Sweet brothers? Norwegian-Swedish relations...

Commenting on my blogpost on meatballs, Renny jokingly said that he hates when people mix up the Norwegian meatballs with the "Swedish substitute." In that comment lies a little trace of a peculiar neighbourhood-relation with our "Sweet brother." I'm sure it's not unique for Norway and Sweden, but the relationship between us is quite fascinating.

In any Norwegian joke where Swedes are present, they are portrayed as the dumb ones, coming up with one stupidity after another. There is one joke where two Swedes are on holiday with a Norwegian guy who for some reason went missing. In the police office the two Swedes are asked to describe the Norwegian. The two Swedes think long and hard, then one of them says, "yeah I know - he's got two holes in his bum!" The policeman, who thinks that was a somewhat unusual description ask "and how do you know that then?!" "Because everytime we go somewhere, people are saying: There's that Norwegian with the two assholes!"

So, that's generally the Swedish stereotype. The Danes are not portrayed as dumb, but still not quite up to the Norwegian intellectual level. Finns are not either dumb nor smart, but are portrayed as hard drinkers with a insatiable sexual appetite. Icelanders are generally absent from Norwegian jokes.

It's not only in jokes that the Swedes are the dumb ones. One needs only think of the song "Jag är inta sjuk, jag är bare svensk" (I'm not ill, just Swedish). And there is something comic about how sports journalists seek up Swedish sportsmen for interviewing every time the Norwegians place first, just to rub it in that we won and not they.

Historically, it is at first glance a little strange that the Swedes, and not the Danes are the ones we want to make out to be the stupid ones. Norway has been under both Swedish and Danish yoke, but definitely the longest under Danish. And I dare say that the Danish period was the worst for Norway. Some has even dubbed the period of Danish rule "The night of four hundred years." So, from that perspective, the Danes are the ones that really should have been at the receiving end of our jokes.

Still, the period when Norway was in union with Sweden from 1814 to 1905 was a period of national awakening in Norway - the period when Norwegian-ness took hold in the people's mind. So - although I do not have empirical evidence for this assumption, I do think that the seed of the current-day relationship with Swedes stem from that era. It might also be that we have a eeny-weeny little bit of inferiority complex to Swedes - the Swedes being twice the size of Norway, it was a regional superpower in the Vasa-era (ca. 1521-1654), and more successful in their industry (IKEA, Volvo, Saab, etc.) than us..

Still, at the end of the day, even though we make all kinds of joke about Swedes, on a deeper level, there is no bad feeling between our two countries. The relationship is harmonious and friendly, greatly helped by cultural and linguistic similarities. But as with all relationships between brothers, there is bound to be some competition, and brotherly love is after all.. well, brotherly love..

The wonderful cheese slicer..

I don't think there is a single Norwegian kitchen where you cannot find a cheese slicer. It's such an integral part of our Norwegian food-culture, that we sometimes cannot understand how people can live without one, let alone live without missing one.

Whenever I have lived outside of Norway, I have had great trouble finding a cheese slicer, which at first came as a great surprise. How is it possible that this great piece of kitchen equipment is so hard to find? It is possible, but you have to search really hard and long. I remember that I did manage to locate one in Germany once. I haven't been able yet to find one in Liverpool, but I have great hope that I might find it at IKEA. The Swedes are also aware of the existence of the wonderful cheese slicer.

The cheese slicer is in fact a Norwegian invention, and of quite recent date. It was invented in 1925 by a carpenter by the name of Thor Bjørklund from Lillehammer. Since then it has become a much-used utensil in every Norwegian kitchen, but surprisingly not achieved much recognition abroad. With all due modesty - it is a great invention.

The virtues of the cheese slicer are many, but the most important ones are that it cuts the slices to perfect thickness, and it's ability to bring out the flavour and aroma of the cheese. You can of course get cheese pre-cut into slices from the shop, but that does not compare at all to the taste and flavour you get when it is freshly sliced. The cheese slicer works best with a slightly hard cheese, like a good and nice gouda. Obviously it doesn't work at all with soft cheeses like camembert or brie.

