In a country with more than 180,000 lakes, a lot of fish are consumed, especially salmon, rainbow trout, Finnish cod, pike and herring, as well as perch and colorful small cod - muikku. Meat dishes, with the exception of venison and game, reflect the influence of European cuisine (mainly French). From desserts, dishes from northern berries and fruits predominate - cranberries, cloudberries, polyberries. Baked goods are very popular.

Finnish cuisine

In Finland, the following food hours are accepted (restaurants, cafes, etc.) - early breakfast from 7.00-10.00, lunch from 11.00-14.00, lunch from 16.00-18.00 and dinner from 19.00.

For breakfast, Finns prefer porridge or muesli in milk, but mostly limit themselves to a cup of tea or coffee (most often a glass of milk) with sandwiches. During the lunch break, as a rule, they eat one dish - in our opinion, “first” or “second”. Most often it is a thick soup. But maybe potatoes with meat. At dinner they eat bread and butter and drink milk. At 14.00 they drink tea. The working day ends at 16.00-17.00, and Finns have dinner at 17.00-18.00. Dinner is similar to lunch, but vice versa, if you ate “first” for lunch. Then they cook the "second" for dinner. And if during the day they ate steaks with potatoes, then soup is served for dinner.

Finns have always eaten tasty and well. Residents eat a lot of fish, vegetables, especially potatoes, and cereal dishes. Oatmeal porridge in milk, which is prepared from various cereals, is very popular. From meat dishes preference is given to fried and stewed beef. Cold fish and jelly were always served as an appetizer, and Karelian stew as a second dish. To the festive table and now they always bring different casseroles from rutabagas, carrots and pasta. Without a doubt, a classic dish is the Karelian kalitka with rice, buttered with a chopped egg.

"Syarya" is a real tradition - it has been prepared for thousands of years. The ingredients of the dish are the simplest: lamb and potatoes and the only seasoning is salt. The secret of this dish is slow stewing in a traditional Finnish oven in a birch dish, sometimes even for eight hours. It seems that the recipe is easy and simple, but the taste of this dish is unique and full. Many traditional dishes are oven-baked, as they are in Russia, and various pies play an important role in the diet of people throughout Finland.

In Southern Finland, bread should always be soft. Black bread was baked every week, and on Saturdays you could smell fresh Karelian wickets in the kitchens. Previously, these gates were taken with them as a treat when they went to visit. From the east, Vyborg pretzel was brought to Lappearanta, the original recipe of which is different for everyone. But everyone claims that this is the original. These pretzels are usually sold at the market and during various events. This tradition is also alive, there are about 10 bakeries in the region that bake these pretzels. At Christmas, they bake a ham, prepare a dish of dried cod with potatoes, a turnip casserole, bake various cookies - horta (small star-shaped cookies with prunes on top) and "pepper" cookies of various shapes. A traditional Easter dish is pies with fish (calacucco).

The most popular drinks in Finland are beer and coffee. Beer is appropriate for an evening or a weekend, coffee is drunk at any time of the day. In every office or home, a coffee maker is always ready. A business meeting or negotiation begins with a cup of coffee. The Finns brew it a little stronger than the Americans, but much weaker than the Italians, so if you want really strong coffee, order an espresso. Coffee is always served with milk and cream, sugar and some pastries, in the evening they offer cognac or brandy.

Finnish cuisine

Fish meals

• Graavi lohi - rainbow trout in its own juice
• Rosolli - herring salad
• Rapu - crayfish (season of catching and selling starts from July 20)
• Mati - Finnish freshwater fish caviar, very tasty, small, yellow or orange, sold with chopped onions and sour cream.

Soups

• Kalakeitto - fish soup
• Lohikeitto - salmon soup (both made with milk, potatoes and onions)
• Korvasienikeitto - morel mushroom soup

Meat dishes

Bakery products

• Mustamakkara - grilled pudding, a specialty of Tampere, usually served with lingonberries
• Krjalan piirakat – Karelian rye dough pies stuffed with rice or mashed potatoes, served hot with a mixture of hard-boiled eggs and butter.

