Norwegian Sausage Stall
Norwegians love sausages – nearly anything that has meat on it becomes a sausage in Norway. Horse, moose and reindeer can all be found minced, dried and wrapped in plastic. Even though smoking and curing were originally just a way to preserve meat for the long winters, the ‘spekepølse’ is now a choice deli product. With a modern fusion of flavours such as wild garlic, cheese and red wine, cured meats are used for pizzas, frys, soup, pancakes, sandwiches and appetisers.
You usually find a Norwegian cured meat stall at every street market. We stumbled across one last Autumn in Alta – Rekedal Pølsefabrikk. I was a little shocked at some of the meat products on sale (as you’ll see in the video – I tried to play it cool coz Farmor was with us) and only opted to buy a small sample. But since then I’ve become a big fan of the Norwegian Sausage. Once you’ve had the real stuff you’ll never go back to the store brand! At Christmas we always buy a couple of sticks (more like batons) and Farfar always gets his Elgpølse (Moose Sausage).
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from L-Jay:
Norwegians don’t know English as well as everyone thinks they do. They probably meant ‘beef sausage’. And beef is usually from male cattle, hence the ‘bull’. (No one with a palate makes sausage out of ‘bull’ as the testosterone flavours the meat bad. Norwegians know this and especially beef producers as they don’t get as much money for a mature bull.) Also, beef is tradtionally called ‘bokskjøtt’ which directly translates to bull meat.