Pinnekjøtt is one of the must-have traditional Norwegian Christmas dishes. It is made from ribs of lamb or mutton that has been salted and dried, and so it has a very strong flavour. Pinnekjøtt directly translates into “stick meat” in English, but the name doesn’t come from the shape of the meat (e.g. the ribs [...]

Farmor doesn’t use recipes so it is mighty hard to get any kind of standard from her.  For her pepperkaker recipe she gave me a little sheet of paper with primitive-Norwegian writing (Farmor is actually Finnish) with a real simple method: It reads: syrup, butter sugar and milk bring to boil with spices the dough [...]

Norway enters the Christmas season early.

Half jokingly, Norwegians say that frozen pizza is Norway’s national dish.  It’s not hard to tell as pizza usually dominates the frozen food section.  In our store we have so much pizza it takes up two isles, compared to the lowly peanut butter which only has one brand, one type – Mills smooth.  But with [...]