Happy Australia Day from Norway!
It’s Australia Day today. I did all I could to spread the Australia Day cheer. I couldn’t let my friends and family here in Norway be completely oblivious. I got questions like ‘what do you do’ (answer: we go to the beach!) and ‘what happened on this day’ (answer: the First Fleet (11 convict ships from England) landed in Australia (to start a convict settlement). For the first time, the reason why Aussies commemorated this day seemed rather odd. Aussies like to laugh about how silly the English were giving up a tropical island with sun, sand and surf to convicts instead of immigrating themselves.
It was really hard to celebrate today when nobody knew about Australia Day. I felt like I was having a party and I was the only one invited. There are about 10 other Aussies living in Tromsø at any one time (according to the 2006 Tromsø immigrant stats) but as most of them only stay for a school term it is hard to keep track. I realised today that if I want to keep my Australian traditions I am the one to remember and make things happen in our family. It would be too easy not to celebrate my traditions. If I want my kids to grow up half Australian then I can’t let laziness get in the way. So even though today wasn’t beach weather (in fact, there was a coastal storm big enough to be named ‘Ask’ – after the Norse ‘Adam’ from Adam and Eve) I decided to make Aussie comfort food. With a bit of adjustment to Norwegian ingredients, the food didn’t turn out half bad.
In Australia we have the famous meat pie – ground beef in a gravy sauce wrapped in a pastry shell. It is very common to have mushy peas on top or mashed potato, and of course, dead horse (tomato sauce). They don’t actually have pies in Norway. The only real pastries are Danish custard pastries but other than that pastry isn’t really used in Norwegian cuisine. So, I had to make do and Norwegianise our Aussie dinner. The result – and open meat pie with a loose puff pastry hat, and mash potato and mushy peas on the side. For desert was cream filled lamington cakes – vanilla cake coated in a chocolate sauce and rolled in desiccated coconut. How Australian can you get!
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Looks yummy! Hope you had a great Australia Day!
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from L-Jay:
Takk!
What a wonderful story about food and cultures! I’m good as long as the food tastes good!
Good work keeping up your traditions. I know it can be hard especially since there are so many fun Norwegian ones to latch onto! Food looks tasty!
The food looks great and happy belated Australia Day. Adapting a tradition is like making your customary tradition into a new one that is made just for your family and home.
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from L-Jay:
For the first time I’ve really had to think about my Aussie traditions because back home you just do them because everyone else does…lol.
Happy Australia Day! I feel exactly the same way about 17. mai here in Canada.
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from L-Jay:
On 17. May on TV they televise Norwegian celebrations around the world (as you’d probably know
. They have mini parades in the big cities in Australia – it’s fun to watch. There are a lot of Norwegian students who go to Bond University on the Gold Coast. They cling to their Norwegian cheese and chocolate, waving Norwegian flags, while having a BBQ at the beach to celebrate the National Day…lol.
I guess there might be some things happening in big cities in Canada – but yeah, it isn’t the same when most people just go about their daily lives with out a clue as to how important the day is
.
You just inspired me to make contact with another Norwegian mom in another town to see about getting together for 17. mai.
Thanks!
I am so glad that you are teaching your children about your Australian roots. After all, you moved to Tromso, Norway and becoming indoctrinated in that culture. But your children need to also know about their mother too. I loved reading about this holiday as I wasn’t familiar with it or the customs.
Blessings,
Debbie
Happy Australia Day! Can’t wait to try out those cream filled lamington cakes!
oh my goodness, lamington… i love lamington but i’m so bad at baking that i can never get the sponge cake fluffy and light as it’s supposed to be.
a couple of tim tams would’ve made your australian meal perfect
I just moved to Norway from Australia and I am missing meat pies so I’m going to have a bunch of people over and have an Australian meal (although I don’t know what to do about the sausages). I can’t seem to find pastry in the supermarket either so I might need to make my own!
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from L-Jay:
I find my pastry in the frozen cake section of Spar or Coop. It is usual for Findus products (which has frozen pastry) to be 40% off at the stores every now and then, so I buy up a whole stack. This week it’s ICA Nær turn to have 40% Findus.
I loved making Aussie food for everyone when I was in Norway
I did cream buns and hot cross buns, and of course bought a jar of vegemite with me that they all refused to try 
But if anybody is interested, I also have a very yummy meat pie recipe from my mum. My sister uses it over in the US to keep up her pie intake 
She also found fruit mince pies were a huge hit!