Friday, July 31, 2009

Sitä sun tätä, but apparently mostly about food.

After a long couple of flights home, luggage lost and returned, and two good nights of sleep, I finally feel able to begin to process the significance of this trip to Finland, at least the easier, more superficial parts.

I'll begin with my new nickname: Nahkiainen. While I didn't really have a nickname in my childhood, this is merely the latest of several I've found myself acquiring as an adult. At school, my colleagues and students regularly use several: Huth (very common), Miss Huthie, or Huthie (also very common), Dr. Huth (colleagues only), and The Huthinator (not as common and reserved for circumstances when the children feel impending doom). Even my best friend Nora rarely calls me Nancy, a name she uses only in her best teacher voice when she is explaining to me why I'm being stupid.

In short, I've never been "Princess," or "Kitten," (thankfully), so in aural terms, "Nahkiainen" sounds girlier and more romantic than what I'm used to. I like it. I feel cute and cuddly, in a foreign kinda way . . . until I remember that it's the only Finnish delicacy I tried and didn't like. And that it's the Finnish word for this. And this.

There I am, the worm-like thing on the right . . .

Why, I ask Geof, can't I be something cute for once? How about calling me "muikku," a little salty silver fish, and a word the Finns say (like "cheese" for us) to make people smile before a picture is taken?

It's okay, little Nahkiainen. Don't worry, he assures me.

Unfortunately for me, nahkiainen tastes like leather, and I did not enjoy the small bit I tried. Karri assures me that it tastes better when it is fresher and still warm. Somehow, that doesn't make it sound tastier to me . . .

I've enjoyed every other Finnish food I've tried on this trip, including reindeer, elk, herring prepared a variety of ways, dark, flat, round rye bread with a hole in center of it, perch, kalakukko (which is vaguely reminiscent of mozarella in carrozza ,and even salty licorice ice-cream. Eating boiled potatoes at virtually every dinner made me step hesitantly onto the scale yesterday, but I had actually lost some weight.

When I went grocery shopping yesterday, I spent a futile time trying to recreate our meals in Finland. I could not find a nice, big package of Finlandia cheese and so settled for a smaller packet of swiss. I could not find the dark, flat, round rye bread with the hole in the center, so I settled for a pathetically white rye that was round, not flat, and sans hole. Because Geof loves herring in all its forms, I bought a package of smoked herring, but it was horribly salty. About the only thing I could recreate was the muesli and yogurt we've been eating for breakfast. All in all, a very unsatisfying shopping experience. Where are the S Market and the K Market when you need them?

Another after-effect of the trip is despite my resolution at the beginning of summer vacation to stop drinking coffee, I'm drinking even more. In front of me right now is the sticky residue of the second pot I've had this morning.

Since I'm only beginning to digest* this experience, I'll need a few more days and some time to properly finish documenting this wonderful trip. Right now, the rain continues, and laundry and other realities beckon.

*Believe me, I'm suitably ashamed of myself.

4 comments:

  1. We have some delicious Orkney sweet cured herring I'm sure Geof would love - I'm off to the supermarket to get some right now. And yoghurt with muesli - why didn't I think of that? Another item for the shopping list.

    Those photographs of the Nahkiainen - they used that for the Alien movies, right? (No offense, Nancy. I'm sure they're delightful creatures.)

    Thanks for the lovely reports - great writing!

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  2. Thanks, Stephen.

    The Orkney herring sounds great, and since Scotland is one of the places I want to visit, perhaps we'll be able to try some.

    Unfortunately, I think the nahkiainen looks vile and has a personality to match! No offense taken. I'm just trying to put the image out of my mind!

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  3. I don't like nahkiainen! (Karri is from Pori / Satakunta area, where it is "a good food"?)

    But the nick name is great for you!

    I read some of your poems and I did like those.

    Nice to read you are still alive!

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  4. Licorice ice cream! Yummm!
    had some licorice gelato in Vicenza and it goes nicely with coffee (gelato). Sorry, Huthn.
    I do know the feeling you get when trying to recreate: it must be the air. Stick to music flavor.

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