Back to Basics

 – the missing link

I made pea soup and Karelian pies. Delicious!

After four months of writing a Master thesis on my native country’s culinary culture, I think I’ve finally found the source of the culinary “problem” in Finland. Ironically, the “problem” is the problem, as most people don’t even consider it a problem. So is there a problem?

Yes and no. Let me break it down to you.

Heard over and over again at home and abroad: “But there is no food culture in Finland!”. Of some reason, however, some of the best chefs from the Nordic region come from Finland and shine even internationally with their savoir-faire, their cutting-edge cuisine techniques and highly developed culinary philosophy. Hold on, aren’t we talking about Denmark here? By no means. I haven’t been away for that long to make the common mistake of mixing up the different Nordic countries or maybe even worse, labelling them all under the rather convenient “Nordic” label.

So if the problem doesn’t lie in the professional culinary expertise or the Finnish culinary culture, where then? After an amazingly inspiring chat with one of my country’s finest chefs following the “New Finnish Cuisine” philosophy as he calls it, I think I’m seeing it clearer than ever. Even though a rapidly growing amount of “average people” have already started opening their eyes to the exquisite abundance of our domestic and natural raw materials embracing them in a rightful way, top chefs, food critics and gastronomic elites still have a vast majority of people to convert and convince in favour of the newest trend in Finnish food culture. How can it be so hard? The recipe is easy: Back to basics. And it’s not like the Finns don’t get it. I mean if you ask a Finn about his/her most delicious Finnish food memory, the person will most certainly start praising his/her grand mother’s home cooking, the so called comfort food – the most basic Finnish food there is. Bingo!

But somehow the link between our grandparents’ food mentality and the contemporary culinary reality is missing. Born in the mid 80s, I can remember “home food” being unworthy of serving even to the kid next door. What to cook that would be special, tasty and interesting enough was my Mum’s biggest problem, as the normal and average, basic home food was problematic to serve. But why, for Heaven’s sake?

I must admit that for long I wasn’t any better myself. It took some radical auto-convincing even for me to be able to proudly serve an honest, rather rustic traditional Finnish dish to my food loving French friends for example. And when I finally got over the fear of it not being a “good enough”, I really had to put grand restraints on myself to not ruin the delicate flavours with “unnatural” and/or foreign flavour elements. I can tell you that it takes great courage to add nothing but salt (and maybe, only maybe, in some cases, some ground black pepper). Respect to those who do it all the time!

Okay, I have to let you all in on a secret, the secret of the “New Finnish Cuisine” in fact. It’s also very simple in the end. It's about turning so-called problem to your advantage. Look at it this way: Instead of spending loads of money on rare and costly foreign ingredients, then using hours and hours on trying to find special, new recipes that you’re hardly able to understand, you should invest in high quality, super fresh, locally produced raw materials and call your granny for inspiration. There. Now you know it.

To sum it up for you, the problem is two-fold. One: The lack of balls and self-confidence in our own Finnish culinary simplicity and raw material capacity. Two: The misunderstanding for “good quality” and “bon goût”. Whether you like to call it “beautification”, “a culinary revolution”, “an elitist project” or “culinary fascism” at its harshest, we need to go back to basics. Don’t get me wrong though, we shouldn’t toss contemporary evolution, technical know-how and avant-garde culinary ethics out the window. We just have to take a step back without taking a step back.

Something's Cooking All Right

Looking from the outside in there are fascinating things going on foodwise in Europe all the time and as we speak. It's especially in the Nordic countries (commonly but slightly incorrectly also know as Scandinavia) where something new and fresh is definitely cooking! The New Nordic Cuisine Movement – an innovative and rather new movement for Europe, but certainly so for the rest if the world – is blooming and the "Nordic taste" is turning into a widely recognized and appreciated concept, challenging for example the reputed and renowned, prestigious and flavour-rich Mediterranean cuisine that European food most often is known for outside our continent.

Not a 2010s movement per se as the New Nordic Cuisine Movement has been on people lips and in the making for quite a while already, but it's now that even the mainstream public is starting to get to know this new trend. Why now? It's not so far fetched since noma – Danish chef and food guru Clause Meyer's restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark won the British trade magazine Restaurant's price of World’s Best Restaurant in 2011. noma with Claus Meyer as head captain is giving rise to a whole new movement in the Nordic culinary culture. As they describe it themselves, noma represents a “Nordic gourmet cuisine with an innovative gastronomic take on traditional cooking methods, fine Nordic produce and the legacy of our shared food heritage […] a revival of Nordic cuisine and let its distinctive flavours” (noma's official website).

But there's much more to this movement than noma since it is all about putting back in place the natural limits and conditions that once fully determining human accessibility to food. What's naturally (biologically) and geographically own to our culture and our taste is being uplifted, and stopped regarded upon as constraints and/or culinary handicaps. It's something 100% positive to us and our environment. It's certainly also about elevating the Nordic taste and Nordic culinary culture to the same pedestal as its most refined French and Italian rivals. What Nordic cuisine has to offer has been stipulated in the Manifesto for the New Nordic Kitchen adopted by the Nordic council of ministers. In ten points the manifesto states the fundamentals for the New Nordic Cuisine Movement. The message and main aim are rather honest and straightforward. The indisputable main criteria widely agreed upon in the Nordic Region are that of seasonality, purity, essential simplicity, respecting a certain moral and ethics and finally, beliefs of significant health benefits for humans and the nature we live off.