Sweet dishes

• Pulla - sweet yeast coffee buns with vanilla

• Kiisseli - soft berry jelly, usually made from wild berries, served with milk or cream

Beverages

Beer - Several breweries in Finland produce very fresh and light lager type beers. Supermarkets sell non-alcoholic beer (class I) and low-alcohol beer (class III). Strong beer (class IYA and IYB) is available for sale only in the shops of the alcohol monopoly Alko. Kotikalja, a homemade beer brewed with water, maltose, sugar and yeast, containing a small amount of alcohol, is a special drink on every rural table.

Vodka – for a long time the most popular in Finland are Koskenkorva Viina (38%) and Koskenkorva Vodka (60%), made from wheat. It is customary to serve vodka with cold appetizers, deeply chilled (preferably to -18 degrees), in metal glasses. "Finlandia Vodka" is the most attractive in terms of design, as it is sold in an "ice" bottle. Liqueurs - these drinks are made from natural fruit and berry tinctures. A specific Finnish product is liqueurs with a strong aroma of northern wild berries: Lakkalikoori (cloudberry), Puolukkalikoori (lingonberry), Karpalolikoori (cranberry), Mesimamarijalikoon (Arctic blueberry). Champagne - Finns make it by fermenting yellow currants and gooseberries. Of the dry champagnes, two types are especially recommended - "Kavaljeeri" and "Elysee".

Related material

Unusual Finnish dishes

By popular demand of workers, today I will tell you what is so unusual you can eat in Finland.

In general, Finnish cuisine is quite close to Russian. Most of the dishes do not cause any special surprise and are quite edible, and even tasty. But there are also some surprises. I’ll start, perhaps, with more or less well-known dishes, and I’ll show the tin itself towards the end of the post. Go.

1. Lohikeito. Fish soup with cream. A similar version can be found, for example, in the Russian Teremka. The main ingredients are salmon and potatoes. A directly Finnish feature is the presence of milk / cream in such a soup. Butter and traditional rye bread are included. By the way, the Finns are masters of rye bread. The soup is tasty, dense, I like it.

2. Mustamakkara. Blood sausage (at the top of the plate). Made from pig blood and barley.

Here it is close up. Quite exotic, although I don’t have much love for this sausage.

Oh yes, in Finnish canteens it is customary to clean up after yourself. Moreover, you need to lay out a plate to a plate, a mug to a mug, etc. Although, probably, it makes sense to talk about canteens separately.

3. Kotikalja. By the way, did you notice there was also a glass with a dark liquid? This is the real kvass. You will be surprised, but almost all canteens have kvass here. Moreover, this is not the burda that is sold in Russian stores, but the one that we usually make ourselves. In Finnish shops you can buy sourdough and make sourdough. Everything is extremely simple - you need to add sourdough, yeast, sugar to taste in warm water and wait 24 hours.

4. Munkki. Finnish version of a donut. Pretty tasty, sold in a cafe. There are cafes that specialize only in donuts.

5. Hot wings or chicken wings. One of the most popular Finnish fast foods. There are restaurants that only serve wings. Usually carrots and celery are added to the wings. Well, the sauce, of course. Personally, I like this kind of fast food.

6. Hamburgers are also very popular. Moreover, you can find a high quality hamburger (not like in McDuck). So I advise you to try. I fell in love with this product during my stay in Finland.

7. Pizza is found massively and everywhere. Personally, I like the national chain Kotipizza.

8. Now let's focus on what you can buy in a Finnish supermarket.
Karjalanpiirakka. Karelian pies. The filling of the pie, sort of like rice porridge with potatoes.

9. LohiKukko. Well, let's move on to the exotic. Any thoughts what it is?

We open. Looks like rye bread. We cut ....

And what an interesting filling in the pie: boiled pork and salmon! This is such a distinctive feature of Finnish cuisine - to mix different types of meat or fish. I highly recommend this cake, especially on the road! Half the pie is enough to fill you up. As a Finnish colleague told me, this cake was originally designed to be taken with you on the road.

10. What is this? I didn't know until I discovered it. Turned out to be melted cheese! Delicious!

11. Juustoleipa. Raw bread. Made from cow's milk. The taste is quite neutral, and even squeaks like rubber. Although, if you warm it up a little, it becomes quite tolerable in taste.

12. Licorice. This is for the most persistent. You start to love somewhere in the fifth year of life in Finland. And before that, you go through all the phases from rejection to acceptance :))) Most of my homies did not like licorice, but you still try it, at least for experience.

