It's hard to sum up a 2 week vacation in a few sentences and a few pictures, but here goes.... eeehhh on second thought, let's start with food.
The Food: tasty, not what I expected, they've also moved to more processed foods like Americans (though their packaged food has few ingredients and is all made locally), they have a few traditional staples that show up at almost every meal (like karjalanpiirakka - rice pies that you top with butter, cheese, mustard, eggs, meats, and whatever else you can put on top of them and still fit in your mouth) but even the staples come from a store, for the most part. Finland is home to the potato, but it's a damn fine tasting potato even if it does come peeled and vacuum wrapped from a store.
Now my experience is largely dependent on our hosts (my far removed, but much loved cousins). They didn't really care for "traditional foods" aka reindeer, fish, and blood sausage. So the only time we saw these foods were at restaurants. (Yes, I tried reindeer. Smoked reindeer, with sour cream, in a waffle. It was salty like a good Italian meat. I declined to try it when it appeared on our restaurant table in a bit of a bloody pool, cooked quite rare. Couldn't do it. Wasn't drunk enough.)
Food at the cottage, like that above, was great. Most of it did come from the ground or was very fresh, including homemade Rye bread with every meal. The potatoes were straight out of the ground and washed in the river water... no running water at the cottage... That topic is for another time.
I was there during Juhannus - the week long country-wide summer vacation - so the fact that there was never ending snacking and drinking, might... *might* have had something to do with that fact. Still, we were sitting down drinking coffee and eating sweets every 3 hours. I was never hungry in Finland. Above is a platter full of pastries at one such "snack time." Not pictured is the ice cream, cookies, and chocolates that were on the same snack table.
Restaurants in Finland were interesting. I'm glad we had locals with us because they would have confused me endlessly if we didn't have someone to explain that lunch isn't really a full menu, you have a few options, you order at a counter, you either pick up your food from another counter or get your food delivered to your table. You never show receipts for anything, they just believe that you paid and that you're supposed to be there as a paying customer. You get your own water, you have a salad bar and coffee for free with every meal, and three kinds of potato might be served on one plate, but you're guaranteed one kind, every time.
Above is a "veggie burger" aka deep fried potato patty on a bun. Served with a side of french fries. Where was this meal when I was at the cottage w/ the outhouse? It would have really been nice to have in my Mission: Constipation arsenal.
We climbed a mountain / rode a ski lift up a mountain just in time for another snack. Above - waffles with cream and apples and a hot chocolate. Order at the counter, get your water and free coffee, pay for your hot chocolate and waffle, waffle gets delivered (in what appeared to be a sit down restaurant with a waitress).
...Snack time! Danishes with cheese and apricots, really freaking delicious, to the left - chocolates filled with chocolate, to the right - some kind of sour cream and herb chip dip. They brought out the sweets and the salty treats during this snack time. Also pictured, the tiny spoons that they eat everything with. Tiny spoons, tiny plates, and tiny water glasses. The beer was 24 oz., the water glass was about 6 oz. (see below). No that isn't a shot glass, that is a water glass.
I was joked with for eating reindeer food covered with rabbit food... The pizza was called Jakala, meaning lichen (reindeer food) and the mushrooms, veg, and arugula qualified as rabbit food.
A breakfast spread. I really did love the way they eat. A table filled with variety, take a few bites of each, eat again (from a similar table filled with food) 3 hours later. They made bacon and eggs for us. ...even had "american" cheese. And in the left corner you can see the karjalanpiirakka (rice pies).
In the states, I don't eat doughnuts. In Finland, I'd be a "typical American" aka fat. Because these poppy seed, sugar covered bits of perfection were everywhere and they were always warm, fragrant, and delicious.
Kiitos ja kippis.
