spice mom would seldom use for baking. Cinnamon gum or candy? Weird and exotic. Boy, I hadn’t had a scant feeling of what lies ahead.

A couple of years went by when I’ve read in Wired about the Black-Black caffeinated gum that is hip in Japan. I never liked the taste of coffee, but was sure that I could use some caffeine tingle. If not for anything else, than at least it would be indispensable for keeping me alert during the then frequent and much loved all-night geek-out sessions. I was onto something. So the next time I was in New York, I stopped by my favorite Japanese grocery store and picked up a couple of packs, just to make sure I don’t run out as soon as I get addicted.

And? Disappointment. It might have had all the promised “Hi-Technical Taste”, but the more I chewed the lamer it got. I don’t know about the exact numbers, but doubt that the caffeine in that gum could give a noticeable oomph even to an ant. In a word, useless. Especially if you imagined a pack of Black-Black would keep you up all night. The whole deal even reminded me of caffeine soap promising slumbering geeks to get them up and running, but does it with as much kick as a warm blanket on a rainy day.

Fast forward to almost now.

When I arrived to Finland the chewing gum oddities increased exponentially. Anyway, that Finns have their own set of bizarre chewing gum flavors did not surprise me at all. What did, was what those flavors were. Why would Finland be any different? All I can say is that being tucked in the far north-eastern corner of Europe, the country differs from the rest of Europe in many unusual ways.

Some of the weirdest gum I’ve tasted so far is the tar-liquorice gum. Yes, tar as in tar that has been used for paving roads and is still in use around here for protecting the wood (even though EU regulations have greatly limited the use of tar). Why would someone want tar flavored gum? Sure tar smells nice, but so does soap and it doesn’t cross many people’s minds to chew soap.

For a while I could not wrap my brain around this one. Then I found out that in Finland tar was considered to be panacea (and I can imagine that for some it still is). So much so that it is one of the three pillars in the Finnish folklore medical holy trinity. And a quaint Finnish adage remains to tell about tar’s medical virtues: “If sauna, vodka and tar won’t help, the disease is fatal.” I dare say that must be just about right. If you can get wasted on vodka, covered yourself with tar, are sitting in a 100°C humid room and are still alive, then I’d say you’re in darn good shape.

Really, as gum flavor tar really doesn’t cut it. Neither does tar mix with booze. Although that’s another popular combination Finns have love-hate relationship with. In a snap you can get into a heated discussion over whether tar in anything tastes good or bad.

This might seem like a deliberate sneaky intermission just to get away from the topic I have thought frivolous. Far from it, tar holds the chewing gum world together.

You might not be aware of this, but Finland is the place to be when it comes to epochal moments of chewing gum. After all, it was on the west coast of Finland that an archaeology student found a 5,000-year-old piece of chewing gum last year. Guess what they were chewing. Yep, tar. Protofinns were chewing birch bark tar to keep the local dentist out of business.

Nevertheless it took five millennia before they discovered why chewing birch bark tar saves teeth (and lives): xylitol. And xylitol was discovered, well, in Finland. I mean this is so full of coincidences that it’s almost mawkish, but it’s true, those Finns who discovered xylitol first derived it from birch. Aaawh, puppies and teddy bears all over the place; how romantic. Seriously, I’m sure that practically everywhere in the world people were chewing something, but Protofinns were chewing the right stuff.

I have no idea how it is in the country where you live, but in Finland you’d have to go across the border to get a non-xylitol sweetened gum. This has gone to such extremes that nowadays all you can get is gum stuffed to the brim with xylitol. Which causes even the marketing people to go gaga and come up with a harebrained teeth-filling progress bar (no pun intended).

I wonder how many Finns have seen any chewing gum commercials where Finnishness of xylitol is used as a sales clout. First the funny ones. I don’t know what the producers of these two commercials were chewing, but I’m pretty sure it must have been something strong. For the non-Finnish speaking, the dancing gentleman who doesn’t fit in the scene is shouting “Good! Good!” in Finnish. Oh my. If you also thought Koreans were chewing something, than the Italian producers must have been smoking crack. I don’t think they would have been able to come up with something as asinine as this.

Go figure.