13.M&aummmi. Well, as a final chord, another masterpiece of Finnish cuisine. Guess what it is!?

Okay, I'll open the box. Well, did it help? No, it's not chocolate.

According to Wikipedia, mämmi is made from rye flour and malt with the addition of salt and sugar. The porridge is baked for several hours in an oven at a low temperature. How does it taste? It is hard to say. There is something from rye bread. Sweetish. But it's impossible to explain, you have to try it yourself. Mämmies are usually eaten with milk, cream or ice cream.

Well, how about you, will you try?

Traveling to any country involves learning about the local culture, history and traditions. Walking around the city, visiting various sights and museums help with this. However, the best way to understand the spirit of a certain country and its centuries-old traditions is to taste national dishes. Every tourist must try the local cuisine without fail, otherwise the travel experience will be incomplete.

One of the most interesting and unique cuisines in the world is Finnish, as its traditional dishes are really original. Not to try the most popular of them is just a crime. To choose the most interesting options and not miss anything, you should consider the national cuisine of Finland in more detail.

Features of Finnish cuisine

The national dishes of this country are very rich and unusual, so they will definitely not leave anyone indifferent. It is here that you can try an unusual combination of products that you will not find anywhere else. Such a special cuisine was formed in connection with the geographical location of the country and the climate.

The main focus in the culinary traditions of Finland is precisely fish dishes. This is explained by the presence in the country of a large number of lakes, as well as access to the sea. In addition, both dairy and meat dishes prevail here. Desserts, drinks, pastries also deserve special attention.

The basic ingredients that are used quite often include the following products:

• lake, sea, river fish;
• swede;
• pearl barley;
• milk products;
• barley flour;
• vegetables, most often potatoes;
• salo.

Also, the methods of cooking are different here, since frying is rarely used. Most often, products are steamed, stewed, boiled, soaked in milk. In addition, you can often find a combination of meat and fish in one dish, for example, a roast made from these ingredients. In general, all dishes are nutritious and relatively easy to prepare. This is facilitated by a rather harsh climate.

Variety of fish dishes

Since fish dominates on the Finnish table, a lot of different dishes are prepared from it. For example:

• Rosolli - herring salad;
• Graavi suckers - salmon, in its own juice;
• Rapu - boiled crayfish;
• Kalakeitto - fish soup;
• Lohikeitto - salmon soup;
• Climpisoppa - ear.

In cooking, the fish is used completely - head, tail, caviar. For example, there is an unusual dish - Mati, which includes onions, sour cream, small caviar. You can buy it ready-made in any store.

Fish soups take pride of place, they are eaten daily for dinner or lunch. For example, Calaqueitto is cooked with milk and onions. At first glance, a very unusual combination, but gourmets will definitely appreciate its delicate taste. Also here, fish soup is prepared in a special way, not from fish, but using caviar and milk. These ingredients are considered a special delicacy.

Use of dairy products

In Finland, fermented milk products are very popular; the morning of most of the country's inhabitants begins with milk. Milk is also used in the preparation of many dishes, sauces, marinades.

Finnish cuisine is also distinguished by the production of its own cheeses and dairy products. One of these national products is viili, which is added to various dishes. In composition and consistency, it resembles yogurt.

In addition, it is worth noting the magnificent homemade cheeses, which have different tastes. The most popular varieties include: minaiusto egg cheese, Olterman, tutunmaa, lappi cheese, which has a neutral taste.

Also, such varieties of cheese as "Edam" and "Emmental" are appreciated here. In restaurants, you can often find sweet Lapland cheese, which is served fried as a dessert.

Meat dishes

Of course, meat dishes are not cooked here as often as fish dishes, but they are also popular and have their own characteristics. The most famous dishes are:

• Syarya - stewed lamb;
• Poronpaisti - venison roast;
• Lenkkimakkara - pork sausage;
• Maksalaatikko - chopped liver;
• Pittipannu - meat offal.

Venison is especially popular among tourists, it can be ordered at any restaurant. Cooking occurs in different ways, most often stewed.

There is also an opportunity to try cured venison, dried or smoked.

National pastries

Here, pastries are most often made from rye flour. Especially the locals love rye bread, combined with salted fish or caviar. Also very famous dishes of Finnish cuisine are traditional Karelian wickets, pula buns, Hortu cookies, mammi pudding, Vyborg pretzel. Marzipan and whipped cream are added to the buns. Pudding is also served with cream.

