I’ve never liked ‘lard rings’ (smultringer) as they were always dry, heavy and gluggy and left an awful taste in your mouth.  The first time I went to a Norwegian shop I gasped ‘donuts’ and Moose just smirked.  Trying to eat them was a monstrous task.  Not only was I trying to impress Moose by liking his Norwegian food (I failed dismally in the end), but I was hoping the more I eat the better they would get.  For five years I never touched them again, until…

For the first time I saw a donut van outside the shops selling made-on-the-spot donuts!  The van was bare except for one hard-working donut machine, one sitting chair and one rolly-polly ring maker.  You could buy icing coated donuts with sprinkles, chocolate coated donuts with nuts or cinnamon-sugar.  I was in ‘dunkin’ heaven!  or so I thought.  I ordered 10 plain donuts, thinking ‘plain’ meant with cinnamon and sugar but nope, they were naked donuts.  They looked kind of small in the bag and I just thought ‘Norwegian inflation’.  I hopped in the car and Moose got all excited ‘you bought ‘lard rings’!  I was very disappointed.  Before I could frown he had already dished out a ring to everyone in the car.  All I could do was shrug and say ‘Well, when in Norway…’.

The smultringer were absolutely fan-diddly-tastic!  They were lightly crispy on the outside, so delicately soft in the middle and just melted in your mouth.  They were better than any real donunt I could remember eating and they were naked!  We raced home to roll them in cinnamon-sugar while they were still warm.  Heaven!  I guess the moral of this story is: ‘freshly-made’ is always best in Norway’ or… store-bought smultringer are nasty!