Smultringer
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!
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I agree with this so much. Store-bought donuts are horrible! I really cant stand them. For me it has to be either homemade or from Olga’s rolling bakery. The same goes for hjorthorn. Anything that involves smult should not be mass produced and stored in plastic.
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from L-Jay:
The only problem is that the van was the first fresh smultringer seller I’ve seen since living in Norway.
Does this mean my new love affair will be few and far between? lol.
Well, I think American Donut its better then Norwegian “smultring”, but its a taste. Anyway, you should have taste Norwegian White Lefse, made by hand from North Of Norway – thats smelts in your mouth, and you just wanna have more and more :p
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from L-Jay:
I have tried fresh lefse at a heritage museum, cooked on the spot! I certainly want to get a lesfe hotplate and try making it myself.