Some of these postings are time late, but I think they are worth posting anyway. So, this is about our invitation on 15 Dec 2007 to go to our Norwegian friend's house for a traditional Norwegian Christmas dinner. I also have enough "ammo" to post some interesting tidbits on how we spent our last two Christmases up north at Chris' (and mine) long time Norwegian friend's house. But for now, back to the photo on the left. This is a traditional Christmas entree called "Pinnekjøtt" (salted lamb ribs). I had asked the hostess if I could snap a photo, after all didn't want her to think I was rude or weird for taking food photos in her kitchen without asking. She then proceeded to tell me that generally there are two types of lamb ribs (those which have been either salted and dried or salted, smoked and dried). We had the smoked version that evening. It is also generally practiced that the chef will leave these "bad boys" soaking overnight to get rid of some of the saltiness. Then the ribs are placed in water, brought to a boil and then steamed for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, she didn't have too much time to soak them so they were a little saltier than normal, but hey nothing a good dram of " Linie Aquavit" couldn't fix. Ah, what is Aquavit you say....
Courtesy of Wikepedia: Aquavit is a Scandinavian distilled beverage of typically about 40% alcohol by volume. Its name comes from aqua vitae, the Latin for "water of life". Aquavit is distilled from either potato or gran. It is flavoured with herbs such as caraway seeds, anise, dill, fennel coriander and grains of paradise. Aquavit usually has a yellowish hue, but can vary from clear to light brown, depending on how long it has been aged in oak casks. Particular to the Norwegian tradition is the occurrence of Linie aquavits (such as "Løiten Linie" and "Lysholm Linie"). These have been carried in oak casks onboard ships crossing the equator ("Linie") twice before it is sold. While many experts claim that this tradition is little more than a gimmick, some argue that the moving seas and frequent temperature changes cause the spirit to extract more flavour from the casks.
The rest of the dinner consisted of mashed rutabaga, boiled potatoes and a red berry sauce (probably a “tyttebaer” - lingenberries sauce), similar to our cranberry sauce. It was followed by a rice cream pudding dessert. The tradition is to hide an almond in the pudding and whoever gets the almond then is granted a marzipan pig as their prize. Would you believe it, after my third or fourth spoonful I hit pay dirt, the almond was mine!! Even funnier because based on our two previous Norwegian Christmases I had asked if there was an almond in the dessert, the answer was no (I think this is more of a Dec 25th Christmas day tradition), but upon my request the hostess quickly made the adjustment and granted my wish. And what was even better on this day was that the prize was a bottle of wine, which sadly I ended up forgetting at the end of the evening. Oh well, it was still fun to get the almond.
After dinner we ended up dancing around the Christmas tree that was outside their dining room window. I thought I heard one of the guests say that this was another tradition, but usually done with school children...but hey the kid came out in all of us that night. Following the festivities outside, I was taken by my Norwegian naval friend, who happens to be a master diver and runs a dive school, to his basement to look at his "toys" and listen to a few of his "sea stories". The toys happened to be some large radio controlled airplanes, a hobby which he enjoys very much. I can't recall all the stories, but the one that really caught my attention was one that came from a framed picture on his basement wall. It was a picture of an Italian diver grappling with a giant squid. He goes on to tell me that when he was a kid he saw this very picture at the dentist office and from then on he was fascinated with the world of diving and dreamed of becoming a diver. Lo and behold some 40 years later while doing some business in Italy he sees this very picture on the wall of his business associate. It was something that this guy had framed from an Italian magazine. Anyway, the guy after hearing the story gives him the framed picture. We ended up catching a late night bus home that night after another wonderful Norwegian experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment