Tour of Europe: Latvia's meal

Our next meal from Europe is from Latvia, which is right across the Baltic Sea from Sweden.  Latvian cuisine is typical of the Baltic region and, in general, of northern countries. The food is high in butter and fat while staying low in spices except for black pepper, dill or grains/seeds, such as caraway seeds. Latvian cuisine originated from the peasant culture and is strongly based on crops that grow in Latvia's maritime, temperate climate. Rye or wheat, oats, peas, beets, cabbage, pork products and potatoes are the staples. Meat features in most main meal dishes, but fish also is commonly consumed due to Latvia's location on the east coast of the Baltic Sea: smoked and raw fish are quite common. 

 

Jāņu siers is a type of hard cheese made from cows’ milk that is embedded with caraway seeds. It is available in the US, but its availability seems to be centered around the upper Midwest region, due to the fact that Latvian immigrants settled in that area. I was not able to find any caraway cheese here in Charleston, but I did find a recipe on a Latvian cooking blog for a similar-tasting caraway cheese spread. The recipe is below. Also on that website was a recipe for ceptas siermaizītes (the blogger called them “Baked Cheese Toasties” )

 

Menu: Pīrāgi (bacon and onion pies), Caraway cheese spread, Cured Salmon, Ceptas Siermaizītes  

Dessert: Smalkmaizītes (Poppy Seed Scrolls)

Outcome: I think we all really enjoyed this meal. Since I am not very good with baking, I used a few shortcuts along the way -- for the Piragi, I used “Grands” biscuits, flattened them out, and added the bacon/onion mixture before folding and baking. They were very good, and the girls had more the next morning before we headed out the door to soccer. The caraway cheese spread was quite good, and we spread it on some of the Wasa crispbread that was left over from Sweden’s meal. The star of the meal was the cured salmon. Normally, I don’t care for the fishy taste of salmon, but the curing process really gave it a great flavor and texture that was just right on buttered baguette slices. There was no fishiness at all to it! I got the salmon fresh, never frozen, from Walmart. I don’t know if that made a difference or not, but we really enjoyed it. Another shortcut that I took was to use some canned crescent rolls to make the poppy seed scrolls. They were a bit small, only about the size of a 50 cent piece once I rolled the dough from the wide end, and I used far less poppy seeds than the recipe called for. I liked the unexpected crunch when you bit into one of the scrolls. The recipe called for a chocolate glaze, but I think that a simple confectioner’s sugar glaze would be just as good on these rolls. All in all, a successful visit to Latvia.  

Latvia's meal

Next up: Bridget’s turn! She chose Norway! We’re going right through these Scandinavian countries, aren’t’ we?  

Tour of Europe: Sweden's meal (updated)

Our first meal from Europe is from Sweden.  Having a partial Norwegian ancestry, I was interested to learn that Sweden’s foods are quite similar to the foods from Norway that I have heard about my whole life.   Our family is interested in trying new foods and combinations of flavors that we aren’t used to … on the other hand, we agree that some foods are better left to locals.  An example for Sweden would be lutfisk (lutefisk in Norway,) which is white fish that has been soaked alternately in cold water and lye for several days, rendering the proteins into a gelatinous texture.  I’ve read that is has a rather distinct aroma that is unappealing to those who have never tried it.  So for our culinary adventure through the countries of Europe, we are limiting ourselves to cuts and preparations of meat and seafood that we are more used to.  This means that we won’t be sampling haggis or kidney pie, and so forth. 

 

Many traditional Swedish dishes employ simple, contrasting flavors, such as the traditional dish of meatballs and brown gravy and boiled potatoes with tart, pungent lingonberry jam.  Lingonberry jam may be the most traditional and typical Swedish way to add freshness to sometimes rather heavy food, such as steaks and stews.  A lack of distinct spices makes everyday food rather bland by today's standards.  This tradition is still present in today’s Swedish dishes, which are still rather sparingly spiced. 

 

Famous preparations include pancakes; lutfisk; and the smörgåsbord, or lavish buffet. Akvavit is a popular alcoholic distilled beverage, and the drinking of snaps (flavored liqueurs) is of cultural importance. The traditional flat and dry crispbread has developed into several contemporary variants.

 

Allemansrätten – the right of public access – gives everyone the right to enjoy Sweden’s outdoors. It allows the public to roam freely, even on private land, to camp overnight and to pick mushrooms and berries. The right also brings responsibilities – to treat flora and fauna and other people’s property with care. It can be summed up in the phrase ‘don’t disturb, don’t destroy.’

Tour of Europe!

When we finished the final state meal a few weeks ago, it closed the chapter on a long (two year!) undertaking. I hope that the kids were able to remember some of the meals that we had as we took this culinary journey via our “tour” of the fifty states. We all tried foods that we never had before, and I learned new techniques and ideas of preparing several different foods.  

I didn’t want to cram history, geography, and such down everyone’s throats, but I tried to add a little historical facts and tidbits here and there. An example would be that the foods commonly found in the Midwest today reflect the European immigrants who settled in those regions and influenced the local cuisine. You can find Pasties all over Michigan, but here in South Carolina? Nowhere would they be found! This wasn’t a place that miners from Cornwall settled, after all. 

Every state in this great nation is unique and has its own history of joining the United States and in several cases, leaving and then rejoining the union. I’m proud that we were able to complete this adventure as a family. 

As we were finishing Arkansas’ meal, the kids asked, “Well, what’s next?” “Can we do Europe next?” “We can’t stop making special meals!” Bill and I looked at each other, shrugged, and said, “Sure! Let’s do Europe!”

Ben and Bill had played Geography in the car that day … name a place, then name another place that begins with the LAST letter of that place: Texas > South Carolina > Alabama > Argentina > Albania … and so on, until someone is stumped! Having the game fresh in his mind, Ben then asked, “Wait, you mean we’ll have meals from Andorra? Albania? Ajerbaijan???” I told him that I will do my best to research each country and find a recipe for a representative meal from each place in Europe. Right away, the girls were calling out, “French Fries! French Toast! French Bread! German Chocolate Cake!” LOL!

I’ll try to be a little more authentic than that.  :-)

Everyone asked me to make the first pick, so after printing out a list of the countries in Europe, I chose … Sweden! Look for Volume Two of the Buckley Acres Culinary Adventures, coming soon to a blog near you!