Mom's meatballs

In Norwegian colloquial language, "mom's meatballs" is a term for everything that is good about home. When you come home to your parents, you'll get everything you're used to from you were a kid, and of course, nobody makes meatballs like your own mom. As you may know, the term "Swedish meatballs" can mean something else as well, but I won't discuss that right now.

Anyway, since I came to Liverpool, I've tried a couple of times to make meatballs myself. And although they maybe didn't come up to mom's standards, I thought the were quite good.

Next to "Fårikål", a dish basically made out of cabbage, mutton and pepper, meatballs is top contender for the title of Norwegian national dish. They have a top position in Sweden as well, and maybe the Swedish ones are more famous abroad than the Norwegian ones.

The meatballs are traditionally served with boiled potatoes, pea-stew, cowberries and brown sauce, but they will go well with a whole host of other side dishes. I have added a recipe for brown sauce below, but try them out with a red sauce and pasta as well. The recipes will serve 4 portions.

Here are the recipes:

Meatballs recipe

600g minced beef
2 eggs
2 tbs of flour
1/2 dl milk
1 finely chopped onion
3 chopped cloves of garlic
1 ts (teaspoon) salt
1 ts pepper
1/2 ts cumin
1/2 ts basil
1 ts oregano
2 ts rosemary

Mix all the ingredients except flour and milk in a large bowl. Add milk and flour alternatively, a little at a time. Roll small golfball-sized balls. Fry in olive oil on medium heat until well done.

Brown sauce recipe

2 tbs butter
2 tbs flour
1/2 l beef stock
1/2 ts soy sauce
salt
pepper

Melt and fry butter in a frying pan (preferrably an iron pan) until well browned. Add the stock, a little at a time, and stir in between. Let simmer for about 10 minutes. Add soy sauce for colour, and salt and pepper according to taste.

Enjoy!

Norwegian "politeness"

One thing you would notice very quickly about Norwegians is that we are not overly polite or correct. We may forget to say please after every single thing we say, and we don't even say "enjoy" to our fellow diners before we dig into our plates. We do not always hold the door open for the next person, and the use of the polite form of "you" (Sie in German or vous in French), is a definite no-no, even though it does exist.

The thing with Norwegians and manners is not that we do not have any - which you might be forgiven for thinking sometimes - but that they are somewhat different than outside of Norway or Scandinavia.

To me, it seems as we do not care too much about correctness in our ways (like using the correct title or the polite forms) when we interact with people. The Norwegian "politeness" lies more in being friendly with people than in correctness. To me, there is nothing ruder than people being very correct and at the same time very unfriendly, like Germans telling you off in very correct language, or a Frenchman telling you to kiss his ass and at the same time being sure to use the polite vous-form (although I admit there is a certain elegance to that last one).

My girlfriend is learning some Norwegian at the time, and the other day she wanted to ask me in Norwegian to bring her an apple from the kitchen. But she could figure out how to say "please" at the end, so she asked me; "how do you say 'please' in Norwegian?" "You don't!", I said, without really thinking much about what I said, and she broke out in laughter. The way I said it might have sounded as if "please" was the worst you could have said. But it is true - we don't really say please that much. When you ask somebody something in the form of "can you...", that is already polite enough, and the "please" wouldn't be necessary. It would just sound ridiculous. The next day we went over to a couple we know (the girl is Norwegian). Just to check out if it is just me being particularly unmannered or not, we asked her what she would say in that situation. My girlfriend asked her, "wouldn't you say 'please' then?" "No! Do you want me to beg, or what?", she said..

Actually, in that situation, it would be less polite to say "bring me an apple, please" than just "can you bring me an apple?" I think it's got something to do with the phrase being formed as a question that gives you a choice, and not as a command. If someone were telling me to do something in Norwegian, I would be far less tempted to do that than if they had asked me to do it. And with a smile on top of that again, how could I not?