Licorice sweets deserve special attention, which have an amazing sweet-salty taste, but can also be with menthol. This type of sweets is not for everyone, they will not be to everyone's taste. But they are definitely worth a try and form your own opinion.

traditional drinks

Among soft drinks, Finns prefer coffee. The second place belongs to compotes and fruit drinks made from northern berries. In addition, alcoholic liqueurs are infused on the same berries, which have a special aroma and a pleasant, but unusual taste. The most famous liqueurs are lakka (cranberry) and mesimarja (blackberry).

Many people also know Finnish beer, which tourists love as much as the locals. In addition, sparkling wines and spirits such as vodka are produced here. Finnish alcoholic products are of high quality and original taste.

The national cuisine of Finland was formed under the influence of harsh natural conditions, geographical location and culinary traditions of the Finno-Ugric peoples. All Finnish dishes are prepared from natural and organic products. In any city in Finland, there are definitely food markets where you can find tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, corn, cherries, strawberries, moreover, locally produced. It's amazing how local farmers manage to grow such splendor in such a cold climate. Well, let's move on to a more detailed acquaintance with national dishes.

The presence of access to the sea and a huge number of lakes on the territory of the country predetermined the main focus of the national cuisine of Finland - a wide variety of fish dishes. Fish is served in a variety of forms - fried, boiled, baked, salted, dried ... Especially popular is " gravavi kiryelohi"- rainbow trout in its own juice. Among other traditional dishes, I would like to highlight:

• Lipeakala - cod or burbot soaked in lye (the dish has a very specific smell, but gourmets should appreciate the unique taste);
• "kalekukko" - a fish pie made from rye flour, with the addition of lard;
• "graavi suckers" - salmon in its own juice;
• Kalakeitto - Finnish fish soup;
• "klimpisoppa" - ear with dumplings;
• Kalalaatikko - herring with stewed potatoes;
• Rosolli - Finnish herring salad;
• « maitokalakeitto"- sea fish stewed in milk;
• Maimarokka - dried fish soup;
• "Meti" - fish caviar with onions and sour cream.

No less popular are meat dishes. For cooking use pork, beef, venison, elk, lamb, poultry. It is worth trying such dishes as:

• "poronpaisti" - venison roast, served with mashed potatoes and lingonberries;
• "karyalanpaisti" - pork, beef and lamb in pots, with carrots and onions;
• "sarya" - lamb stewed in a wooden bowl;
• Maksalaatikko - chopped liver, with rice and raisins;
• Lenkkimakkara - pork sausage with sweet mustard;
• "pittipannu" - meat offal, with potatoes and eggs.

Finns also love various dairy products - cheese, curdled milk, yogurt, kefir. Popular cheese varieties - Emmental « and "Edam « . Particularly popular in the national cuisine of Finland , uses "viili" - a kind of sour-milk product (similar to yogurt), which is often used as an additive to various dishes.
For dessert, in Finland, they prefer fruit and wild berry dishes, sweet vanilla buns made from yeast dough - "pulla". Also, Finnish kissels are original.

Of the soft drinks, coffee is the most popular. The Finns are in first place in the world in coffee consumption per capita. Very good Finnish beer - Lapin Kulta and Koff. A special place is occupied by berry liqueurs - " puolukkalikeri" (from lingonberries), "lakkalikeri" (from cloudberries), "karpalolikeri" (from cranberries). In addition, sparkling wines are produced from berries - Elissi, Cavlieri and others. Of the stronger drinks - vodka " Koskenkorva-vinna"and vodka" Finland ".
Welcome to hospitable Finland and bon appetit to all!

The recipe of Finnish dishes is very similar to the cuisine of its northern neighbors - Denmark, Norway, Sweden. Finns love fish dishes, stews, minced meats, meat pies, fish paste, cereals, sweet dishes. The first edition of the cookbook in Finnish was published in 1849. This shows that Finnish cuisine began to be codified 300 years later than Russian cuisine.

Runeberg pastries

Finnish favorite food

Finns' favorite foods are butter, sour milk, potatoes and salted fish. Add to this one of the features of Finnish cuisine: the Finns almost never use such a culinary technique as frying, they prefer to boil, stew, stew, and especially simmer and steam.

