Characteristic products
Among the major ingredients of Saami cuisine, reindeer meat plays an important role. This animal, which is close to the deer and used to the great cold, has been hunted in the region since time immemorial before being gradually bred. The meat is prepared in many ways, notably as a stew, but also as sausage, blood sausage 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. On the other hand, the elk 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 to blend in with its environment in each season.
Another source of protein is fish, which is traditionally dried and smoked (suovasguolle
). Smoking fish is a common pastime for summer people in their wooden huts. The fish include herring, perch, pike-perch and lavaret, which are 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 in the 1970s. It is now heavily fished in the region for its fine meat, for which tourists are willing to spend large sums of money. The forests of Lapland are a source of healthy food thanks to the many berries, the most prized of which is the cloudberry, a type of orange raspberry that grows in the region's marshes. Other berries include the delicate Arctic raspberry, the cranberry and the wild cranberry, which is smaller than its cultivated cousin and has a more subtle flavour. It is used to make juices, jams and jellies. The blueberry is prepared as a cold soup(mustikkakeito), sold in the dairy section. Crowberry (black), sorb (red) and sea buckthorn (orange) are among the rarities of Lapland. In years of abundance, these fruits are used to make tangy jams to accompany game, especially game birds. It seems that the local climatic conditions between icy winters and summers where the sun never sets, explain the taste and the high nutritional value of these berries.Regional specialties
Saami cuisine is made up of simple, robust ingredients, with an emphasis on 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 the dishes can sometimes vary from one country or region to another.
Bread, as an inexpensive and nutritious food, has often played an important role. Until recently, barley, rye and oats were used instead of wheat, which was virtually unavailable 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 typical Saami ingredient, bark bread (barkebrød in Norwegian or pettu
in Finnish) is a subsistence food par excellence. The bark of trees is indigestible and the bread is actually prepared with the inner membrane of the bark - called phloem - of birch, poplar, ash and pine. Dried and ground to a powder, it is then mixed with flour and yeast to produce patties. Not very nutritious, they were mainly used to fill the belly in times of famine, war or when the harvest was poor. The pine bark is however very rich in vitamin C.Reindeer are the most common animal in Lapland, so it is not surprising that their meat is used in a wide range of recipes. Starting with reindeer stew: (poronkäristys in Finnish, renskav in Swedish or finnbiff in Norwegian) where the meat simmers with onions, mushrooms and cream. It is 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.But reindeer meat is also used in the composition of renkorv (reindeer sausage, often smoked, more or less large), torkatrenkott or suovasbierggo (dried reindeer meat), renklämma (a kind of kebab of dried reindeer meat rolled in a cake with raw vegetables) or blodpalt (reindeer blood balls thickened with rye flour and mashed potato) Mashed potatoes are a common accompaniment in Scandinavia and Lapland is no exception. In Lapland, the almond potato (mandelpotet in Norwegian or puikulaperuna
in Finnish) resembles a small ratte potato, which is very popular when sautéed in a pan. Desserts and drinks have long been simple, made with a few ingredients, including wild berries. This is the case of the Plaquebière, whose jam goes well with ice cream or, more strangely, with cheese. And more precisely, leipäjuusto. This Finnish cheese has a surprisingly rubbery texture that squeaks under the tooth. In Finland you can enjoy vispipuuro, a mousse of red fruits (cranberries, redcurrants, etc.) bound with fine semolina. Of course, there are also many common desserts in the rest of Finland, Norway and Sweden, such as cinnamon rolls, all of which are eaten with litres of coffee, as these three countries are respectively the1st,2nd and 6th largest consumers of coffee per capita. Although beer, vodka and aquavit (grain brandy flavoured with caraway seeds) have reached Lapland, traditionally guompa is prepared here, with angelica stems mixed with milk and left in barrels to ferment.