In Finland, Finnish food is going through similar revival. Finland, known familiarly as the little brother of Sweden might come one step behind the more known Nordic countries, but Finnish input and distinctiveness, nevertheless, shouldn't be underestimated or simply labelled under 'Scandinavia'. I really disapprove of that I must say! Obviously and undeniably, Finnish cultural heritage and also food culture both have their origins in Scandinavian or better Swedish culinary traditions and sometimes it might be hard to wholly separate one from the other. However, the Russian influence on Finnish food culture and taste is not to be dismissed. Herein lies the uniqueness of Finnish cuisine today. Not fully Scandinavian, a touch Slavic and Russian, rather Nordic but still fully Finnish.

I'm very happy to see this development and it has made me think even more about what my own personal taste is, what it represent and where it comes from. I wanted to share this with you, dear readers, now as I'm writing my Master thesis on this exact phenomenon/issue. Thesis writing is darn lonesome by the way and I feel like I'm loosing it several times a day. I guess I simply wanted to share this with all of you and inform you that I'm still here as hungry as ever for new information, new vibes and above all new tastes! If this post gave birth to same awesome and intriguing ideas that might be useful for me ( ;) vink vink), hit me (hard enough) with an email: edithsalminen[at]gmail[dot]com and share your mind with me.

Until then, wish me luck, long nerves and good sprit. Pretty please.

I Found Gold

A scary truth that very often consumes my thoughts while grocery shopping in huge sterile supermarkets is that many people today, especially kids hardly recognize real fruits, real vegetables, real meat or correctly identify their original source any longer. Can you blame them though? I'm saying, that if the only source for tomato sauce for example, is a glass jar with a fancy label on or if one only has seen meat is nicely cut cubes, no wonder people get confused by the real thing and the process behind the end result. Just to mention one of my absolute favorites, the ready pressed frozen garlic that comes in these little plastic moulds! Moving on...no need to get bitter.

Any way, I always thought that I was someone who knows the real, original source of things I put in my mouth, or at least I always try to be as aware of it as possible. Turns out, it's not always like that. Coming from a country like Finland famous for its forests, I'm even a bit ashamed of admitting the following. Regardless of my love for different sorts of mushrooms, it hit me that I've actually never intentionally went to the forest for gathering mushrooms. Of course I more or less know in what type of forests mushrooms grow and what time of year they grow, but never have I got fully equipped for a mushroom hunt. 

A few weeks ago I changed this unfortunate fact. With a little wooden basket on my arm and a little knife with a special brush on the other end, I went into the wild (meaning the forest next door, it's all relative). What an adventure, what a wonderful way of getting in contact with the nature, to not even mention the enormous amount of learning a stroll of a couple of hour can entail. I was completely mesmerized by the unspeakable variety of smells and colors a forest in autumn had to offer. Greens, yellows, reds, browns, the spectrum was breathtaking. After the first stock of nature I managed to concentrate on the essential – the mushrooms. Big ones, small ones, round ones, oval ones, hairy ones, slippery ones, you name it. And to think that some of them could kill a man instantly!  I'm sure my face shifting between confusion and exhilaration must have been an amusing sight! I bet locals would've loved seeing me right there and then, the joke of the week probably with my old school rubber boots, my thick rain coat and my azure blue beanie. I guess I'm a city girl after all.

After half an hour of stumbling and slipping between the trees and the stones, my little wooden basket remained empty. Suddenly the forest didn't feel that amazing at all. I mean there were tons of mushrooms everywhere, but none of them were the right ones. Yes, I was in search of a special kind, the Chanterelles, the gold of the Nordic forest. You know the breathtaking colors I wrote about a few lines earlier? Well these freaking different shades of yellow were making me go mad only an hour after I fell in love with them. Typical. How on earth would I ever distinguish the Chanterelles from the yellow leaves? Impossible, I thought. Challenging my mood even further, the mosquitos got a sudden craving for my blood. Great! Slapping and slipping, I decisively continued my hunt for gold. Must find Chanterelles! Must find Chanterelles! Only to turn the knife in the wound, as we say in Finland, somewhere in the background I could hear my Dad shouting: “I've found so many already!” God damn it! The man is colorblind for Heaven's sake! The funniest family joke is the story of my Dad picking the green leaves instead of red lingonberries on a date with Mum! Now, suddenly he's the master of Chanterelles! I really had to step it up, otherwise I'd forever be the laughing stock of the family.

With the warm sunrays shyly peeking in through the fir trees, I kept on walking. Like a big baby, I was ready to throw myself on the ground and cry. I had zero patience left and I couldn't believe I was admitting defeat. In my state of adolescent anxiety and frustration, I kicked a few poisonous mushrooms off the ground and turned around to walk towards my cheering old man with his basket filled with mushrooms. As soon as I gave up, something caught my eye. I found gold! A yellow, golden yellow, shiny yellow Chanterelle family just sitting there, under fallen Burk branches. I was totally and utterly captivated by their beauty. Never had I seen such golden Chanterelles in my life. It felt almost wrong to pick them out of the ground, but I did. It felt so pure, so true. I found them, I picked them, the way it was meant to be. It was amazing how I immediately appreciated this Nordic delicatess that much more. As I was returning back home holding a Chanterelle in my hand, I really hoped that school kids still today get to go on adventures to the forests with their teachers like I did.