In Finland, off the coast of the Baltic Sea, and especially in lakes, of which there are about 188 thousand in the country, a lot of fish are caught: salmon, which is eaten raw or lightly salted, eels, Baltic herring and other species eaten by Finns in fresh, smoked and marinated, as well as in the form of pate and minced meat. As you can see, Finnish food is characterized by an abundance of fish dishes. Fish has always been an important part of the diet of southern Finns. Especially Saimaa vendace and salmon are still popular in the region.

Vendace and salmon can be found on the menu in all South Karelian restaurants. The daily food of the Finns is: barley or rye porridge, boiled potatoes, potato soup with fish and dry bread cakes. All this is washed down with homemade kvass. Cottage cheese and milk serve as a very important source of food for the Finnish population.

In terms of variety and abundance of porridge, dairy and fish dishes, no other cuisine can be compared with Finnish cuisine.

national products

The national products of Finnish cuisine are pearl barley, barley flour, herring, swede, lard, butter, milk and cream. Almost no recipe can do without this set of products.

The reason for this selectivity is historical and geographical. Rutabaga, pearl barley (barley), Baltic herring are products known to Finns since ancient times. The widespread use of milk, cream, butter is the result of the historically determined specialization of Finnish agriculture over the past 200-250 years. Suffice it to recall that during the 19th century, until the First World War, the supply of St. Petersburg for 95% cream and 60% butter was carried out exclusively by the Finns. Over a long historical period, the Finns have learned to use these products like no other. They found those processing methods, such as pearl barley, that give the greatest culinary effect.

cooking secrets

Salting and soaking are the most characteristic of Finnish culinary techniques. These methods are directly opposite in their direction. Moreover, the Finns soak, as a rule, those products that are first: subjected to salting. There are historical reasons for this. Meat, fish, harvested in summer and autumn, had to be salted for safety, so that it could be consumed until the beginning of the next summer, until late spring in Finland.

Before heat treatment, such products had to be soaked. Salting of fish and meat is carried out only with very large, crystalline salt, no smaller than a pea. And when restoring the natural taste of the product after soaking, impoverishing the taste, such operations were used as the gradual saturation of the desalted soaked fish with cream, until they were completely absorbed into its tissue.

On a note

In the 19th century, foam was always removed when cooking soups. In our time, this rule was rejected by physicians, who believed that there were useful proteins in the foam. In Finland, when cooking soup, removing the foam is an indispensable requirement, without which the national taste of the dish cannot be guaranteed.

History of unusual dishes

Finnish cuisine has recipes for unusual dishes, which include both fish and meat. This fact confirms the antiquity of Finnish cuisine. The combination of fish and meat in the dish tells us about the ritual significance of this dish, reminiscent of sacrifices at that stage of historical development, when there was no division into hunters and fishermen, i.e. at the stage of the primitive communal system in the Neolithic, Stone Age.

The name of the dish Aattolohko means that since ancient times it has been cooked on the eve of holidays, on the evening of a festive day, and this once again confirms its ancient origin. Another fact that testifies to the antiquity of some Finnish dishes. Western Finns, who separated from the Ural Finno-Ugric peoples back in the Stone Age, retained the same culinary tastes and technology.

Finns eat caviar of all fish, not just red fish, but on the condition that this caviar is absolutely fresh, that is, fish that has just been caught. They do the same with milk. Fresh caviar is always put in fish soups. The Finnish ear differs from the Russian one in that it includes not only the fish itself, but sometimes it is generally prepared from caviar and milk, which are considered the most tidbits in fish.

Seasonal dishes in Finland

• January: pancakes, caviar, burbot.
• February: Runeberg cake, pea soup, Shrovetide buns.
• March-April: lamb, Finnish Easter pudding, Easter.
• May: white fish, mead, nettle, perch, pike perch, brushwood.
• June-July: new potatoes, salmon, sausage, Atlantic herring, strawberries, blueberries, sea buckthorn.
• August: root crops, crayfish, wild duck, chanterelles, apples.
• September: Baltic herring, hare, cranberries, vendace.
• October-November: lamb, cabbage, elk, venison, goose.
• December: Ham, root vegetable casserole, gingerbread, Christmas cake, mulled wine, beetroot salad