And how was the food?

One of my great joys of traveling is food.  I'm just back from two weeks in Norway and Sweden.  When people ask me how the trip was, the first thing I remember is the food.

In Sweden, it was the Princess Cake.  Layers of Genoise cake with whipped cream, raspberry jam and covered with a thin layer of green marzipan.  My relatives also treated us to bread made in the fire oven our great-great-grandmother used.   Whole grain bread, round with a hole in the middle, slathered with rich and creamy Scandinavian butter.  

In Oslo we went searching for real Norwegian cuisine and ended up at Stortorvets Gjestgiveri a lovely little restaurant upstairs in a 300 year old building.  I ordered the reindeer appetizer: Reinsdyrcarpaccio med tyttebær, parmesan og timianolje

Then my niece and I had the roast reindeer entre:  Rosastekt reinsdyr servert med sellerirotpuree;, rosmarinstekt sopp og sherry glace

My cousin ordered Husets bacalao " -- a fish stew that came in a bowl almost as big as she is: Husets bacalao, Utvannet klippfisk lagt lagvis med poteter, paprika og løk, tilsatt en tomatsaus med god olivenolje

My sister had onion soup, a cheese course and dessert:  Gratinert løksuppe, Roquefort med fiken, valnøtter og rosmarinhonning and Créme brulee servert med blodappelsinsorbet

After Oslo we took the overnight train to visit our relatives on the west coast of Norway. There we ate cakes and drank coffee, drank coffee and ate cakes and ate more cakes and drank more coffee. Did I mention the cakes and coffee?  Ice cream cakes, whipped cream cakes, cakes with fresh fruit and almonds, cakes with I don't know what that tasted SO good.  

Breakfast, supper and bedtime treats were laid out on the table with bread, lefse, fruit, juice, hard boiled eggs, lox, shrimp, dried lamb and ham, brunost – brown cheese which I called gjetost.  But it is not really gjetost because gjetost is goat cheese and the cheese wasn't goat cheese, but cheese made with cow milk which is called fløtemyost or brunost. The cheese turns brown when the milk or whey is cooked down and the milk sugars caramelize.  It is sweet and a bit salty and a little tangy.  The Norwegians slice it thin and eat it on bread or waffles.  I like it on bread but also with apples or just by itself.

We ate salmon and pork and lamb and venison and potatoes.  Our hostess made her specialty for us:  Rommergrøt; a rich pudding made with cream, semolina flour and milk, topped with cinnamon and sugar.  The heavy cream is cooked until the butter fat rises to the surface, which can be skimmed off and served separately.  Our host's secret ingredient: eggs. Not exactly a "heart healthy" offering, but we all fell in love with it anyway.

I want to mention also that there always was at least one lit candle on the table, no matter the time of day, whose house we were visiting, where the table was, whether it was a meal or a snack or dessert.

We spent one whole day on the Norway's westernmost islands of Bulandet and Værlandet.  There in a restaurant by the Værlandet harbor we ate the ugliest fish known to man: Breiflabb aka the Monkfish or Angler Fish. The firm white succulent flesh was baked in a creamy cheese sauce with onions, green peppers and mushrooms.  Yup, I went back for seconds.  Dessert was a rich ice cream topped with warm berries.  

Later that day we sampled salted & smoked herring served with a boiled potato ala what fishermen ate in the days of old.  Then we topped off the tour with plates of heart-shaped waffles, strawberry jam and sour cream...and coffee, of course.

The island waffles added incentive to my quest to find a non-electric heart waffle iron.  On our last day, we shopped.  In a hardware store in Førde. While looking for door handles, I ran across the perfect cast-iron, made-in-Sweden Norwegian heart waffle iron.  I grabbed it, gulped at the price and the weight it would add to my baggage, then bought it anyway.

But we had NO lutefisk.  For that I have to go to Lou's Rustic Diner in Barnum, MN.