Learn some local "food words"
MUURIKKA: Portable griddle pan, reminiscent of a wok, suitable for cooking outdoors over an open fire.
PALT: Balls/dumplings made with potato, flour and salt, and, depending on the chef, maybe filled with salted pork. Served with butter and lingonberry jam. If you eat too many, you will become drowsy, or as the locals would say, end up in a palt coma.
SURSTRÖMMING: Fermented Baltic herring, served with boiled potatoes and onion, rolled in flatbread. The smell when opening the can is very peculiar but the taste is known to be far more pleasant, mainly salty.
KAFFEOST: Coffee cheese, also known as Finnish squeaky cheese, for the squeaking sound it makes between your teeth when diced and submerged in a hot cup of coffee, instead of pastries. Also makes a good dessert, lightly fried with warm cloudberries.
GÁHKKU: Chewy Sami flatbread, preferably made on a muurikka. Closely related to the other Swedish flatbreads klådda and glödkaka (lit. ‘ember cake’).
SOUVAS: Lightly smoked reindeer meat, often salted for preser- vation. Excellent for outdoor cooking.
TJÄLKNÖL: Frozen wild game, cooked as a steak, on a low heat for many hours, then placed in a salty brine and refrigerated for a few hours before being served as cold cuts.
KÅSA: Traditional drinking or serving container made out of wood. Mostly used for drinking coffee out in the forest.
Mulled wine in a kåsa tastes the best with saffron buns.