Green Cheese & Reindeer Meat—Finnish Food

• by Miranda Gavin
• in Arteles Finland food
• posted May 29, 2019

Food is one barometer of a country and culture and Finland is no exception. The long winter and compressed summer means that there is a high proportion of dried and preserved meat, fish (especially salmon) as well as fruit and pastries.

An afternoon out at the Tampere Market Hall, was a surprise and a small group of us dived into the biggest Nordic indoor market, which opened in 1901, to enjoy Finnish gastronomy. It was here that I looked, touched, smelt and even tasted some of the produce. At the cheese stall the woman who served us offered me a slice of green cheese, the colour of which matched her work outfit exactly. She was a delight, patient and polite, and she even let me take photographs of the cheese, unlike my recent visit to Brussels were I was frowned at by the proprietor of one of the most well-loved cheese shops for taking photographs. Though to be fair, I hadn’t asked for permission first.

Two types of cheese were new to me—a green cheese, which is made with pesto and basil and tastes of both, and a cheese bread called Leipäjuusto (also hiilikko and juustoleipä). This fresh cow’s milk cheese (from a cow that has recently calved) is popular and tastes mild. It was traditionally dried so that it can be stored for several years and is made from milk that is first curdled, then fried or baked in a pie tin and cut in wedges. It can also be made from reindeer or goat’s milk. I later found out that it tastes really good heated in a dry frying pan until it is on the cusp of melting.

The traditional way to serve it as slices as a side dish with coffee, or you can put a few pieces in a cup and pour hot coffee on top of it. The Swedish name is kaffeost (coffee cheese) and refers to this preparation. It is also known as Finnish Squeaky Cheese because of the noise it makes when it is eaten though I can’t confirm this one… yet.

As there are so many lakes and rivers in Finland, fish is an important source of protein; it is fried, boiled, dried, salted, fermented, cold-smoked and eaten raw.

When it came to meat and fish, I only window-shopped and noted various-sized meatballs (some of which are the size of a clenched fist), slices of cured horse meat (from adult horses that have already been put down) and reindeer meat (high in B-12, omega-3, omega-6), both of which appear to be widely available, but only make up a small portion of total meat consumption.

Then there were the sweets shaped like toilets and a stall selling an eclectic mix of chocolates, including silver-covered fish, golf balls, turquoise frogs, and miniature DIY tools such as spanners and hammers.

Sadly, the only moose I saw was a stuffed head above one of the stalls and then, jammed between two dining stalls, I came across something surprising, a small booth with a row of slot machines. Food, moose and gambling the Finnish way.