Earth matters

[Dand]

What does a Viking eat for Christmas? We have sold out on the traditional goose and now eat turkey like the bloody Americans with their culture war, destroying our traditions with nonsense like trick or treat.

Pinnekjøtt.

Those easterners eat pork ribs like any dirty Dane.

Serious answer; most eat pork ribs, as it's popular in the most populated regions like the east and the middle, while pinnekjøtt is a close second, eaten primarily in the west and the north.

Depends a lot on the area you come from. Pinnekjøtt, ribbe or cod. Some people seem to have taken to more recent "nice food" like turkey or game meat.

Ribbe (pork belly) is in the southeast and middle parts of the country. This is popular around the capital, and is having an influence on the rest of the country. Also kind of cheap and straight forward to make for christmas lunches at work and stuff.

Pinnekjøtt (dried, smoked, steamed sheep) is in the western and northern part of the country. It is spreading since it is very nice food. Served with root vegetable puree (nice sweetness to the salt meat) and potatoes (as always). Some eat it with a nice sausage (vossakorv) as well.

Cod ("trukket", aka boiled in sub-boiling-point water). Northern part of the country. Traditionally the Christmas food of my grandfather. We serve him pork, he is happy with it.

In my family we have the pork belly.

Cooked pork belly, with crunchy skin on top*. It is cut into squares. Served with potatoes, brown sauce and Norwegian sauerkraut (green and sometimes red), lingonberry jam and some greens. It is traditional to have tiny pork sausages (sosisser) and meat balls made with a very fine ground and fatty minced meat called "medisterfarse". Might sometimes be a bit like your stuffing.



Serve with beer and akevitt.

We also have the traditional Christmas rice porridge (kinda sweet) with cinnamon, sugar and butter during the day. For dessert there is cream and cloudberries, as well as "risgrøt" which is rice porridge and cream mixed together, served with a red sauce. There are also "krumkaker" a crumbly cake served along the cloudberry cream.

Following that there is Christmas cakes/biscuits and coffee (more akevitt) after some time. There is a selection of Christmas cookies, with a lot of attention on having 7 different kinds. These days that is toned down somewhat. More krumkaker. I like krumkaker. Krumkaker is good.

I probably put on about a pound

As for our neighbors. The swedes are fond of their "Christmas ham" with honey glazing (insert swede joke here). GF likes it. Tastes nice. The danes have their "julebord" which seems to consist of sitting down around a table and eating for hours on end. A selection of herring, hams and stuff. All served with beer, naturally.

In Norway "Julebord" means going out for a Christmas party with your collegues, which varies from a decent Christmas meal and a few beers (modern) to getting smashed (traditional). About as sensible as our tradition of getting high schoolers to drink as much as possible before having their final exams.

Between two julebord, 24th of December (possibly two for divorced people) and big lunches and brunches** on the leftover pork belly, people have generally had their fill of pork belly for a while when January rolls around.

*If you have a TV channel, that needs some airtime filled around xmas, this is easy. Bombard us with tips on getting the crispy part crispy. Again and again. Every year.

**E.g. In my family we have a tradition to have dinner 2nd day of Christmas with the extended family. More pork belly.

Reading that made me hungry Looks and sounds amazing.

I'm going to look for Pinnekjøtt but it seems that the only way to get it in the US is mail-order.

[Montegriffo]

*If you have a TV channel, that needs some airtime filled around xmas, this is easy. Bombard us with tips on getting the crispy part crispy. Again and again. Every year.

.

We get the same with roast potatoes (how do you get them crispy on the outside but fluffy inside?)
and turkey (how do you make sure it's cooked properly and not dry?)

Amazing how many people still can't do it.

And yeah you are right about the stuffing we call it forcemeat.

[Otern]

Many more towns and villages with Viking names than Anglo-Saxon ones and they taught us how to farm too. Even the Normans were Viking pirates from Ireland so you Anglo thugs didn't leave half the mark of the Danes.

Now you're just trying to trigger the Norwegians here.

Norwegians started stirring up shit in Ireland, not Danes. Viking is not synonymous with Dane.

The Normans who invaded Ireland in 1169 were led by a Dane, but Norwegians had settled there hundreds of years before that.

That's why I said the Normans were Vikings and not Danes. To me Danes and Norwegians are both Vikings. Is that wrong?

No, that's right. It just hit my small Norwegian heart when you mentioned the mark the Danes left, while ignoring the Norwegian mark. When in doubt, just use Viking, not Dane or Norwegian. The Danes get credit for a lot of what the Norwegians did during the Viking age, due to historians in the "Danish night" referring to both Norway and Denmark as "Denmark". Not only did we lose Iceland, the Faeroese, Greenland, Orkney and Shetland due to Danish scumbaggery, they also took credit for most of what our nation did during the good old times.

As a general rule, the Danes did most of the land stuff in continental Europe, and the Norwegians did most of the stuff requiring a longship. While the Swedes generally kept to the east. They did mix a lot, and a lot of the larger operations were a mix of chieftains from both Norway and Denmark.

This gives a pretty decent overview over where the different Viking raids and settlements came from:

[Montegriffo]

The reason I mentioned the Danes was because of the Danelaw which controlled half of the country till Alfred and later. The northern towns have Viking names and the south have Anglo-Saxon ones.

[pettertb]

Reading that made me hungry Looks and sounds amazing.

I'm going to look for Pinnekjøtt but it seems that the only way to get it in the US is mail-order.

Good to hear!

Do you have a community of people with a Norwegian heritage around you? They may know somewhere to get it.

[Otern]

The reason I mentioned the Danes was because of the Danelaw which controlled half of the country till Alfred and later. The northern towns have Viking names and the south have Anglo-Saxon ones.

The Danes colonized the populated south and the east, the Norwegians colonized the north, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

At the time, the anglo saxons called everyone from Scandinavia a Dane, even if they weren't danes. It's kind of the same thing about the name "Scandinavia". People are called Scandinavians, but they're not all from Scania.

[Montegriffo]

All filthy invaders to me, I'm an Iceni man nowadays. Gaia save the Queen.

[Dand]

Reading that made me hungry Looks and sounds amazing.

I'm going to look for Pinnekjøtt but it seems that the only way to get it in the US is mail-order.

Good to hear!

Do you have a community of people with a Norwegian heritage around you? They may know somewhere to get it.

I don't think so. I live in Pennsylvania and Norwegians aren't much of a demographic here but I'll be looking for them.

[Montegriffo]

They're the ones who are 6'2", blond and well built and that's just the women!

[SuburbanFarmer]

Reading that made me hungry Looks and sounds amazing.

I'm going to look for Pinnekjøtt but it seems that the only way to get it in the US is mail-order.

Good to hear!

Do you have a community of people with a Norwegian heritage around you? They may know somewhere to get it.

I don't think so. I live in Pennsylvania and Norwegians aren't much of a demographic here but I'll be looking for them.

Mostly Dutch in that area, I believe. You'll find your fellow Norwegians out west, Minnesota way.