Deciding What to Make for Dinner in a Small Norwegian Town
It’s more challenging than I anticipated
I think we all know that my chosen profession is working as a dietitian (a nutritionist) and that I have a passion for food and nutrition. If you did not know this fun fact about me, now you do. This leads me to believe that I should have a slight advantage when it comes to deciding what to make for dinner and meal prepping in general; however, maybe not as much of an advantage as say, a chef or a cook. After all, much of my career has been spent in a more clinical setting and not in food service specifically. Recently I’ve found myself in a rut and am faced with the all-to-familiar challenge of deciding what to make for dinner, or any meal for that matter.
Food in Norway is expensive and the variety of options available is narrow, at least in our small town. We do find a little more variety in Trondheim but that trip requires an hour ferry ride plus a $28 fee per adult one-way or a two-and-a-half hour drive one-way. That’s obviously not something we do regularly. Our options are limited to a few grocery stores in town and whatever is available at the gårdsbutikk (farm store).
During this time of year the quality of fresh produce we can purchase is great, but we just don’t have a lot of options. The berries are the best I’ve ever tasted and the carrots, potatoes, and a few other root vegetables are plentiful, but after a year of eating these same foods, I’m growing tired of them. One can only eat root and cruciferous vegetables so many days in a row.
Oddly enough, the variety of flour options available is overwhelming, and I stand in the aisle for way too long trying to determine which option is closest to all-purpose flour. There are options for dense rolls, pizza dough, lighter dinner rolls, focaccia bread, and more. This is great, but I’m not baking a lot of bread at home. I have taken up making drop biscuits and pancakes from scratch fairly regularly, and on occasion a homemade cinnamon roll, but this is out of necessity. Pre-packaged biscuits and cinnamon rolls with icing (the big fluffy kind, not the Norwegian kanelboller kind) are non-existent. I do like the fact that I have been forced to cook more often from scratch, I’m becoming a better baker for it, but sometimes, I long for convenience.
I come from a family who ate out a lot, probably too often but that’s a thought for another day, so when I’m stuck in these ruts, I often turn to a tasty meal or two out to eat. The problem with our small town is that there aren’t a lot of restaurants, and to be quite honest, the options we do have end up being mostly mediocre meals. Also, food in Norway is expensive, so even a quick bite to eat for two adults and a toddler ends up costing way too much. There are no value meals in Norway.
The meat selection is mostly chicken and fish. Beef is expensive, and we aren’t big pork eaters. The one exception is breakfast sausage, which we’ve had to learn how to season ourselves. We buy ground pork meat, the only option, and season it to make our own breakfast sausage. Lamb, reindeer, and moose are the more common red meat options available. This is an area I need to explore more. We have had some meals using these meats, but it’s new territory for me. I’m still learning what recipes we like and what cooking methods to try.
The best fish options include salmon and cod. They are both high quality and delicious here. We have been experimenting more with new fish recipes, and I think we are getting better at preparing them.
My two biggest frustrations are the small variety in fresh produce and the inability to find every ingredient I need for a recipe on a far too regular basis. I am really learning how to substitute for missing ingredients. Traditional Norwegian food, in my experience, is not filled with a lot of strong flavors or variety of ingredients; therefore, the spice aisle is thin. We compromise a lot on bold flavors with our meals. This is probably where the monotony of meal time comes into play. When you don’t have a lot of flavor options, your meals start to taste very similar.
I tend to crave lots of fresh produce during the summer months, and the lack of options was frustrating for me during my first full summer in Norway. Perhaps this is where my frustration is stemming. After seeing the farmers markets in Spain filled with so much color and variety, I became jealous of their food options and returned to Norway with a renewed frustration around food. On the bright side, soup season is quickly approaching and one thing Norway does not lack is cozy recipes filled with warm flavors. I’m thinking there will be a lot of stews, soups, and hearty meals on our dinner table soon.
