Norway has many traditional foods that grow naturally in its northern, mountainous and seaside environments. Food traditions developed in isolated valleys and are eaten today along with the newer foods of our modern times. This is a short list of the traditional foods.

Fish, Meats, Cheese

• Laks is Salmon farmed or wild. Farmed is the most common these days. It is traditionally served in slices, steamed or cooked, or sometimes pan fried in butter, accompanied by a sweet and sour cucumber salad, sour cream and boiled potatoes. Sometimes Sandefjordsmør is added. This is a sauce made from melted butter and cream. Smoked salmon is widely used. As a topping on sandwiches and as a light dinner accompanied by stewed potatoes, which are diced cooked potatoes in a béchamel sauce with chives. Gravlaks is a preparation of salmon fillets which are marinated with salt, sugar and dill for 24 hours. It is served cut in thin slices, often with a sweet and sour mustard sauce, and sometimes with potato stew or boiled potatoes.

• Torsk, is Cod fish. The head and tongue of cod are also eaten and prized. Cod is usually boiled, with potatoes, and carrots and served with melted butter.

• Sild is Herring. It has traditionally been used fresh, boiled in a spicy stock, or pan fried in fillets. Always served with boiled potatoes. Salted and cured herring was a very important source of protein in times of poverty. Sild og poteter, herring and potatoes is still a saying for “basic stuff”. Now you can get salted or spiced herring fillets served with sour cream, raw onion rings, pickled red beets and potatoes. It is a popular summer dinner. Sursild, which translates as “sour herring” is made from cured herring which has most of the salt taken out, and pickled in a spicy sweet and sour brine with onions, or in a spicy tomato sauce. You can buy pickled herring in many varieties; many of them originally come from Sweden. They are all eaten cold on bread, most often on dark bread

• Ørret is Red Trout. The big sea trout and the smaller trout from lakes and creeks. It is used in much the same way as salmon, except for small freshwater trout that is often pan fried whole, and sautéed shortly with sour cream. Traditionally served with cucumber salad and potatoes.

• Rakfisk or Rakørret is a very traditional specialty food. It is made from freshwater fish, mostly trout. Whole, fresh fish, gutted and gills removed, but head and tail on, is put down in layers with a mixture of salt and sugar and put in a cold place. It is left to slowly ferment for 3 to 6 months. The process can be compared to the maturing of cheese, and some like it more mature than others. Good rakfisk is butter smooth with a distinct smell. This is party food in the wintertime, served skinless and boneless in pieces with crispy thin flatbread or soft lefse, which is a soft thin potato and rye crepe, butter, sour cream, boiled potatoes and red onion rings.

• Geitost is a medium brown colored “cheese”. It is mostly made from “myse”, which is whey, the fluid that is left when you make cheese from milk. Myse, whey from goat’s milk (and/or from cows milk) is boiled slowly for hours, some sugar and cream is added in the process. The result is a sweet brown “cheese” that is a staple on our open sandwiches. It is sliced very thin and often served on heavy brown grainy bread. Three slices of bread with the Geitost is a standard lunch for children and adults. This cheese is both farm made and factory made in many varieties. Geitost is also used in small amounts in sauces for game dishes called viltsaus.

• Reinsdyr is Reindeer. In restaurants it is often served as a thin sliced steak with a port or red wine sauce. Reindeer are raised for the meat, hides and bone. All the parts are used. It is raised in the Middle and North of Norway, by the Sami people. There is also a hunting season for wild reindeer on Hardangervidda, a mountain plateau (“vidda” in Norwegian) in the Hardanger region of western Norway. It is the largest such plateau in Europe.

• Vilt is Game. Various Norwegian game include reindeer (reinsdyr), moose (elg), elk (hjort) deer (rådyr), grouse (rype). The best parts were traditionally roasted, served with a rich sauce made from stock, sour cream, cream, often spiced with juniper berries (einebær), geitost, and lingonberry jam (tyttebær)

• Mutton and lamb meat, both wild and farmed. Some Norwegian sheep have a naturally salty flavor because they are raised near the sea. Autumn and winter are the seasons for making Fårikål (Mutton in cabbage). Pieces of mutton or lamb meat are cooked with big chunks of cabbage and a spoonful of whole peppercorns, until the meat is very tender. Served with potatoes and the juice from the stew. Another traditional lamb stew is Lammefrikasse, pieces of lamb meat cooked with carrots, and sometimes pieces of celeriac and cauliflower. The stock turned into a light sauce and served with potatoes. Pinnekjøtt, lamb ribs (look under Christmas foods)

Sandwiches

Most Norwegians eat open-faced sandwiches for lunch. Toppings are called Pålegg which literally means “stuff to put on bread”.
Some traditional toppings include:

• Geitost the sweet brown cheese, most often made with a mixture of goat milk and cows milk. This is not really “cheese”, it is the whey that are left after cheese making, cooked for hours and caramelized.

