While there are a lot of good foods and bakeries that will make you drool, there are also a lot of foods in Norway you can't help but wonder in its strangeness, "People really eat that?"
As a foreigner coming to Norway, it's expected that I find some cultural aspects strange or weird. At first thinking people actually eat moose was a bit strange to me, but I've tried some and it's not so bad. If I hadn't known better I'd have thought it were beef. However, US customs doesn't allow "exotic meats" such as moose and reindeer jerky, so in Detroit's airport I had to hand over the jerky I was trying to bring to my family.
First and foremost, being so accustomed to chocolately peanutbuttery candy as we have in America it was a bit of a let down when I couldn't find but some makeshift Reese's cups and in place of all the chocolately marshmallowy peanutbuttery candy, I have found an American's worst candy nightmare - LICORICE! While most Americans turn their noses up at the stuff, Scandinavians drool over it.
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| So much licorice!!! |
Another strange food here is all the fish and fish products. Not only is there lutefisk or tørrfisk, but fish soup (which is actually really good with buttered garlic bread) fish pudding, fiskeballer (otherwise known as fish balls - like meat balls, but fish), fiskekaker and fish burgers. But that's not all, caviar is sold in tubes, whole fish is available, or half way filet fish is available, as well as jumbo shrimp (with faces and all!) which is available in stores to be scooped out of a freezer.
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| Fish. |
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| Fish. |
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| And more fish. |
It's not uncommon to find something called leverpostei. I have yet to figure out what this is, but from my understanding it's a form of canned meat - liver pate or something. It's also not uncommon to find food in tubes. This concept really seems very American and I'm 100% certain if bacon and cheese were sold in tubes in America the food tube company would be raking in some good money. I've never tried any food tubes before and really, it just seems too bizarre for me.
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| Leverpostei. |
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| Bacon cheese in a tube. |
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| Ham cheese in a tube. |
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| Meat pudding. |
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| Jalapeno cheese and pepperoni cheese in a tube. |
And last but not least - let's not forget about this classic Nordic dish - smalahove or better yet known as another food with a face - sheep's head!
Comments
Norwegian chocolate is GREAT! :-)
They'll last about a week or so if they're not refrigerated.
They'll last longer if they are.
We used to take them with us as field rations and it worked just fine. Hell, we got fresh bread and tube-cheese as a reward once. People were really happy that they got to eat bread again.