Weird Foods of Norway

The best known Norwegian foods in America are lutefisk and lefse. These foods are common in the Norwegian-American community and is readily available in areas with many Norwegian immigrants. Lefse is a harmless food, traditionally a potato based tortilla that can also be made with flour. In Norway lefse is mainly eaten at Christmas when it is used to make wraps using ham or brunsweiger and mustard. Lutefisk on the other hand is decidedly more peculiar.

The name Lutefisk literally means "lye fish" in Norwegian. The dish got it's name because that is exactly what it is; fish prepared in lye. Making lutefisk is a long winded process, that basically boils down to putting a fish in a very strong lye solution until it no longer resembles a fish, or food. After several thorough water rinses the fish is again safe for consumption. The end result is a piece of fish that has the consistency of jello with a very distinct smell. Lutefisk is not very common in Norway anymore, but in America it is still considered prime Norwegian cuisine. Amazingly, the semi poisonous jellolike fish dish is not the weirdest Norwegian food. Not by a long shot.

The harsh Norwegian climate has prompted many interesting ways to conserve food. Summers are shorts and the winters cold and long. People had to get creative to preserve their food for months. Combined with the long Norwegian coast line it stands to reason that there are numerous weird fish dishes in the collective Norwegian cookbook.

Gravlaks is another hugely popular fish dish in Norway. The name means 'buried salmon' and was made by burying salt cured salmon in the sand. Gravlaks, or gravlax in English is served raw and is excellent with a mustard sauce. Today, gravlaks is rarely buried any more, instead the dish is made by covering the fish with a thick layer of salt and left to cure for up to a couple of weeks. Sometimes you will find smoked salmon sold in stores as gravlax, but this is not real gravlaks. Smoked salmon is called 'røkelaks' and tastes very differently.

A more extreme form of fish is rakfisk. Rakfisk is fermented fish, most commonly made from trout. Rakfisk is made by storing the fish in a salt brine for at least 8 weeks. The longer the fish ferments and the more blood that is allowed to be fermented with the fish, the stronger the flavor. Rakfisk is typically made early in the fall and is served as a delicacy for Christmas. This means the fish is allowed to ferment at low temperatures for 3 - 4 months. Rakfisk is not recommended for pregnant women or the elderly. This is because minor errors in the preparation can make the fish toxic. Since the fish is served raw after fermentation it can potentially contain a very powerful neurotoxin. Rakfisk is probably the most potent smelling food in the universe. The smell is intense and absolutely terrible. The flavor is very powerful but surprisingly very pleasant. Just make sure you are not around when the fish is taken out of the brine after fermenting for 4 months.

Another peculiar Norwegian dish is raspeball or kumpe. Raspeball ('ball of shreds') is a potato dumpling that is particularity popular in the western parts of Norway. Fraspeball is made from grated potatoes and flour. Making raspeball is a lot of work and the end result is something that looks like a potato but tastes and feels like a bouncy ball. Infinitely inferior to a regular potato in taste and texture, the raspeball is basically a complicated process of making a terrible potato. To add insult to injury the dish is often served with mashed rutabaga.

The western part of Norway seems to produce some of the most repulsive foods, the worst of which is probably smalahove. Smalahove means 'sheep head' and is made from a lamb head split in half. The wool is burn off and the head is boiled for several hours. Enthusiasts claim that the ear and eye needs to be eaten first, probably in an attempt to make the meal as gross as humanly possible.

This leads us to the weirdest of all the weird Norwegian foods: Pizza Grandiosa. Pizza Grandiosa, or Grandis, is the most popular frozen pizza in Norway. In fact it is probably the most popular food item in Norway today. The name could not be more misleading as the pizza is not grandiose in any way. The pizza is tiny, is made from the cheapest of ingredients, and can barely pass as food. It is commonly referred to in Norwegian as 'cardboard pizza' or 'frozen evil' yet the half inch thick pizza continues to outsell everything else in Norway. The average Norwegian consumes 5 Pizza Grandiosa a year. The frozen pizza has spawned two number one hit singles in Norway, and there is a Norwegian Championship of Grandiosa eating. A pizza Grandiosa can be eaten in just over one minute. There is even a book full of Grandiosa folklore, like the store of a man who broke his jaw so he had to run his Grandiosa through a blender before enjoying it. Though universally accepted as a terrible food product, Pizza Grandiosa has become a cultural phenomenon in Norway.

Source: Personal experience