Our next European country we are visiting is Norway. Granny (my mom) lived there when she was in
second-fourth grade when my Grandpa was stationed in Asgardstrand. She remembers eating “white” meals, which
meant their plates were filled with cod, boiled potatoes, bread … it was not
very appetizing! Also, Grandpa’s (and
my) ancestors arrived in the US from Norway many years ago.
Most Norwegians eat three or four regular meals a day, usually
consisting of a cold breakfast with coffee, a cold (usually packed) lunch at
work and a hot dinner at home with the family. Dinner (middag) is usually eaten
around 4-5 PM. This is the most important meal of the day and includes
carbohydrates such potatoes and animal proteins such as meat or fish. Supper (kveldsmat) is usually eaten around
7-8 PM. This may be some open bread sandwich.
Menu: Gravlax (Cured Salmon), Lefse
(Potato Bread), Fårikål (lamb
stew), Gjetost and Snofrisk cheeses, crispbread, smoked salmon, sardines, and smoked salmon devilled eggs.
Outcome: Granny and Grandpa joined us for this
meal. I think everything went quite
well! We served this as two courses –
first was the various crispbreads, cheese, sardines, and salmons, and second
was the stew. My favorite was the
gravlax. I liked it a lot better than
the smoked salmon that I am used to.
This differs from the cured salmon that I made before, as this one sits
a lot longer, is heavily weighted to remove water, and contains a good amount
of dill. We all loved the mustard-dill
sauce, too!
I’d never had lefse before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I followed the recipe as written … we rolled
out balls of the dough on a floured board to a 6” diameter, but we only ended
up with 15. Not the 30 that the recipe
said we’d end up with, so I guess the ones we made were twice as thick as they
should have been. On a few, we buttered
and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, then rolled them up. This was pretty good! Better than expected. The rest were served on the table and
everyone could top pieces as they chose with salmon, cheese, etc.
After the table was cleared, we served up the Fårikål (lamb and cabbage stew.) This is the national dish of Norway. It was pretty good and everyone seemed to
like it. Perhaps if we’d left more time
between courses 1 and 2, we’d have been able to eat more! LOL
P.S.: I forgot the Jarlsburg
cheese; it was in the other fridge.
Sorry!
Next up: Since we had company, we let them have a
turn! Granny and Grandpa chose San
Marino!
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| Devilled eggs -- mixed some mustard and smoked salmon with the yolks and topped w/ dill |
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| Salmon platter, mustard, and Snofrisk (garlic goat cheese spread) |
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| Sardines, Wasa, toast crisps, cracker crisps |
