From Oz to Oslo

The traditional food begins on Christmas Eve. In the afternoon it is typical to eat a thick rice porridge (risgrøt), which is served with a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar, and a small lump of butter on top. An old tradition is to hide an almond in the risgrøt mix, and the person who finds it (who often conceals the almond in their mouth until the end of the meal to build up the suspense) wins some marzipan... in the shape of a pig (see above). Why it is in the shape of a pig, I have no clue. In terms of snacks, mandarins have somehow won themselves the title of the official Christmas fruit of Norway. Good on the mandarin industry for that marketing ploy.

Dinner Is Served
The main meal in the evening or night of Christmas Eve is not uniform across the country, and instead varies from region to region. Inland and in the east (where the capital Oslo is located) the focus is on pork: ribbe (pork ribs), medistekaker (finely ground pork rissoles) and medistepølser (the same again but as sausages). See the picture below, left. These are usually served with potatoes, sour cabbage and red currant sauce (these are three staples of the Norwegian diet, and also a constant source of giggles for me because the word for red currant is titte berries). In the western parts of the country, it is common to eat pinnekjøtt (literally stick meat), which is salted, dried rib-meat from lamb (below, middle). It is mostly served with cabbage root. I hadn’t heard of cabbage root before I came to Norway, though to me it mostly looks and tastes like pumpkin when cooked.

The wackiest Christmas dish in Norway is what they call lutefisk, literally lye fish. It is eaten all over Norway, and it is the cooking process – which can last a few weeks – that is most unusual. Firstly, you take some type of white fish (usually cod) and hang it up to air-dry for a few days. Then the fish is soaked in cold water for up to six days, and then for two days in a solution of water and – get this – caustic soda. Yes, that’s right. So at the end of that cooking stage, the fish is actually poisonous. And then, to make it edible, the fish is soaked in cold water for a further few days. After that, it’s actually ready to be cooked, either by steaming or baking in the oven. It is usually eaten with potatoes, pea stew and bacon. And if you weren’t already sickened by the process, lutefisk is famous for its jelly-like consistency. See the picture below, right. (Perhaps I shouldn’t be so judgmental, as I haven’t eaten it... I’m too afraid to. )

So what do they wash it all down with? It’s common to accompany the Christmas meal with a shot of akevitt, a spirit distilled from potatoes with around 40% alcohol content. The name literally means water of life, which demonstrates the high regard that Norwegians have for it. (More on akevitt in a future post!) Apparently it is good for dissolving the fat in the very fatty Christmas food, but my boyfriend remarked of akevitt, “I don’t know if actually dissolves the fat... it’s just a good excuse to drink it.”

The Sweetest Thing
And to follow those different main meals, there are also of course traditional desserts. In fact there are numerous: it is tradition to serve seven types of cookies for the Christmas sweets table. Why it is seven exactly I could not discover, but apparently it harks back to the 19th century when the number reflected a family’s wealth and status. Although there are apparently a certain seven types one is supposed to serve, I could not find consistent lists across the websites I searched. The ones that were most common across the lists were gingerbread, krumkaker (fragile cookies shaped into a cone), sandcakes (small tart-shaped biscuits that can be filled with cream or fruits), serina cakes (a ball-shaped butter cookie), plain donuts, fattigman (the deep-fried ‘poor man cookies’) and Goro (biscuits pressed into a specially cookie iron that imprints delicate designs onto it, and considered the wealthy man’s cookie!).

One of the most popular Christmas cakes - or so I assume, because it’s the one I’ve seen the most of - is the kransekake (literally crown cake). It is made from almonds (if you’ll pardon the pun, Norwegians are nuts about almonds!) and is made up of numerous concentric rings stacked on top of each other. It is usually decorated with Norwegian flags, and Christmas crackers for the holiday season (see right). Kransekaker is also served at other occasions such as baptisms, weddings and New Year’s Eve. Riskrem (which is risgrøt with whipped cream) is also a common dessert.

Christmas This and Christmas That
Norwegians love Christmas food so much, that they try to make all their food Christmassy. You can buy Julebrus (Christmas soda, which tastes like what Australians call creaming soda), Juleøl (Christmas beer: a stronger, darker beer that also complements the fatty food), Julemarsipan (Christmas marzipan), and a whole range of other things. Surprisingly, you can also buy supposed Christmas food that is pretty much exactly the same as it is all year round, except with the word Jule tacked in front of it (including liverpaste and hot dogs, see right).