Mladen

I had an “Aha!” moment the other day when I was reading the Word of the day where brilliant folks at Merriam-Webster daily deliver an explanation of one delicious English word after another. Reading that one particular explanation literally made me stare into the distance for the next fifteen minutes. Everything around me came to a standstill. It was exceptional in that it helped me uncover part of a riddle that had me puzzled for a long time.

For quite some time now I have been scratching my head about the origin of the word joulupukki, the Finnish word for Father Christmas. The literal meaning of the word is rather straightforward, albeit rather peculiar. Joulupukki is a compound word consisting words joulu (Christmas) and pukki (goat). Christmas goat? But why Christmas goat?

As Wikipedia these days provides an answer to almost any question, they had that covered too. The article explains the origin of goat (pukki) in the word joulupukki by referring to a “tradition of men dressed in goat’s clothes called nuuttipukki [who] used to go around from house to house after Christmas eating leftover food.” I have also checked the Finnish etymological dictionary which traces the origin of word pukki to bock, Swedish for billy goat.

Although Father Christmas is incomparably more popular, the nuuttipukki tradition is supposedly still alive in the Finnish regions of Satakunta and Pohjanmaa, according to another Wikipedia entry. Never mind that nuuttipukki does the opposite of what joulupukki does: kids today dress up and go singing from house to house hoping to receive candy and pocket money in exchange. A Halloween of sorts, only two months later.

Back to Merriam-Webster and their Word of the day that started it all. Folks at Merriam-Webster reveal that an English adjective puckish originates in medieval England from word puke (also pouke) meaning a nasty hobgoblin, an evil spirit, a demon. However, both puke and pouke are related to the Old Norse word puki, meaning devil. Since Finnish did loan words from Old Norse, I wouldn’t be surprised if Old Norse puki was Finnishized into pukki and  Christmas goat afterall isn’t really a Christmas goat, but rather a Christmas goblin, elf, sprite, fairy, puck, demon, or imp. Something that the makers of Rare Exports Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 understood very well.

Mladen

I am an omnivore. An omnivore who is always prepared to taste pretty much any kind of food. An attitude that practically always returns positive experiences. And then I encountered the Swedish fermented herring.

I’ve first heard about this rather peculiar local culinary specialty soon after I moved to the Nordic area. And I thought why not. I’d be the first one to point out all the wonderful results of fermenting foodstuffs. Although I wasn’t really sure if fermenting fish could yield anything good. Fish have a very strong smell to start with and start stinking in no time. Since the olfactory organs play an important role in every eating experience, stinky doesn’t make you think tasty. Which means that fermented fish and a delicious meal might be as far apart as can be. Still I thought it is unfair to bring any conclusions without actually trying it out myself. I was on a mission.

Experiences of those who have tried fermented herring range from culinary exaltation to downright disgust. But whomever I talked to couldn’t avoid mentioning the diabolically strong smell.

In its motherland Sweden surströmming (as they call it there) is taken seriously. Not only is it considered a delicacy of highest grade, but has solemn and devout followers who in 1999 established nothing less than a fermented herring academy. As irreverent as it may seem, I cannot avoid wondering if Alaskans or Norwegians have salmon academies, or Japanese tuna and whale academies.

Surströmming gurus might see this as oversimplification, but the whole thing is very simple. Fisherman catch Baltic herring each spring right before it spawns. They add salt and water and let the fish ferment in barrels for a couple of months. They then pack the fish into cans where anaerobic bacteria continue the process until consumed. It’s there that herring gets its tang.

Fermentation produces gases (in case of surströmming also a multitude of other smelly compounds) and the tins containing ripening fish bulge as a result. Bulged cans usually contain spoiled food, but when it comes to fermented herring, the logic is upside down: you don’t want to pick it off the shelf unless the can has bulged enough. Which makes for a tricky can opening procedure. (Think punctured beer can.) If not careful, a spray of reeking juices will make you wary the next time (if there happens to be a next time).

It was exactly the combination of the foul smell and the unavoidable gushing of its brine that made British Airways and Air France deny herring from boarding their planes. Swedes were outraged, but as far as I know the ban is still in place. Just imagine the hubbub at the academy. They must have hired an extra secretary to help them calm down the nation.

