cooking in finland

cooking in finland is pretty much the same as home. since most food products have pictures on them (& really, you don't need to see "pasta sauce" to know the jar contains pasta sauce) & most have the actual product name in english. so, i haven't had many issues in that realm...until last sun. (that is, a week ago).

being a vegetarian outside of the u.s. & canada has had it's challenges. there's no gardenburger, worthington/morning star farms, nor many of the other meat substitute options abundantly available back home. there is tofu - which i don't think i'll need to resort to - & soy protein. the soy protein is dried & comes in little plastic bags & is available in, i don't know, different shapes (i've seen similar products @ the abc in gladstone). the first bag i bought was cornflaky-like in shape & was actually depicted as cereal in a picture on the label (w/ milk & strawberries in a bowl) - that does not sound appealing to me in the slightest. in another bag i bought, it's cylindrical... on one of my first shopping trips, i needed to get alternatives for protein since i didn't have access to my usuals. so, i also bought a bag of lentils.

the vegetarian thing has also prevents me from buying pre-packaged meals since the ingredients are in finnish & swedish & i don't know every finnish word for every type of meat. i only know a few like: liha=meat, kinkua=ham (or pork, basically pig; i don't if they differentiate between the different forms of pig meat), kala=fish (but nothing will actually have "kala" as an ingredient; it will have the actual fish name - salmon, halibut, etc.). and that's not nearly extensive, so unless the product has a clear picture of its contents (like frozen pizza), it is "off limits".

now, some of you know that i'm not exactly a fan of lentils. not knowing how to make anything w/ lentils, i emailed my friend sally to get her lentil soup recipe. she replied saying she usually just wings it, but still gave me something i could use & also mentioned that recipes are usually on back of lentil packages. right, but these are in finnish & i have issues reading finnish recipes (see below for more on this). sally also wrote that she likes to have cottage cheese & cornbread w/ her lentil soup. which sounded quite good to me as well. so, the next time i went to the store, i purchased the necessary ingredients for the lentil soup (finding a multi-spice like mrs. dash took longer than expected) as well as cottage cheese & a bag of flour w/ a picture of a father & son enjoying bread that looked "cornbread" enough (it was yellow)....

since preparing this meal was going to be labor intensive (for me), i delayed (i also needed to figure out how to make the bread). but, i had to make it before the tomatoes, etc. went bad. so, last sun. i went to work. i didn't have issues w/ the lentil soup (well, not other than the "sorting" of the lentils; i didn't sort them, i have no basis of criteria for sorting). although, it does have more carrots in it than the recipe suggested....because, carrots only come in bags of six+ & i have no other use for carrots, so i put all of them in it. making the bread was a whole different issue...

i "studied" the recipes on the bag of flour & that was just frustrating. even the most simple recipe called for ingredients i could not figure out (i was using online translators). so, i went online to the company's site, hoping they would have recipes in english (they didn't). then, i searched for cornbread recipes & found a buttermilk cornbread recipe that looked simple enough. on my next shopping trip, i went looking for those ingredients. i couldn't find buttermilk or anything that looked like it might be buttermilk (i asked elise if there's buttermilk in finland & she'd never heard of buttermilk). finding baking soda wasn't very easy either; i knew what i had got online as a translation wasn't correct. in the baking section of the store, i found one of the ingredients on the bag of flour (another product by the same company); so i used that as my baking soda...there are individual packages of the powder & it doesn't look anything like arm&hammer. elise did tell me what baking soda is in finnish, but that was not retained in my memory bank.

alright, so now i have "all" the ingredients & can attempt to make "cornbread". really, i knew it was going to be something different, but figured this is just flour; all i need to do is add the same ingredients added to other types of flour that then become a type of bread after baking & i'll make some sort of bread....close enough. so, mixing up the quantities of the ingredients between the recipe on the bag & the cornbread recipe online (50g of margerine, 2/3 cup sugar, etc. - this was for 2 reasons: 1. translation/conversion issues. 2. eno doesn't really cook & doesn't have any measuring utensils; the margerine is measured out in 50g increments & i have a 1 cup measuring cup for my yogurt that i brought from home.) & following the instructions online (other than oven temp.; i wasn't going to convert fahr. to cel.), went about making my bread. i also used 2 cups of the flour instead of 1 cup + 1 cup all purpose flour - i wasn't going buy another bag of flour i would only use once; plus, it allowed me to use more of the flour i bought & was only going to use once (well, maybe twice now). i put it in the oven, tended to my lentil soup, & played the waiting game. about 20min. later, i checked on my lentil soup. it still had some water that could be evaporated off; i checked my watch & had another 30min. before i needed to check my "cornbread", so i headed back to my room. then, i thought: "wait a min., what i put in that oven is not what needs 5omin. to bake @ 225c. i should check it now". good thing i did, 'cause it was done & on the verge of burning....

verdict: i am a self-proclaimed dunce when it comes to cooking & the experience above was not one i ever wish to repeat. thankfully, i don't think i'll have to. i have enough lentil soup to last me a couple of weeks (at least 1 1/2) & by the time i'm done will have eaten more lentil soup than i think i have in my entire life (& will have no desire to again for a very long time - so sally, please don't make it if you know i'm coming over :D ). i have no idea what type of bread i made. it's okay - it's bread. i'm sure the 2/3 cup sugar & the honey i put on it helps its palatability. it's thin, but thick in texture (i'm sure the all purpose flour would have made it lighter & fluffier, but whatever - it's bread).

it's egg salad sandwhiches next week!