Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Old Memories...2

During cooking my dinner today, I continued recalling my time spent in Norway, and I was thinking about the food there. Well, when I went out shopping groceries, I had to learn that I couldn't buy like I was used to. Basically no problem at all, and after a while I had my shopping list adjusted to the food offered. What I missed during all these years were only two things every German is missing while living overseas, is "our" brown bread and "our" beer. And I had to experience that "H-melk" is fresh milk and does not longer hold than the eat-by date. "Normalsaltet smoer" is salty, so I had to buy "usaltet smoer" - not salted butter. If noone tells you..? In the first time I couldn't get any "quark", but then it was offered under the name "kesam". I had to get used to that salami is pink, that most of the cold meat contains horseflesh and that you cannot beat "husholdningsfloete". What I didn't like were the sweets from "Freia" and I was glad, when I got somewhere "Milka" or "Haribo", and the Norwegian coffee, it was too much roasted for my taste, but I had possibilities to get German decaf. After I got used to all these "imponderables", which just require some flexibility, I began to go through Norwegian food and found things and dishes like "brun ost" - my son really loved - , "jarlsberg", "noekleost", or "roemmegroed". For Christmas - Jule - I prepared traditional food like different sorts of "sild", "lammrulle", "juleskinke", "pinnekjoett" etc. By the way, this is all special Norwegian food, you won't get anything that will only come close to that in Germany. I tried it, no way. And my hubby baked "kransekake" every year, decorated with loads of little Norwegian flaggs. I've still got the form for it. And we adopted as well some other Norwegian traditions, such as hanging out a flagg on each birthday of a person that lives in the house. It's supposed to hang there only for that particular day, but since my son and I have our birthdays one after another, the flagg had to hang for two days. In the first year our neighbours stepped by and advised us to that, because they didn't know....And we always shared May 17th - national holiday - with the Norwegians. The whole country is on the way, people waering their "bunads" - liveries, and flaggs. It's just formidable to see, how a nation is celebrating itself, something, we don't know. Well, when I think, I would hang out a German flagg in order to indicate my birthday, or on October 3rd, my neighbours probably would call the ambulance....

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