And they have fish - in bread! Here's links to a couple of short cartoons that even if you don't know the first thing about Finland, I think you'd find pretty funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgE9G5QGs54&feature=related
And their water, it's pure, wholesome and fresh. Just like their favorite cook: mother nature. And it doesn't contain elephant poop!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhhqYx6mYrg
Ahh, Finnish food. Unlike most of you I'm friended with who might read this post (excepting the ones in Finland, of course), you probably haven't had the joy. But here it is in a nutshell: if you like meat and potatoes, or fish and potatoes, then Finland is your kind of place. Oh, and the fresh berries in the summer are to die for. And cucumbers. And cheese. And bread. And crackers; lordie, there are shelves upon shelves of different kinds of crackers there! It IS good, but it is also pretty basic, and low on the levels of spice and imagination - hence prompting me to come close to drawing swords when a Finn asserted to me lately that Finnish food was better than the food in California. I'm not the fastest person to pull my California snob-card, but I'll bet money that odds are that if you walk into a random restaurant here in the bay area, you'll find something unique and tastey, which is something I can't say for my wanderings in Finland.
Which is fine! It's just a matter of putting one's expectations in the right place. I know I'm an odd bird, even here on this side of the pond, for not being keen on crackers, or bread, or potatoes, or even cheese much. So when I go to Finland I just have to do a kind of psycho-gastronomical readjustment, and it's all good. I just happen to have a palate that likes spice, and the unexpected, but it's not as though I get bent out of shape when I can't have it that way. One just takes it as it comes, and keeps a good sense of humor about it when it's not, maybe, what one would prefer.
Well, I can't say unimaginative and predictable entirely sums up Finnish cuisine. The most interesting experience I've had in the country of ten thousand lakes was at this truly lovely little restaurant along the shores of one of those lakes. Göran and I were eating with a couple - Lisbeth and Sverker. Lisbeth is the head of one of the companies in Finland that makes yachts, and she had recently had a company party at that same restaurant and the restaurant crew remembered her. I was looking at the menu and saw that under "appetizers" they had herring parfait. That bears repeating: herring parfait. What kind of concoction was that? So of course I had to order it. The folks there at the restaurant were happy to have Lisbeth back and I guess grateful for her having her big party there, that they brought us, on the house, double servings of everything, including the parfait.
Wherever your imagination might go for what that was like, just let it wander there freely. I'll just say this: Göran's a Finn, and when I mentioned that famous herring parfait to him this morning (after watching the food cartoon) and he said the cat food he could still smell on his fingers smelled just like it, so he was probably feeding the kitty something like it - any implied judgment call there did not come from me! But bless him, I recall that he ate both servings of the parfait that day at the restaurant. It would have been impolite to push the staff's good will off to the side.
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