Local Preservation Methods and Local Dishes?

[Deleted]

I think it would be fun to have our sisters here share how the locals preserve their food. We do a lot of canning where we are but do any of you do any smoking of meats or even salting of meats? What about drying?

I know Kat may be able to share some things from Scandinavia. There is a fish dish around these parts in some families called lutefisk which isn't too bad if you fling the right condiments on it. It comes from Scandinavia and from what I hear it's a safe method of preserving the catch of the day.

So how about it? What local dishes and local preservation methods can you share? I'm looking for more variety in my recipe box.

[katpants]

Yep . Lutefisk is more of a Swedish thing, Finns are VERY nationalistic about their dishes. Hubby has tried lutefisk but said it wasn't anything to write home about.

Drying was the big way up here to preserve food or pickling. Pickled herring is very popular up here but we don't eat it. We eat a flexitarian diet so we don't eat many of these things.

The grossest thing but the most Finnish is fish bread. They cook fish inside bread as a preservation method. This is actually under threat from the EU since some of methods aren't hygenic so they claim.

Hubby said there is a song about fishbread and in the Wars the Finnish guys would sing about it.

Here is a link on it:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalakukko


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herring#Pickled_herring

[Deleted]

Kat, we don't care for the herring either. Fish bread?? Isn't it a shame that the European Union doesn't respect individual nationalities! It seems to me that all those generations who had to survive on fish bread and were strong and healthy proves the EU wrong about that. It doesn't sound appetizing but I can see where it would keep starvation away from the family.

Lutefisk is okay with condiments flung at it and we can eat it like that but not by itself. We like our fish fried but I'm willing to try drying the fish by smoking it in our homemade smoker. We have a lot of apple wood branches that we have been wanting to try.

Thanks for those links! So interesting how different peoples have survived in different countries!

[katpants]

Us too, herring smells too...well ewy is a good word lol.

It is true, the EU is great for big nations but if you're small it's awful at paving over everyone. The only great thing about EU is cheaper products since Finland has our grocerys monopolized.

I agree, it helped people not starve so it holds a special place. The best Finnish food has to be meat pies and Karelian pies, not the best things for you but good lol

I like dried fish, my mom used to mix dried salmon with cream cheese and it's pretty good. I think Finns would dry it out above the stove to preserve it for the winter as well.

Sure! I think it's cool too, you can always tell alot about a culture by it's food.

Kat