When I was preparing to come to Norway on a guest tourist visa for 3 months, I imagined how I would live in this family, would help Ivan “about the household.” And it turned out that he was used to doing everything himself, not drawing the daughters into housework. He prepared breakfast himself, always made sandwiches for the daughters for school. This is called in Norwegian “matpakke.” They did not always eat these matpakker. Quite often I saw that uneaten sandwiches ended up in the rubbish bin, and also even uneaten fruit. Accustomed to treating food with respect, I felt a sense of guilt before the thrown-away food.
Naturally I started telling Ivan not to pack food for them for school if they don’t want to eat, but he continued to do it and said that “that’s how it has to be.” Then I started packing bread in a paper bag myself, and when we went out for a walk with the dog, I took the bread with me to the quay and threw it to the gulls. What the dog got up to at this cannot be conveyed in words, he too jumped for joy, having got a crust of bread from me!
Anyway at first I did not manage to show my culinary abilities and had to eat what Ivan was used to cooking, and that was heated tins: meatballs of reindeer and pork called Joika (it is considered a Norwegian delicacy and the price is also decent, but I don’t remember now how much it costs), and also tinned fish cakes. They are called Fiskekaker. There is also in Norway a well-frozen product in a little foil pan, called Fiskegrateng — this is cod mixed with macaroni. This little pan is heated in the oven for 45 minutes.
Unaccustomed was the taste of salted Norwegian butter. Now I know that unsalted butter is also on sale, but I no longer eat it. Such a product as Norwegian brown cheese Brunost occupies an honourable place among Norwegian cheeses. At first I experienced nothing good, having tried it, but when I read the composition, I understood that it would not be bad to accustom myself to eating this cheese for breakfast. A completely natural product, with a mass of useful microelements, very nutritious! A very popular dessert in Norway is waffles. They are baked in electric waffle irons. Ivan then also managed to treat me to his own making of waffles for evening tea. In taste they resemble our oladushki. To be continued…