4 min read
Published 06. March 2024
From Sea to Plate: a culinary voyage through Norway´s traditional cuisine
When thinking about traveling to Norway, perhaps its cuisine is not one of the first things that comes to mind — but it should be. This land is blessed with one of the longer coastlines in the world, and breathtakingly diverse landscapes that include endless forests, lakes and farmlands. As a result, you’ll never not be spoiled with the freshest, highest quality ingredients when sampling Norwegian foods.
Whether you’re more drawn to the seafood and the coastal cuisine, or to the succulent berries and rich game meat of the mainland, one thing’s for sure: Norway will take you on a culinary voyage you won’t soon forget.
Here’s what you need to know about the country’s traditional cuisine:
From the sea and the fjords
In the past few decades, Norway has made a name for itself when it comes to top notch seafood — and for good reason. With so much of the country being lapped at by fjord or ocean waters, the fruit of the sea are never not abundant.
There’s a culture of fishing and preserving the fish that goes back millennia, and in many places the traditional preservation methods are still used and celebrated. One such example is stockfish, a signature method of drying up Skrei (Atlantic cod) on large, triangle-shaped wooden racks, which you’re bound to encounter a lot when visiting the Lofoten archipelago. Another example is gravlax, aka salmon cured in sugar, salt and dill — a modern take of an olden tradition where the salmon would be buried in the sand.
But Norway has so much salmon, you’d better believe there are several ways of enjoying it. Thanks to its cold, clean waters and countless lakes and rivers, the salmon quantities are so big that the country didn’t know what to do with it … until they exported it to Japan in the ‘80s, and since then salmon has become a staple in sushi dishes, a tradition that has tricked back into Norway in the past few years. You can also try a salmon burger; they’ve become very popular recently and are available in most of the bigger cities like Oslo or Bergen.
What about seafood? Norway is famous for its king crab, which you can enjoy freshly caught in the North, served with melted butter and a dash of lemon, and for its prawn and crayfish, which people usually boil and enjoy in salads and open-faced sandwiches.
If you want to try a more unique, traditional Norwegian fish dish, make sure to order lutefisk at a restaurant: it’s dried cod that has been soaked in water, put in lye, and then boiled until soft and gelatinous. A hearty dish, served with potatoes and often with bacon.
From the forests and the soil
But even if you’re not the biggest seafood fan, Norwegian cuisine has so many delicacies to entice you with! Thanks to the endless hours of sunlight in the summer, berries and fruit have more time to mature and taste delicious as a result. Berries in particular, make for delicious jams and sauces, but also for unique desserts: the famous cloudberries can be found even in Arctic Norway and their pillowy, amber-colored form has given them the name “Arctic gold.” Make sure to enjoy cloudberries in multekrem, a traditional dessert made of these sought after berries whipped with cream, sugar and vanilla.
Long expanses of forest also mean an abundance of mushrooms that you can learn to forage with the help of experts. Chanterelle mushrooms are particularly popular, with their golden color and mild flavor making them perfect for stews, but also as topping on pizzas and sandwiches. And carnivores will be thrilled to know that game-meat is often on offer in Norway, as the country has a long hunting tradition that continues to this day. You can try deer, moose and reindeer steaks, or go for the more modern approach with a reindeer burger, served with lingonberry jam.
If you prefer more traditional meat flavors, Norway still delivers: thanks to its sprawling farmlands and laws about allowing its cattle roam free and graze on fresh grass, dishes made with sheep and lamp are particularly delicious. Try fårikal, a sheep stew with cabbage and peppercorns, pinnekjøtt, a dish mostly served around Christmas made with sheep ribs, mashed turnips and sausage, or if you’re feeling brave opt for smalahove, which is a sheep’s head roasted and cured.
Vegetarians and cheese lovers in general will be thrilled to learn that Norway also has some world-class cheese offerings, from the famous caramelized brunost (brown cheese), to blue cheeses and Gouda-style cheeses that have been winning international prizes in competitions. Whatever it is you’re craving for, Norway won’t let you go hungry!
From the past, for the future
Much like the country itself, Norwegian cuisine has humble beginnings: with poverty being a big issue up until the discovery of oil in the ‘70s, people veered toward food that could be easily preserved all year long, even during the harsh wintertime.
Flash forward to today, and Norwegian gastronomy is quickly becoming recognized for its balance between traditional methods and modern approaches, always with the freshest ingredients as the star. Norway has won the most Bocuse d’Or awards on a country level, and Michelin-starred chefs like Halvar Ellingsen are re-inventing classic dishes and giving a new meaning to the expression “from fjord to table.”
