For everything there is a season
And right now, Helsinki is turn, turn, turning insanely green. Look at it!
Meanwhile, our home is becoming a bit Finnish.
In part this is due to our overwhelming enthusiasm to consume new, fun, Finnish things, the other part, well, you just try buying regular jam in a Finnish supermarket! Or finding white vinegar and bicarb soda when you need to freshen up the drains. Ok, I’m getting off track. Maybe I should write a separate blog about the bafflement of supermarket shopping.
Here are some Finnish things that have made it into our home. For the purposes of this blog, I have defined Finnish quite broadly, mostly for the sake of the food items, which are possibly more accurately described as Nordic. They are certainly unfamiliar to me, and they all have Finnish labels on them, so that’ll do.
Finnish foody things
I have discussed that piimä has joined the breakfast routine. What has not joined any sort of routine whatsoever is salmiakki: salty liquorice. That description does not do its foulness justice. Here, this video will give you some idea. I did not even get so far as to try chewing the salmiakki.
The cloudberry jam, lakkahillo, made it into our kitchen as an accompaniment to leipäjuusto: bread cheese. Apparently in the US, this cheese is known as Finnish squeaky cheese (thanks Wikipedia), and indeed the first thing I noticed about the cheese was its level of squeak.
Kotikalja literally translates as 'home suds’ and it’s a fermented drink you can make up at home from the packet. We have not done this yet, but we have drunk a glass of kotikalja alongside our hernekeitto (pea soup) for lunch. I actually think that it is endemic to Finland, although there is a similar drink in Russia made from a bread base instead of malt.
The tea is actually from a really new tea company run by two fabulously nice Finnish ladies. I have some sneaky tea samples because the plan is to write in English for the fabulously nice ladies and their fabulously nice tea. Their teas have Finnish ingredients in them like lingonberry and birch and blackcurrant and sea buckthorn. Yes of course; sea buckthorn.
Finnish kitchen things
The kettle is a bit of a mystery. It was a second hand purchase, looks pretty cool if you ask me, and has 'Made in Finland' written on the bottom. The internet could not help me any further.
Marimekko is a pretty classic Finnish brand, best known for its bold fabrics. They’ve branched into home wares and also just gotten really big. My newest acquisition in the kitchen is this pretty teapot and matching pretty teacups; a very lovely birthday present from a very lovely friend.
Our Arabia plates are just absurdly pretty and Finnish. Our Iittala bowls are made by a Finnish company, designed by a Finnish designer, Klaus Haapaniemi, but inspired by the designs he created for a Czech opera by Leoš Janáček: The Cunning Little Vixen. In the opera (apparently, I haven't seen it), the lady fox is captured by a forest ranger and obliged to learn to live among humans. She finally escapes to freedom and the proper life of a fox, however short that may be. That sounds like an opera I'd like to see.