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?

More on flags..

The controversy about flags on May 17 goes on. After the Commitee for May 17 initially had decided that only Norwegian, Sami, and the UN-flags were allowed in the official procession on May 17, the mayor of Oslo, Fabian Stang, have now overruled that decision - which means that any flag from any country will be allowed in the procession. After this, several members of the Commitee for May 17 have resigned from the committee.

As stated in my post on April 8, May 17 coming up, I am opposed to using other flags than the Norwegian one in the official procession on May 17, even the Sami one. What people do outside of the official procession is a matter of freedom of speech. If people want to wave the flag of their country of origin - fine. But it should not be done in the official procession. That one should be reserved for the Norwegian flag. That is what we are celebrating.

Some, including journalist Hege Ulstein of Dagsavisen, have presented the issue as innocent little children being brutally thrown out of the procession should they not be deemed sufficiently nationally correct. That is missing the point. What we are celebrating on our national day is the Norwegian nation, which is symbolized by the Norwegian flag. That nation encompasses everyone living in Norway, not only people with hundreds or thousands years long Norwegian pedigree, but also people of recent immigrant heritage.

There is no contradiction in reserving one day of the year for celebrating the Norwegian nation, and embracing all our nations inhabitants, wherever they might originate from.

Th!nk!

Just before I moved to Liverpool, a friend of mine asked which car brands were Norwegian. I said "none." That was a lie. But to my defense, I did not lie in purpose, just out of ignorance. Norway do in fact produce a car, the little Th!nk electric car.

The car was brought to life by the Norwegian company PIVCO in the 1990s, and the company had some success with the CityBee/Citi model in the mid-90s. The CityBee even won the Scandinavian Electric Car rally in 1995. In 1999, PIVCO was bought by Ford, and renamed Think Nordic, keeping it until it finally went back to Norwegian owners in 2004. (And for any Czech-speaking readers; yes, it is quite funny that a car company is called PIVCO.)

The Th!nk comes in three models - Th!nk City, Th!nk Ox (5 seater), and Th!nk Open (cabriolet), with prices from around £14.000, not including battery rental. The car will go on the UK market in the last quarter of this year. The car can travel up to 200 km before recharging, and can go as fast as 100 kh/h. And all of that of course, being an electric car, with no local emissions whatsoever.

Norway is not and has never been a great vehicle-producing nation. But the Th!nk is not the only car that has been made in Norway. During a very short period of time, from 1956 to 1958, the Troll car was produced in Norway. Although only 5 cars were delivered from the factory, had it not been for lacking support from the government, this could have been the start of a car-producing industry in Norway - the car was at the time compared to Citroën, SAAB, and even Porsche.

The Troll-project stranded in 1958, just after the factory having gotten into production, due to the government more or less conciously obstructing the production of the car. The company initially got a promise of a license to produce 500 cars for sale in Norway, but this was later reduced to a ridiculous number of 15 cars.

When the company wanted to produce additional cars for export, the government refused to support the company. This was despite the fact that the company also had other investors, who would invest only if the government also supported the production. The main reason for the governments reluctance to support the Troll company was that it did not want to disrupt the trade balance with Eastern Europe, from which Norway imported cars in exchange for fish flour. So in effect, the government chose not to risk their markets for fish flour instead of supporting a possible car producing industry in Norway.

Lets hope the Th!nk will have a much brighter future than what the Troll had...

Some reflections on history - Scandinavian influence on the British Isles

Even though I am an historian by education, my knowledge of certain parts of history is admittedly a bit patchy. But I do make an effort to close those gaps from time to time, mainly because I think it is immensely interesting. One of those areas where my knowledge is a bit lacking is medieval history, which in Norway chronologically correlates roughly to the Viking period.

During that time, Scandinavians (i.e. the Norwegians and even more, the Danish) had a huge influence on the British Isles. From the sacking of the Lindisfarne monastery in 793 up until the Norman invasion in the 1060s, Scandinavian vikings ruled large parts of Britain and left their mark on culture, language and politics. And even with the Norman invasion, the Scandinavian link is clear - William the Conqueror was a direct descendant of Rollo (or Ganger Hrolf), the Scandinavian viking who founded the viking principality that would become Normandy. William the Conqueror was the direct ascendant of the present-day Royal family in Britain, which in turn makes them direct descendants of Scandinavian vikings. Intriguing.

Contrary to common belief, the vikings were not simply bloodthirsty hethen warriors. More importantly, they were traders, who established extensive trading networks in areas such as the British Isles, Russia, Belorussia, Normandy, etc. Evidence of the extent of viking trade can be seen from frequent findings of Arab silver, Byzantine silk, and Rhenish glass in viking graves. Maybe the view as vikings being such merciless murderers stems from the fact that much of the history about the viking raids were written not by the victors, but by the people being raided, from the monks of the Lindisfarne monastery and onward, or from people highly sympathetic to them. Every historian, including myself, have got an agenda with what they write.

I have brushed upon the linguistic influence the Scandinavians had in my post from April 14, titled "Linguistic whores". A more thorough account can be found on the websites of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) in Aachen, Germany. Interestingly, some of the linguistic influences where quite profound:

Not only lexical, but also grammatical changes were due to Norse language influence, for example changes in the pronominal system: The Present Day English forms they, their and them were borrowed from Old Norse. The Old English forms were hie, hiera and him. Other influences on the English grammatical system are assumed to be the Norse influence on the verb to be: The original form of the plural present indicative in Old English was sindon, and it is assumed that Norse influence changed it to are. The inflectional ending –s of verbs in the 3rd person singular present indicative is also assumed to go back to Norse influence.¹

Another interesting point is that some words that we think of as borrowed from English, actually are words we have "gotten back", after English first borrowed them from us, and then them having fallen out of use in Scandinavia. One such example is the English word "bag", which was first borrowed from the old Norse word "Baggr".

In Ireland, vikings founded among others the city of Dublin. Many great cities, most notably York and London, were main trading centers for Norsemen. York was described by an unknown writer in 1000 AD as "…..filled with the treasure of merchants, principally Danes."² Other evidence of viking influence can be seen in names of towns and cities. Endings like -by, -thorpe, -thwait, and -toft are all of Scandinavian origin.

The viking also intermarried happily with the local population. Considering the viking love for red hair, one might do some speculations about the Irish ginger hair and the vikings.. However, intermarrying was not only constricted to Ireland, but happened commonly wherever the vikings settled, with the consequences that must have had on culture, both ways.

The historical links between the British Isles and Scandinavia are strong. Now that I live in the UK I have a good incentive - if I ever needed one - to delve into that part of history, which is undoubtedly very interesting.