Characteristic products
Reindeer meat is one of the main ingredients in Saami cuisine. This deer-like animal, accustomed to the extreme cold, has been hunted in the region since time immemorial, before being gradually bred. The meat is prepared in a variety of ways, notably as a stew, but also as sausage, blood pudding or in various forms of dried, salted or even smoked meat. Finnish Lapland reindeer meat even has a PDO. The animal's milk is also traditionally used. The elk, on the other hand, is not bred but hunted, usually in autumn, as is the ptarmigan or snow partridge, a bird whose plumage changes from brown to white between summer and winter, blending into its environment in each season.
Another source of protein, fish, is traditionally dried and smoked(suovasguolle). Smoking your catch is a common pastime for summer visitors in their wooden cabins. Fish include herring, perch, pike-perch and lavaret, which are just as popular as farmed fish such as salmon and salmon trout. In the 1960s, the Soviets introduced the Kamchatka king crab - originally from the North Pacific - into the Barents Sea on the Norwegian border. This highly invasive crustacean became common in Norwegian waters by the 1970s. Today, it is abundantly fished in the region for its very fine flesh, for which tourists are prepared to spend hefty sums.
The forests of Lapland are a source of healthy food thanks to the many berries, the most prized of which is the cloudberry, a kind of orange raspberry that grows in the region's marshes. There's also the delicate Arctic raspberry, cranberry and wild cranberry, smaller than its cultivated cousin, with a more subtle flavor. They are used to make juices, jams and jellies. Blueberries are prepared as a cold soup(mustikkakeito), sold in dairy sections. Crowberry (black), sorb (red) and sea buckthorn (orange) are among Lapland's rarest berries. In years of abundance, these fruits are used to make tangy jams to accompany game, especially game birds. It seems that local climatic conditions, between icy winters and summers where the sun never sets, explain the flavor and high nutritional value of these berries.
Regional specialties
Made from simple, robust ingredients, Saami cuisine features meat, root vegetables, bread and forest products, especially wild berries. Shared between several countries with very different languages such as Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish, the names of dishes can sometimes vary from one country or region to another.
Bread, as an inexpensive and invigorating food, has often played an important role. Until recently, barley, rye and oats were substituted for wheat, which was virtually inaccessible in this region. Gáhkko is a kind of soft flat bread, baked in a pan or on a flat stone, while gárrpa or tunnbröd is much thinner and crispier. It is also reminiscent of the Swedish knäckebröd. A typically Saami ingredient, bark bread(barkebrød in Norwegian or pettu in Finnish) is a subsistence food par excellence. Tree bark is indigestible, and the bread is actually made from the inner membrane of the bark - called phloem - of birch, poplar, ash and pine trees. Dried and ground to a powder, it is then mixed with flour and yeast to produce patties. Not very nutritious, they were primarily used to fill the belly in times of famine, war or crop failure. However, pine bark is very rich in vitamin C.
Reindeer being the most common animal in Lapland, it's hardly surprising that its meat is used in a vast array of recipes. Starting with reindeer stew(poronkäristys in Finnish, renskav in Swedish or finnbiff in Norwegian), where the meat is simmered with onions, mushrooms and cream. It's usually served with mashed potatoes and cranberry jam. Another dish that keeps you warm is bierggojubttsa, or bidos, a soup containing meat (usually reindeer), potatoes and carrots in a broth.
Reindeer meat is also used to make renkorv (reindeer sausage, often smoked, of varying sizes), torkatrenkott or suovasbierggo (dried reindeer meat), renklämma (a kind of kebab of dried reindeer meat rolled in a patty with raw vegetables) or blodpalt (reindeer blood dumplings thickened with rye flour and mashed potatoes). Mashed potatoes are a common accompaniment in Scandinavia, and Lapland is no exception. Lapland is also home to the almond potato(mandelpotet in Norwegian, or puikulaperuna in Finnish), which resembles a small ratte potato, much appreciated when sautéed in a frying pan.
Desserts and drinks have long been simple, made with just a few ingredients, notably wild berries. Such is the case with plaquebière, whose jam goes well with ice cream or, more strangely, cheese. And more precisely, leipäjuusto. This Finnish cheese has a surprisingly rubbery texture that squeaks under the tooth. In Finland, we also enjoy vispipuuro, a mousse of red fruits (cranberries, redcurrants, etc.) bound with fine semolina. Of course, there are also many desserts common to the rest of Finland, Norway and Sweden, such as cinnamon rolls, all devoured with liters of coffee, these three countries being respectively the1st,2nd and 6th biggest consumers of coffee per capita. While beer, vodka and aquavit (grain brandy flavoured with caraway seeds) have made their way to Lapland, guompa is traditionally prepared here, with angelica stems mixed with milk and left to ferment in barrels.