• Reker are small peeled shrimp always with mayonnaise and lemon

• Leverpostei is a pork liver pate often served with a sweet pickle or pickled beet slice

• Karbonade is a hamburger, traditionally from lean beef, served with soft golden sautéed onions or a fried egg on top. Should be served hot.

• Røkelaks med eggerøre is cold scrambled eggs with thin sliced smoked salmon served with a lemon slice

Berries

Many Norwegians hunt for berries and mushrooms in the summer and fall.

• Blåbær are blueberries which grow in forests all over the country. Traditional summer treats are large, thin pancakes with blueberry jam, or waffles with the same.

• Tyttebær (also called lingonberry) are a small red cranberries that grows close to the ground in forests. They are cooked with sugar into a jam that is served cold with many meat and game dishes. Alternatively the berries are only stirred with sugar without any boiling. Tyttebær contains a lot of pectin which acts as a natural conserving agent, and keeps well for a long time without cooking.
  Multe or Cloudberries are a yellow raspberry look alike that also grows close to the ground in forests and swampy fields. They have an unusual and wonderful flavor, incomparable to anything else. They are eaten mixed with sugar on bread, or mixed with whipped cream as a dessert after Christmas dinner.

• Rips are red currants and Solbaer are black currants. These are grown in many Norwegian gardens and used liberally in season, and frozen for other uses in jams and desserts.

• Bringebær, Red Raspberries are also grown in many gardens, but grow wild in abundance all over the country.

• Norwegian Jordbær are strawberries, exceptionally flavorful and sweet. Served for their two-three months season in summer, plain, with sugar or with sugar and cream or with vanilla ice cream.
  There are an abundance of wild mushrooms in the forests.

Christmas food is very traditional and prescribed.

5 choices served exactly with these accompaniments only. Perhaps 98% of Norwegians in Norway eat one of these foods on Christmas Eve!

• Ribbe Pork side and ribs, baked with very crispy skin that tastes like bacon and has juicy meat, served with sausages (made with nutmeg and milk) and sauerkraut made fresh that day with caraway seeds, and boiled potatoes with the fat of the pork as a gravy. Aquavit and Christmas beer (a stronger sweeter beer), on the side is sweetened Tyttebaer a small cranberry.

• Torsk Cod, boiled with boiled potatoes, boiled carrots and melted butter. Often served with red wine, or with beer.

• Lutefisk dried salted Cod, treated in lime and reconstituted, thoroughly rinsed and boiled. Served with crispy bacon and bacon grease, ertestuing (dried green peas, cooked into a stew) boiled potatoes, Aquavit and Christmas beer.

• Pinnekjøtt..a salted and dried sheep rib (can also be smoked), reconstituted and steamed until very tender, served with mashed rutabaga and carrot with butter and cream, and boiled potatoes topped with the fat and juice of the Pinnekjott. Aquavit and Christmas beer.

• Rype is grouse or Ptarmigan, usually served at the home of the hunter who shot them with a geitost juniper berry sauce

Vegetables

The traditional Norwegian vegetables are root vegetables and cabbage. The traditional herbs are chives, dill and parsley. Currently all kinds of vegetables are available by import or grown in greenhouses in most parts of Norway. Traditional vegetables are most often served simply boiled.

• Turnip, Rutabaga, Carrot, Cabbage, Potato several varieties

• Norwegian carrots are naturally very sweet and not bitter at all.

Baking traditions include:
Use of Cardamom in sweet buns
Barley flours used traditionally

Flatbreads

• Lefse, a potato and rye very thin crepe
• Vafler, are waffles (You will find round irons for five heart shaped waffles in a circle in most homes)

Many families make homemade breads and home made jams from summer fruits and berries.
Risengrøt, rice pudding or porridge, is often served on Saturdays for lunch. It is made from a short grained rice cooked in milk until tender and creamy. It is served warm with smørøye, a piece of butter melting in the middle, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon and always with a glass of Saft, a syrup of red or black currants and sugar, diluted with water. In the older days risengrøt was a very extravagant and costly food. It is made from whole milk, which people rarely could afford to drink, with butter that usually was sold, and expensive imported ingredients such as rice, sugar and cinnamon. Traditionally it was only served for Christmas Eve or other special celebrations.

Rømmegrøt og spekemat sour cream porridge and cured meats. This was food for weddings and celebrations. Sour cream is boiled with wheat flour and some milk until it is thick and the butter comes out. It is also served with a sprinkle of sugar and cinnamon, and accompanied by some slices of cured ham (spekeskinke), cured sheep’s leg (fenalår), or cured sausage (spekepølse).

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