Herring’s foul smells reached me before I even smelled it. A Swedish colleague told me a couple of facetious anecdotes that became dead serious snigger once I dug into surströmming myself.

Some years ago a few Italian friends visited him in Sweden. Before they boarded the train to head back home, he hands them a can of surströmming, not telling them what it is. Somewhere in France the group runs out of snacks and without further hesitation they decide to munch on the food their Swedish friend gave them. They open up the mysterious can. They got kicked off the train on the next stop.

The stars of the other anecdote is a Swedish couple who should have known better, since they knew what they were dealing with. Anyway, they open up the can of fermented herring in their flat in Berlin and get evicted from the apartment.

Cans should wear a warning label “Do not open unless outdoors.” But they don’t. Which is why I am quite happy I knew all of these details even before I found fermented herring in the store. I could plan the whole ordeal: wear shabby clothes, get the bulgiest of cans, find a quiet spot in the woods, puncture the can underwater, if possible, eat it out there and don’t show up at home until the stench subsides. In spite of all the preparations I still have the feeling I was caught with my pants down.

I grabbed a large bulged can of Röda Ulven from the store and headed for a lonely spot in the woods on the coast. I checked that no one was around besides the people I was about to eat it with. Knowing the facts, bans and anecdotes, we didn’t want to get in trouble.

As I punched the can, a spray of putrid drops spread around us and literally made everyone take two steps aback. Whoa! Even though we had hoped for a tasty meal, a single whiff made some draw the line right there. I slowly started doubting this meal will be appetizing. No offense intended, but I begun wondering who could consider a combined miasma of rotten fish, dried urine, unwashed genitalia and barf mouthwatering. But since I got this far, I simply could not quit now.

The first bite tasted, well, like putrid fish. Although I have no idea why I was even surprised about this anymore. Even though I ate bread and onion along with it (only the potatoes were missing), the taste of rotten fish dominated through and through. Nothing could cover the noxious smell and putrid taste. Nothing. Quite the contrary. Whatever I’ve put in my mouth for the next hour or so, tasted plain bad. And since fish happily continued its fermentation, my body dispatched aplenty of unpleasant gases, front and back, before the damn fish was finally discharged from my system later that night.

Later that day I recalled reading about an American food guru Jeffrey Steingarten who travels the world and has supposedly tasted everything. What I remembered particularly well was how Mr. Steingarten thought that lutefisk, a Norwegian fish specialty, was the most disgusting food (translated excerpt provided by Wikipedia, although I have no idea why they have placed it under “humor”). I’d say that in comparison to surströmming, lutefisk is chocolate. To prove my point, I’d take Mr. Steingarten to as large meal of ripe Swedish surströmming as he chooses to ingest. If he accepts the challenge, I’d be delighted to eat twice as much of lutefisk.

Speaking of fermented herring and restaurants, I find it difficult to imagine seeing it on a menu in a restaurant. I’ve never spotted it myself, but can already imagine a waiter approaching the neighboring tables telling his other guests that the gentleman over there just ordered a can of surströmming and that he is giving them about quarter of an hour to finish their meals, pay and leave.

Even though I had perhaps naively expected that fermented herring would help expand my palate, that certainly did not happen. As hard as it might be to believe, it took only a few days before I have decided to give the herring a second chance.

Bon appétit.

Mladen

Currently super popular pop duo The Ting Tings played in Helsinki a couple of days ago. I’m not a fan of pop, but it was nevertheless interesting to see a relatively freshly baked band live on stage.

They definitely put together a very energetic stage act. I mean, even their roadie probably had to go through an audition. He was constantly burning rubber as he erratically darted around the Tings untangling cables and setting the mic stands with great haste. He had put together a mini show of his own. It seemed they were all on speed or something. Impressive, man.

All that was just fine, but boy do I hate it when bands run out of tracks and then start repeating what they had already played that very same night. The last time that happened was some 15 years ago when for reasons unknown to me I ended up on the Spin Doctors concert (must have been paid to see it or something). Same here, The Ting Tings miss even shrugged her shoulders as she admitted they had run out of tracks after only 35 minutes and had to replay a number.

But check out their support act, the retro-electro nerd Moby Dictator. Seriously, when was the last time you’ve seen an electro artist perform on stage without a laptop, or two?

Mladen