Local quality grains and vegetables, lamb and cured meats, wild berries, and of course the all-important fish are staples of the Norwegian kitchen.
The hunger for traditional Norwegian food has unusual good preconditions in this wildly varied country with one of the world’s longest coastlines. Norway is known for wild nature, lots of space, and deep fjords with cold, clean water.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, catching and preparing top-quality fish has always been a big part of Norwegian culture. For ages past, dried cod was the big export – now it is fresh salmon and arctic cod. Read more about Norwegian first-class seafood.
You will find many of these fresh ingredients in the everyday Norwegian kitchen, and with so many goodies at our disposal, it’s not surprising that the new big trend is to prepare our meals from scratch. In addition, the Norwegian love for coffee has been reinvented by local coffee brewers and baristas with international awards on their walls.
Norwegian lamb: not baaad at all!
PHOTO: DAN NYGÅRD
Norwegian lamb is especially tender and juicy, due to the fact that most of the animals graze in outlying pastures, with vast expanses of untouched nature, clean running water, and protein-rich vegetation consisting of different herbs.
In addition, the lamb and sheep make an invaluable contribution to the Norwegian cultural landscape when grazing, as they keep the vegetation in check and thereby maintain natural diversity.
An important principle for sustainable meat production is that the whole animal should be exploited after being slaughtered, and a lot of Norwegian lamb and sheep delicacies are made from more peculiar parts of the animal.
The Fenalår from Norway is now a geographically protected name for the slow-cured lamb’s leg, based on Norway’s long history of hanging mutton legs to dry in mountain air to preserve meat for use during the winter.
Pinnekjøtt, racks of lamb, or mutton cured in brine or sea salt, is popular during Christmas in Fjord Norway.
If you’re really lucky (and a bit courageous), you will get to taste a sheep’s head. The dish is called “smalahove” in Norwegian, and is considered a delicacy in certain parts of the country.
