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!
